Expelling US troops: Iraq’s resistance efforts gain steam in Baghdad

MAR 1, 2024

As the Iraqi Resistance continues to pressure the US to halt support for Israel’s war on Gaza, Baghdad – and Moscow – align closer with their agenda to expel US troops from Iraq.

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The Cradle’s Iraq Correspondent

Surveillance devices on a local Baghdad thoroughfare captured on camera the assassination of an Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in a 7 February US missile attack. The images show a missile piercing the roof of his vehicle, then deviating to the right of Al-Baladiyat street, leaving a wake of flames in its incendiary path. 

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Against the backdrop of the widening, US-backed and armed Israeli war on Gaza, the US airstrikes against Iraq and Syria were meant to deliver a strong message of deterrence to Iran’s allies in the Axis of Resistance, who are targeting US military interests in West Asia in response to the carnage in Gaza. 

But the strikes have instead served mainly to embarrass the Iraqi government and its domestic allies, prompting a reevaluation of the country’s relationship with Washington and reviving calls for an end to the US military presence in Iraq. 

Despite a steady stream of US threats and intimidation tactics employed to deter the Iraqi resistance since late last year, these factions have incrementally increased and expanded their engagement in the region-wide war, driven by their commitment to the Palestinian resistance and its liberation goals. The Iraqi groups have a specific goal: pressure Washington until it forces a Gaza truce – a strategic target that reflects the unity of purpose among the resistance factions in Iraq and the region.

Speaking to The Cradle, a senior leader of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) sheds light on the significance of the Hamas-led Al-Aqsa flood operation launched on 7 October 2023. That event, he says, is viewed as a game-changer by Palestinian resistance factions, and has sent shockwaves through the corridors of power in Tel Aviv, Washington, and allied capitals. 

The operation is seen as a historical process challenging the status quo of the past seven decades and redefining the social, security, and military dynamics in the region, the source explains. 

‘Unity of Fronts’: putting theory into practice 

Barely two weeks after Al-Aqsa Flood and its aftermath, The Cradle’s Iraq correspondent posited “Will Yemen and Iraq join Palestine’s Al-Aqsa Flood?” At the time, it was noted that any potential involvement of Resistance Axis members other than Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the war “would likely materialize in the form of drone and missile attacks targeting specific objectives, as per the Resistance Axis’ strategic convergence in the Unity of Fronts.”

The “Red Sea crisis” that unfolded on the Ansarallah-led Yemeni front, in addition to scores of Iraqi resistance attacks against US bases in Iraq and Syria since October seem to confirm this hypothesis. 

In Iraq’s case, the greatest military burden was assumed by four of the resistance factions identified by Kataib Hezbollah Secretary General Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi: his own group Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, and Ansarallah al-Aufiaa. As one IRI official tells The Cradle:

“The fronts are opened at the discretion of the leaders (of these groups) themselves, based on religious, ideological, and moral commitments stemming from the nature of the Iraqi character in the first place.” 

Over the past few months, the IRI has demonstrated its versatility by employing a variety of tactics and weaponry in around 188 separate military operations against US targets. These range from missile strikes on US bases in Iraq to drone attacks against US occupation forces in Syria, and even include the targeting of distant Israeli territories such as Ashdod, Haifa, and the occupied Golan Heights. 

An official source in the IRI confirms to The Cradle that “We bombed with ballistic missiles American bases, even those in Iraq, and this was not limited to distant targets in the depth, or in the occupied territory.” 

However, as tensions escalated, strains in the relationship between Baghdad and Washington became palpable. The Iraqi government found itself caught between the embarrassment of complicity and the challenge of maintaining control over security affairs. Even some of the resistance factions themselves felt the squeeze of external pressures, notably Kataib Hezbollah, who on 31 January announced a temporary suspension of operations against US forces and Israeli targets. 

The halt came in the immediate aftermath of the killing of three US soldiers in Tower 22 along the Jordanian-Syrian border, in an Iraqi resistance operation unprecedented in its depth which was viewed as a direct challenge to Washington’s perceived invincibility. As expected, the operation caused a spike in tensions, causing some ferocious shuttle diplomacy in the following days and provoking a strong, disproportionate US military response. 

Economic and strategic considerations

For factions like Kataib Hezbollah and Al-Nujaba, the decision to suspend operations was a calculated move to gauge Washington’s response. Yet, the US military’s targeted assassination of Kataib Hezbollah commander Abu Baqir al-Saadi caught them off guard, eliciting a sharp condemnation of the US attack from Baghdad. Saadi’s faction, it should be noted, is part of the Popular Mobilization Units that defeated ISIS, and is therefore under the umbrella of the Iraqi armed forces. 

This time, the Iraqi government had no choice but to side with the resistance, while the IRI issued a stern warning to the US in which it signaled a return to operations.

US Vice President Kamala Harris then extended an invitation to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to visit Washington. A postponed September 2023 White House visit to meet US President Joe Biden makes Sudani, notably, the only Iraqi prime minister yet to visit the US in an official capacity.

Following the Iraqi prime minister’s return from Munich earlier in February, US Ambassador to Iraq Elena Romansky met with him to coordinate the agenda for his upcoming visit to the US and ensure alignment on the topics to be discussed.

Romansky stated that “the leaders also discussed the importance of continuing the US-Iraq Higher Military Commission, which will enable the transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between the United States and Iraq and is the natural next step to build on the very successful collaboration of the past 10 years between Iraq and the Defeat ISIS coalition.”

What cannot be ignored, however, is that these diplomatic initiatives followed a series of coercive measures by the US Treasury to diminish the value of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar. While Iraq – both officially and among its various political factions – insists that leveraging the volume of Iraqi oil exports as a bargaining chip in the global market is an ineffective negotiating tool, there are those who anticipate seizing the opportunity of market scarcity to increase their share by two million barrels.

Sudani mission is a difficult one. He must hammer out a solution that fulfills his government’s commitment to remove foreign military forces forces from Iraqi soil without triggering negative US repercussions.

Baghdad backs the resistance  

According to leaks, the Iraqi prime minister reportedly reached an agreement with the IRI to suspend its military operations against US bases in order to facilitate his negotiations for the complete withdrawal of international coalition forces from Iraq.

Yet, any decision in this regard risks eliciting a negative response from Washington, which brandishes an ever-present arsenal of pressure tactics. This is particularly concerning given that Iraqi oil revenues are still required to pass through the US Federal Bank before being released to Baghdad.

Members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives are actively working to proceed with a law to remove foreign forces from Iraq, with majority representation from Shia-dominated central and southern Iraq. However, Sunni factions remain ambiguous in their stance toward the coordination framework blocs’ efforts to enact such legislation. In addition, Kurdish parties, notably the Kurdistan Democratic Party, vehemently oppose any consideration of US military withdrawal from Iraq.

In response to these dynamics, the Russian Foreign Ministry has expressed Moscow’s willingness to bolster Iraqi forces following the departure of unwanted foreign troops. The Russian offer has compounded the pressure on Washington, prompting a reassessment of the waning US strategic position in West Asia. 

Researchers close to Iraq’s Coordination Framework coalition, a collective of Iraqi political parties that played the key role in the formation of Sudani’s government, suggest that this development – coupled with the military pressure exerted by the resistance – has strengthened the official Iraqi stance and compelled the US to engage with and heed the demands of the Iraqi cabinet.

As the resistance factions step up their military operations in response to the US-backed Israeli assault of Gaza, it becomes clear that there is a growing synergy between the Iraqi government and the Iranian-supported elements of the armed forces. 

This alignment forms part of a broader regional resistance faction, with a strategic focus on not only the liberation of Palestine, but also the safeguarding of Iraq’s sovereignty in its entirety. 

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

In Munich: West sounds alarm over Global South stances

The recent conference on international security policy focused extensively on the significance of the Global South to the west’s security. As power competition with China and Russia intensifies, the west is compelled to reassess its approach to relations with these countries.

February 23 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

Mohamed Sweidan is a strategic studies researcher, a writer for different media platforms, and the author of several studies in the field of international relations. Mohamed’s main focus is on Russian affairs, Turkish politics, and the relationship between energy security and geopolitics.

By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan

“I am struck by how much we are losing the trust of the Global South.”

–French President Emmanuel Macron during the Munich Security Conference 2023

The 59^th Munich Security Conference (MSC) held from 17 to 19 February, was attended by over 150 senior officials, including more than 40 heads of state and international organizations. The conference focused on three main topics: the war in Ukraine, the need to confront China and Russia, and the importance of the Global South in the struggle between the great powers.

As in the previous year, Russia was not present at the Munich conference. However, this year marked the first time in twenty years that Moscow was not even invited to participate. With both Russia and Iran absent, the conference became a platform for attacking opponents of western policies.

The Great Game for the Global South

The conference took place against a backdrop of international turmoil and competition among great powers for influence in the emerging multipolar order. Several western countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the positions of Global South countries in relation to the conflicts involving China and Russia.

During her speech, US Vice President Kamala Harris stated that:

“We have invited a record number of representatives from the so-called “Global South,” because while we have this unity between us, when you talk to representatives of the Global South – and we had them on the podium this morning – you see that many countries sit on the fence.”

Accordingly, Christoph Heusgen, chairman of the MSC, announced at the opening ceremony that this year’s conference would “put a spotlight on the Global South” and “listen to their concerns.”

France’s Macron pointed out that efforts in reshaping the global order should be more inclusive: “The west has been losing the Global South and hasn’t done enough to respond to the charge of double standards, including by not helping poor countries fast enough with Covid vaccines,” he said. “One way to address the concerns of the Global South is to bring about reforms in the United Nations.”

A wake-up call for the west

While the discussions and outcomes of the conference suggest that western powers have come to recognize the significance of nations in the Global South, this appears to be mainly because of the necessity in rallying their support in major conflicts against Russia and China.

The conflict in Ukraine fully demonstrated that the refusal of many Latin American, African, and Asian countries to support western sanctions was a significant factor in the failure of the west’s attempts to isolate Russia.

The MSC’s final report states: “The wake-up call provided by Russia’s war and the diffidence of many countries in the ‘Global South’ has roused liberal democracies from their complacency, reminding them that the international order, just like democracy itself, is in constant need of renewal.”

The report added that “countries in the Global South can become crucial ‘swing states.’ They can tip the balance between systemic competitors and therefore determine the fate of the international rules-based order.” It also recognized that:

“Influential states such as India, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia are quite actively hedging their bets in the current geopolitical standoff – both when it comes to Ukraine but also on many other policy issues. Rather than being guided by deep feelings about the international order, their responses to the war in Ukraine and their stances in the broader international contest over the international order seem to be guided by much more pragmatic reasoning.”

The report also found that:

“Many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have steadily lost faith in the legitimacy and fairness of an international system which has neither granted them an appropriate voice in global affairs, nor sufficiently addressed their core concerns. To many states, these failures are deeply tied to the west. They find that the western-led order has been characterized by post-colonial domination, double standards, and neglect for developing countries’ concerns.”

Legacy of colonialism

It is clear from the statements made at the Munich Security Conference that the west recognizes the need to change its approach to development cooperation with the countries of the Global South, in order to counter the increasing influence of Beijing and Moscow.

However, this will require a fundamental shift in attitudes and policies towards these countries, which have historically been viewed as objects of aid and development rather than equal partners in a mutually beneficial relationship. This too is pointed out in the MSC report:

“The United States and Europe will have to rethink their approaches to development cooperation with countries in the Global South. They need to make their development models more attractive, as China offers an alternative model based on a narrative of solidarity and mutual benefits. To compete with China, the approach must focus on the novelty on short-term emergency relief as well as long-term financing enables sustainable and resilient systems in partner countries.”

The colonialist legacy of the west continues to cast a long shadow over its relations with the Global South, and it will take sustained effort and genuine commitment to overcome this legacy and build a more equitable and productive relationship.

This will require a shift away from the donor-recipient model towards one based on partnership and mutual benefit, and a recognition that the interests and aspirations of the countries of the Global South must be taken seriously and respected.

Looting wealth, interfering in the policies of states, and waging wars are hallmarks of western policies in the developing world. Those states who do not adhere to western diktats are regularly subjected to ominous sanctions or extreme economic pressures.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the support for authoritarian regimes and coups, the economic vise on countries like Lebanon and Venezuela, and the unequal distribution of vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic are just a few examples of the ways in which western powers have acted against the interests and well-being of Global South countries.

In 2019, when former US President Donald Trump triumphantly claimed ownership of Syrian oil, it marked a clear example of the problematic and exploitative attitudes that continue to plague western policies toward the Global South. The fact that western leaders did not anticipate the rise of the developing countries to become decisive “swing states” – as noted in the final report of the Munich conference – is a reflection of the west’s ongoing ignorance and neglect of the interests and aspirations of these vital states.

West Asia at the MSC

The MSC also highlighted the increasing importance of West Asia in global energy politics and the west’s alarm about China’s growing influence in this region. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) projection that West Asian countries will meet a large share of China and India’s growing oil needs has raised the region’s strategic value for these influential emerging powers.

Washington’s frustration with Saudi Arabia’s standing in the Ukrainian conflict was also evident at the conference, as the west seeks to prevent a repeat of such behavior in the more important conflict with China. Per the conference report:

“Amid the decline of the American presence in the Middle East [West Asia], liberal democracies are increasingly concerned about China’s growing influence. Deeper relations between China and the Middle East [West Asia] may evolve to include a stronger Chinese military and security footprint, which could undermine the west’s security partnerships with countries in the region.”

In essence, the Munich meeting provided a platform for declining western powers to express their concerns about the growing influence of China in West Asia, as well as their frustration with Saudi Arabia’s perceived lack of loyalty. It highlighted the need for the west to adapt its strategies in dealing with the developing world and to foster new forms of international solidarity and cooperation.

