Quote:President Trump is so pissed off by the Stormy affair that he is likely to prefer a good old war to another humiliation. This suits his enemies and friends (though not his voters) to a tee. He has a choice of doing a difficult manly act that needs all his courage, but which one? Should he put the well-being of his country at stake and brave Russian missiles, or risk the displeasure of the elites and sack Mueller? He is tempted to do the easy thing. Thus he has been maneuvered into deep waters by a powerful coalition of Brits and Jews, the same people who delivered you the last two world wars.

His attempt to make sense and drop the Syrian hot potato ("I strongly wish for the withdrawal of our forces from Syria", he tweeted) has been rebuffed by the indomitable Mr Netanyahu. Don't even think of doing it, the big man from Tel Aviv said to Donny in the tense telephone conversation. Don't leave Syria, you still have to fight the Iranians and Russians. And don't forget the Syrian kiddies, added the man still covered with the gore of 2,500 Palestinians shot on his orders last week. The Pentagon and US intelligence agencies take their orders directly from Tel Aviv, or via AIPAC; they are already preparing for an extended stay in Syria, despite Donny's declarations.

The Jews went ballistic when they heard of Trump's intention to leave Syria. The scribes of WaPo and NY Times condemned the step as playing into Russian hands. "Washington Post columnist and CNN commentator Catherine Rampell said that "Putin must be ecstatic" with Trump's instructions to begin planning for withdrawal from the region. Forget the fact that it'd be odd for a president to base all of his foreign policy decisions on what would bother Russia why isn't Rampell focusing on how delightful it must be for American soldiers to finally reunite with their families, or how the resources this country has spent overseas can now be used domestically?", noted a media reporter. This was the cue for Mueller's raid of Cohen's office. The old fool has to be pushed, if he does not want to go by his own will, they decided.

America with its Puritan background is the only country where sexual mores are so strict that they lead to war. Clinton went to war in Yugoslavia because of a blow job, while Trump will possibly destroy the world because of a one-night stand.

An attack on Syria is likely to bring a Russian response. At the least, it will be a local conflagration, a joust, a trial of forces and wills. Who knows how it will end? This was been postponed in 2013, when the US armada sailed to Syria's shores to avenge some other alleged chemical attack. I wrote about that fateful encounter, perhaps over-optimistically, in a piece called The Cape of Good Hope.

"It was touch and go, just as risky as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships. Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination. (We shall return to these two missiles later).

After this strange incident, the pending shoot-out did not commence, as President Obama stood down and holstered his guns. This was preceded by an unexpected vote in the British Parliament. This venerable body declined the honour of joining the attack proposed by the US. This was the first time in two hundred years that the British parliament voted down a sensible proposition to start a war; usually the Brits can't resist the temptation. This misadventure put paid to American hegemony , supremacy and exceptionalism. Manifest Destiny was over."

As we see now, the high noon was been postponed by five years, and now it is being re-run. The British Prime Minister Theresa May decided she does not need parliament's approval, President Trump decided he does not need an approval of Congress. So these brakes had been removed.

And now back to those two missiles of 2013. They were sent by the Israelis, whether they were trying to jump-start the shoot-out or just observed the clouds, as they claim. The missiles never reached its destination, shot down by the Russian ship-based sea-to-air defence system, or perhaps rendered useless by Russian GPS jammers.

Fast forward to 2018. On the night of April 10, in the small hours, the Syrian air field T-4 had been attacked by eight air-to-ground missiles; five were downed by the Syrian defence, three (or two) reached their goal and killed a few personnel. For a while, it was thought this was the American attack, but rather quickly, "Russia outed Israel", as Haaretz reported. Israel tried to dissimulate, at first claiming they warned Putin and got his okay. When Putin's spokesman denied that, they said they did it by the US request. Most probably they again tried to bring the confrontation to the fore.

Now, with the US Navy in place, with the support of England and France, the countdown to a confrontation has apparently started. The Russians are grimly preparing for the battle, whether a local one or the global one, and they expect it to begin any moment.

The road to this High Noon had led through the Scripal Affair, the diplomats' expulsion and the Syrian battle for Eastern Ghouta, with an important side show provided by Israeli shenanigans.
The diplomats' expulsion flabbergasted the Russians. For days they went around scratching their heads and looking for an answer: what do they want from us? What is the bottom line? Too many events that make little sense separately. Why did the US administration expel 60 Russian diplomats? Do they want to cut off diplomatic relations, or is it a first step to an attempt to remove Russia from the Security Council, or to cancel its veto rights? Does it mean the US has given up on diplomacy? (The answer "it's war" didn't come to their minds at that time).

The astonished Russians responded all right. They also expelled 60 diplomats, and they made it painful: all US diplomats engaged in the political department of the Moscow Embassy were on the non-grata list. The Political department consisted of three sections, dealing with foreign policy, internal Russian politics and military analysis; the most important centre of data collection, of liaison with Russian politicians, of military consequences, of Syria and Ukraine, of North Korea and China, experienced first-class intelligence officers and field hands all gone, including their Political Officer Christopher Robinson (POL). The Russians expelled Maria Olson, the Embassy's well-known spokesperson, and the Ambassador's interpreter. They closed down St Petersburg Consulate, an important centre for connecting, influencing and interacting with the opposition in this second capital' of Russia. The US has lost many of its Moscow hands, people who knew Russia and had developed personal relations with important Russians. It will take a lot of time and effort for the US State Department and intelligence agencies to get back to the positions they had lost. The Brits who initiated the deportations also lost about fifty of their Moscow Embassy staff.
Surprisingly, the mass deportation of so many Russian diplomats had little effect on the Russian people, as this strike had been neutralised by another painful event, by the Kemerovo Mall blaze killing 64 cinema-goers including over 40 children. The blaze, even if it weren't arson (it has not been proven yet) had triggered a massive onslaught of fake news and internet trolls on the people of Russia. A million underfed Ukrainians were deployed by the Western psywar on the web to tell the Russians that hundreds of their children had been incinerated, and that their authorities lie to them. This operation revealed the level of influence and integration the Western spy agencies have in Russia.

Kemerovo was a good choice for the operation: it is the only ethnic-Russian region ruled by an old-style local hero who had outlived his wits, the only region that reported indecently (and unrealistically) high support for Putin in the recent elections, a depressive region of mines and miners with a big potential for trouble.

Putin managed it rather well by coming personally and dealing with the situation hands on. He learned the ropes since 2000, when, at the dawn of his first presidential term, the Kursk submarine went down with all hands. Putin stayed away from the sailors' families, and acted callous, people said. "It had sunk", Putin replied to the question "What happened to Kursk?" (It is said USS Memphis had fired a torpedo at the submarine, causing the disaster, while the new president had been reluctant to aggravate relations with Clinton Administration). Now, in 2018, he was very good, full of empathy and consideration, conveying strength and decisiveness.
Whatever American agency carried out the psyop around Kemerovo, it was very successful, but its success undermined another operation, that of the Russian diplomats' expulsion. The Russians did not pay it sufficient attention.

The alleged reason for the expulsion, the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter, made very little sense. Even if the old spy were bumped off by his erstwhile employers, such a reaction would be excessive by all means. He was not a Napoleon (poisoned by the Brits 200 years ago), not a prince of blood, not a great inventor nor a successful spy. He was a retired ex-spy, a wash-out. Anyway he didn't die, he was just sick for a while. Perhaps he ate something in the pub that didn't agree with him. This is the opinion of his niece, Victoria, who is the only person alive who had been in contact with the Skripals since their alleged hospitalisation.

This affair is so obscure that it beats Rashomon anytime. Russian reporters went around Salisbury and noticed many incongruences. It is not certain whether Skripals were poisoned at all, and where they are. Their pets survived the deadly poison, and they had to be destroyed. This piece of black Russian humour had been forwarded a lot around the net:

Skripal had been poisoned by a most powerful poison, 2 grams will kill half a country instantly! The Russians
- poisoned him in the restaurant
- no, on the bench
- no, in the car
- No, the door handle was smeared
- No, the suitcase was poisoned
- No, everything in the house was poisoned.
- Oh, and buckwheat was poisoned,
- but they did not die instantly, but walked around somewhere for four hours,
- but the policeman that discovered them almost died on the spot,
- but the poison was instantly identified,
- an antidote was instantly introduced, and Skripals and the policeman were saved;
- The policeman had been discharged next day!
- But they were in coma, and they will never recover!
- but no, the daughter had recovered fast!
- Oh, and dad is revived … a miracle!
- and they both are quickly recovering, your strongest poison is useless.
- the restaurant had been surrounded by police in spacesuits
- the park had been surrounded by police in spacesuits
- the house had surrounded by police in spacesuits
- they are in spacesuits, since the poison is deadly dangerous, but next to them are policemen without protection …
- The bench was cut down and removed: it's such a terrible poison that the bench retained its toxic quality for two weeks;
- but the cat had survived in the poisoned house … the policeman had touched Skripal and nearly died, and the cat survived … and the guinea pigs would survive, but they were all forgotten, and died of hunger in the house;
- and their remains were immediately burned, as they are poisoned by the strongest poison;
- For two weeks they were poisoned by the strongest poison and survived, and now they had to be urgently cremated;
- Only guinea pigs died, the cat survived all this poison. It was stressful and hungry, so they killed it and cremated to make it certain nobody will find the secret etc etc.

