21 replies to this topic

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Ralph Peters: The Man Too Militaristic for Fox News 

 

Peters believes his country was placed on Earth to spread the blessings of human rights and democratic equality, whether or not the intended recipients of those gifts want them. Britain and Israel are our partners in this work, while continental European countries like Germany and Russia are required to have compliant regimes that never stand in the way of our crusade. 

 

Only a few countries in Peters’ worldview are allowed to be nationalist and pursue national interests, and Russia is clearly not among them. 

 

Robert Merry has noted the hypocrisy of American politicians and journalists complaining about other countries interfering in foreign elections when the American government does the same thing. Peters’ answer would be that since the U.S. is an exceptional nation that is carrying out a global moral mission, we have a right to do what is verboten to other countries. We also have a right to get angry when others behave as we do, given our higher moral standing.

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Trump vs The Empire 

 

The Empire is the creation of the political class which resides on the coasts and is centered in Washington.  Middle America has no role in it, except to serve as cannon fodder in their wars. 

 

We won’t rid ourselves of the burden of empire overnight. It took decades for the political class to create this monster, and it will take that long for an organized effort to free us from the burden it imposes 

 

The President is surrounded by his enemies – the permanent unelected government that really runs the country. He ran on an “isolationist” (i.e., traditional American) platform: “America first.” The Iraq war was a preventable disaster, he said, promising no more regime change. Once he got into office, it’s not that he forgot his promises – it’s that he began to realize that the ship of state is not easily turned. The vast apparatus that is the American Empire has been set on its course since the end of World War II and the beginning of the cold war with the Soviet Union & no one person can turn it around. A president can announce policies, but as far as getting them implemented by underlings – well, good luck with that.

 

Trump is at war with his own government, that’s what the Mueller “investigation” is all about. With the entire political class, the government bureaucracy, and the media against him – and determined to oust him – Trump is isolated in the Oval Office and unable to implement many of the policies he prefers 

 

 

 

https://original.ant...ent-government/

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Basically, what the US does in Syria [is] similar to what it does everywhere else: it generates activity. It generates activity in order to be in a position to order more weapons systems, more munitions, to basically chew through war materiel, because that’s what the contractors require, and those contractors, military contractors, finance various congressional campaigns. That’s the entire political ecosystem, and what happens on the ground is sort of a sideshow. 

 

GR: Well, it’s an interesting point. I mean, we’re not just talking about imperial control of resources and strategic areas but also that idea of just using military activity as a way of generating money for the major military contractors, defense contractors, and affiliated interests. 

 

DO: In terms of purchasing parity it’s one Russian dollar to 10 U.S. dollars in defense spending. That’s really the ratio. The US has to spend ten times more than Russia to get the same or inferior results.  

 

 

 

https://www.lewrockw...diction-to-war/

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Woodrow Wilson Goes to Europe: One Hundred Years of Delusional American Madness  

 

We are now in the dubious position of “celebrating” the 100th anniversary of US President Woodrow Wilson’s departure  for the Versailles Peace Conference, where he would offer his brilliant solutions to end war in the world for all time.

 

Historians and psychiatrists – including Sigmund Freud – have endlessly debated whether Wilson was just deluded or raving mad. Henry Kissinger – significantly not born an American – points out, all US presidents either share Wilson’s  messianic fantasies or feel they must pretend to.  

 

During the Cold War, the recognition that the Soviet Union was at least as militarily powerful as the United States imposed the disciplines of realism and restraint on US policymakers. But since the Berlin Wall came down, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved and the Soviet Union peacefully disassembled, that restraint has vanished.

 

Every US president since then really believes that the United States is unique in history and fated to remake the entire world in its own image. History is over, American triumph over the whole world is ensured. And since that globalist vision is inevitable, flawless, perfect and virtuous, it follows that every bombing campaign, every war, every imposition of economic sanctions, the toppling of every government and the destruction of every society that dares to disagree is divinely approved.

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Trump's 'Axis of Evil': Pompeo, Bolton & Abrams    

 

 

Abrams is known as the “Assistant Secretary of Dirty Wars,” a title he earned during his stints with the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations:

 

In 1993, after a UN truth commission which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 per cent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights Abrams said: “The administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.”

 

Abrams organized the illegal, covert financing of Contra rebels in Nicaragua behind the back of Congress, which had cut off funding.

 

Abrams lied to Congress twice about his role with the Contras. He pleaded guilty to both counts in 1991 but was pardoned by George HW Bush.

 

Abrams, a decade later, while working as special Middle East adviser to former president George W Bush, Abrams was an enthusiastic advocate of the disastrous Iraq invasion.

 

Abrams was in the Bush White House at the time of the abortive coup in 2002 against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

 

Abrams helped lead the US effort to stage a coup to overturn the results of the 2006 Palestinian elections, complete with murder and torture.

   

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Your Complete Guide To The NYTimes' Support Of US-Backed Coups In Latin America     https://www.zerohedg...s-latin-america

 

Last week, The New York Times continued its long, predictable tradition of backing U.S. coups in Latin America by publishing an editorial praising Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. This will be the 10th such coup the paper has backed since the creation of the CIA over 70 years ago.

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Trump’s Foreign-Policy Critics Are Losing   https://outline.com/EG6KFq

 

Far from meeting his critics halfway, Mr. Trump and his foreign-policy team announced progress in Afghanistan negotiations that opponents call a surrender, doubled down on plans to withdraw troops from Syria, announced its impending withdrawal from an arms-control agreement many consider foundational to the post-Cold War security order in Europe, and attacked the judgment of his senior intelligence officials.

 

The administration also advanced an aggressive hemispheric strategy aimed not only at Venezuela, but also at Cuba and Nicaragua—the other two regimes in what national security adviser John Bolton calls the “troika of tyranny.”

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Good Questions - Rep. Ilhan Omar Spars With Elliott Abrams Over His Links To War Crimes    https://news.yahoo.c...-010326430.html

 

Omar questioned how Abrams, who has a history of lying to Congress and abetting war crimes by U.S. allies, could be trusted at all.  

 

Abrams is a neoconservative who previously served in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. In 1991, he pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved secret government operations including the promotion of arms sales to Iran and efforts to fund terrorist militia in Nicaragua.

 

Abrams was sentenced to two years’ probation and then pardoned in 1992 by the outgoing President Bush. 

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Glenn Greenwald Defends Rep. Ilhan Omar: Criticizing Israeli Lobby & AIPAC Is Not Anti-Semitic

 

[diogenes227]

Glenn Greenwald Defends Rep. Ilhan Omar: Criticizing Israeli Lobby & AIPAC Is Not Anti-Semitic

 

 

 

Bravo!