However, it is important to acknowledge that the term “Global South” itself reflects a colonial mindset that continues to shape the west’s perception of developing nations, and that such imperial policies will continue as long as such attitudes persist.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

نصف هزيمة للديموقراطيين: القبَلية الحزبية تنتصر

 الخميس 10 تشرين الثاني 2022

الأخبار  

أميركا: انتصار القبَلية الحزبية

اتّسمت المنافسة بحدِّة غير مسبوقة، هي نتاجٌ للشرخ المتعاظم بين الحزبَين (أ ف ب)

على رغم أن الموجة الحمراء العملاقة لم تبلغ مداها المنظور، فهي تمكّنت من إنزال بعض العقاب بالرئيس الأميركي، جو بايدن، وحاشيته، بعد سنتَين من رئاسة أقلّ ما يُقال فيها إنها أسوأ من سابقتها، وربّما بأضعاف. لم يُحسن بايدن شيئاً، كما لم يَحسب، ربّما، أن مَن أزاحوا خصمه، دونالد ترامب، في انتخابات 2021، قد يعيدونه، ولكن بوجوه كثيرة على شكل مشرّعين وسناتورات، سيشرف جميعهم، باسمه، على عرقلة خطط الرئيس الحاكم ومشاريعه التي لم ترَ منها أميركا شيئاً، إلّا مزيداً من التضخّم، ومزيداً من الغلاء الذي لم يَعُد، بالنسبة إلى كثيرين، محمولاً. مع هذا، طغت الولاءات الحزبية على سباق «النصفيات» الذي يُمكن عَدُّه «الأهمّ في التاريخ الأميركي» لِمَا سيترتّب عليه من انعكاسات حتى على الحزب الديموقراطي نفسه. وحتى إنْ لم يتلقَّ الأخير هزيمة نكراء في انتخابات عزّزت آمال المعسكر المقابل لسنين لاحقة، فهو يظلّ، في ميزان الربح والخسارة، مهزوماً

بيّنت النتائج الأوّلية لانتخابات التجديد النصفي، أن لا فوز كاسحاً للجمهوريين يشبه ما تأمّل به الرئيس الأميركي السابق، دونالد ترامب، وإنْ كان هؤلاء انتزعوا، وفق ما أَظهرته الأرقام الصادرة حتى مساء أمس، السيطرة على مجلس النواب من الديموقراطيين، وسط ترقُّب لمعرفة وجهة مجلس الشيوخ، الذي تشير المعطيات إلى احتمال مراوحته مربّع المناصفة، مع صوت تفضيلي لنائبة الرئيس، كامالا هاريس. وفق الأرقام أيضاً، حصل الحزب الجمهوري على 202 مقعد في «النواب»، في مقابل 184 للحزب الديموقراطي من مجموع 435 مقعداً (يحتاج أيّ حزب لتحقيق الغالبية الساحقة إلى 218 نائباً). وفيما يحتدم الصراع على مجلس الشيوخ، بلغت حصيلة مقاعد الجمهوريين 49، في مقابل 48 لحزب الرئيس، في انتظار الانتهاء من فرز الأصوات في ولايات: نيفادا، أريزونا وجورجيا (يتنافس الحزبان على 35 مقعداً من مقاعد المجلس الـ100).

وفي منافسةٍ اتّسمت بحدِّة غير مسبوقة، هي نتاجٌ للشرخ المتعاظم بين الحزبَين، بيّنت النتائج غير المكتملة أن هناك ولاءً أكبر للحزبية على حساب القضايا الرئيسة (الاقتصاد، التضخم). وظهر جليّاً، في المقابل، أن آمال الجمهوريين في «موجة حمراء عملاقة» كانت تتضاءل مع ورود النتائج تباعاً، فيما سعى الديموقراطيون الذين تركّزت أجندة سباقهم على قضيَتي الإجهاض والديموقراطية، مبتعدين عن القضايا الاقتصادية، إلى الحدّ من بعض الأضرار، في انتخابات ستكون حاسمة بالنسبة إلى مستقبل كلّ من جو بايدن ودونالد ترامب. ومع تمكُّن الديموقراطي جون فيترمان من انتزاع أهمّ مقعد متنازَع عليه في هذا الاقتراع، هو مقعد مجلس الشيوخ عن ولاية بنسلفانيا في مواجهة مرشّح يدعمه الرئيس السابق، حصل الديموقراطيون على جرعة أمل في الاحتفاظ بالسيطرة على «الشيوخ». وغذّى هذا الفوز أيضاً تكهّنات بأن المدّ المحافظ في مجلس النواب الذي وعد به ترامب، لن يبلغ توقّعاته الطموحة بالحصول على غالبية ساحقة، وهو ما أقرّ به، مثلاً، السناتور ليندسي غراهام، حين قال إن «الأمر ليس بالتأكيد مدّاً جمهوريّاً. هذا أمر مؤكد»، فيما سارع ترامب، من جهته، إلى نفْض يده من أيّ هزيمة غير متوقّعة، قائلاً: «حسناً، أعتقد أنه إذا فازوا، يجب أن أحصل على كلّ الفضل، وإذا خسروا، فلا ينبغي إلقاء اللوم عليّ على الإطلاق».

من شأن هذه الانتخابات أن ترسم ملامح العامَين المتبقّيين من ولاية الرئيس جو بايدن

وفق الأرقام غير الرسمية، أُعيد انتخاب السناتور الجمهوري راند بول عن ولاية كنتاكي، والجمهوري تيم سكوت عن كارولينا الجنوبية، وتود يانغ عن إنديانا. وفي المعسكر الجمهوري أيضاً، أُعيد انتخاب السناتور البارز ماركو روبيو عن فلوريدا، وزميله جون بوزمان عن أركنساس، والسناتور جيمس لانكفورد عن أوكلاهوما، والسناتور جون هوفن عن ولاية داكوتا الجنوبية، وفاز رون جونسون بمقعد مجلس الشيوخ عن ولاية ويسكونسن الحاسمة. من الجهة الديموقراطية، فاز المرشّح بيتر ولش بمقعد مجلس الشيوخ عن ولاية فيرمونت، والسناتور تشاك شومر عن ولاية نيويورك، كما فاز السناتور ريتشارد بلومنثال بفترة ثالثة في المجلس عن ولاية كونتيكيت. وحسم الديموقراطيون مقعد مجلس الشيوخ عن ولاية بنسلفانيا، بفوز جون فيترمان على محمد أوز، المرشّح المدعوم من ترامب، في واحدة من أكثر المنافسات حدّة في انتخابات منتصف الولاية. وللحفاظ على السيطرة على مجلس الشيوخ، يحتاج الديموقراطيون إلى الاحتفاظ بولايتَي أريزونا (مارك كيلي)، ونيفادا (كاثرين كورتيز ماستو).

بالنسبة إلى حكّام الولايات، أشارت النتائج الأولية إلى انتخاب الجمهورية سارة ساندرز، الناطقة السابقة باسم البيت الأبيض في عهد ترامب، حاكمة لولاية أركنساس. وفي الجانب الجمهوري أيضاً، أُعيد انتخاب كريس سنونو حاكماً لولاية نيوهامبشر، ومارك غوردون حاكماً لولاية وايومنغ، وكيم رينولدز حاكماً لولاية أيوا، وكذلك فيل سكوت لولاية فيرمونت، وهنري ماكماستر لولاية كارولينا الجنوبية، وانتخب الجمهوري جاي دي فانس – يدعمه ترامب – عن ولاية أوهايو، متفوّقاً على الديموقراطي تيم راين، وأُعيد انتخاب الجمهوري رون ديسانتيس حاكماً لولاية فلوريدا. وفي خطاب هجومي، عبّر النجم الصاعد في المعسكر المحافظ والمرشّح المحتمل للرئاسة الأميركية في انتخابات 2024، عن ارتياحه لجعله هذه الولاية الجنوبية التي تميل أحياناً إلى اليسار وأحياناً إلى اليمين، «أرض ميعاد» للجمهوريين، مؤكداً أن «المعركة بدأت للتو». وسطع نجم ديسانتيس (44 سنة) في أوساط اليمين الأميركي، حتى بات يُنظر إليه باعتباره منافساً محتملاً لترامب لنَيْل ترشيح الحزب الجمهوري. لكن هذا لا يعني أن المعسكر الديموقراطي لم يحقّق أيّ شيء؛ فقد انتزع من الجمهوريين المحافظين منصبَي حاكمَين: في ميريلاند وماساتشوستس، فيما أُعيد انتخاب دانييل ماككي حاكماً لرود أيلاند. وتمكّن الديموقراطيون أيضاً من الاحتفاظ بمقعد حاكم ولاية نيويورك التي تُعدّ من معاقلهم، حيث شهدت الانتخابات منافسة حادّة. وفيها، فازت الحاكمة الديموقراطية المنتهية ولايتها، كاثي هوشول، التي حلّت صيف 2021 محلّ أندرو كومو، على خصمها الجمهوري لي زيلدن، المدعوم من ترامب.

ومن شأن هذه الانتخابات التي شهدت منافسة محتدمة أشعلتْها قضايا الوضع الاقتصادي والإجهاض، أن ترسم ملامح العامَين المتبقّيين من ولاية الرئيس جو بايدن، وربّما تكون، كما وصفها الأخير، «الأهمّ في التاريخ الأميركي الحديث»، نظراً إلى انعكاساتها المحتملة على مختلف الأصعدة الداخلية والخارجية. فهي لا بدّ أن تؤدّي إلى تقليص سلطة الرئيس الحالي، على رغم كونه تجنّب هزيمة نكراء كان يخشاها حزبه. مع هذا، فإن حصول الجمهوريين على غالبية، وإنْ كانت بسيطة، في مجلس النواب، سيسمح لهم بعرقلة أولويات بايدن، ريثما يشرَعون في تحقيقات ستطاول إدارته وحتى عائلته، وقد تكون لها تأثيرات سياسية مدمّرة. فوجود مجلس نواب جمهوري، «سيوجّه ضربة كبيرة لبايدن، وسيقضي على طموحاته التشريعية، فضلاً عن أنه يُنذر بعامَين من الصراع الحزبي الطاحن»، وفق «نيويورك تايمز». ويمكن بايدن، في بلدٍ منقسم إلى حدّ التشظّي، أن يشهد شللاً برلمانياً طويلاً، ستتخلّله صراعات لا نهاية لها حول مشاريع قوانين تولد ميتة. فتحقيق الغالبية حتى بفارق ضيّق في مجلس النواب، يُعطي سلطة كبيرة في مجال الإشراف، وعد اليمين الجمهوري باستخدامها للبدء بعدد من التحقيقات ضدّ بايدن وأدائه وأوساطه. وخلال إحدى الجلسات، وعدت الجمهورية مارجوري تايلور غرين التي أعيد انتخابها في مجلس النواب، على سبيل المثال، بفتح ملفات هانتر بايدن، النجل الأصغر للرئيس. كما ستكون لدى الجمهوريين وسائل ضغط في الموازنة، ويمكن أن يلوّحوا بتهديد «الإغلاق» – شلّ الإدارات الفيدرالية – أو حتى بالتخلّف عن الدفع من قِبَل أكبر قوة عالمية.

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Why the current hysteria?

September 01, 2021

by Andrei for the Saker Blog

The current mass hysteria about what just happened in Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan is not dying down.

Why is that so?

I believe that what is happening is this: if we compare the people of the USA to the passengers on the Titanic, we could say that our passengers were listening to the still playing orchestra until their feet got soaked in ice cold water, at which point denial is not an option.

For folks in Zone A, the events in Afghanistan quite literally, unthinkable.  So while some of us saw the writing on the wall already years, if not decades ago, those who lived, mentally, in Zone A what is happening now is impossible.  Impossible but happening.

The nature of what the events in Kabul showed is such, that those living in the mental Zone A cannot accept them.  But neither can they deny it anymore.

• The Empire died in January 8th 2020
• The USA (at least as we knew them) died on January 6th 2021

Unthinkable!  Absolutely unthinkable!  My ankles are in ice water, but the Titanic cannot sink!  It’s too big to fail.

If hope dies last, than delusions die just before it.

There is a good chance now “Biden” will not finish his term.  If, and that’s still an “if” (never say never) Kamala Harris replaces Biden, the internal negative reaction inside the USA will be huge.  Bliken looks to me like a tailor with the facial expression “I am so sorry that suit does not sit well on you” – so he is out.  The DefSec is a clown who should resign anyway (responsibility of command).

In the US ruling classes we are now beyond any kind of plan making, this is a “run for your life” kind of situation, and that means “each man for himself”.

Hence the current hysterics.

After them, most US Americans will enter some variant of the five stages of grief before, inevitably, realizing the truth and getting the energy and courage to get back again.

Until then, expect more hysterics and infighting.

Cheers

US Backs ’Israel’ Amid ICC Probe into War Crimes against Palestinians

By Staff, Agencies

If you don’t feel shy, do whatever you want!

In brazen contempt for the international law, the US administration announced that it backs the ‘Israeli’ occupation entity’s war crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories amid the International Criminal Court [ICC] probe into those crimes.

In a phone call with Zionist premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, US Vice President Kamala Harris underscored Washington’s support for the Tel Aviv regime, opposing what she referred to as the ICC’s “attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over ‘Israeli’ personnel”, the White House said in a statement.

Harris, the statement noted, “emphasized the United States’ unwavering commitment to ‘Israel’s’ security”, while resisting any move to expose the regime’s genocidal project in the occupied territories.

The first call between the two officials came a day after the ICC prosecutor said her office will formally launch a probe into Zionist war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The announcement follows a February 5 ruling by the international court claiming jurisdiction in the case.

ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, who is set to be replaced by British prosecutor Karim Khan in June, said in December 2019 that war crimes had been or were being committed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

She named the Zionist military, which has for years unleashed a reign of terror on Palestinians, as perpetrators of war crimes.

Bensouda further noted that there was a “reasonable basis” to launch a probe into ‘Israeli’ military actions in the besieged Gaza Strip, as well as illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

She then asked judges to rule on the extent of the court’s jurisdiction in the case, and the court last month established that it had jurisdiction.

Judges at ICC said the decision was based on jurisdictional rules in court’s founding documents, and it does not imply any attempt to determine statehood or legal borders.

The international court, which has often sought to expose war crimes committed by the ‘Israeli’ regime and the US around the world, has faced bullying and intimidation from both Tel Aviv and Washington.

The ‘Israeli’ regime occupied East al-Quds, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip in 1967. It later had to withdraw from Gaza.

About 700,000 Zionists currently occupy in over 230 illegal settlements built in the West Bank and East al-Quds, which have been deemed illegal under international law.

Palestine is a party to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute and has long carried out diplomatic efforts for the investigation of the war crimes by the ‘Israeli’ regime in the occupied territories.

Both the Tel Aviv regime and the United States have refused to be a party to the ICC, which was set up in 2002 to be the only international tribunal to investigate war crimes.