The true hero of Skripal saga is the British ex-Ambassador Craig Murray, who followed the developments and unveiled many of its inconsistencies and outright lies. You may read his articles and twits to learn the details.

Julia Skripal took a daring step: she called her cousin Viktoria in Moscow. Their conversation is an amazing document. Julia says that she and her father are in good health; she doubts Viktoria will be allowed to visit her. Indeed, the British government refused to grant her visa. The feeling is that Julia is imprisoned.

I spoke with a retired Russian counter-intelligence officer who is familiar with the subject. He told me Russia never had a Novichok toxic substance: this name was given by counter-intelligence to A-232 in order to trace the leaks. It worked: a man called Vil Mirzayanov, an administrator in the chemical labs, leaked the Novichok story, and thus he was apprehended and arrested. A-232 had been produced in small amounts in 1990s, and some of it could be stolen and sold in these horrible years, when a full colonel of Russian intelligence had to moonlight as a taxi driver to supplement his measly $46 monthly salary. In those years, the poison could be indeed made available, and in one case it was used by criminals. Theoretically it is not impossible that some of this poison could have been saved and stored by some criminals; alternatively, it was available to the Americans who dismantled the labs in 1992. Anyway we have no independent proof that Skripals were poisoned by anything at all. If they survive, if the British and the American intelligence services don't kill them, perhaps we shall know more. We can definitely exclude the possibility that Russian state agents would go to Britain to poison an old spy who had been pardoned by Russian president years ago. Even if he was active in producing Christopher Steele's Trump ("Golden Rain") file, the Russians would have no compelling reason to kill him at all, and in such an odd way in particular. "If we would kill him, he would stay killed", concluded my interlocutor.

The details of Skripal case are very entertaining, but not necessary for our understanding. The case was used to install in minds the connection between chemical poisoning and Russia. It is unfair, for Russians destroyed all their chemical poisons under the eyes of Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors, but life is often unfair.

The connection between chemical poisoning and Russia had been prepared for the forthcoming event. Eastern Ghouta was an important and well entrenched location of the Syrian rebels. Being within easy reach from Central Damascus, it provided the rebels with a chance to seize power in the Syrian capital. As the Syrian army with Iranian and Russian support advanced into Eastern Ghouta, they learned of the rebel plans to stage a false flag chemical weapon attack, as they already had done a few times in past. President Putin warned of such a possibility at his joint (with President Erdogan and President Rouhani) press conference in Ankara last week, a few days before the alleged attack.

The attack had never occurred at all, but it was duly reported by the pro-Western media. Thus the game came to a close. Skripal Affair established the connection of Russia and chemical weapons, Eastern Ghouta allowed to use this connection in order to attack Russia.

We should not overestimate importance of these media events. The leading Western powers and their media refused to consider different explanations, refused an open inquiry, they went for jugular. Russia has been demonised in 2018, like Germany was demonised in 1940. It was a long and cautious labour. Have a look at this site theday.co.uk it is a site for school children and their teachers. You'll be amazed to discover its fervent hatred of Russia and Putin being pumped into hearts and heads of young generation. Such a long planning can't be dependent on an event like poisoning of an ex-spy or even on the fall of a Syrian underground fortress.

The planners of a war on Russia have utilised fear of anti-Semitism for their purposes. I called this method Anti-semitism Weaponised. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has been blocked and contained by accusations of anti-Semitism. He was the only leader able to stop Britain's descent into war with Russia. Other Labour MPs and activists have been attacked over alleged anti-Semitism issue, and what a coincidence! practically all of them were against demonising Russia; while Friends of Israel whether Conservative or Labour were viciously anti-Russian.

This is a correlation that will be discussed at another time, but it is far from obvious one. Russia has no anti-Semitism; the Russian president is friendly to Israel and to the powerful Jewish Chabad movement. Russia has no white nationalism, and little of the alt-right. However, this correlation exists. Shall we explain it by Jewish hatred of the Orthodox Church, as this Church (active in Russia, Greece, Palestine and Syria) hasn't been Jewified. Or should we prefer a more simple explanation: Jews are well integrated into Western elites, and they promote and support the goals of these elites.

However, people who can withstand accusations of anti-Semitism are the strongest enemies of the ruling power; they stand against the war with Russia and against attack on Syria, as the Haaretz newspaper explained in an article called White Supremacists Defend Assad, Warn Trump: Don't Let Israel Force You Into War With Syria . The article continues: "Alt-right calls Saturday's chemical attack in Damascus suburb a false flag operation, claiming it's an effort by Israel and globalists' to keep U.S. troops in Middle East" It quotes David Duke and other untouchables as the only people who reject Israeli narrative.

Not being a white supremacist (probably I do not qualify) I still applaud these brave men when they say and do the right thing. Sensitivity to anti-Semitism accusation is a strong vulnerability of character. Though people like Corbyn have their heart in the right place, they are weak on this point, and the enemy uses this weakness to neutralize them. There are people in the left that are not afraid of any accusation, but there aren't many who are resistant to metum Judaeorum.

Let us hope and pray we shall survive the forthcoming cataclysm.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

This article was first published at The Unz Review.

Quote:The latest Steven Spielberg film, The Pentagon Papers, made me wonder about the historical significance of this glorious episode of whistleblowing and victorious struggle for freedom of the press. The leaking and publishing in 1971, by the New York Times then the Washington Post, of excerpts from this 7000-page classified report on the Vietnam War (requested by Robert McNamara before leaving the Department of Defense in 1967) is comparable to the exposure by the same Washington Post of the Watergate scandal one year later. The Watergate scandal passes today as evidence of the independence of the American media as a necessary counter-power against government abuses. But in reality, it simply illustrates the increasing involvement of the media in deep political warfare. Likewise we must go beyond the public and Spielbergian narratives on the Pentagon Papers to understand what was really at stake. In both scandals, I believe the leadership of both the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two biggest propaganda machines in the US, were acting not only in the service of truth, but also in service of a power deeper than the deep state they were exposing. After all, there are so many truths to choose from to make the front pages. And in matters of foreign policy, many suspect that the final choice is often determined by the ultimate question: Is it good for Israel?

In this article, I am not going to demonstrate, but simply hypothesize, that the leaking and revelation of the Pentagon Papers, and more broadly the role of the media establishment in the anti-Vietnam movement, were in the interest of Israel. At that moment Israel was starting to face a unified international front against its illegal occupation. There was a real threat that the US would force Israel to withdraw, as required by UN Resolution 242. But I will go further and suggest that the Vietnam War itself, not just the protest against it, served the interests of Israel, regardless of other factors that motivated it. There is, of course, no contradiction between these two theses, since the anti-Vietnam-war movement presupposes the Vietnam war. Significantly, until around 1969, the Washington Post's editorials were unequivocally pro-war.

Johnson and the Vietnam War

As I wrote in JFK-9/11 and again in From Yahweh to Zion, if John Kennedy had not been assassinated, the very expression "Vietnam War" would not exist in school textbooks. Under his presidency, US military deployment amounted officially to a mere 15,000 "military advisors." At the end of 1963, Kennedy had taken the decision to withdraw from Vietnam. On November 11, he signed directive NSAM-263 for the removal of "1,000 U.S. military personnel by the end of 1963," in anticipation for withdrawing "by the end of 1965 […] the bulk of U.S. personnel."[1] On November 21, the day before his fatal visit to Texas, he expressed his resolution to his assistant press secretary Malcolm Kilduff, after reading a report on the latest casualties: "After I come back from Texas, that's going to change. There's no reason for us to lose another man over there. Vietnam is not worth another American life."[2]

But on November 26, the day after Kennedy's funeral, Johnson buried NSAM-263 and replaced it with NSAM-273, which required the military to develop a plan "for the United States to begin carrying the war north," including "different levels of possible increased activity," and "military operations up to a line up to 50 kilometers inside Laos"which violated the 1962 Geneva Accords on the neutrality of Laos.[3] Johnson's decision regarding Vietnam was a clear betrayal of Kennedy's earlier policy, and the amazing expediency of his change of policy suggests premeditation. All ambiguities cleverly laid out in NSAM-273 would be lifted by another memo signed on January, 1964 by General Maxwell Taylor, which said: "National Security Action Memorandum n° 273 makes clear the resolve of the President to ensure victory over the externally directed and supported communist insurgency in South Vietnam […]. To do this, we must prepare for whatever level of activity may be required." It is no longer a question of stopping the war, but rather winnings at any cost. Robert McNamara, continuing as Secretary of Defense, acceded to Johnson's agenda, recommending the mobilization of 50,000 soldiers and a program of "graduated overt military pressure" against North Vietnam, a policy which Johnson rubberstamped in March 1964 by memorandum NSAM-288.[4]

