19-09-2016, 10:59 AM
Lauren Johnson Wrote:David, here is my response to Mercouris' article I posted on FB:
Quote:I find this article to be a word salad. We have to remember the hawks in DC are Obama appointees including the SecDef. Remember that Obama fired Chuck Hagel in place of Ashton Carter. Therefore, Obama is in fact a quietly very hawkish president.
Therefore, I would have to be arguing that Obama is undermining himself in ordering these airstrikes, wouldn't I? In fact, no. The Kerry-Lavrov negotiations provide diplomatic cover for both Russia and the US. Russia is either engineering a prolonged exit for Assad, or some kind of stasis in which Syria carved up between Israel and Turkey with Assad getting what's left over -- which won't be much.
One more thing, note how as soon as the Syrian Air Force was grounded, both Israel and the US go on the attack, while the "moderates" are resupplied and repositioned. And this comes after Aleppo's supply lines were finally cut. Ooops. Time to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory -- again.
BTW, I think you need to regain your cynicism. You're buying Obama's magic show, which is really stage managed by the NWO masterminds. IMO. I will change my mind once the RF fires of a few S-400's, which are now nothing more than hi-tech sundials.
My response on FB also. However, let be be slightly more nuanced here.
I agree with you about Ash Carter - a horrible bloke. However, it seems fairly clear to me that Obama had to chose a SecDef who the Pentagon Chiefs would work with, and that why he selected Carter. Obviously, this view is based on reading the tea leaves a little, but Hagel wasn't favoured inside the E ring (HERE). I also suspect this meant he wasn't favoured by the neocons either. Obama choosing Hagel in the first place tells us something about Obama's philosophy, I think --- he would like to be the traditional democrat, but can't be. The forces arrayed against him are just too powerful.
On Obama-Putin I keep thinking back to 2014 and the evening when NATO aircraft were to be unleashed on Assad's Syria because of the Ghouta sarin gas attack - which we now know was a false flag run by Turkey (and almost certainly with the sanction of neocon elements in the US -- ditto the Russian fighter shoot down the following year). Putin understood Obama's domestic problems, as he also faces not too dissimilar factions that are pro-American. Consequently, he proposed to Obama an avenue that would avoid what the neocons wanted, namely war, with the idea of dismantling of Syria's stockpile of chemical weapons and Obama grabbed it. The French president was furious when he got a call "minutes" - before he was to give the green light to French aircraft to begin attacking Syria - from Obama telling him to halt. If Obama was the aggressive neocon you believe him to be, it would've been easy for him to ignore and obfuscate that Russian plan and proceed with Assad's regime change. But he didn't proceed, he agreed with Putin.
This event informed me a few things. Firstly that Obama was not, is not, entirely the neocon warmonger he's made out to be. Secondly, and drawing from No. 1, that his presidency is and was domestically precarious because he faced powerful forces who repeatedly have worked to undermine his policies. Thirdly that to get elected he had to agree to follow foreign policy dictated by people like Brzezinski and the neocons. That was the devil's choice he faced and accepted. Not least, I remember a few years ago, Obama telling friends that he feared for his live and that this made him step carefully in regard to policy making.
When we take this all into account it shows, for me anyway, a president who is weak. In fact, I would argue that the US has a marked tendency towards conservatism and right-wing politics, which is why the neocons are so powerful in Washington. WE can say the same for the defence and intelligence industry that also have a death-grip on Washington. Hence liberal minded democrats have to neuter themselves if they want to get elected. And this is where I find it hard to like Obama. Getting into office was far more important to him than following his political philosophy. He went for the ego-kick. Fuck him for that.
What we see today is a democratic party that has sold its soul for office and the rewards that accompany that position. It is now more war loving than the Republicans. We in the UK have already had a dose of that with Tony Blair and "New" Labour which was more Thatcherite than Thatcher herself. As was/is the Liberal Party. In other words three choices of party to vote for that more or less offer the same damn thing. In other words no choice at all --- amounting to a democratic void.
Btw, I've only been thinking in terms of foreign affairs.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14