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Oriental ’Orientalists’ and the US Unchanged Policies

By Elham Hashemi

Media outlets have been trying to anticipate and predict the new Biden Administration’s performance in terms of US domestic and international politics, with much focus on the nuclear deal with Iran known as the JCPOA. 

Articles and Op-eds praised the quick reversal of his predecessor’s decisions such as the reversal of the ‘Muslim Ban’, which may seem like a sign of goodwill. He seems to be giving his administration a façade of diversity which is impressive to the public opinion at least.  

But people of different color and race in the new administration is not necessarily a good thing. If those placed in power do not represent the popular opinions of the communities they come from then it is to no avail. The appointing of Kamala Harris, as the first woman of color to hold the position of Vice President, does nothing unless she is willing to create real change for women of color. 

Also pointing an American-Palestinian, Maher Bitar to a position co-ordinating the stream of information coming in from the US intelligence apparatus does not necessarily mean Biden will retreat from supporting the Israeli apartheid regime. 

According to a report published by the Politico last Friday, Bitar, who served as general counsel to Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee and played an important role in former president Donald Trump’s first impeachment, will assume the post of senior director for intelligence on Mr. Biden’s National Security Council.

The designation of the high-profile Arab-American lawyer to a prominent White House position co-ordinating the stream of information that pours in from the vast US intelligence apparatus and Kamala Harris sounds like Biden has decided to use the “oriental orientalists” to help him push his US policies forward. 

The Joe Biden website reads “Joe knows how we treat Muslim-Americans and prioritize issues affecting them reflects who we are as nation. As President, he will: protect Muslim-American constitutional and civil rights; honor the diversity of Muslim-American communities; ensure adequate healthcare; create a safe learning environment; rebuild our economy with a more resilient, more inclusive middle class; and make communities safer.” But these remain to be words of publicity and an exploitation to the American diversity unless serious steps are made and new policies are made in terms of dealing with the “East”. 

Why should the reversal of the “Muslim Ban” matter when the US is helping destroy many of the Muslim countries on that list? The halting of the border wall is maybe perceived as move of good will too, but wouldn’t it be great and more real if the United States was to also halt its policies which help create many of the refugees trying to find a better life in the United States?

The US Biden administration is different from the Trump administration, probably only in stopping the US staunch support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen. It may arrive to a deal with Iran too on its nuclear program, but simultaneously without addressing the nuclear war heads Israel possesses or the violence and breach of law against other states. 

“Orientalism,” as Edward Said wrote, is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.”

The result of this attitude and these policies? A culture in which the Middle East is seen as a playground and a subject for exploration, rather than a region of equal worth and value as the West. This was what the Palestinian-American intellectual and professor Edward Said observed in much detail in his famed book Orientalism, over fifty years ago.

Despite What You Heard, There Was No Peaceful Transition

By Eleanor Goldfield

Source

A critical look at Biden’s first Executive Orders set against the backdrop of Operation Peaceful Transition in Washington, DC.

Anyone trying to find the edges of the U.S. Overton Window right now must feel like they’re tracing an amateur rendition of an early Picasso. After a summer spent chanting “defund the police,” self-identifying progressives applaud the pouring of some 25,000 troops and busloads of out-of-city law enforcement into the streets of Washington, DC. Those eager to cheer the departure of a racist, sexist, war-hawking elitist from the White House were quick to welcome a new racist, sexist, war-hawking elitist. Those who lambasted Trump for dragging more swamp creatures into the swamp rather than draining it are applauding Biden for his diverse cabinet appointments, ignoring the revolving door of corruption and oppression they represent. Those who (correctly) decried the Paris Climate Agreement for being flimsy and non-committal are celebrating Biden’s executive order to rejoin it.

Indeed, anyone applauding Biden’s first flicks of the wrist as President would do well to look beyond the window dressing. Of the 15 new executive orders that aren’t merely a light Trump-eraser, they herald the return of the classic Democratic practice of sprinkling progressive-tasting garnish around deep systemic problems. For example, Biden’s executive order to once again kill the Keystone XL pipeline project, a project that Obama had already killed (that Trump then revived) is at best a step sideways, not forwards. Biden has said outright that he has no interest in a Green New Deal, despite the fact that the watered-down version that bounced around Congress left gaping holes in truly addressing climate chaos. He has also ignored repeated calls to kill both Line 3 and the ill-fated Dakota Access Pipeline.

Meanwhile, the executive order to “advance racial equity” in the federal government grinds sharply against Biden and Harris’ own political histories while, much like Pelosi’s toothless Climate Crisis committee, it offers up no real action to address the issue at hand.

The same is true of Biden’s call to defend DACA, the Obama-era legislation that granted a renewable two-year stay-of-deportation for children who immigrated to the U.S. with their parents. As DACA recipient Ella Mendoza explained to me back in 2017, “DACA was flawed from the very beginning.” Mendoza described a carrot and stick program that demanded recipients sign admissions of illegal border crossings for momentary reprieves that could be overturned at any time. The convenient announcement of DACA around Obama’s re-election just highlighted for Mendoza that this was really about dismissing “Obama’s deportation of more than 2 million people” just in time for election day. “You can tell me it’s about children all you want, but you’re deporting our parents,” she said. In short, DACA wasn’t a dream come true. While people like Mendoza struggled to build a life under the gaze of the deporter-in-chief, Obama was only too glad to throw other children in cages, a practice many only found abhorrent when Trump did it years later. DACA isn’t comprehensive immigration reform – it never was. Establishment Democrats and their fans cooing over it like the return of a lost child doesn’t change that fact.

Looking ahead, many might feel a sense of relief that Biden at least takes the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, signing executive orders to mandate masks in federal buildings, to rejoin the World Health Organization and to address the financial free-fall impacting millions of Americans. However, if you look closely, you’ll see again that unfulfilling Democratic garnish sprinkled on deep systemic rot. The executive order to extend the CDC’s eviction and foreclosure moratorium until March 31 doesn’t address the loopholes in the original order that still allow for evictions. Furthermore, the moratorium does not cancel rent. Tenants will still be liable to pay for all missed payments once the moratorium ends, and landlords are still allowed to hike the rent during the unpaid months.

Likewise, the “pause” on student loan payments demonstrates yet again how little the Democrats are willing to help the people. The move carries over a pause which the Trump administration started while “asserting” that Biden will carry through on his campaign pledge to cancel $10,000 of student loans per borrower, noting however that it will take time as the cancellation has to go through Congress first. Great! So we’ve got a Trump leftover plus an empty promise to shave off $10k in student loans when the average debt sits at $32,731, and that’s not including accrued interest. Biden’s executive order is essentially a Post-It note ‘IOU’ with a smiley face scribbled on the back. It kicks the can over to Congress in the hopes we won’t realize that Biden could actually cancel all $1.7 trillion in student debt with a different (read: actually useful) executive order. He’s probably also hoping we’ll forget that back in 2005, Biden was one of 18 Democrats who voted excitedly for a bill that stripped student loan borrowers of bankruptcy protections, leading to a tripling in student loan debt over the next ten years. Oddly enough, Biden never voted to say, strip multi-million dollar corporations of their bankruptcy protections. If you’re a huge corporation, you can easily wriggle out of your debts to workers, communities and local governments. If you’re a destitute student, there’s no way out of your debt. Still, Biden could do it – he could lift the burden of an indebted future from millions, a move that even the likes of Business Insider agree would bolster the economy and in particular benefit communities of color and low-income households. Gee, sounds like that’d be a win-win in your quest to “advance racial equity” there Joe.

Of course, the fact of the matter is that Biden, the master-mind of the ’94 crime bill, has no interest in advancing racial equity. He’s never cared about the plight of people drowning in debt – or drowning in rising floodwaters – and he doesn’t care now. He has no intention of progressing or changing the direction of his political career. Indeed, he quite glibly announced to rich donors back in 2019 that “nothing will fundamentally change” when he takes the Oval Office. Based on his cabinet picks and his first orders as President, I think we should take him at his word.

The relief that Trump is gone is understandable. But don’t be lulled by the very conditions that gave rise to Trump’s presidency in the first place. To celebrate our so-called return to a democracy we’ve never had with a decency that is at best shallow, and at worst a conniving cover-up for crimes against humanity speaks of a belief in American exceptionalism that is neither warranted nor helpful. Underneath the progressive platitudes and unfulfilling garnish lie the same systemic rot, a rot that was perhaps most noticeable on Inauguration Day itself – when two worlds stood sharply demarcated by militarized checkpoints, and the revolving door of red and blue capitalist imperialism was almost literally visible.

Walking around DC on Inauguration Day, I felt like I was touring a vast military exhibition – which basically, I was. Military vehicles rolled down quiet neighborhood streets as if they’d gotten lost on their way to the frontlines. National Guardsmen with giant rifles and camo gear stood out like militantly sore thumbs against the backdrop of a local park. Operation Peaceful Transition (as I’ve come to call it) was in full swing, with all the irony of previous imperialist missions like Operation Iraqi Freedom. In the shadows of Biden and Harris’ gleeful photo-ops with the likes of George W. Bush, community members across DC were working tirelessly to address the effects of a city shut down, blocked off, and singularly concerned with providing the ruling class with a cushy Inauguration Day.

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Credit | Eleanor Goldfield | Art Killing Apathy

Indeed, despite DC serving as the stage for this tragicomedy of political theater, a lot of locals weren’t focused on Joe Biden. Community members were busy raising funds and pooling resources for neighbors who were scared to leave their homes or go to work, fearing both fascist violence and the scourge of freshly deployed ICE and CBP officials (two sides of the same coin). Others were delivering groceries or hot meals to people who were understandably creeped out by the massive military and police presence in the city. Mutual aid groups set up 24-hour rolling shifts to address emergency requests and to share information about everything from checkpoints (potentially life-changing information depending on your immigration status) to local POC-owned restaurants to order food from.

Meanwhile, Biden stood at perhaps the most protected podium in the world, speaking of hope, unity, leadership, peace, and a brighter future. These are two worlds disconnected. We the people are literally barred from his world, and he has no interest in entering ours.

There is no such thing as a peaceful transition in a city with more troops than both Iraq and Afghanistan. There is no peaceful transition for the black and brown folks displaced in the fastest gentrifying city in the nation. There is no peaceful transition for a city with a higher maternal mortality rate than Syria.

There is no peaceful transition for a country with the largest military and surveillance system the world has ever seen. There is no peaceful transition for a country that represents 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated. There is no peaceful transition for a nation where slavery is still legalized, where millions have died due to lack of healthcare, housing and other basic human rights.

The revolving door of imperialist capitalist preservation turns again. But there is nothing peaceful about it. And the hope that flows from the twisted tongues of our politicians is not hope for the people. Still, that doesn’t mean that there is no hope. Indeed, quite the opposite. Our hope lies in recognizing and manifesting our power – in realizing that projects like KXL would never even have been canceled in the first place were it not for people’s collective, tireless and targeted actions.

Our hope lies in the roots – in these communities that bustle and build in the shadows of empire. It lies in the crowns of trees where tree-sitters block the way of pipelines. It lies in solidarity – in growing everything from garlic in community gardens to growing networks of interconnected local aid groups. It lies in direct action. As Direct Action & Climate Justice Organizer Alex Cohen notes, “Direct Action builds the new and stops the old. Direct Action brings hope in the darkest times. Direct Action builds community, creates assembly, fuels worth and empowerment, and builds people power. No matter how grave the time, it remains a tool available to us 24/7 and 365 days a year, on our own terms.”

It is this hope and these tactics that we must take into the Biden presidency – into every presidency.  Instead of gazing at the spires of empire through the Overton Window, fogged by false promises and twisted by hypocrisy, look closer to home. Don’t look up for liberation, look next door, down the street. These aren’t progressive platitudes but quite literally how we survive – how we fight, how we build – on our own terms in these grave times.

Barbed Wire And Witch Hunt: Globalist Joe Took Power In United States

South Front

21.01.2021

The moment of destiny has finally arrived – Joe Biden is now US President, and Kamala Harris the very first black, Asian and woman Vice President.

As Biden himself proclaimed: Democracy won. And he couldn’t be more right.

After all former US President Donald Trump is now gone, disgraced, deemed a puppet of Putin, having even almost, allegedly, led his supporters to attempt and carry out a coup.

The Republican party capitulated in its entirety, and true Democracy has finally come. Likely, not the kind that most people are expecting – it is simply the kind in which Democrats are in power. And not just any Democrats, but only the most hardcore neo-liberal clique.

Joe Biden’s inauguration as president was spectacular – it is likely a unique event. Not that other US Presidents haven’t been inaugurated, or that they’ve not been Democrats, but it’s likely the first time there’s more National Guardsmen than actual audience.

The impressive event featured everything that true Democracy signifies: barbed wire, armed troops, censorship, and a good, old-fashioned witch hunt for “dissidents” – or as they are now called “Kremlin Agents.”

In contrast, Donald Trump, who was elected after alleged Russian meddling, a “puppet of evil overlord Vladimir Putin” was greeted with a significant crowd, with a mere one third of the number of National Guardsmen and much fewer creative decorations.

Until the end Trump refused to accept that he had lost the election, and it would surprise no one if even his farewell words turn out to be in denial of the results.

Times sure have changed.

And they are changing even more, as Biden’s first undertaking was to issue 17 executive orders. This turned the United States’ policy direction almost 180 degrees on a plethora of issues such as immigration, climate and more. The primary objective declared by the new president is to undo all that was done by his predecessor.

The novelties are of an impressive nature, such as including the first transgender federal official – Rachel Levine. She will assume the post of assistant secretary of health. Finally, Biden officially promised to “promote diversity and accountability in leadership”. So more to come.

Biden’s election and inauguration appears to be a gift that keeps on giving, and it is still in its infancy.

One should remember that nothing speaks of confidence in legitimate election results quite like the presence of the National Guard in such extreme numbers, a barbed wire fence around the Capitol building, the complete shut down of the country’s capital, and the blocking all negative or simply differing opinions on social media. The future is now.

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BIDEN’S PYRRHIC VICTORY

South Front

Written and produced by SF Team: J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson

As predicted, the election turned out to be considerably closer than most pundits and polls predicted. In spite of polling that suggested Biden leading Trump by a margin of 5%-15%, in actuality the popular vote margin of victory turned out to be more in the vicinity of modest 3%, a remarkably lackluster showing on the part of a veteran political operative like Biden running against an incumbent whose tenure in office was characterized by a mishandled pandemic and a crashing economy. Granted, much of the blame for that ought to be shouldered by the Congress, state governors, and their legislatures. No institution of US governance is coming out of this crisis with an enhanced but, to quote Harry Truman, “the buck stops” in the Oval Office.