A suitable pretext was still needed for aggression. It came in Gulf of Tonkin on the 2ndand 4th of August 1964, when torpedoes were allegedly launched by the North Vietnamese against American destroyers. It is now known that the second attack, if not the first, was imaginary, made up out of falsified NSA data.[5] With that faked event, Johnson could announce on national television a "retaliatory" bombing of the North Vietnamese navy, and push through Congress on August 7, 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave him full powers to send up to 500,000 soldiers into North Vietnam. With that, Johnson plunged the Vietnamese people into a decade of unspeakable suffering, taking the lives of more than a million civilians. From 1965 to 1968, as part of Operation Rolling Thunder, 643,000 tons of bombs were droppedthree times more than during the entire Second World Waron a mostly rural country, and about 500,000 American soldiers were sent to Vietnam, where 50,000 perished. 19 million gallons of toxic chemicals were sprayed from the air to destroy approximately 40 percent of the South's forests, one-third of its valuable mangrove swamps, and large areas of prime cropland. The chemicals are also suspected of causing widespread health problems, including cancer and birth defects. An estimated 3.5 million Vietnamese were killed directly in the war. One-third of the South's population became "internal refugees", their way of life destroyed, forced to live for years in the misery of refugee camps and overfull cities, with prostitution and other social problems as a result. Since the war ended for the US in 1975, nearly 40,000 Vietnamese have been killed by residual explosives, including an estimated 3.5 million land mines. Many more have been crippled for life. A decade after the war, over 13 percent of Vietnam's population were still suffering from some war-related injury.[6]

Johnson and the Six Day War

It was during that period that Israel chose to launch its operation to annex Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian territories, by creating the illusion that it was acting in self-defense. Johnson had given Israel a green light in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, dated June 3: "I want to protect the territorial integrity of Israel […] and will provide as effective American support as possible to preserve the peace and freedom of your nation and of the area."[7] Johnson also asked the CIA to transmit to the Israeli army the precise positions of the Egyptian air bases to be destroyed.

Four days after the start of the Israeli attack, Nasser accepted the ceasefire request from the UN Security Council. It was too soon for Israel, which had not yet achieved all its objectives. It was then that, on June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, an unarmed NSA spy ship, was bombed, strafed, and torpedoed for 75 minutes by Israeli Mirage jets and torpedo boats. The Israelis obviously intended to sink it without leaving any survivors (even the lifeboats were machine-gunned), while Johnson personally prohibited the nearby Sixth Fleet from coming to its rescue. Had the USS Liberty been successfully sunk, the attack would have been blamed on the Egyptians, and would have given Johnson the pretext to intervene militarily alongside Israel, probably forcing the USSR to go to war.[8]

But it failed. The affair was successfully smothered by a commission of inquiry headed by Admiral John Sidney McCain II (father of Arizona Senator John McCain III). The survivors received a medal in an unadvertised ceremony, accompanied by a formal order never to mention the incident. Only recently have some broken the silence.[9]Johnson accepted Israel's spurious "targeting error" explanation, and rewarded the unprovoked attack by lifting the embargo on the sale of offensive military equipment to Israel.

The USS Liberty failed false flag attack is proof of Johnson's secret complicity with Israel, and of his high treason against the country he had sworn to protect. But Johnson had in fact always been Israel's man. As early as 1948, his campaign for a Senate seat had been financed by Abraham Feinberg, president of Americans for Haganah Incorporated and financial godfather of Israel's atomic bomb.[10] In 2013, the Associated Press reported on newly released tapes from Johnson's White House office showing LBJ's "personal and often emotional connection to Israel." The tapes showed that during the Johnson presidency, "the United States became Israel's chief diplomatic ally and primary arms supplier." An article from the 5 Towns Jewish Times"Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson?" recalls Johnson's continuous support of Jews and Israel in the 1940s and 50s, and concludes: "President Johnson firmly pointed American policy in a pro-Israel direction." The article also mentions that, "research into Johnson's personal history indicates that he inherited his concern for the Jewish people from his family. His aunt Jessie Johnson Hatcher, a major influence on LBJ, was a member of the Zionist Organization of America." And, in an additional note: "The facts indicate that both of Lyndon Johnson's great-grandparents, on the maternal side, were Jewish. […] The line of Jewish mothers can be traced back three generations in Lyndon Johnson's family tree. There is little doubt that he was Jewish."[11]

It is on record, thanks to Kennedy insider Arthur Schlesinger (A Thousand Days, 1965) that it was in fact Philip Graham and Joseph Alsop, respectively publisher and columnist of the Washington Post, both strong supporters of Israel, who convinced Kennedy to take Johnson on his ticket, in a closed door conversation.[12] Schlesinger doesn't reveal Graham and Alsop's arguments, and states that Kennedy's final decision "defies historical reconstruction"a curious statement for a historian so well informed, which can only be explained by Schlesinger's refusal throughout his 872 pages to come to grips with Kennedy's Middle East policy and his battle with Zionism. Alan Hart has convincingly filled in the blanks: both Graham and Alsop were strongly pro-Israel as well as pro-Johnson, and both could exert a huge influence on public opinion. So "Kennedy was forced by Israel's supporters to take Johnson as his vice-presidential running mate."[13]

The Vietnam Holocaust

Is there a connection between those two wars, each waged or supported by Lyndon Johnson? In my book JFK-9/11, I suggested that Johnson escalated the Vietnam War as a substitute for the invasion of Cuba that the CIA and Pentagon hawks involved in the plot to assassinate JFK had been led to believe that they could start by blaming the assassination on a communist plot. "In lieu of invasion," I wrote, "Johnson offered to the generals the Vietnam War." That was a grossly insufficient explanation. There is little evidence that Pentagon generals, let alone CIA officers, needed a war, any war, at all cost. But I could think of no other explanation, short of the unlimited greed of war profiteers, of whom Johnson was a highly representative specimen. (In the weeks preceding the Kennedy assassination, he had invested in the Dallas aircraft manufacturer Ling-Temco-Vought, which was to become one of the Pentagon's biggest arms suppliers for the Vietnam War.[14] Johnson also owned stocks in Bell Helicopter, to which he transferred illegally a contract for 220 helicopters that had been signed in 1963 with its rival Kaman Aircraft.[15])

Only recently did the idea come to me of a hidden link between the Vietnam War and the Six-Day War. I could not conceive it before because I had not yet taken the full measure of the perversity of the Israeli leadership, whose collective psychopathy resonated deeply with Johnson's personal psychopathy. Having now studied the deep thinking of those ultra-Machiavellian crypto-Likudniks whom we call neoconservatives, I have acquired the conviction that the tragedy of the world for the last hundred years is only comprehensible once we admit that Israel (before and after 1947) acts on the international scene in a biblical way, that is, with the same indifference and cruelty toward non-Jewish nations that Yahweh demanded of his people in the Bible. In their eyes, these populations are no more worthy than livestock, and their suffering is irrelevant (unless, of course, it can be exploited). There is absolutely no moral limit to the determination of Israel to pave its way toward hegemony through the ruin of whole nations. Absolutely none. This is what I meant when calling Israel the "psychopathic nation".

And so my hypothesis is that one of the purposes of the Vietnam War desired by Johnson and his masters was to create a diversion while Israel was engaging in the decisive stage of its expansion. Let us imagine for a moment that there had been no Vietnam War, in 1967 and thereafter, to mobilize Americans' limited attention on world affairs, and to divert their indignation. Could the Washington Post and the New York Times have managed to hide from the public the scandal of that war of aggression and illegal annexation? Even more importantly, Israel's strategists surely understood that the legitimacy of the US state to condemn Israel's crimes would be much diminished if the US could be blamed for even worse crimes.

French President Charles De Gaulle actually understood that the Vietnam War was preventing a peaceful solution in Palestine. In a press conference on November 27, 1967, after condemning Israel's aggression and famously qualifying the Jews as "an elite people, self-confident and dominating," he called for the four great powers to enforce an international settlement on the basis of Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories, and added:

"But one cannot see how such an agreement could be reached as long as one of the greatest among the four will not withdraw from the heinous war that they are waging elsewhere. Without the tragedy of Vietnam, the conflict between Israel and the Arabs would not have become what it has become. And if South-East Asia could experience a renewal of peace, the Middle-East would also find its way to peace, in the climate of détente which would follow such an event."[16]

Soon after that press conference, De Gaulle's government became the target of a major student protest that culminated in May 1968, ultimately forcing De Gaulle to resign. These students, led by predominantly Jewish Trotskyist activists,[17] were not protesting against the US aggression against Vietnam, nor against Israel's aggression against its Arab neighbors, but against bourgeois society.

It is not an exaggeration to qualify the Vietnam War as a "holocaust", as did the 2008 documentary film Vietnam: American Holocaust.[18] In the Bible, a holocaust designates an animal offering completely consumed by fire, producing an "enjoyable smell" for Yahweh (Genesis 8:20-21; Exodus 29:25). According to the Book of Ezra, a gigantic holocaust was offered "to the God of Israel who resides in Jerusalem" by the Judeo-Babylonians who (re)colonized Palestine, in preparation for the (re)building of the Temple (7:1215).

Strangely, it is during the Vietnam War that the term "Holocaust" became the common designation of the killing of Jews during World War II. Unless we consider that Hitler was working for the glory of Yahweh, that expression seems absurd. Surely, the anti-Zionist rabbi Moshe Shonfeld believes that "The Zionist leaders saw the spilt Jewish blood of the Holocaust as grease for the wheels of the Jewish national state."[19] But the term logically applies much better to the Vietnam War if we consider that by focusing the attention of the American public, then the protests of American youths and liberal intellectuals, it left the field wide open for Israel's conquest of Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian territories. After all, the Vietnamese plight was greater than the Palestinians'. This, I believe, provides a plausible answer to the question: Why did Johnson, who did not satisfy the CIA hawks on Cuba, draw the US into the Vietnam inferno? The strongest Johnson administration advocate for a deepening commitment in Vietnam was National Security Advisor Walt Rostow, whose brother Eugene was Under-Secretary of State. They happened to be sons of Jewish immigrants. The historian David Milne has called Rostow "America's Rasputin."

Two months after his election in 1968, Nixon secretly and illegally expanded the war into Cambodia, ordering a massive bombardment under the codename Breakfast, followed by Lunch, Dessert, Snack, Dinner and Supperall of which led to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, an exceptionally bloody, tyrannical regime responsible for the extermination of one third of the Cambodian population. The man who pushed him in that direction was National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, also acting as Secretary of State. Like the Rostows, Kissinger happens to be Jewish.

Many of the leading figures of the anti-war movement were also Jewish. But soon after the leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, with the help of Anthony Russo, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (all Jewish by birth), other liberal Jewish intellectuals made a 180-degree turn and became leading advocate of the war: they called themselves "neoconservatives". We have here a fine example of dialectical engineering of history: as Jewish leftists like Noam Chomsky started to protest against the war, former Jewish leftists like Irving Kristol started to protest against the protesters. Meanwhile, Israel could be pushed out of the headlines. Kristol wrote in the magazine of the American Jewish Congress in 1972 that it was necessary to fight against George McGovern's proposal to reduce the military budget by 30 percent: "This is to drive a knife into the heart of Israel. […] Jews don't like a big military budget, but it is now an interest of the Jews to have a large and powerful military establishment in the United States. […] American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to cut the military budget, it is important to keep that military budget big, so that we can defend Israel."[20]

Against McGovern's demand for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, Kristol could have added: "American Jews who care about the survival of the state of Israel have to say, no, we don't want to withdraw from Vietnam, it is important to pursue the genocide of the Vietnamese, so that America's youthful idealists will protest against their own government rather than against Israel's violation of international law."

References
[1] On JFK Library, http://www.jfklibrary.org/
[2] Phillip Nelson, LBJ: The Mastermind of JFK's Assassination, XLibris, 2010, p. 638.
[3] LBJ Library: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/arc...am273.asp.
[4] LBJ Library: http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/arc...sam288.asp
[5] Scott Shane, "Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remain Secret", New York Times, October 31, 2005: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/politi...=all&_r=0.
[6] Figures taken from "Vietnam Holocaust, 140 years of pillage, slaughter & persecution," ã Föreningen Levande Framtid, Sweden, 2001: http://www.nnn.se/vietnam/holocaust.pdf
[7] State Department Archive: http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xix /28057.htm.
[8] Robert Allen, Beyond Treason: Reflections on the Cover-up of the June 1967 Israeli Attack on the USS Liberty, an American Spy Ship, CreateSpace, 2012.
[9] Watch the 2014 Al-Jazeera documentary The Day Israel Attacked America.
[10] Alan Hart, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, vol. 2: David Becomes Goliath, Clarity Press, 2013, p. 250.
[11] Morris Smith, "Our First Jewish President Lyndon Johnson? an update!!," 5 Towns Jewish Times, April 11, 2013, on 5tjt.com.
[12] Arthur Schlesinger, A Thousand Days: John Kennedy in the White House (1965), Mariner Books, 2002, p. 56.
[13] Alan Hart, Zionism, vol. 2: op. cit., p. 257.
[14] Joan Mellen, A Farewell to Justice, Potomac Books, 2007.
[15] Charles Kaman, "Politics had reared its ugly head in a very certain way," on http://stonezone.com/article.php?id=633
[16] Video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03if1QnA5MI ; text on http://akadem.org/medias/documents/3-con...gaulle.pdf
[17] On the Jewish-led student uprising in Paris in 1968, read Yair Auron, Les Juifs d'extrême gauche en Mai 68, Albin Michel, 1998.
[18] Watch on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNb1uUlG2QI .
[19] Rabbi Moshe Shonfeld, Holocaust Victims Accuse: Documents and Testimony of Jewish War Criminals, Bnei Yeshivos, 1977 (http://netureikartaru.com/Holocaust_Vict...cuse.pdf), pp. 28, 24.

[20] Philip Weiss, "30 Years Ago, Neocons Were More Candid About Their Israel-Centered Views," May 23, 2007: http://mondoweiss.net/2007/05/30_years_ago_ne/.

Quote:The anti-imperialist camp: splintered in thought

by Thierry Meyssan

In 2011 when his country was subject to a jihadist siege, President Bashar el-Assad's reaction was against the norm: rather than strengthening the powers of his security services, he cut them back. Six years on, his country is in the process of emerging victorious, in the most important war since Vietnam. This same type of aggression is unfolding in Latin America. Yet here, it is sparking off a far more classic response. In this article, Thierry Meyssan distinguishes the analysis and strategy of President Assad on the one hand and Maduro and Morales on the other. His aim is not to place these leaders in competition, but rather to call upon each of them to remove themselves from political catechisms and to pay due attention to the lessons learnt from the most recent wars.


VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 15 AUGUST 2017

In May 2017, Thierry Meyssan appeared on Russia Today and explained where the South American elites were going wrong in their fight against US imperialism. He insisted that there has been a sea-change in the way the US now wages armed conflicts and we now need to radically rethink how we should defend our homeland.


The operation to destabilize Venezuela continues. The first phase: violent gangs demonstrating against the government killed passers by, as if citizenship created no bonds between them. The second phase: the major food suppliers organized food shortages in the supermarkets. Then some members of the forces attacked several ministers, called for a rebellion and now have retreated into hiding.


Of course the international press never ceases to hold the "regime" responsible for the deaths of demonstrators. Yet it is a fact that a number of videos testify that these demonstrators were deliberately assassinated by demonstrators themselves. No regard is paid to this and on the basis of this false information, the press then proceeds to qualify Nicolas Maduro as a "dictator" just as it did six years ago with respect to Muammar Gaddafi and Bashar el-Assad.


The United States has used the Organization of American States (the OAS) as an arm against President Maduro just like it once used the Arab League against President al-Assad. Caracas, not expecting to be excluded from the Organization, denounced this method and left of its own accord.


Maduro's government has however two failures on its balance sheet: the vast majority of its voters did not go to the polling stations for the legislative elections of 2015, allowing the opposition to sweep a majority in Parliament. it was caught out by the crisis of food products, even though the same thing had been organized in the past in Chile against Allende and in Venezuela against Chávez. It required several weeks to put in place new circuits to provide food.


In all likelihood, the conflict that begins in Venezuela will not be held back by its borders. It will ooze out, embracing the entire North West of the South American continent and the Caribbean.


An additional step has been taken with military preparations against Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador following Mexico, Colombia and British Guyana. The team responsible for co-ordinating these measures is from the former Office of Global Democracy Strategy. This was a unit established by President Bill Clinton, then continued by Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. Mike Pompeo, the current director of the CIA, has confirmed that this unit exists. This has led to rumours in the press, followed up by President Trump, of a US military option.


To save his country, President Maduro's team has refused to follow the example of President al-Assad. Maduro's team thinks that there is no real comparison between what is happening in Venezuela and Syria. The United States, the principal capitalist power, would set off to Venezuela to steal its oil, according to a plan that has been repeatedly played out in the past on three continents. This point of view was given further weight by a speech that Evo Morales, Bolivia's President, recently delivered.


Let us recall that in 2003 and 2011, President Saddam Hussein, the Guide Muammar Gaddafi and a number of President Assad's advisors reasoned similarly. They thought that the US would attack the following states in succession: Afghanistan and Iraq, then Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and Syria. And why? For the sole reason of bringing about the collapse of regimes that were resisting its imperialism and controlling hydrocarbon resources in an expanded Middle East. A number of anti-imperialist authors cling to this analysis today. So for example, they use it to try to explain the war against Syria by reference to the interruption of the Qatari gas pipeline project.


Now, this line of thinking is turning out to be false. The US is not looking to reverse progressive governments (Libya and Syria), nor to steal the region's oil and gas. Its intent is to decimate States, to send people of these countries back to a pre-historic time where "man did not love his neighbour as God loved him but would pounce like a wolf upon his neighbour" [Translator's note: the literal translation of the French original is: "man was a wolf for man"].


Has toppling the Saddam Hussein regime and the regime of Gaddafi brought peace back to these states? No! Wars have continued even though "government of occupation" has been set up in Iraq, then a government composed of other governments in the region including those who collaborated with the imperialists opposed to national independence. Wars are still being waged. This surely evidences that Washington and London had no intention of toppling these regimes nor defending democracy. These were transparent covers for their true intentions which were to eliminate the people in these states. It is a basic observation that rocks our understanding of contemporary imperialism.