The weak margin of victory is nevertheless solid enough to survive legal challenges from Team Trump, which moreover lacks serious heavyweight operatives at the helm. The 2000 election hinged on the outcome in a single state—Florida—which in turn hinged on a recount in a single county. That was not an insurmountable challenge to the likes of James Baker, a long-time Bush family retainer, and it was likewise not overly unpalatable to the courts. This time, however, the situation is far more complex. It is no longer a matter of mis-counted ballots. In order to give victory to Trump, the courts would have to in effect invalidate tens of thousands of ballots in several states, on the grounds that they were counted as valid votes in violation of existing laws and regulations. Barring an extreme case of malfeasance by election officials in several states, something that is yet to be demonstrated, it is unlikely in the extreme the US court system will be willing to set a precedent that in the long term could fatally undermine the entire US system of elections.

Having said that, even senior GOP officials are happy to go along with the argument that Trump was robbed of victory through electoral fraud, in the form of abuse of mail-in ballots. There is literally no political penalty to pay for that, and moreover casting lasting doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s victory represents payback for the last four years of Democrats casting doubt on the legitimacy of Trump’s victory through the RussiaGate scandal. One has to wonder whether Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s echoing of Trump’s allegations of voter fraud were at least in part motivated by him having to put up with being commonly referred to as “Moscow Mitch” on social media.  Spending the next four years investigating Biden family finances, and particularly Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine, China, and other regions whose politicians have an interest in being in Joe Biden’s good graces, is vastly preferable to four more years of RussiaGate.

Nevertheless, the GOP machine will hardly much expend political capital on behalf of Donald Trump, in support of his quest to emerge as the winner of the 2020 election. While Trump proved to be a remarkably effective party base motivator, far better at the task than literally any GOP politician of note, he nevertheless poses a long-term threat to the stability of the two-party system. Worse, Trump’s victory in 2020 would have doomed the GOP to major losses in US Congress, governorships, and state legislature in 2022 and 2024, with Trump himself being almost inevitably followed into the White House by a Democrat in 2024, and possibly a very leftist Democrat at that. That is a scenario that neither party wants to see, but to the GOP it would represent a close brush with death.

With Biden and Harris in the White House, both of them relatively unpopular politicians in their own right lacking even the fake charisma of Barack Obama, GOP is likely to rebound very quickly from losing the White House. Even now it looks like a Pyrrhic victory for Biden, whose party will not retake the US Senate barring the unlikely victory in both of Georgia’s runoff races that will take place in January—by which time Biden’s gradual walking away from campaign promises and shifting ever further to the right will have demoralized the base of the Democratic Party—and will have actually suffered losses in the House of Representatives. Biden’s victory also has not translated into any gains at all in state races. So instead of having the Democrats control all three branches of the Federal government by 2024 and at the same time enjoy expanded influence in State governments, it appears rather likely the GOP will return to that level of political dominance in only four short years. Sacrificing Trump is a price well worth paying for it. While it is too early to say who will be the GOP’s champion in the 2024 presidential elections, Donald Trump created an original blueprint for running an effective presidential campaign championing a conservative version of national greatness with a strong element of insular nationalism, as opposed to the aggressive nationalism of globalization that the Democrats embrace. Almost regardless of who the Republican nominee is, they will run a modified version of Trump’s campaign, and they will do so with a high likelihood of success.

Biden’s own likely legacy as a one-term president will be the product of the combination of pandemic and associated economic crisis, and the Obama Alumni Association that will be running his administration. One should not forget Joe Biden won his first election to the US Senate by running a “law and order” campaign in 1972, the year of Richard Nixon’s spectacular re-election landslide that resulted from his application of the so-called “Southern Strategy” of exploiting the backlash to civil rights among the White population of not only the Southern states. Over the decades, Biden himself rode that backlash to successive re-elections to US Senate by running campaigns with only thinly disguised racist themes. That record all but vanished from public memory as soon as Biden was chosen as Obama’s running mate. The fact that Biden, an architect of many crime bills whose effect has been to disproportionately incarcerate Blacks, chose someone like Kamala Harris who enthusiastically applied the provisions of Biden’s crime bills, indicates Biden has not moved past his 1972 persona. While paying lip service to “Black Lives Matter” and other slogans of the day, Biden’s campaign worked really hard to attract suburban White GOP voters and made hardly an effort to woo the growing Hispanic constituency. Biden also has no use for such hot-button issues as Defund the Police, Green New Deal, Medicare for All, that are sacrosanct to the most enthusiastic left wing of the Democratic Party. It is already evident that the individuals Biden is appointing to his transition team and vetting for administration positions, including the just-announced Chief of Staff Ronald Klain, represent a return to the discredited policies of the Democratic Leadership Council.

Likewise when it comes to foreign policy, we are likely to see all manner of retreads from the Obama Administration and a continuation of the aggressive foreign policy from those years. Biden has already made it clear there will be no reduction in defense spending, no withdrawal from “US leadership”, and a return to an emphasis on “human rights” which collectively suggest redoubled regime change efforts around the globe. There is even talk of Hillary Clinton becoming the US Ambassador to the United Nations, where she would presumably continue to ply her brand of American Exceptionalism. All in all, Biden’s ascent to the presidency feels like the post-Napoleonic Bourbon Restoration. Alas, just as the Bourbons “learned nothing and forgot nothing”, everything points to the Democrats making a very similar mistake for which they, and the country, will pay for dearly.

The Deep State wins the 2020 Presidential election: USA RIP

December 15, 2020

The Saker

Okay, this time it does look like it’s over. Mitch McConnell congratulated Biden and Harris, thereby signifying the official surrender of the GOP (which, let’s be honest here, never really was ready to fight for Trump).  Vladimir Putin also sent his congratulations in the following way: (official Russian statement)

Congratulations to Joseph R. Biden on winning US presidential election

Vladimir Putin sent a message to Joseph R. Biden congratulating him on his victory in the presidential election in the United States of America.

December 15, 2020

In his message, Vladimir Putin wished the President-elect every success and expressed confidence that Russia and the United States, which bear special responsibility for global security and stability, can, despite their differences, effectively contribute to solving many problems and meeting challenges that the world is facing today.

The President of Russia noted that with this in mind, Russian-American cooperation, based on the principles of equality and mutual respect, would meet the interests of both nations and the entire international community.

“For my part, I am ready for interaction and contacts with you,” Russia’s Head of State stressed.

Russian journos were quick to notice that unlike previous congratulation messages to Obama and Trump, this one did not express any kind of hopes.  I can only agree.  Frankly, the Russians have been sending signals about this for a long time, even Lavrov seems to have flushed the “collective West” down to the toilet of Kremlin political priorities: the Russians clearly consider the western leaders as collectively brain dead (the nonsense around Navalnyi really did not help, of course).

What comes next will be both dangerous and ugly.  Why?

Well, for one thing, the election was stolen, even if the SCOTUS has in essence declared that 1) those who contested this outcome had no valid reason to complain and 2) that the SCOTUS does not care what the US Constitution says.  This total betrayal by seven out of nine SC Justices sealed the fate of the USA.  The rule of law in this country is over, dead.

Second, there will be resistance to what many US Americans will see – correctly – as an illegitimate regime which came to power by criminal means and a 4 year long color revolution.

Third, just as any other political regime, the power of the US Executive branch rests on two fundamental pillars (just one of them is not enough):

1. A social consensus
2. The exclusive control of the legal means of violence

Not only will there be a large proportion of the population which will be convinced that the election was stolen (what a beautiful, if dangerous, karma at work: after 4 years of Dems saying “not my President”, they themselves will now hear that same mantra for the next four years), but I also believe that a lot of folks in law enforcement will feel that the White House is against them (correctly) and will refuse to take any risks for that White House.  Remember that even the elite special units of the KGB refused twice (in 1991 and in 1993) to storm the Russian Parliament.  Do you expect their US counterparts to act differently and engage in a potential bloodbath on behalf of the two cop-hating clowns in the White House who, we all know, will backstab and betray them?

Ask yourself: would you obey orders coming out of this White House?

Fourth, folks – now comes the era of total, unapologetic, and truly stratospheric incompetence.  No, I don’t just mean Biden (even though he is clearly senile) or Harris (a call girl who made it into politics “horizontally”), but I mean the freak show which the next Administration appears to shaping up to be (even Psaki is coming back!!!).

Last, but not least, these are angry, frustrated, narcissistic and profoundly evil people (Peter Strzok types) .  Yeah, I know, that also describes the likes of Bolton or Pompeo, but at least these two freaks had comparatively saner folks, like Mattis or even Trump himself, to keep them in check.  That is now over.

The really scary thing is that now that they won, the US legacy ziomedia and the Big IT corporations are not just allies of the Deep State and the Dems anymore, but their accomplices. That is crucial because that means that they are now all linked with a mutual survival pact.

Since the Dems have now total control of the Federal level (Executive, Legislative, Judiciary and media), the resistance will now move “down” to the state and local level.  Expect this struggle to get very ugly fast as the highly ideological Dems will now show their (totally fake) love for blacks, homosexuals and feminists (that is their vague notion of “diversity”!) while waging a crusade against the majority of the people of the USA and, especially, the First and Second Amendments (which, like it or not, were considered as the cornerstones of the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, hence their number 1 and 2 positions!).

And let’s not kid ourselves – there are plenty of freaks and idiots in Trump’s camp too – and they will likely do a lot of dumb and dangerous things which will only further justify the regime in DC to crack down on all the “deplorables” imaginable.  Expect all sorts of false flags, fake terror attacks and, most dangerous of all, carefully groomed “sacrificial victims” including, possibly, folks in/near the White House.

Still, it would be wrong and naive to think that all Trump supporters are only Trumptards: there are still A LOT of truly patriotic US Americans who see Trump for what he is (a cowardly and spineless narcissist), but who also understand that what just happens is not the end of the “Orange Menace” but the end of the USA as we knew them until now.  In fact, a Hegelian analysis of history would very strongly suggest that any Biden/Harris Administration will face such huge challenges and contradictions that from the day Biden/Harris are officially sworn in on – it will all go downhill from there, and pretty fast.

Millions of US Americans will now have to choose between the oath of office they gave and obedience to a regime which they will know has ZERO legitimacy.  I don’t envy them (I never took the US citizenship, so I never had to give any oaths).

We are about to enter a transition period which will probably last more than a decade, possibly two.  Paradoxically, I am rather optimistic that whatever state(s) and regime eventually emerges at the end of this process will be a much better one than any other in this generation’s memory, mainly because what will emerge at the is either one, or several, successor states, but not an empire.  Good riddance! Finally!

But I do fear the dangers of the transition period we are about to begin: history teaches that these “transition” periods can be worse than full scale wars.

I am too young to remember that (I was 2 days old exactly), but a lot of very wise US Americans have told me that the murder of President Kennedy was the first big blow delivered to the United States.  I think that the next blow for the USA were the totally illegal and illegitimate wars of aggression against the Serbian nation and against Iraq.  Though these wars were presented to us as “victories” – they were anything but.  Crucially, the utter lawlessness behind these aggressions also ushered in the next blow for the USA, I am speaking of 9/11 of course.  The theft of the 2020 election is, in my opinion, the last and truly mortal blow to this country (you could say that the “chicken of illegality” have come home to roost).

Notice that the four events listed above all have one thing in common: most people, at least the ones still capable of thought, realize that they were all covered up with lies, lies and more lies.  Of all these lies, the easiest to demonstrate would, of course, be 9/11, which is paradoxical since in spite of the fact that the 9/11 lies were truly debunked “beyond reasonable doubt” by hard, scientific data, they were also completely ignored by ALL the political elites (including, of course, Giuliani and Trump himself!).  In other words, 9/11 was the “glue” which brought together all the US elites, even the pretend-outsiders with “swamp draining” pretensions.

Frankly, I am saddened by what I am observing.  I can hardly be called an optimist by nature, but I still held some, residual, hope that judges, especially SC Justices, would refuse to dishonor themselves (and forever ruin their legacy) and would at the very least hear the case on its merits.  My wiser friends had no such illusions and they warned me.  I guess that being a grateful guest in this country (which has treated me and my family extremely well), I cannot but wish its people well and hope that, somehow, the good and honest people of this country would prevail.  Now I understand that, just like in Russia in February 1917, August 1991 and October 1993, what the US need is a new generation of patriots, not blind flag-waving xenophobic imbeciles, but sober-minded and yet idealistic patriots who will understand that to love one’s country is not enough, you have to be ready to really fight, fight hard, for it.  Of course, the US staple ideology of individualism and its toxic and dogmatic beliefs in the “virtues” of capitalism will have to die first.  No worries – in time, they will, that is what inevitably comes next in such collapses (just like Russians have rejected Marxist ideological dogmas).  But now is not the time for this conversation, much more must happen before it can take place.

Bottom line: the EU is going down the drain, and so are the USA (the Empire itself, has been dead for a while, even of many/most people do not realize this yet).  Conversely, I would argue that Russia and China have won, not quite the war, but a crucial battle (think Stalingrad or Kursk).  Any attack, economic or military, launched by the collective West against these two countries will fail.  The Dem “geostrategic experts” will blame Russia and Putin personally, while the GOP “geostrategic experts” will blame China and Xi personally.  That is why they all are, collectively, losers of the worst possible kind!

Things will only begin to really change when a new generation of US leaders will begin look at themselves and at their own responsibility for the catastrophe which has now happened.

Sadly, right now I can only advise everybody fill yourself with a lot patience.

Trump’s Last Hurrah?

THE SAKER • NOVEMBER 25, 2020 

There seems to be a quasi consensus that Trump will not prevail and that Biden and Harris will get into the White House no matter what. To my surprise, even the Russian media seems to be considering that the Trump presidency is over.

Yet, I am not so sure at all.

Why?

Because at this point in time, I think that it would fair to conclude that anybody actually willing to look at what has been revealed by this election will have to agree that this election was stolen, rigged, falsified – chose your expression – and that going to the courts to challenge this obscene miscarriage of the democratic process is a fundamental civil right and something which any democrat (small “d”) should support.