This strategy, radically new, was taught by Thomas P. M. Barnett following 11-September 2001. It was publicly revealed and exposed in March 2003 that is, just before the war against Iraq in an article in Esquire, then in the eponym book, The Pentagon's New Map. However, such a strategy appears so cruel in design, that no one imagined it could be implemented.


Imperialism seeks to divide the world in two. One part will be a stable area which profits from the system while in the other part a terrifying chaos will reign. This other will be a zone, where all thought of resisting has been wiped it; where every thought is fixated on surviving; an area where the multinationals can extract raw materials which they need without any duty to account to anyone.


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According to this map, taken from one of Thomas P. M. Barnett's power point slides, presented at a conference held at the Pentagon in 2003, every state in the pink zone must be destroyed. This project has nothing to with the struggle between classes at the national level nor with exploiting natural resources. Once they are done with the expanded Middle East, the US strategists are preparing to reduce the North West of Latin America to ruins.
Since the eighteenth century and the British Civil War, Western development has been triggered by its attempt to do all it can to avoid chaos. Thomas Hobbes taught us to support the thinking of the State rather than risk experiencing this torment for another time. The notion of chaos only returned to us with Leo Strauss, after the Second World War. This philosopher, who has personally trained a number of personalities within the Pentagon, intended to build a new form of power by plunging part of the world into hell.


Jihadism inflicted onto an expanded Middle East has shown us what is chaos.


While President Assad reacted as anticipated to the events of Deraa (March April 2011), by sending his army to quell the jihadists of the Mosque al-Omari, he was the first to understand what was happening. Far from increasing the powers of the forces to maintain order to repress the aggression sourced from abroad, he equipped his people with the means to defend their homeland.


First: he lifted the state of emergency, dissolved the special courts, freed the Internet communications and forbid the armed forces to use their arms if to do so would endanger the lives of innocent civilians.


When Assad took these decisions he was clearly not going with the flow. And these decisions were ladened with consequences. For example, at the time of the attack of a military convoy at Banias, soldiers held off using their weapons in self-defence; they preferred to be mutilated by the bombs of their attackers and occasionally die, rather than to fire, risking injuring inhabitants that were looking at them being massacred without intervening.


Like many at this time, I thought that the President was too weak and his troops too loyal; that Syria was going to go down. However six years on, Bashar el-Assad and the Syrian armed forces met the challenge. While at the beginning the soldiers have struggled alone against foreign aggression, gradually, every citizen came on board, to defend the country.


Those who were not able to or who did not want to resist, went into exile. It is clearly the case that the Syrian people have greatly suffered. That said, Syria is the only State in the entire world, since the Vietnam War, to have resisted until imperialism tires itself out and surrenders.


Second: faced with this invasion of a multitude of jihadists, from Muslim populations all over the world Morocco to China, President Assad took the decision to abandon part of his territory to save his people.


The Syrian Arab Army confined itself to the "useful Syria", that is, to the cities. It abandoned the countryside and the deserts to the attackers. Damascus kept supervising, uninterruptedly, the provision of food to every region under its control. Contrary to an idea accepted by the West as common knowledge, the only areas where there is famine are those areas under Jihadi control and in the cities that it has besieged; the " foreign rebels" (forgive this oxymoron), supplied by "humanitarian" associations, use the distribution of food packages as a means of making starving populations submit to them.


The Syria people have seen for themselves how the Republic alone assumed the role of feeding them and protecting them. The Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadists played no part.


Third: In a speech delivered on 12 December 2012, President Assad traced, how he intended to remake political unity in his country. Of special mention, he pointed out the need to draft a new constitution and to submit it to adoption by a qualified majority of his people then to proceed to democratically elect all institutional officials, including of course, the President.


At that time, the Westerners mocked the claim of President Assad to call elections when the war was at its bloodiest. Today, all diplomats involved in resolving this conflict including the UN, support Assad's plan.


While Jihadi commandos were freely roaming the entire country, notably Damascus, and were murdering politicians even invading their homes where their families were, to do so, President Assad has encouraged dialogue with nationals who oppose him. He guaranteed the security of the liberal Hassan el-Nouri and the Marxist Maher el-Hajjar so that they too, might risk presenting themselves at the presidential elections in June 2014. Despite an appeal to boycott issued by the Muslim Brotherhood and Western governments, despite jihadi terror, despite the fact that millions of citizens were exiled abroad, voter turn out (of those present) was 73.42 %.


In the same way, from the beginning of the war, he created a ministry for National Reconciliation, something never seen before in a country where war is going on. Assad handed the ministry over to Ali Haidar, the President of PSNS, an allied party. He negotiated and concluded thousands of agreements taking into account the amnesty of citizens who had taken arms against the Republic and their integration in the Syrian Arab Army.


During this war, President Assad has never used force against his own people. This is so, despite the allegations of those who freely accuse him of widespread torture. So, let me be clear: he has never set up mass executions nor mandatory conscriptions. It is always possible for a young man to avoid his military obligations. Administrative procedures allow any male citizen to evade national service if he does not desire to defend his country with weapons in hand. Only the exiled who have not had the occasion to pursue these procedures may find themselves in violation of these laws.


For six years, President Assad has not stopped on the one hand, making an appeal to his people, asking them to thrust upon him obligations, and on the other hand, trying to feed them and to protect them, as far as he is able. He has always assumed the risk of giving before receiving. That is why today, he has won the confidence of his people, and can count on their active support.


South American elites are wrong to pursue the fight of the previous decades for a fairer distribution of their wealth. The battle which they must focus is no longer one where the majority of the people and small class of privileged individuals are on opposite sides.


The choice put to the peoples of the expanded Middle East and to the people of South America is this: aut defendendum vobis patriam est aut morendum vobis est (you must either defend your homeland or die). It is this question that they will have to respond to.


The facts prove it: the number one priority of imperialism today is no longer plundering natural resources. Imperialism, unscrupulous, dominates the world. Yet now its vision has expanded to wiping out people and to destroying the societies in the regions where it is already exploiting resources.


In this iron era, the Assad strategy alone allows us to stand tall and free

Quote:Trump Should Rethink Syria Escalation
April 11, 2017

More than two dozen ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Trump to rethink his claims blaming the Syrian government for the chemical deaths in Idlib and to pull back from his dangerous escalation of tensions with Russia.




MEMORANDUM FOR: The President


FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)*


SUBJECT: Syria: Was It Really "A Chemical Weapons Attack"?


1 We write to give you an unambiguous warning of the threat of armed hostilities with Russia with the risk of escalation to nuclear war. The threat has grown after the cruise missile attack on Syria in retaliation for what you claimed was a "chemical weapons attack" on April 4 on Syrian civilians in southern Idlib Province.




President Trump at a news conference with Jordan's King Abdullah II on April 5, 2017, at which the President commented on crisis in Syria. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)
2 Our U.S. Army contacts in the area have told us this is not what happened. There was no Syrian "chemical weapons attack." Instead, a Syrian aircraft bombed an al-Qaeda-in-Syria ammunition depot that turned out to be full of noxious chemicals and a strong wind blew the chemical-laden cloud over a nearby village where many consequently died.


3 This is what the Russians and Syrians have been saying and more important what they appear to believe happened.


4 Do we conclude that the White House has been giving our generals dictation; that they are mouthing what they have been told to say?


5 After Putin persuaded Assad in 2013 to give up his chemical weapons, the U.S. Army destroyed 600 metric tons of Syria's CW stockpile in just six weeks. The mandate of the U.N.'s Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW-UN) was to ensure that all were destroyed like the mandate for the U.N. inspectors for Iraq regarding WMD. The U.N. inspectors' findings on WMD were the truth. Rumsfeld and his generals lied and this seems to be happening again. The stakes are even higher now; the importance of a relationship of trust with Russia's leaders cannot be overstated.


6 In September 2013, after Putin persuaded Assad to relinquish his chemical weapons (giving Obama a way out of a tough dilemma), the Russian President wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in which he said: "My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this."


Détente Nipped in the Bud


7 Three-plus years later, on April 4, 2017, Russian Prime Minister Medvedev spoke of "absolute mistrust," which he characterized as "sad for our now completely ruined relations [but] good news for terrorists." Not only sad, in our view, but totally unnecessary worse still, dangerous.


8 With Moscow's cancellation of the agreement to de-conflict flight activity over Syria, the clock has been turned back six months to the situation last September/October when 11 months of tough negotiation brought a ceasefire agreement. U.S. Air Force attacks on fixed Syrian army positions on Sept. 17, 2016, killing about 70 and wounding another 100, scuttled the fledgling ceasefire agreement approved by Obama and Putin a week before. Trust evaporated.