And yet, because we live in a media-created pseudo-reality in which absolutely crucial things like the rule of law seem to have become secondary to ideological imperatives, no matter how extreme, there are those who simply refuse to see the obvious. Yes, the 9/11 false flag trained the western societies well and many now simply lack the lucidity and courage to face reality.

Courts, however, are bound by the rule of law, at least in theory, and don’t have the luxury to simply pretend like crucial evidence presented to them simply does not exist.

True, the lower, state, courts are unlikely to resist the pressure put upon them to come up with the “right” conclusions, but never say never – all it takes is one single principled judge and Trump or, more accurately, the Giuliani team, might get the break they need. Still, it is pretty obvious that Giuliani’s real hopes are with the Supreme Court. This makes sense, local judges are much easy to influence and sway than Supreme Court Justices who are unassailable and who realize that they will make history, the only question being is: how till they go down in history books, as a “profile in courage” or as impotent cowards who betrayed their oath?

I will say that I am, to put it mildly, not impressed by Trump’s demeanor during these crucial days: he completely ceded the narrative to his opponents (a couple of incoherent and poorly phrased “tweets” do not qualify). True, Trump never displayed the qualities of a real leader, so this is hardly surprising.

Giuliani, however, is a tough SOB and he seems to be determined to take this fight right up to the Supreme Court. This is why I believe that it is very dangerous to make any assumptions about what the Justices might or might not do. Is it possible that even the Supreme Court justices would betray their oath and cave in to the Dem’s pressure? Yes, I suppose so. Concepts such as truth, honor, integrity, courage and heroism are very much out of fashion in the modern world, especially in the US. This is why the traditionally hallowed term “hero” is applied left and right to every bureaucrat or civil servant simply doing his/her job: real heroes are long gone.

Then consider this: if the SC sides with Trump and overturns the hundred of thousands of illegal votes, the US will be immediately plunged into an orgy of chaos and violence, all of it encouraged and coordinated by the legacy corporate ziomedia à la CNN. The thugs of Antifa/BLM will immediately engage in Kristallnacht-like rampages in “protest” against the “racist system”. Their main target? White, Christian, males, of course!

Some justices might even feel torn between standing up for what is both legal and moral and the practical considerations of the consequences of an adjudication in Trump’s favor. Their oath ought to be their guiding principles, but considering how often the SC voted along party/ideological lines in the past, I am not very confident that the Justices will strictly do the only legally and morally right thing: uphold the law and vote their conscience.

Finally, whatever we may think of the election itself, it is obvious that the US elites have created the appearance of a fait accompli, hence the kind of nonsense like, say, Biden and his “Office of the President Elect”. It is therefore reasonable to assume that even if the Supreme Court fully sides with the Trump campaign, the US elites will never accept this. They will try to find a way to impeach, legally or otherwise, those Justices who voted “wrong”.

I think that there is also another consideration which we have to remain aware of: Trump’s entire presidency is been one long and never ending prostitution of the United States to the desires and whims of Netanyahu and his gang of thugs. True, as Israel Shamir pointed out, the Israelis failed to deliver anything in return to Trump. And yet, as Philip Giraldi recently explained, Trump is still very much Israel’s prostitute, which is why there are an increasing number of Israeli experts (see here and here) who believe that Trump might strike at Iran as a “farewell” present to the Israelis.

Is that really possible? Could Trump really do something so crazy?

You betcha he could!

One one hand, I have always maintained that Trump is the Zionists’ “disposable president”, meaning a one term president who will do everything the Likudniks want of him and who will then be jettisoned and replaced by a truly “kosher president” like Biden/Harris. On the other hand, however, there is the precedent of the US meekly taking the Iranian missile attacks in retaliation for the murder of General Soleimani which seems to indicate that the Pentagon just does not have the stomach for a full-scale war against Iran.

So which will it be?

Nobody knows. The only thing we can be sure of is that we are certainly entering very dangerous times.

Those who hope that a Biden/Harris presidency might be better are deeply deluded.

Why?

Because, as many have already pointed this out, even if Trump is ejected from the White House, “Trumpism”, as an ideology, is here to stay. Even if you believe that Biden/Harris beat Trump in a fair election, surely must you still realize that there are tens of millions of Americans who feel that the election was stolen and that Biden/Harris are usurpers.

Personally, I take a very dim view of “Trumpism”, but whatever its (many) flaws, this ideology, however vague, has “redpilled” millions of Americans who now realize that they are living in a fake democracy or, to use a Russian expression, “democracy” in the US only means “power of the Democrats”. Simply put: we can call them “1%ers” or the “US Nomenklatura” or the “deep state” or whatever other term which comes to mind, but the bottom line is obvious: the US is not a democracy or a republic, it is a dictatorship of the few over the many, the “best democracy money can buy” and a system based not on one man one vote, but one dollar one vote. Whether they realize it or not, most Americans are serfs of an occupying parasitic regime which sees them solely as a (cheap) commodity.

These ideas used to be corralled into what the Ziomedia liked to call the “extremist fringe” but now millions of Americans are becoming aware of this reality, CNN & Co notwithstanding. Put the Biden/Harris ticket into the White House and millions of people will go into some kind of “resistance mode” – whether that be political activism, civil resistance, local/state insubordination to the Federal power or even armed resistance.

One of the top priorities of the Dems in power will be to crack down, hard, on the First and Second Amendments to the US Constitution. Right there we can expect a lot of local/regional/state resistance because, unlike their ruling “elites” (i.e. masters), most Americans passionately care for what are really the cornerstones of the US political system. Yes, there is a reason why the Founding Fathers placed the First Amendment in first position and the Second one right after!

The Dems will castrate the First Amendment through their control of all the major Internet platforms (YouTube, Google, FaceBook, Twitter, Amazon, etc.) and, since this will not be government censorship, at least technically, but decisions of the private sector, even the ACLU will have nothing to say about this.

The Second Amendment will be trickier to deal with, because there is no private or non-governmental institution which can do to the Second Amendment what big tech companies have done to the First one. However, all it takes is a few well-orchestrated “shootings” or any armed refusal to be disarmed, and the label “domestic terrorist” will be swiftly applied to those who dared to resist Uncle Shmuel.

Again – we are about to enter an extremely dangerous period, both inside the US and on the international front.

Trump’s handlers must realize that the AngloZionist Empire is already finished and that all that’s left is an agonizing United States. The same probably goes for the Biden/Harris handlers. Hence both parties have a huge interest in, first, creating some crisis which can distract from what is really going on and, second, in using whatever power they still have to “fire their last shells” before the ammo box goes empty.

Conclusion: too many variables to call it

The truth is that absolutely anything can happen next. There are simply way too many variables to try to make a prediction. Will Trump attack Iran? I want to believe that this ship has sailed, but I will never say never to something as evil and stupid as an attack on Iran. However, under pretty much any scenario, we can be pretty sure that come January there will be a power vacuum in the Executive and roughly half of all Americans will consider that the election has been stolen. That kind of power vacuum, or even a duopoly, is very dangerous and typically results in even more chaos and violence. Eventually, some kind of “tough” regime comes to power. But this is a threat that we can discuss further down the road.

MBS said he would be killed by his ‘own people’ if Riyadh normalised ties with Israel: Report

Billionaire Haim Saban claims crown prince made remarks after UAE and Bahrain’s deals with Israel, Haaretz reports

US President Donald Trump has suggested Saudi Arabia may recognise Israel (AFP/File photo)

By MEE staff
Published date: 23 October 2020

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban he would fear for his life if he struck a normalisation deal with Israel, Haaretz reported.

The Saudi crown prince, also known by his initials MBS, said following in the steps of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain would get him “killed by Iran, by Qatar and my own people”, Saban said.

The entertainment mogul made the claim at a pro-Biden online campaign event on Wednesday entitled “Israel’s Security and Prosperity in a Biden White House”, hosted by Florida for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, Haaretz reported.

The UAE and Bahrain, which closely coordinate their foreign policies with Saudi Arabia, normalised relations with Israel in August, cementing the move with a signing ceremony at the White House last month.

Saban, a billionaire who founded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, was one of the few Democrats present when the agreements, dubbed the Abraham Accords, were signed on 15 September.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia to also agree to closer ties with Israel in the coming months.Arab populations continue to oppose normalisation with Israel, survey shows

Read More »

His comments came shortly after Sudan became the third Arab country in recent months to normalise ties with Israel.

Earlier this month, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud said the kingdom would not recognise Israel until there was a return to Israel-Palestine negotiations.

Saban, a longtime donor to the Democratic party, also used his platform at Wednesday’s online event to praise presidential hopeful and former Vice President Joe Biden’s “47 years of commitment” to Israel.

“All Jews in America that care about the US-Israel alliance know they can sleep peacefully under a Biden presidency,” he said.

The normalisation deals have largely been met positively among both Democrats and Republicans.

The billionaire also claimed that President Donald Trump played a minor role in securing the Abraham Accords, while most of the credit should go to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

“All of the credit should be going to Jared Kushner and [his aide] Avi Berkowitz, who worked really hard on it,” said Saban.

Trump has highlighted the Arab normalisation deals with Israel as major achievements as he seeks another term in 3 November elections, with his evangelical Christian base widely supportive of Israel.

Still, the normalisation deals have outraged Palestinians, who have called them “a stab in the back”, pointing out that they reward Israel and allow it to continue its illegal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as its siege of Gaza.

A recent survey found that, despite the moves by the UAE and Bahrain, a majority of Arab populations continue to strongly oppose normalisation with Israel.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

• French Daily: MBS, Bibi Meeting Not the First
• UAE Halts New Visas to 13 States Including Lebanon
• KSA Becomes ‘Green’ Country One Day after Bibi’s Saudi Trip
• نتنياهو في جزيرة العرب
• UAE stops issuing new visas to citizens of 13 Arab and Muslim-majority countries
• لبنان في لقاء بومبيو وبن سلمان ونتنياهو
• أيّ رسائل مترابطة في الدلالات والتوقيت بين زيارة نتنياهو السعودية و”قدس2″؟
• Bibi & Mossad Chief Fly to Saudi Arabia, Meet with MBS & Pompeo

Cheerleading Fraud

By Stephen Lendman

Source

Instead of truth-telling journalism and support for an open, free and fair process, the Times leads establishment media cheerleading for rigged results over legitimate ones in the Trump v. Biden/Harris race.

Extreme bias for the dubious challengers shows up in daily editions — readers consistently lied to and otherwise deceived.

I support neither wing of the one-party state. 

I reject a process that shuts out independents and increasingly seeks to suppress speech, media, and academic freedoms.

Corporate-controlled conventional and social media censor truth-telling on vital issues, wanting content diverging from the official narrative restricted or blocked.

Google and its YouTube subsidiary operate as gatekeepers for powerful interests. 

Its personnel are tasked with eliminating what it calls extremist and other offensive content — code language for wanting alternative views silenced.

The Internet is the last frontier of digital democracy, the only reliable independent space for real news, information and analysis.

Yet its survival as now exists is jeopardized by dark forces opposed to free and open expression.

Eroding in plain sight, it may disappear altogether ahead on the phony pretext of protecting national security.

The self-styled newspaper of record NYT is part of the problem, not the solution.

Countless examples abound, supporting brazen Election 2020 fraud one of them.

In its latest edition, it lied claiming “the will of one man (opposes) the will of voters.”

I strongly oppose virtually everything Trump has done in office — domestically and geopolitically, including his serial lying.

Yet he’s right in sounding the alarm about brazen election fraud.

Instead of supporting a democratic process the way it should be, the Times has gone all-out for Election 2020 losers Biden/Harris to replace winner Trump on January 20. 

Saying “Trump revealed the fragility of the electoral system and shaken it” ignores a deeply corrupted process that’s too debauched to fix.

When powerful interests choose winners and losers — voters disenfranchised by having no say — selections, not elections, take place, what clearly happened in the US on November 3.

The Times and other establishment media consistently and repeatedly pretend that democracy in America is real — knowing full well it’s pure fantasy.

If the real thing showed signs of emerging, it would be legislatively or otherwise formally banned.

Saying Trump is “relying on false claims of fraud” is typical Times disinformation.

If Biden/Harris replace Trump in January, they’ll be illegitimate throughout their tenure — selected by dark forces, clearly not elected.

State courts are part of the debauched process, upholding the will of powerful interests over the rule of law and elections the way they’re supposed to be held.

Et tu Supremes? It won’t likely be long to find out.

Joe Biden Is Unlikely To Fix The Problem Of American Islamophobia

By Denis Korkodinov

Source

In the United States, representatives of the Muslim community have high hopes for the new head of state, Joe Biden. The reason for this was the promise to lift the ban on the Islamophobic campaign and create comfortable living conditions for American Muslims. However, experts are confident that the promises made by Joe Biden and his deputy Kamala Harris are populism.

According to the expert community, the restrictions imposed on Muslims in the United States can hardly be lifted on the basis of a single decision by the head of the White House. Islamophobia is ingrained in the life of American society, as a result of which it cannot be neutralized by political will alone. In this regard, American intolerance towards Muslims is a certain manifestation of internal aggression maintained at the mental level mainly in relation to its own citizens. Undoubtedly, it was the state institutions of the United States that over the decades have created the “ideal” conditions for the development of Islamophobia. Exercising total control over the activities and movement of representatives of the Muslim community and supporting programs to combat “radical Islam”, Washington purposefully instilled hatred of the followers of Islam in American society.

It is worth noting that, according to experts, only in the period from 2001 to 2015 in the United States, Muslim public and religious figures were much more likely to be prosecuted on terrorism charges than representatives of other confessions. Moreover, it was American Muslims who received much harsher criminal penalties, which is evidence of a biased American justice system.

Similar cases became popular under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, when only Muslims were involved in the “anti-state conspiracy” case. It is noteworthy that weapons were found on practically all Muslims accused in this case. At the same time, not a single “white” American or supporter of ultra-right ideology was involved in the case, even as a suspect.

The same Islamophobic trend is evident in the American media environment. Thus, in the specified period of time, 2001-2015, the number of anti-Muslim publications in the New York Times and Washington Post alone was 7.7 times higher than the number of publications in which representatives of other religious denominations were mentioned.

Meanwhile, this is only the public part of American life. There are many more manifestations of Islamophobia at the everyday level, when ordinary Muslims face many restrictions on a daily basis on the basis of following the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. In particular, in some American catering establishments, Muslims are prohibited from entering, and the local police can arrest a person without charge only because of his belief in Allah.