The guided-missile destroyer USS Porter conducts strike operations while in the Mediterranean Sea, April 7, 2017. (Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Ford Williams)
9 On Sept 26, 2016, Foreign Minister Lavrov lamented: "My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine, [which] apparently does not really listen to the Commander in Chief." Lavrov criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia on Syria, "after the [ceasefire] agreement, concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama, had stipulated that the two sides would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …"


10 On Oct. 1, 2016, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned, "If the US launches a direct aggression against Damascus and the Syrian Army, it would cause a terrible, tectonic shift not only in the country, but in the entire region."


11 On Oct 6, 2016, Russian defense spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov cautioned that Russia was prepared to shoot down unidentified aircraft including any stealth aircraft over Syria. Konashenkov made a point of adding that Russian air defenses "will not have time to identify the origin" of the aircraft.


12 On Oct 27, 2016, Putin publicly lamented, "My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results," and complained about "people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice." Referring to Syria, Putin decried the lack of a "common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises."


13 Thus, the unnecessarily precarious state into which U.S.-Russian relations have now sunk from "growing trust" to "absolute mistrust." To be sure, many welcome the high tension, which admittedly is super for the arms business.


14 We believe it of transcendent importance to prevent relations with Russia from falling into a state of complete disrepair. Secretary Tillerson's visit to Moscow this week offers an opportunity to stanch the damage, but there is also a danger that it could increase the acrimony particularly if Secretary Tillerson is not familiar with the brief history set down above.


15 Surely it is time to deal with Russia on the basis of facts, not allegations based largely on dubious evidence from "social media," for example. While many would view this time of high tension as ruling out a summit, we suggest the opposite may be true. You might consider instructing Secretary Tillerson to begin arrangements for an early summit with President Putin.


* Background on Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), a list of whose issuances can be found at https://consortiumnews.com/vips-memos/.


A handful of CIA veterans established VIPS in January 2003 after concluding that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld had ordered our former colleagues to manufacture intelligence to "justify" an unnecessary war with Iraq. At the time we chose to assume that President George W. Bush was not fully aware of this.


We issued our first Memorandum for the President on the afternoon of Feb. 5, 2003, after Colin Powell's ill-begotten speech at the United Nations. Addressing President Bush, we closed with these words:


No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is "irrefutable" or "undeniable" [adjectives Powell applied to his charges against Saddam Hussein]. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion … beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.


Respectfully, we offer the same advice to you, President Trump.


* * *


For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity


Eugene D. Betit, Intelligence Analyst, DIA, Soviet FAO, (US Army, ret.)


William Binney, Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)


Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and former Office Director in the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research, (ret.)


Thomas Drake, Senior Executive Service, NSA (former)


Bogdan Dzakovic, Former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)


Robert Furukawa, Capt, CEC, USN-R, (ret.)


Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)


Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator


Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)


Larry C. Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)


Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (Ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)


John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer (ret.)


John Kiriakou, former CIA analyst and counterterrorism officer, and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee


Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.) (associate VIPS)


Lisa Ling, TSgt USAF (ret.) (associate VIPS)


Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)


David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)


Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)


Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)


Torin Nelson, former Intelligence Officer/Interrogator, Department of the Army


Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)


Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)


Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, and former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq


Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret.) (associate VIPS)


Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA


Sarah G. Wilton, Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret), DIA (ret.)


Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)


Ann Wright, U.S. Army Reserve Colonel (ret) and former U.S. Diplomat

Quote:APRIL 5, 2017
Killing Our Way to Victory
by EDWARD HUNT





Photo by DVIDSHUB | CC BY 2.0


To wage the global war on terrorism, the leaders of the United States have settled on one basic strategy. Taking advantage of their extraordinary military power, they have tried to kill their way to victory.


Many in Washington believe the strategy is correct. They argue the terrorists are inherently evil and must be vanquished from the planet. In the case of the Islamic State, both President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have insisted that the only way to deal with the group is to forcefully eradicate it from the face of the Earth.


At the same time, many in Washington acknowledge their strategy will never bring an end to terrorism. They cite the various factors that give rise to terrorism, including the hatred that is generated by repressive regimes, the fact that a number of countries support terrorism, and the general sense of desperation that is felt by many people around the world. Unless these factors are addressed, they argue, terrorism will remain a problem.


As the discussion continues, the Trump administration is intensifying the global war on terrorism. With its approach, the administration is perpetuating a strategy of endless war that is doing nothing to address the underlying causes of terrorism.


The Problem of the Iraqi Government


Long before the Trump administration entered office, U.S. officials had already identified many factors that cause people to turn to terrorism. For example, they knew that they faced a special problem with the Iraqi government. Despite the fact that they repeatedly praised the Iraqi government as a strong partner in the global war on terrorism, they understood that they were supporting a sectarian regime that had created deep rifts within Iraqi society, causing many Iraqis to turn to terrorism.


The problem began during the early years of the war in Iraq, when U.S. officials supported the repressive and sectarian Shiite leader Nouri al-Maliki. During the height of sectarian fighting in the country from 2006-2008, Maliki oversaw a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country's minority Sunni population.


Maliki's iron-fisted rule had significant consequences for the global war on terrorism. As various officials now acknowledge, many of the Iraqis who had turned to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State were largely motivated by their fear and hatred of the Maliki government.


"In Iraq, it was the deeply sectarian, corrupt, and abusive rule of Prime Minister Maliki that drove so many Sunnis to support the ascent of ISIL as the terrorist group methodically expanded its foothold," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power acknowledged in June 2016.


Later in the year, State Department official Tom Malinowski made the same point. The Iraqi government "abused its Sunni population, to the point where some feared their own army and police more than the men with black flags who rolled into their cities in 2014," Malinowski explained.


To address the situation, the Obama administration orchestrated the removal of Maliki from office in August 2014, replacing him with the British-educated Haider al-Abadi. Still, officials knew that Abadi was no less sectarian than Maliki.


Years earlier, U.S. diplomats in Iraq had described Abadi as a "close Maliki ally and confidante." In fact, the diplomats noted that Abadi had joked with them that critics were right to charge that the Iraqi government was "full of criminals and gangs."


In other words, U.S. officials understood that they were not dealing with the core problem in Iraq. Although they had forced Maliki out, they had replaced him with another sectarian leader. "Sunnis in Iraq Often See Their Government as the Bigger Threat," the New York Times reported.


Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend, who currently oversees military operations against the Islamic State, recently pointed to the same basic problem. Until the Iraqi government becomes more inclusive, Townsend explained, "you're always going to have a disenfranchised population that's always looking for the thing that will represent their interests better than whatever's currently ruling their life."


In short, U.S. officials recognize that they are supporting a government that many Iraqis still see as the bigger threat. As long as they keep supporting the regime, they know that disenfranchised Iraqis will continue looking for alternatives, such as the Islamic State.


The Problem with U.S. Allies


As U.S. officials knowingly support a government that causes disenfranchised Iraqis to view the Islamic State as the lesser of two evils, they are also facing a bigger challenge. Across the Middle East, a number of their closest allies are supporting terrorists.


Donald Trump, who addressed the issue is his 2011 book Time to Get Tough, singled out one of the closest U.S. allies in the region for its support of terrorism. Just "look at Saudi Arabia," Trump wrote. "It's the world's biggest funder of terrorism."


Throughout Washington, many officials had similar concerns. In August 2014, for example, Hillary Clinton sent an e-mail to her associate John Podesta that noted that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia "are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."


Later in 2014, Vice President Joe Biden also confirmed that various U.S. allies had "poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons" into the hands of terrorists. Only now, Biden added, "everybody is awakened because this outfit called ISIL."


More recently, additional officials have noted that U.S. allies are still playing a role in supporting terrorism. Tim Roemer, who served on the 9/11 Commission, informed a congressional committee last May that "Saudi society still continues to produce a disturbing number of recruits and supporters for terrorist groups around the world." In fact, Saudi society continues to "export extremism, fund radical ideology for terrorist groups, and supply a stream of jihadists around the world," Roemer noted.


Ultimately, U.S. officials largely agree that some of their closest allies in the Middle East are empowering terrorists.


The Problem of Hopelessness


At the same time, the leaders of the United States believe that a more fundamental issue stands behind the problem of terrorism. As many people in the world struggle to find hope and opportunity in increasingly challenging circumstances, U.S. officials recognize that oppressed people will resist their oppression, sometimes by turning to terrorism.


John Kerry, who often spoke about the problem of terrorism during his time as Secretary of State, often raised the point. In May 2016, for example, Kerry noted that "Some people become terrorists because they have trouble finding meaning in life or economic opportunity in their daily lives because they are deeply frustrated."


A few months later, Kerry noted that much of the problem also came from corrupt governments. A society "that is run by, managed by, dominated by corruption, is a society that will frustrate people," Kerry said. "It's a society where the future of every citizen not given an equal opportunity is stolen from them, and that makes them a potential extremist or terrorist, ripe for the picking of recruiters."


General Thomas D. Waldhauser, Commander of U.S. Africa Command, argued earlier this year that the same factors applied to terrorist groups in Africa. Certainly, "we could knock off all the ISIL and Boko Haram this afternoon, but by the end week, so to speak, those ranks would be filled," Waldhauser said. The reason, he explained, was that marginalized people would continue to turn to these groups because there are no alternatives.


"Many people, especially those in uniform, have said we can't kill our way to victory here," Waldhauser stated.


In spite of their understanding of these basic issues, U.S. officials have not acted on it. While they recognize that terrorism will remain a problem as long as they fail to address its underlying causes, such as their support of repressive regimes, their alliances with countries that support terrorism, and the problems of hopelessness and desperation, they continue to operate on the principle that they can kill their way to victory.


In the years ahead, the United States will "unite the civilized world against Radical Islamic Terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth," President Trump has promised.


Indeed, going forward, the leaders of the United States are going to stick with their basic strategy, which is to keep killing terrorists. Through their actions, they are perpetuating an endless cycle of violence that will never resolve the problem of terrorism.

Quote:ERIC ZUESSE | 04.04.2017 | WORLD

Obama's Only Legacy Now Would Be World War III

U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, Obamacare (officially: «The Affordable Care Act») is collapsing, because its promise to reduce America's healthcare costs which already are twice as high as in other industrialized nations and also twice as high a percentage of GDP as in those nations is turning out to have been false (Obamacare is failing to reduce either the costs, or the percentage of U.S. GDP, that's paying those costs), and also because its promise to make health insurance «universal» or cover 100% of the U.S. population, has likewise failed (whereas 85.4% of Americans had health insurance before Obama entered office in 2009, it's now 89.1%, which is still 10.9% short of being «universal» though all of America's economic competitors already have 100% insurance-coverage, «universal healthcare»). After Obamacare's having been in effect now for two years, there is no indication whatsoever that it has at all improved the competitive standing of the U.S. in healthcare, but some evidence exists that the U.S. has experienced the exact contrary: the highest percentage increase in that cost of healthcare of any country, soaring from $8,713 per-capita in 2013 (pre-Obamacare), up 9.3% to $9,523 Obamacare in 2014, the latest-reported year. Furthermore, the U.S. is below average in the quality of its healthcare as compared with other industrialized nations. If Obama has had any significant impact upon healthcare in America, that impact has been bad, not good. In fact even just on health-insurance premiums, the story is not good, as Brian Blase summed up on 28 July 2016, headlining «Overwhelming Evidence That Obamacare Caused Premiums To Increase Substantially».Obama's other intended historical legacy (though one that he always kept secret from the American people) was to overthrow the leaders of nations that are friendly toward (or especially that are supportive of) Russia (such as Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya), and ultimately to replace Russia's President Vladimir Putin himself, and so to force Russia (the world's largest and most resource-rich nation) to become another member-nation in the American empire. However, that historical legacy, too, is now almost inevitably going to be failed, unless either President Obama or else his immediate successor (he's hoping it will be Hillary Clinton), will launch World War III in order outright to conquer Russia; and this war-launch appears to be unlikely, because the United States has not yet (if it ever will) achieve «Nuclear Primacy» over Russia the ability to destroy Russia in a blitz nuclear attack that simultaneously eliminates Russia's retaliatory ability. As President Obama had told graduating cadets at West Point on 28 May 2014:«The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. But the world is changing with accelerating speed. This presents opportunity, but also new dangers. We know all too well, after 9/11, just how technology and globalization has put power once reserved for states in the hands of individuals, raising the capacity of terrorists to do harm. Russia's aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China's economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums».In other words: only the U.S. is indispensable; Russia, like any other nation, is not, he is telling America's future military leaders. Obama sees international relations as being fundamentally an economic competition that's backed up by the nation's military, and he instructs his military to treat it that way, and to view every nation other than their own as being «dispensable».Obama's proposed three mega-international-trade' deals TTIP with Europe, TPP with Asia, and TISA regarding financial services were likewise proposed by him in order to isolate Russia (and also but secondarily to isolate China, and thirdly India and Brazil), by leaving them in the position of facing higher tariffs from the current industrialized nations than the industrialized nations charge each other. Furthermore, Obama's trade' deals entail a significant transfer of national sovereignty to international corporations, control over whether there will be any increased regulation to protect the environment, or workers, or consumers, would subject the nation that's imposing the increase, to pay to the stockholders in international corporations, enormous fines, for violation of those stockholders' right to profit', which, in Obama's view (and in the view of the other heads-of-state in the American empire) supersedes the rights of any mere voter, or taxpayer. So: the U.S. empire is based upon an ideology the transcendent rights (their rights' to profit from their gambles) that the stockholders who control international corporations have and not merely upon the brute force of the military.However, the prospects now for the passage-into-law of even just a single one of Obama's proposed three mega-treaties, are little-to-none, because politicians in the participating countries have been getting cold feet about their prior public support for what they all euphemistically call free trade'. Even if Obama wins the current Presidential election and Hillary Clinton becomes his immediate successor, he probably still won't win even a single one of the three treaties.That leaves, as his only remaining possible historical legacy, WW III, which is not something that he ever even announced publicly as his goal, and which even he would probably consider to be premature' because «Nuclear Primacy» hasn't yet been achieved (if it ever will be).

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Will Washington Risk World War III to Block an Emerging EU-Russia Superstate?

March 31, 2017 shorty

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By Mike Whitney

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"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as Europeans…That's why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as the Union of Europe' which will strengthen Russia's potential in its economic pivot toward the new Asia.'" Russian President Vladimir Putin, "Russia and the changing world", February 2012

The relentless demonization of Vladimir Putin is just one part of Washington's multi-pronged strategy to roll-back Russian power in Central Asia and extinguish Putin's dream of a "Greater Europe". Along with the attempt to smear the Russian president as a "KGB thug" and "dictator", the media has also alleged that Moscow intervened in the US presidential elections and that Russia is a serial aggressor that poses a growing threat to European and US national security. The media onslaught, which has greatly intensified since the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, has been accompanied by harsh economic sanctions, asymmetrical attacks on Russia's markets and currency, the arming and training of Russian adversaries in Ukraine and Syria, the calculated suppression of oil prices, and a heavy-handed effort to sabotage Russia's business relations in Europe. In short, Washington is doing everything in its power to prevent Russia and Europe from merging into the world's biggest free trade zone that will be the center of global growth and prosperity for the next century.

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This is why the US State Department joined with the CIA to topple the elected government of Ukraine in 2014. Washington hoped that by annexing a vital land-bridge between the EU and Asia, US power-brokers could control critical pipeline corridors that are drawing the two continents closer together into an alliance that will exclude the United States. The prospect of Russia meeting more of the EU's growing energy needs, while China's high-speed railway system delivers more low-cost manufactured goods, suggests that the world's center of economic gravity is shifting fast increasing the probability that the US will continue on its path of irreversible decline. And when the US dollar is inevitably jettisoned as the primary means of exchange between trade partners in the emerging Asia-EU free trade zone, then the recycling of wealth into US debt will drop off precipitously sending US markets plunging while the economy slips into a deep slump. Preventing Putin from "creating a harmonious community of economies from Lisbon to Vladivostok" is no minor hurtle for the United States. It's a matter of life and death.[B]Remember the Wolfowitz Doctrine:[/B]

[B]"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power."[/B]

Washington's relations with Russia will always be fractious because Russia poses a perennial threat to US ambitions to rule the world. Geography is fate, and Russia's geography contains massive oil and gas reserves that Europe needs to heat its homes and fuel its businesses. The symbiotic relationship between supplier and end-user will eventually lead to the lifting of trade barriers, the lowering of tariffs, and the smooth melding together of national economies into a region-wide common market. This may be Washington's biggest nightmare, but it's also Putin's top strategic priority. Here's what he said:

[FONT=Lato !important]"We must consider more extensive cooperation in the energy sphere, up to and including the formation of a common European energy complex. The Nord Stream gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea and the South Stream pipeline under the Black Sea are important steps in that direction. These projects have the support of many governments and involve major European energy companies. Once the pipelines start operating at full capacity, Europe will have a reliable and flexible gas-supply system that does not depend on the political whims of any nation. This will strengthen the continent's energy security not only in form but in substance. This is particularly relevant in the light of the decision of some European states to reduce or renounce nuclear energy."[/FONT]

If Europe wants a reliable partner that can meet its energy needs, then Russia fits the bill. Unfortunately, the US has repeatedly tried to sabotage both pipelines in order to undermine EU-Russia relations. Washington would prefer that Europe either dramatically curtail its use of natural gas or find other more expensive alternatives that don't involve Russia. In other words, Europe's material needs are being sacrificed for Washington's geopolitical objectives, the primary goal of which is to prevent the forming of Greater Europe.Washington's war against Russia is becoming increasingly militarized. Recently the Pentagon deployed more combat troops to Syria and Kuwait suggesting that US warplanners intend to shift from the current strategy of arming jihadist militias (to topple the government of [B]Syrian President Bashar al Assad), to a more direct use of martial force to seize-and-hold territory in East Syria. There are signs of an uptick in the violence in Ukraine too, as President Trump appears only-too-eager to use a more iron-fisted approach in settling regional disputes than his predecessor, [B]Barack Obama.[/B][/B]

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[FONT=lato !important][B][B][B]Washington is not going to let the Russo-China plan go forward without a fight. If economic sanctions, covert activity and financial sabotage don't work, then US powerbrokers will implement more lethal strategies. The recent deployment of troops to the Middle East suggests that policymakers believe that a direct military confrontation might be the best available option…[/B][/B][/B][/FONT]