These problems are ingrained in the United States, as a result of which the new head of state, Joe Biden, is unlikely to be able to instantly change the situation.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Donald Trump still refuses to admit defeat. Based on this, he can deliberately use the factor of Islamophobia to provoke new acts of violence in order to put pressure on the Joe Biden cabinet.

It would be naive to believe that Islamophobia in the United States arose under Donald Trump. However, it was with the assistance of Donald Trump that American intolerance towards Muslims was elevated to the level of a national brand. Therefore, to eradicate this phenomenon, it will be necessary not only to change attitudes towards Muslims using political decisions. Work is also needed to overcome anti-Muslim hatred at the mental level of American society.

US elections 2020: Biden wins race for White House as Trump protests

Source

CNN and AP project that Joe Biden secured majority of electoral college votes as Trump rejects outcome of voting

Harris, the daughter of immigrants, will be America’s first Black woman vice president, and the first vice president of south Asian descent (AFP)

By Ali Harb in Dearborn,

MichiganPublished date: 7 November 2020 16:27 UTC

Democratic candidate Joe Biden has won the US presidential election, defeating President Donald Trump, whose first term in the White House was defined by divisive rhetoric and an erratic foreign policy.

Biden was projected by CNN and AP as the winner of Pennsylvania on Saturday, taking a majority of the electoral college votes needed to secure the presidency. 

In remarks on Friday night, Biden had predicted he would win but had not declared victory.

“The numbers tell us … it’s a clear and convincing story: We’re going to win this race,” Biden said from his home state of Delaware, adding that he and his running mate Kamala Harris were already meeting with experts as they prepared to start their administration on 20 January.

Harris, the daughter of immigrants, will be America’s first woman vice president, first Black vice president and the first vice president of south Asian descent.

“The nightmare is over,” said Abed Ayoub, legal director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). “For Muslims, Arabs, Black people, brown people, immigrants – it’s been a long four years.”

Ayoub told MEE that US communities of colour lived in daily fear of what Trump may do next. “This gets us back to being able to focus on the issues that matter while knowing that we have a president who views us as a part of this country.”

Trump has been casting doubt about the legitimacy of the vote and challenging the results in states that he lost, claiming baselessly that he won in places that went to Biden or where the counting was still underway.

“I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!” Trump wrote in an all-caps tweet less than an hour before the race was called for Biden.

Trump also released a statement on Friday accusing Democrats of violating the “basic principles” that only legal votes should count.

“We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government,” Trump said.

“I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”

The president had falsely asserted on Thursday that Democrats were trying to “steal” the election with rampant voter fraud. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” Trump said. “If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

On Wednesday, he had declared victory in Pennsylvania with hundreds of thousands of votes still be counted and said that he had beaten Biden in Michigan, even after the major networks had called the state for the former vice president.

Early results from Tuesday’s election had shown Trump leading in several key states, but 2020 saw an unprecedented number of absentee ballots – which tended to favour Biden – because of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

As absentee votes started counting, Biden gained a lead in Michigan and Wisconsin, two states that he eventually won.

The election broke modern turnout records with about 160 million people – an estimate of more than 66 percent of registered voters – participating in the process.

Biden calls for unity

Early on Thursday, the Biden campaign appeared to dismiss Trump’s protests.  “The United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Biden sent a message of unity to voters saying that he will govern as a president of all Americans. 

“We are campaigning as a Democrat, but I will govern as an American president the president,” Biden said on Wednesday.

“The presidency itself is not a partisan institution. It is the one office in this nation that represents everyone. It demands a duty of care for all Americans. That is precisely what I will do.”

He also called on Americans to let go of the “harsh rhetoric” and “lower the temperature” in order to remain amicable despite their differences.

But it is apparent that the transition of power will not inspire unity.

Trump is already rejecting the election result and seeking legal action to question it.

“We think there’ll be a lot of litigation because we can’t have an election stolen like this,” Trump said on Thursday.

Democrats have called questioning election results an assault on American democracy, and Biden struck a defiant tone on this front in his speech on Wednesday. “Every vote must be counted. No one’s going to take our democracy away from us – not now, not ever,” he said.

Who is Joe Biden?

Biden, 77, is a veteran US politician who served as vice president in Barack Obama’s administration. He will be the oldest president elected on his inauguration day.

He was first elected to the US Senate in the East Coast state of Delaware in 1972, after starting his political career as a member of a county council. In the Senate, he sat on and chaired various powerful committees.

Before being elected vice president, he served as the head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 

He ran for president unsuccessfully in 1988 and 2008, but opted against seeking the White House in 2016.

In his personal life, Biden has endured life-defining tragedies. In 1972, he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident. His son, Beau, died of cancer in 2015.

On the campaign trail this year, he has cited his grief to express empathy with Americans dealing with the fallout of the coronavirus. He presented himself as a unifier seeking to heal the country’s divisions that came to the forefront under Trump.

Hawkish on foreign policy and centrist on domestic issues, Biden represents the old guard of the Democratic Party.

He won the party’s nomination against a surging progressive movement that stood behind Senator Bernie Sanders.

Biden lost the first three primary contests, before winning South Carolina and gaining the endorsement of virtually everyone who was seeking the nomination to eventually defeat Sanders.

The president-elect is a staunch supporter of Israel and has repeatedly described himself as a Zionist. 

This election season, he has dismissed progressives’ calls for conditioning US military aid to Israel, vowing to continue the $3.8bn-annual assistance regardless of anything that the Israeli government may do.

Still, he has condemned Israel’s plans to annex large parts of the West Bank, and in a plan presented to Arab-American communities released earlier this year, he pledged to “work to ensure that Palestinians and Israelis enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.”

Biden voted for the Iraq war in 2002, but he has distanced himself from that decision since then, citing his efforts to withdraw US troops from Iraq as vice president.

The president-elect has changed some of his foreign policy stances while seeking the presidency this year, including adopting a tough stance towards Saudi Arabia, committing to ending the Riyadh-led war in Yemen and reassessing relations with the kingdom.

The former vice president has also pledged to re-enter to the Iran nuclear deal if Tehran returns to full compliance with the agreement.

The multilateral pact, which was nixed by Trump in 2018, saw Iran scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.

Outreach to Arabs and Muslims

Biden’s campaign made an unprecedented outreach effort to both Arab and Muslim communities, but still faced blowback from advocates who claimed it did not do enough to address policy questions around the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Earlier this year, the former vice president released a plan for Muslim Americans and a seperate platform for Arab Americans, in which he vowed to reverse Trump’s “Muslim ban” on his first day in office, end the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programme and halt US support to the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen.

Arab and Muslim voters appeared to reward those efforts, turning out in large numbers to vote for the Democratic ticket in key states, including Michigan.

Community advocates have been calling for electing Biden to defeat Trump, then holding the new president accountable.

In Dearborn, Michigan, a Detroit suburb known as the capital of Arab America, the election saw increased turnout, with voters overwhelmingly favouring Biden. The former vice president received about 30,000 votes in the city, compared with 13,000 for Trump. 

Dearborn political consultant Hussein Dabajeh told MEE that the community was energised to end Trump’s presidency.

“The community came on and said: You know what, Biden may not be the perfect candidate, but we’ve got to get Trump out of office,” Dabajeh told MEE.

He added that activism does not end with Biden’s presidency, saying that Arab Americans will hold the new president accountable to the promises he made them.

“Our community has matured in a way where we understand that it’s no longer about taking pictures with these elected officials, even if it’s president.”

Sirene Abou-Chakra, an organiser with Arab Americans for Biden, a group that pushed to get the vote out for the Democratic candidate, said community advocates will continue their activism to ensure that the new administration lives up to its “end of the bargain”.

Abou-Chakra said the Arab vote across the country, and in Michigan in particular, has proved its importance for any campaign.

For now, however, she said the news of Biden’s win has undone the anxiety that came with Trump’s victory in 2016. 

“I feel like I can exhale for the first time in four years.”

Related

• US presidential election explained in five questions
• Whatever the US election outcome, white supremacy has won, activists say
• A who’s who of Joe Biden’s foreign policy team
• Some Middle East leaders have a big stake in US election
• Joe Biden’s plan for Arab Americans: Six takeaways

Tucker: Media hates Trump with an all-consuming mania

October 31, 2020

A Dem Presidency means The Return of the Blob

October 30, 2020

by Pepe Escobar with permission and cross posted with Asia Times

What happens on November 3^rd ? It’s like a larger than life replay of the famous Hollywood adage: “No one knows anything.”

The Dem strategy is crystal clear, spawned by the gaming of election scenarios embedded in the Transition Integrity Project and made even more explicit by one of TIP’s co-founders, a law professor at Georgetown University.

Hillary Clinton, bluntly, has already called it: Dems must re-take the White House by any and all means and under any and all circumstances.

And just in case, with a 5,000-word opus, she already positioned herself for a plum job.

As much as Dems have made it very clear they will never accept a Trump victory, the counterpunch was vintage Trump: he told the Proud Boys to “stand back” – as in no violence, for now – but crucially to “stand by”, as in “get ready”.

The stage is set for Kill Bill mayhem on November 3^rd and beyond.

Say it ain’t so, Joe

Taking a cue from TIP, let’s game a Dem return to the White House – with the prospect of a President Kamala taking over sooner rather than later. That means, essentially, The Return of the Blob.

President Trump calls it “the swamp”. Former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes – a mediocre hack – at least coined the funkier “Blob”, applied to the incestuous Washington, DC foreign policy gang, think tanks, academia, newspapers (from the Washington Post to the New York Times), and that unofficial Bible, Foreign Affairs magazine.

A Dem presidency, right away, will need to confront the implications of two wars: Cold War 2.0 against China, and the interminable, trillion-dollar GWOT (Global War on Terror), renamed OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) by the Obama-Biden administration.

Biden became the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1997 and was the chair in 2001-2003 and again in 2007-2009. He paraded as total Iraq War cheerleader – necessary, he maintained, as part of GWOT – and even defended a “soft partition” of Iraq, something that fierce nationalists, Sunni and Shi’ite, from Baghdad to Basra will never forget.

Obama-Biden’s geopolitical accomplishments include a drone war, or Hellfire missile diplomacy, complete with “kill lists”; the failed Afghan surge; the “liberation” of Libya from behind, turning it into a militia wasteland; the proxy war in Syria fought with “moderate rebels”; and once again leading from behind, the Saudi-orchestrated destruction of Yemen.

Tens of millions of Brazilians also will never forget that Obama-Biden legitimized the NSA spying and Hybrid War tactics that led to the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff ,the neutralization of former President Lula, and the evisceration of the Brazilian economy by comprador elites.

Among his former, select interlocutors, Biden counts warmonger former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen – who supervised the destruction of Libya – and John Negroponte, who “organized” the contras in Nicaragua and then “supervised” ISIS/Daesh in Iraq – the crucial element of the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy of instrumentalizing jihadis to do the empire’s dirty work.

It’s safe to game that a Biden-Harris administration will oversee a de facto NATO expansion encompassing parts of Latin America, Africa and the Pacific, thus pleasing the Atlanticist Blob.

In contrast, two near-certain redeeming features would be the return of the US to the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, which was Obama-Biden’s only foreign policy achievement, and re-starting nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia. That would imply containment of Russia, not a new all-out Cold War, even as Biden has recently stressed, on the record, that Russia is the “biggest threat” to the US.

Woke Kamala in da house

Kamala Harris has been groomed to rise to the top from as early as the summer of 2017. Predictably, she is all for Israel – mirroring Nancy Pelosi (“if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid…and I don’t even call it aid…our cooperation with Israel.”

Kamala is a hawk on Russia and North Korea; and she did not co-sponsor legislation to prevent war against Venezuela and, again, North Korea. Call her a quintessential Dem hawk.

Yet Kamala’s positioning is quite clever, reaching two diverse audiences: she totally fits into The Blob but with an added woke gloss (trendy sneakers, the advertised affection for hip hop). And as an extra bonus, she directly connects with the “Never Trumper” gang.

Never Trumper Republicans – operating especially in Think Tankland – totally infiltrated the Dem matrix. They are prime Blob material. The ultimate neo-con Never Trumper has got to be Robert Kagan, husband of Maidan cookie distributor Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland; thus the running joke in many parts of West Asia, for years, about the “Kaganate of Nulandistan”.

Kagan, self-glorified and idolized as a star conservative intellectual, is of course one of the co-founders of the dreaded neo-con Project for the New American Century (PNAC). That subsequently translated into gleeful Iraq War cheerleading. Obama read his books in awe. Kagan forcefully backed Hillary in 2016. Needless to add, neo-cons of the Kagan variety are all rabidly anti-Iran.

On the money front, there’s the Lincoln Project , set up last year by a gang of current and former Republican strategists very close to, among others, Blob stars such as Daddy Bush and Dick Cheney. A handful of billionaires gleefully donated to this major anti-Trump super-PAC, including J. Paul Getty’s heir Gordon Getty, the heir of the Hyatt hotel empire John Pritzker, and Cargill heiress Gwendolyn Sontheim.

Those Three Harpies

The key Blob character in a putative Biden-Harris White House is Tony Blinken, former deputy national security adviser during Obama-Biden and arguably the next National Security Adviser.

That’s geopolitics – with an important addendum: former national security adviser Susan Rice, who was unceremoniously dropped from the Vice-President shortlist to Kamala’s profit, may become the next Secretary of State.

Rice’s possible contender is Senator Chris Murphy, who in a strategy document titled “Rethinking the Battlefield” predictably goes undiluted Obama-Biden: no “rethinking”, really, just rhetoric on fighting ISIS/Daesh and containing Russia and China.

Suave Tony Blinken used to work for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 2000s, so no wonder he’s been very close to Biden even before the first Obama-Biden term, when he rose to the top as deputy national security adviser and then, in the second term, as deputy Secretary of State.

Close to Blinken is Jake Sullivan, who under the protective wing of Hillary Clinton replaced Blinken as national security adviser in the second Obama-Biden term. He will have a top place either in the National Security Council or the State Department.

But what about The Three Harpies?

Many of you will remember The Three Harpies, as I coined them before the bombing and destruction of Libya, and again in 2016, when their remixed version’s push for a glorious sequel was rudely interrupted by Trump’s victory. When it comes to Return of the Blob, this is the 5K, 5G, IMAX version.

Of the three original Harpies, two – Hillary and Susan Rice – seem set to snatch a brand new power job. The plot thickens for Samantha Power, former US ambassador to the UN and the author of The Education of an Idealist, where we learn that such “idealist” rips Damascus and Moscow to shreds while totally ignoring the Obama-Biden drone offensive, kill lists, “leading from behind” weaponizing of al-Qaeda in Syria re-baptized as “moderate rebels”, and the relentless Saudi destruction of Yemen.

Samantha seems to be out. There’s a new Harpy in town. Which brings us to the real Queen of the Blob.

The Queen of the Blob

Michele Flournoy may be the epitome of the Return of the Blob: the quintessential, imperial functionary of what former CIA analyst Ray McGovern brilliant christened MICIMATT (the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex).

The ideal imperial functionary thrives on discretion: virtually no one knows Flournoy outside of the Blob, so that means the whole planet.

Flournoy is a former senior adviser to the Boston Consulting Group; the co-founder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS); a senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center; under secretary of Defense during Obama-Biden; favorite of top Harpy Hillary to be Pentagon chief after 2016; and once again favorite to become Pentagon chief after 2020.

The most delicious item on Flournoy’s CV is that she’s the co-founder of WestExec Advisors with none other than Tony Blinken.

Every Blob insider knows that WestExec happens to be the name of the street alongside the West Wing of the White House. In a Netflix plot, that would be the obvious hint that a short walk of fame straight into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue looms in the horizon for the star protagonists.

Flournoy, more than Blinken, turned WestExec into a certified hit in the Beltway MICIMATT profiting from virtually no P.R. and media blitzes, and talking exclusively to think tanks.

Here’s a crucial glimpse of Flournoy thinking. She clearly states that just a benign American deterrence towards China is a “miscalculation”. And it’s important to keep in mind that Flournoy is in fact the mastermind of the overall, failed Obama-Biden war strategy.

In a nutshell, Biden-Harris would mean The Return of the Blob with a vengeance. Biden-Harris would be Obama-Biden 3.0. Remember those seven wars. Remember the surges. Remember the kill lists. Remember Libya. Remember Syria. Remember “soft coup” Brazil. Remember Maidan. You have all been warned.

The Empire Has Collapsed

October 28, 2020

by Paul Craig Roberts, cross-posted by permission

Paul Craig Roberts

The Saker has written another interesting article in which he gives us the date of the collapse of the AngloZionist or American Empire:  January 3, 2020, the day when Washington did not retaliate against Iran for Iran’s retaliation against Washington for murdering General Qasem Soleimani.

You can read The Saker’s case and make up your mind:  https://thesaker.is/when-exactly-did-the-anglozionist-empire-collapse/

An equally good case could be made that the American Empire collapsed on September 11, 2001.  This was the day that two symbols of American power—the World Trade Center and the Pentagon—were successfully attacked, according to the US government itself, by an old and dying Osama bin Laden and a handful of Saudi Arabians armed with box cutters.  This unlikely group was able, according to Washington, to overcome the entire intelligence networks of the United States, NATO, and Israel’s Mossad, and deliver the most humiliating blow ever suffered by a ruling Superpower.

It was the day when nothing in the National Security State worked.  US Airport Security failed four times on the same morning, allowing four US airliners to be hijacked. The US Air Force was unable to put fighters in the air to intercept the hijacked airliners, and two of them were flown into the World Trade Center towers and one into the Pentagon itself, while the Great Superpower was unable to defend itself from an old man in a cave in Afghanistan and a handful of young Saudis.

September 11, 2001, was the day that the world realized that the emperor had no clothes.  If Osama bin Laden and a handful of Saudis could defeat the United States, anyone could.

I think The Saker is wrong about Donald Trump. Trump wanted to save American influence by ceasing its fruitless attempts to impose hegemony on the world.  Trump wanted to bring the US soldiers home from the Middle East and to normalize relations with Russia.  This was a major threat to the power and budget of the military/security complex and to the zionist neoconservatives’ desire to use American military power to make the Middle East into Greater Israel.  If 9/11 did not end the American empire, the attack on President Trump from within the government did.  The internal demonization of the American president called to mind the internal conflicts that destroyed the Roman Empire.

I agree with The Saker that the Empire is finished.  Even if Trump wins and manages to be inaugurated, what can he do?  He faces the same powerful forces that stymied his first term. If the crook Biden and the anti-white racist Kamala win, The Camp of the Saints will continue to unfold in the US as the majority white population is demonized, its memorials and history erased, and its power exterminated.

No white American will fight for a government that has demonized him, torn down his statues,  and erased his people’s history.  An army of feminists, transgendered, Hispanic immigrants, disaffected blacks, and displaced Muslims will not fare well against Russian, Chinese, and Iranian forces.  Such a collection is not imbued with pride of country, a requirement for a fighting force.

More than the empire is dead. The country itself is dead.

Trump is trying to resurrect America, but are the people too far gone to respond?  We will soon know.

When exactly did the AngloZionist Empire collapse?

“”the exact moment when the Empire collapsed: 8 January 2020. What happened that day? Following the murder of Major General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack (on the 3 of January 2020) the Iranians retaliated by using missiles to attack several US bases in Iraq.” The Saker

ٍSource

[this analysis was written for the Unz Review]

I remember one evening in distant 1991, I was sitting with a few friends in the SAIS cafeteria discussing the future of the United States with a few very smart students, including a Pakistani Army Colonel, a US captain who served on aircraft carriers and a Spanish diplomat: we all agreed that “the system” was perfect, so to speak, and that the US would only collapse if a strong external shock would hit it hard. We all agreed that the combination of the best propaganda machine in history, the stupidification resulting from many daily hours of watching the Idiot Tube and, finally, a very effective repression apparatus made for a quasi perfect dictatorship: the one which only gives the illusion of democracy and people power.

Years later, in 2017, I read by J.M. Greer’s brilliant book “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” which I later reviewed here. I would say that this book is one of the best one written on the topic of a future US collapse, even though this is a (very well written) fiction book because it brilliantly illustrates the kind of mindset which can get a supposed superpower in a very bad situation.

To me, this all made perfect sense, but only because I, and my SAIS friends, never even considered the possibility that the US Nomenklatura would commit national suicide and, in the process, bring down the AngloZionist Empire.

Yet this is exactly what happened.

So when did all this begin?

There are many possible answers to this question. Some say with the murder of Kennedy. Others point to Clinton, whose Presidency inaugurated a policy of armed imperialism all over the planet; this administration was also the first one to witness a major “coming out” of the Neocons (many of which had already infiltrated the GOP during Reagan). Then there is 9/11 with the subsequent GWOT. As I said, these are all valid candidates, and there are many more.

My personal view is that the main initiation of collapse was under Barack Obama, a truly exceptionally weak President who would have made an absolutely terrific used cars salesman, but who as a President lost control of his own country and even his own administration. It was under Obama that we saw the vacuum at the top resulting in various agencies (DoS, DoD, CIA, Pentagon, etc.) all developing their own “foreign policies” which resulted in total chaos on the foreign policy front. Needless to say, having harpies such as Hillary Clinton or Susan Rice or Samantha Power involved did not help!

What is it with western women which makes them become even more bellicose than men when they reach a position of power?! Looking at women like Thatcher or Hillary, I wonder if these women are not carefully selected precisely for their nasty character and need to prove themselves as “equal” to men by being even more nasty and murderous than male politicians…

Since his election, it has become very popular to blame Donald Trump for everything which went wrong under his Presidency and, indeed, there is much which ought to be blamed on him. But what so many people overlook is that almost everything which went wrong under Trump began with Obama! When Trumps says that he inherited an awful mess, he is absolutely correct. Not that this absolves him from his own contribution to chaos and collapse!

And, in truth, the biggest difference between Obama and Trump, is that Trump did not start any real wars. Yes, he did threaten a lot of countries with military attacks (itself a crime under international law), but he never actually gave the go ahead to meaningfully attack (he only tried some highly symbolic and totally ineffective strikes in Syria). I repeat – the man was one of the very few US Presidents who did not commit the crime of aggression, the highest possible crime under international law, above crimes against humanity or even genocide, because the crime of aggression “contains within itself the accumulated evil”, to use the words words of the chief US prosecutor at Nuremberg and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Robert H. Jackson. I submit that just for this reason alone any decent person should choose him over Biden (who himself is just a front for “President” Harris and a puppet of the Clinton gang). Either that, or don’t vote at all if your conscience does not allow you to vote for Trump. But voting Biden is unthinkable for any honest person, at least in my humble opinion.

In the Trump years something absolutely amazing happened: while Trump and his administration were busy destroying the Empire externally, the Dems put all the energy and resources into destroying Trump. However, to paraphrase a quote by the Russian author Zinoviev, “they targeted at Trump but they hit the United States” (Zinoviev’s quote was about the putative anti-Soviets: “Метили в коммунизм, а попали в Россию” which can be translated as “they were aiming at Communism, but they hit Russia”).

What took place next was precisely what my SAIS friends and I could never have imagined: the US ruling elites committed collective suicide.

Suicide is typically executed in three phases: decision to commit suicide, the act of suicide itself, and then death. If we accept that the decision to engage in behavior which can only be described as suicidal was taken sometime during the Obama years, then this begs the question of where we are now. In other words, has the Empire already died or is it still only in agony?

I was asking myself that question the other day when I suddenly realized that I might have determined the exact moment when the Empire collapsed: 8 January 2020.

What happened that day?

Following the murder of Major General Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack (on the 3 of January 2020) the Iranians retaliated by using missiles to attack several US bases in Iraq. According to the US side, there were only minor injuries, which is very likely since the Iranians warned the US by several backdoor channels what they were planning on doing. This argument was used by Trump and his supporters to say that the Iranian reaction was lame, ineffective and could be completely ignored.

In my opinion, the moment when the Trump Administration made this statement is when the death certificate of the Empire was signed. Why?

First, the low number of US casualties (probably higher than the official one, US troops were evacuated and treated in several countries) is due to only to the fact that Iranians are superb strategists: they realized that killing a lot of US soldiers would force Trump to strongly retaliate, so they chose not to kill them. Instead, they put a gun to their collective heads. How?

Think about it: the Iranian counter-strike showed the entire world something which most people did not realize: Iranian missiles (ballistic and cruise) were much more accurate than previously thought. In fact, they clearly have some form of terminal guidance. Simply put, the Iranians have proven that they can very precisely, deliver a warhead of several hundred pounds of high explosives pretty much anywhere in the Middle East. To give you a visual idea of their current coverage check out this page.

This bears repeating: the Iranians have now proven that they can place several hundred pounds of high explosives anywhere in the Middle-East with a CEP of about 3-5 meters!

Remember the Khobar Towers bombing? Yes, this was a truck bomb with much more explosives than a missile can carry (by at least an order of magnitude), but that truck was also parked far away from the towers! Yet just under 500 people died that day.

There are plenty of similar US military installations in the Middle-East, many buildings housing hundreds of US servicemen. Just imagine what would have happened if the Iranians had decided to take out as many lives as possible and placed a couple of their missiles right on top of, say, 10 such facilities – just imagine the cost in lives!

But the Iranians are smart, and they chose a much wiser course of action: they used their missiles essentially to kick Uncle Shmuel where it hurts, but they mainly demonstrated their ability to create thousands of US casualties in just a few minutes.

Obviously, another, now undeniable, Iranian capability is the ability to instantly destroy any gas/oil facility in the region: wells, processing facilities, terminals – you name it: if it is important and expensive, the Iranians can destroy it.

The Iranians also have the ability to close down the Strait of Hormuz and even to attack USN ships, possibly including carriers.

Last, but certainly not least, this now proven Iranian capability puts every government building in danger, along with any crucial facility (Dimona anybody?).

At this point of the conversation all the well-propagandized flag-waving morons will immediately stand up and declare something along these lines:

“So what?! If these sand-niggers cross the line they know that we can massively bomb them! Heck, we can even nuke them and send them back to the stone age! Let them try and they will see what the wrath of the most powerful nation on earth, with the most formidable military in history, can do to a bunch of semi-literate peasants, LOL! Let see if their “Allah” will save them!”

Apart from all the ignorant cliches typically spewed by this crowd, there is a major analytical error underlying this “logic” (I use the term generously): the Iranians have lived with this threat since 1979 and they are used to it. Not only that, but they know for a fact that these are empty threats. Oh sure, the US can do to Iran what “Israel” did to Lebanon in the course of the “Divine Victory” war of 2006, or what NATO has done to Serbia during the Kosovo war (1998-1999): kill civilians and destroy the country’s infrastructure to punish these civilians for supporting the “wrong” (i.e. not US approved) government. But if Uncle Shmuel does to Iran what Israel did to Lebanon, the result will be the same: the Iranians will rebuild (they are very good at that) and they will bounce back twice as strong. As for their martyrs, the more there will be, the stronger the Iranian people’s resistance (check this article written by an Iranian scholar in excellent English explaining the roots of the unique ethos of Shia Islam).

Last, but also not least, the US Presidents and their aides are quite aware of the current state of the US military: it is a military which simply cannot win even simple conflicts, a military hopelessly gutted by insane liberal ideologies, a military whose entire surface fleet has been made obsolete by hypersonic missiles (which the Iranians also seem to be working on!) and a military whose Air Force spent absolutely obscene amounts of money to create a supposedly “5th generation” fighter which in many ways is inferior to US 4th generation aircraft!

This begs the question of what still works in the US military. In my opinion, the US submarine fleet is still very powerful, and the US nuclear deterrence posture is still solid. Other than that? Meh…

Bottom line: the arguments that the US did not retaliate because it did not care, or that it does not care because “we can nuke them” are typically civilian nonsense which have no connection whatsoever to the real world (just imagine the political consequences for the already highly unpopular US following a nuclear strike, especially on a non-nuclear country!)

Okay, but then why did the US not retaliate?

Simply put, because Uncle Shmuel does not have what it takes to take on Iran. Heck, Uncle Shmuel can’t even take on Venezuela (!), which is an extremely weakened country right on the US’s door step. Frankly, if this or the next President decides that the US needs to “pick up a crappy little country and throw it against a wall just to prove we are serious” then I recommend Grenada. I know, Grenada was basically undefended in 1983 (mainly by a few lightly armed Cuban engineers) and it took the 82nd airborne to rescue the totally defeated and clueless US special forces stuck under fire, but I think that since 1983 the Pentagon had the time to make a some “lessons learned” exercises and that by now the US probably could re-invade this tiny island without repeating one of the worst disasters in military history.