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[B][B]Also, NATO has deployed troops and weaponry to Russia's western flank while the US has spread its military bases across Central Asia. NATO has continued to push eastward ever since the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. The steady buildup of hostile armies on Russia's western perimeter has been a source of growing concern in Moscow and for good reason. Russians know their history.[/B][/B]
[B][B]At the same time the US is building a ground-based missile defense system in Romania (Star Wars) that integrates the US nuclear arsenal at a site that is just 900 miles from Moscow. The US missile system which was "certified for operation" in May 2016, cancels-out Russia's nuclear deterrents and destroys the strategic balance of power in Europe. Putin has responded by ordering appropriate countermeasures. Here are Putin's comments on the subject:[/B][/B]
[B][B]"It seems that NATO countries, and especially the United States, have developed a peculiar understanding of security which is fundamentally different from our own. The Americans are obsessed with the idea of absolute invulnerability' for themselves… But absolute invulnerability for one nation means absolute vulnerability for everybody else. We cannot agree to this."[/B][/B]
[B][B][B]In the last week, the Trump administration announced that it will deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea citing a need to respond to provocations by North Korea. In truth, Washington is using the North as a pretext for its plan to hem in Russia and China at "axial ends" of the Eurasian heartland as a means of containing the vast landmass that Sir Halford Mackinder called the "pivot area… stretching from the Persian Gulf to China's Yangtze River."[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]Washington hopes that by controlling critical sea lanes, encircling the region with military bases, and aggressively inserting itself where necessary, it can prevent the emergence of an economic colossus that will diminish the United States role as global superpower. America's future rests on its ability to derail economic integration at the center of the world and prevail in the Great Game where others have failed. Here's an excerpt from an article by [B]Alfred W. McCoy titled The Geopolitics of American Global Decline" which helps to shed light on the struggle that is now taking place for control over the so called "world island":[/B][/B][/B]
[B][B]Following World War II the US became "the first power in history to control the strategic axial points "at both ends of Eurasia" … With fears of Chinese and Russian expansion serving as the "catalyst for collaboration," the U.S. won imperial bastions in both Western Europe and Japan. With these axial points as anchors, Washington then built an arc of military bases that followed Britain's maritime template and were visibly meant to encircle the world island….[/B][/B]
[B][B]"Having seized the axial ends of the world island from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945, for the next 70 years the United States relied on ever-thickening layers of military power to contain China and Russia inside that Eurasian heartland. Stripped of its ideological foliage, Washington's grand strategy of Cold War-era anticommunist "containment" was little more than a process of imperial succession. …[/B][/B]
[B][B]By the Cold War's end in 1990, the encirclement of communist China and Russia required 700 overseas bases, an air force of 1,763 jet fighters, a vast nuclear arsenal, more than 1,000 ballistic missiles, and a navy of 600 ships, including 15 nuclear carrier battle groups all linked by the world's only global system of communications satellites….("The Geopolitics of Global Decline", Alfred W. McCoy)[/B][/B]
[B][B]For the last 70 years the imperial strategy has worked without a hitch, but now Russia's resurgence and China's explosive growth are threatening to break free from Washington's stranglehold. The Asian allies have begun to crisscross Central Asia and Europe with pipelines and high-speed rail that will gather together the far-flung statelets scattered across the steppe, draw them into a Eurasian Economic Union, and link them to an expansive and thriving superstate, the epicenter of global commerce and industry. Grand Chessboard brain-trust [B]Zbigniew Brzezinski summed up the importance of Central Asia in his 1997 classic stating:[/B][/B][/B]

[B][B][FONT=Lato !important]"Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. ….About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski, p.31)[/FONT][/B][/B]

[B][B]A new global empire is gradually emerging in Central Asia, and while the transformative impact of economic integration has not yet been realized, US efforts to block the embryonic alliance are getting weaker and more desperate all the time. The hyperbolic propaganda about the alleged "Russia hacking" of the presidential election is just one example of this, while the arming of Nazi militants in Kiev is another.[/B][/B]
[B][B]The bottom line is that both Russia and China are using markets, development and raw ingenuity to beat Washington, while Washington relies almost exclusively on deception, covert activity and hard power. In other words, the former communists are beating the capitalists at their own game. Here's more from McCoy:[/B][/B]
[B][B]"China is reaching deep within the world island in an attempt to thoroughly reshape the geopolitical fundamentals of global power. It is using a subtle strategy that has so far eluded Washington's power elites….[/B][/B]
[B][B]Xi and Putin: Leaders with enormous responsibility , leading the world to safe haven while avoiding the provocations of a corrupt empire.[/B][/B][B][B]The initial step has involved a breathtaking project to put in place an infrastructure for the continent's economic integration. By laying down an elaborate and enormously expensive network of high-speed, high-volume railroads as well as oil and natural gas pipelines across the vast breadth of Eurasia, China may realize Mackinder's vision in a new way. For the first time in history, the rapid transcontinental movement of critical cargo oil, minerals, and manufactured goods will be possible on a massive scale, thereby potentially unifying that vast landmass into a single economic zone stretching 6,500 miles from Shanghai to Madrid. In this way, the leadership in Beijing hopes to shift the locus of geopolitical power away from the maritime periphery and deep into the continent's heartland…." (Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Washington's Great Game and Why It's Failing", TomDispatch)[/B][/B]
[B][B]Washington is not going to let the Russo-China plan go forward without a fight. If economic sanctions, covert activity and financial sabotage don't work, then US powerbrokers will implement more lethal strategies. The recent deployment of troops to the Middle East suggests that policymakers believe that a direct military confrontation might be the best available option, after all, a shooting war with Russia in Syria or Ukraine would not necessarily escalate into a full-blown nuclear conflagration. No one wants that. But if the fighting can be contained within Syria's borders, then it would be a practical way to rally the EU allies, torpedo Russia's "economic integration" plan, and draw Moscow into a long, resource-draining quagmire. Is that what US war-planners have in mind?[/B][/B]
[B][B]It's a risky plan, but one that Washington would eagerly pursue if it helped to reinforce America's global supremacy.[/B][/B]

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US Has Panic Attack After Libyan Puppets Lose Control of Oil Ports

from Russia Insider

Libya was the richest, most developed, most educated country in North Africa. It was a model of much-needed stability in the region, with a government that was considerably less terrible than NATO's numerous medieval dictator-allies.


Before the "revolution", the Libyan government used oil revenues to subsidize a whole range of social benefits for its citizens.


And now that Libya is a moon crater, the U.S. and its European poodles are whining about "returning oil ports to the Libyan people". Is this a new standup routine that Washington has been practicing?


EU states and the US have urged a Russia-backed Libyan warlord to hand back oil ports, amid warnings that Russia was trying to do in Libya what it did in Syria.


The British, French, Italian, and US ambassadors to Libya said oil facilities "belong to the Libyan people and must remain under the exclusive control" of central authorities.


This statement is of course referring to Khalifa Haftar and his successful attack against "Islamist militias" (fanatics affiliated with al-Qaeda) who seized Sidra and Ras Lanuf earlier this month.


In other words: The U.S. and Europe are now having a panic attack because Islamic extremists no longer control two key oil ports in Libya. What a strange thing to be upset about.


And the notion that Washington cares at all about what "belongs" to the Libyan people is laughable. If you measure the scale of destruction in terms of where Libya was before NATO's "humanitarian intervention", and where it is now, it's simply criminal. Before Obama started dropping "right to protect" bombs, this is what the U.N. said about Libya:


In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd in the UN's Human Development Index among 163 countries. With life expectancy at birth at 74.5 years, an 88.4% adult literacy rate and a gross enrolment ratio of 94.1%, Libya was classified as a high human development country among the Middle East and North Africa region.


Libyans once enjoyed a higher standard of living than 2/3 of the planet. NATO fixed that little problem and now Washington is crying crocodile tears about oil facilities that "belong" to the Libyan people. The entire country belongs to the Libyan people. Washington destroyed it, but for some reason it's only concerned about the oil ports. How odd.

"EU urges Russia's man to give back oil ports.

"EU states and the US have urged a Russian-backed Libyan warlord to hand back oil ports , amid warnings that Russia is trying to do in Libya what it did in Syria.

"The British, French, Italian and US ambassadors to Libya said that oil facilities "belong to the Libyan people and must remain under the exclusive control" of central authorities.

"Thomas Waldhauser, a US general in charge of Africa operations, told a Senate hearing last week that Russia posed a threat to Western interests in Libya."

Libyan oil is American, Waldermart told Senators, and it was just a freak of freakin' nature that our oil was accidentally deposited in a foreign, sand-filled land thousands of miles away from America's homeland. And now those damn Commies have got their thieving hands on our black stuff and we need to bring it home.

And it's the same goddamn story with freakin' Iranania where so much of our oil was illegally buried in thanks to those rag-headed, thieving mullah-hpriests. First we need to bomb nature to teach it a lesson, and then go get our oil back, gentlemen.


See HERE