Conclusion

The Empire died on the day the Iranians hit these US facilities and the US did absolutely nothing. In fact, since that date, what have we seen:

• The Iraqis are slowly but surely kicking the US forces out of Iraq
• The number of attacks against US forces in Iraq has sharply increased, including against the massive US bunker complex known as “the Green Zone” which now is not “green” at all.
• The Iranians are merrily continuing to make fun of Uncle Shmuel.
• The US failed at renewing the anti-Iran sanctions at the UN Security Council and Russia has already declared that she is willing to sell S-400s to Iran. You can also count China in this great weapons market.
• The US is also in retreat in Syria where anti-US attacks are becoming more dangerous (and regular clashes with ground forces of the Russian task force in Syria are also becoming a potentially very dangerous phenomenon).
• In Yemen, the Iranian backed Houthis have basically won the war and defeated both the KSA and the US.
• In Afghanistan, the US and its “coalition of the losers” has stayed even longer than the Soviets and has achieved exactly nothing except a total and most humiliating defeat. The contrast between the performance of the Soviet 40th Army (poorly equipped and averagely commanded) force of conscripts and what the lavishly equipped (but also poorly commanded) US professional force achieved is absolutely amazing on all levels, but the most telling is how much the Soviets actually built in Afghanistan (even facilities that the US still uses every day!). Uncle Shmuel only destroyed everything except the opium trade…

In other words, everything is going exactly according to the announced Iranian game plan to completely kick the US out of the Middle-East. I know, this seems unthinkable right now, but please make the list of all the putatively “unthinkable” things which have since happened and you will see how dangerous it is to assume that something will never happen.

When Georgia attacked the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinval there were also limited casualties, but Russia immediately counter-attacked defeated in Georgian military in 3 days, and that in spite of being numerically smaller (at least in the initial phases of the counter-attack) and too slow to react (a typical Russian weakness). And the message to “to whom it may concern” sent by the Russian counter-attack was simple: attack a Russian base, or kill Russian soldiers and you will be killed: every time a Russian serviceman has been killed in Syria the Russians retaliate with strong missiles and air strikes. In other instances Russian Spetsnaz units killed selective Takfiri commanders. And everybody “got it”, even the Turks who have not been able to force the Russian to stop shrinking their areas of control in Syria to a small fraction of what it used to be.

Mind you – Russia has no desire to become an Empire or even some kind of superpower (Russians realize how evil any empire is for the country which is supposed to host it: they suffered for over 300 years in this toxic status of “empire” and they had enough! Only dumb Hillary and even dumber Brzezinski still thought that Russia wanted to “rebuild the USSR” when, in fact, Putin’s policies were designed to disengage and separate from the former Russian periphery which only drained immense Russian ressources and never gave Russia anything useful (and nevermind the Warsaw Treaty Organization which was just as ressources-consuming and useless as the periphery). All they want is being taken seriously and treated with respect, not as a superpower, but simply as a major, but truly sovereign, power.

Compare that with the unique blend of stratospheric megalomania, narcissistic self-worship and crass ignorance of the leaders of the US and you immediately see that the Empire is not dying anymore, it is already dead and has been dead for many months now.

What comes next?

Well, the election of course. I submit that under no scenario will the next administration be able to reverse that course and somehow miraculously resurrect the Empire. Empires don’t resurrect. It has been tried in the past (even by Napoleon), it never works. Once empires lose momentum and, especially, their ideological credibility, they are over. Oh sure, a dead body still can emit some heat for a while, some organs, or even cells, can work for a while longer, but dead is dead. Mostly dead bodies bloat and stink, which also applies to dead empires.

This is not to say that the outcome will not matter, it will – but only for the future of the United States themselves. Simply put, the upcoming vote is either a vote for upholding law and order in the US, or for total nihilism. On a deeper level, it is a vote for the US or against it: the Dems all hate this country and its “deplorables”; they also hate almost every aspect of US history (overturned statues are but symbols of this hatred) and they hate what they call “a racist system” in spite of the fact that the real causes of racial tensions in the US have very little to do with the “system” and everything to do with the unique problems of blacks in a culture with mainly European roots.

The Empire is dead. And I hope and believe that its death will mark the rebirth of the United States as a “normal” country (which is what happened to all the other former empires).

Until that happens, we can now at least rest assured that this amazingly evil Empire has finally died, even if very few noticed this.

P.S. While writing this column my thoughts turned to Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was cowardly murdered (he was on a diplomatic mission) by Trump. I imagined what he would have said if somebody had offered him the following deal: Haj Qasem – would you agree to be murdered by the modern Crusaders if your martyrdom would turn out to be the “straw” which will break the Empire’s “camel” back? I think that he would reply with tears of joy in his eyes “Glory be to God for allowing me this immense honor and joy and for allowing me to become a shadid (God’s witness)!” Soleimani was a soldier, the real thing, not a disguised businessman or politician, and he knew that he could die literally every moment of his life. He died as a general in charge of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and of its elite Quds Force. It sure looks to me that Trump in his ignorant arrogance gave Soleimani the best death he could have wished for. May this great man rest in peace!

POTUS Punk vs. Dem Dementia

October 15, 2020

by Pepe Escobar and cross posted with Strategic Culture Foundation

The whole planet is enthralled, appalled, shocked and awed by the spectacle of democracy as enacted under the shadow of messianic imperialism – complete with a slew of slimy, smoking gun October Surprises.

We’re in total Frank Underwood territory. And as befits the ultimate “society of the simulacrum” pictured by Baudrillard back in the swingin’ 1980s, all those similarities with a Wrestlemania spectacular are obviously not mere coincidence.

Let’s start with the polls.

All manner of polls are circulating like whirling dervishes. Most highlight myriad Dem paths to victory and an inexorable Highway to Hell for Trump. A poll by The Economist gives Joe “Walking Dead” Biden a whopping 91% chance – remember Hillary in 2016? – of winning the Electoral College.

A Dem-fueled consensus is emerging that Trump – relentlessly depicted as a deranged, lunatic proto-fascist who’s bad for business worldwide – will dispute results in any Republican-led state which he may narrowly lose, as in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Yet on the campaign trail, it’s a completely different story. Evidence shows that on The Walking Dead’s rallies, there are more people from the Biden bus and reporters than flesh-and-blood Dem voters. The Biden-Harris campaign, demonstrating its matchless P.R. skills, spins these rallies as campaign secrets.

Team Trump’s long-shot strategy seems to have been unveiled by the President himself: “We are going to be counting ballots for the next two years (…) We have the advantage if we go back to Congress. I think it’s 26 to 22 or something because it’s counted one vote per state.”

That was a reference to the 12^th Amendment to the Constitution: if state electors can’t agree on a president, the decision goes to the House. And then each of the 50 states gets one vote. So picture small GOP-controlled states such as Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming (each with one Republican in the House) having the same weight as California (52 members in the House, 45 of them Democrats.)

Advantage Trump: as it stands, it’s indeed 26 to 22, with two – Pennsylvania and Michigan – basically tied.

Ask the quant

Internal GOP polls show that while the Biden-Harris campaign is not knocking on any doors, Trump volunteers have actually swarmed no less than 20 million homes in swing states.

Combine it with a new Gallup Poll showing that 56% of Americans state they are better off now under Trump than four years ago under Obama/Biden. Call it the return of “It’s the economy, stupid.”

The Trafalgar Group – which correctly called the 2106 election – bets that Trump narrowly wins the Electoral College with 275 votes.

JPMorgan’s top quant Marko Kolanovic has exhaustively mapped changes in voter registration to dismiss virtually every poll showing a Dem sweep. This implies that Trump may well end up winning the Holy Trinity: Pennsylvania (20 votes), Florida (29 votes) and North Carolina (15 votes).

And to top it off, something more exotic than a black hole eating a star has happened in this October Surprise-laden week: CNN decided to practice real journalism and eviscerated Nancy Pelosi on camera.

That may be quite a bad omen for President-in-Waiting Kamala Harris, who very few remember was forged as the heir to the Obama-Pelosi axis in a secret meeting in the Hamptons way back in the summer of 2017.

Follow the money

Now let’s Follow The Money.

That’s a slam dunk. For Republicans, the top bagman is casino schemer Sheldon Adelson – who literally bought Congress

for a paltry $150 million. For Democrats, it’s Haim Saban – who owns his own think tank and is Hillary’s go-to moneyman. The Dem dementia is essentially a bagman op.

To make it even more digestible, both Adelson and Saban are rabid Israeli-firsters. A dissident Beltway intel op cuts all corners: “The Mafia front man Sheldon Adelson financed Trump for Israeli insurance even though Israel was for Hillary.”

Four years ago, selected New York sources I was in touch with correctly called the election result at least 10 days before the fact.

One of these, a New York business tycoon intimate with assorted Masters of the Universe in control of Wall Street, once again goes to the jugular:

“The Deep State governs both Republicans and Democrats. Trump has to work within the system. He knows it. I am a friend of Donald and I know he wants to do the right thing. But he is not in charge. He certainly wants to be friends with Russia and China. He is a businessman. He wants to make deals with countries not fight them. We were among those who set the main campaign features for him in 2016: stop rigged currencies destroying domestic industries, stop unlimited immigration destroying the lower classes wages and encourage detente with Russia and China. Largely nothing has happened in four years.”

Still, adds another New York player, “Trump does 90% of what they want anyway. Better to keep a villain at the top to blame and keep the proles running in circles.”

On the financial front, that will never be admitted publicly: but Wall Street, while projecting a mere pro-Dem façade, is not interested in a Democrat “sweep”, because that would tank Wall Street stocks. A contested/protracted election would go the same way – with Goldman Sachs projecting a nightmare scenario of the S&P down to only 3,100 points.

Thus the preferred, hush hush, Wall Street scenario: a Trump win and more juicy tax cuts – in parallel with the sentiment that Wall Street’s priority is for the Fed to keep showering trillions of dollars in helicopter money whatever happens. After all the only “policy” in town is that Wall Street turned the Fed into a hedge fund.

For its part, what Team Trump certainly does not want is the Great Reset – to be officially “launched” at a virtual Davos in January 2021.

And all this while Goldman Sachs, once again, is adamant that the only way to “save” the nation from it humongous, ever-exploding debt is to devalue the U.S. dollar.

Hillary wants a new job

In the shadow play – or Wrestlemania plot – of Trump’s face-off against the Deep State, another of those New York players confirms that, “Trump was not allowed to do much of his agenda. That shows you where the real power is. The military-industrial complex wants Trump in as he is giving them everything they want for a giant military buildup. But Biden will not make that commitment.”

Clapper, Brennan, Comey and Mueller “were just following orders and are being protected.” As for warmongering narcissistic hyena

Hillary Clinton, she needs a Biden/Harris win essentially to stay out of jail, a follow-up to a “secret” deal struck with Obama which had her bow out to the former President as the de facto leader of the vast DNC machinery.

Anyone with a brain across the Beltway knows The Walking Dead was chosen because he does not even qualify as a place mat. Assuming he would be elected president, the real power behind the throne will be the Obama-Pelosi axis – and their usual suspect masters. Welcome to the reign of President Kamala.

Hillary though is leaving nothing to chance, doubling down and taking no prisoners. She has just released a 5,000-word manifesto which reads as an application to become head of the Pentagon.

The fact that with all the plot twists key vectors of the Deep State continue to be untouchable should be read as the proverbial D.C. swamp protecting their flock. More than the possibility that Trump is unqualified when it comes to picking minions, more realistically he was never given any decent options: so he was stuck with nefarious specimens such as Gina “Queen of Torture” Haspel, The Warring Mustache John Bolton, and Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo.

Which bring us to Attorney General William Barr – and a persistent question across many Beltway corridors: how come there have been no indictments as evidence piles up of interlocking Deep State-related shenanigans.

Simple: Barr is CIA, part of the old Daddy Bush gang, recruited when he was still in high school, in 1971. When Daddy Bush became CIA director in 1976, Barr stepped into the CIA’s legal office and started his steady climb, culminating in 1991 as Chief Legal Counsel to Daddy Bush’s presidency.

Needless to add, Barr subsequently squashed every possible investigation on Bush, Clinton and assorted CIA ops, from BCCI to the theft of PROMIS software.

No one will volunteer to be on the record showing how Trump selected Barr – or how the Deep State made it happen. The fact is Barr was appointed shortly after the death of Daddy Bush. It’s unlikely that Team Trump have “turned” CIA asset Barr away from the swamp – with or without Hillary’s 33,000 deleted emails.

And that’s what leads those New York players to bet that Barr won’t go after any star in the Deep State galaxy.

Still the fact remains that the NSA has stored every possible call, chat or email on its massive server farms. Trump has the power to order everything to be released – as he did. Yet, as it stands, the proles have only been offered a WWF-themed sitcom.

“I’m back” on steroids

The total balkanization of culture in the U.S. into bulletproof containers of irrationality is precluding any possibility of civilized debate. What’s left is an endless proliferation of fake actors, paid troll armies, bots, mob outrage packaged as chocolate bars, all out hysteria.

Whatever happens, get ready for some major Kill Bill mayhem ahead.

And into this shooting war – not only metaphorical – steps John Lydon, a.k.a. Johnny Rotten, Sex Pistol legend and a millionaire resident of the tony parts of Venice beach in L.A. He’s voting Trump.

That’s the ultimate crowning of POTUS Punk – except that Trump is more Village People (“Young man/ there’s no nee to feel down”) than the Sex Pistols in Holidays in the Sun or the Dead Kennedys in Holiday in Cambodia.

Cue to POTUS Punk in Florida, “I’m back” on steroids, working an excited crowd of thousands like a pro, complete with YMCA dance moves at the end: “I’ll kiss the guys, and the beautiful women…”

Now compare it to “Sleepy Joe” in Ohio, in front of, well, nobody really: “I’m running as a proud Democrat…for the Senate”.

Last week an astonishing eight people showed up for a Biden-Harris rally in Arizona.

And the racket goes on while a pandemic with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of roughly 0.14% – according to the WHO’s own estimate – has cost the global economy no less than a whopping $28 trillion, according to the IMF.

Oh yes: it ain’t over till slim Britney “I Did It Again” sings.