Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?
The Saker has a very good article on the upcoming G20 conference at which Trump and Putin are scheduled for talks on the sidelines. In it he outlines the extremely low possibility that there will be meaningful discussions, mostly due to the intransigence of those that have taken complete control of the Executive Branch of the US government.
I sure hope that I am wrong, but…
The talk of the week is the upcoming meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin on the sidelines of the G20 conference this Friday. There have been some very good articles already written on this topic, I particularly recommend Adam Garrie’s "5 obstacles Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will have to address in their meeting" for The Duran and Israel Shamir’s "What Would Putin Tell Trump?" for The Unz Review. It is undeniable that the fact that these two men will finally meet is an event of immense significance and importance for the future not only of US-Russian relations, but even for the future or mankind.
Or is it?
I have to be honest here and say that my expectations are pretty close to zero....
First, we should all stop kidding ourselves, Russia and the USA do not have “disagreements”. The sad and frightening reality is that we are now closer to war than during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Not only are Russian and US servicemen now deployed in the same war zone (the Americans totally illegally), but unlike what happened during the Cuban Missile Crisis we have a US President who terminally lacks the willpower to deal with the crazies on the US side, I am talking about the Neocons, of course....
Second, it is absolutely clear that the US Ziomedia and Congress will declare any, any, positive outcome from the meeting as “Trump caved in to Putin” and try to get a pound of political flesh out of Trump for it. So for Trump any external success will mean an internal disaster....
Third, if we look at the people around Trump it is pretty clear that the only intelligent and rational person in the White House is Rex Tillerson. The rest of them are lunatics, maniacs and imbeciles – the current US, what shall I call it, “actions” (can’t call it a “policy”) towards Syria clearly prove that the Executive Branch is completely out of control. We now can clearly see that Mattis and McMaster are not these military geniuses presented to us by the Ziomedia but that, in fact, they are both phenomenally incompetent and that their views of the conflicts in Syria and even Afghanistan can only be characterized as totally lacking anything remotely resembling any kind of vision. Yet these two “geniuses” seem to be in charge....
How about the other way around? What could the Russians offer Trump?
Again, I am afraid that nothing much either.
Russian foreign policies are all centered around the development of a multi-polar world and Putin is now extremely busy dealing with some seriously important matters. So what can Putin offer Trump?....
The Russians will probably try to get Trump into agreeing to some kind of new UN Resolution on Syria, but since we all know that the USA disregards UN resolutions anyway, it won’t be much of a victory, even if it will feel good for a while.
I hope I am wrong, really wrong, totally wrong even. I will be watching the (hopefully joint) press conference of Trump and Putin on Friday with a tiny leftover and paradoxical spark of hope that maybe, just maybe, Trump has something good left inside him. But I won’t be holding my breath. They say that hope dies last. Maybe. I will find out on Friday.
Comments
I share your enthusiasm
for being completely wrong. But I anticipate losing again.
How effed up, huh?
Happy Re-enslavement Day to all.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
An Amazing Beautiful Phenomenon
To cheer us all up:
An iceberg the size of Delaware. Beautiful!!
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/07/an-iceberg-the-size-of-de...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
Judicial Smackdown
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/07/03/court-smacks-down-trumps-ca...
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
You got to look on the bright side.
That iceberg should cool down the oceans for a week or two.
Surfs Up!
Grab your longboards and catch the monster wave!: https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/10902-how-to-survive-a-huge-wipeout
"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn
"Iceberg will cool down the ocean"
and the resultant rising sea water will increase the size of the sink hole in front of Mar a Lago.
To thine own self be true.
That's the one positive from global warming
Beware the bullshit factories.
Good point. Trump is not in charge of policy
The Russians can't get anything agreed to as there seems to be palace coupes happening all the time between various courtier factions. Who is in charge varies day-by-day. Sp Trump watches cable all day and tweets.
And from an earlier Saker story
Putin has to know this very well:
He's right about Tillerson as being
one few with a level headed one around Trump. And believe it or not I think Bannon is smarter than most and believes less of the crap that he publishes than most of his prospective gullible nitwits would suspect. Still I've read and gamed out North Korea and I don't think the vaunted China/Russia axis. (Both of which border the Norks.) have any more idea or control than the NATO states. China/Russia seem want to tolerate another nuclear power on their border rather than have a potentially western unified Korea. Stupid is a stupid does. They should have learned from the US experience in Vietnam which was as not a domino and now makes our tennis shoes.
I suspect that we will wake up one morning and find Kim Jong UN is UN-no-more. and the great opening of the north will begin under the watchful eyes of China/Russian tutelage.
Also the the west (NATO ) has more sharp teeth (if a little crooked) to bite with than the diary suggests.
I never thought I'd be grateful
to have an Exxon CEO as Secretary of State. These are strange days indeed.
native
Tillerson has all but destroyed the State Department
by sacking seasoned professionals, leaving posts unfilled, empty offices. It's a sad state of affairs at State.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/29/how-rex-tillerson-dest...
To thine own self be true.
Keep in mind that the author
of this article, Max Bergmann, is closely affiliated with the Center for American Progress, which is John Podesta's think tank. I would not expect an impartial evaluation from this man.
native
@MarilynW True at others request
True at others request and he has a restrained budget. Although i don't mean to defend him just speak to his intelligence .
imo intelligent people should have the foresight to
prevent environmental destruction. That destruction is a not a productive outcome for anything or anyone.
To thine own self be true.
Oh no, Tillerson was put there for a reason.
Oil, and with the oil, power. That is the plan.
Oil runs everything
Yes he is an oil fiend.
So was Mr. All of the above Obama. And the pipeline Queen
@CB
Both of whom can just frack off somewhere to some already lifeless planet where they can have the end result intended for Earth but have nothing capable of suffering to harm.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
The Saker continues to impress.
He's probably right, but I'd still like to be a fly on the wall when Trump and Putin meet face to face.
native
Posting links to The Saker at TOP will get you some HR's
and a plethora of nasty remarks.
Well, if people insist upon wearing blinders
there's not much you can do about it. It's mostly fruitless to post anything there that falls outside the (intentionally limited) DKos field of vision. Maybe someday they'll pull off the blinders and take a look around, but probably not before Markos gives them permission to do so.
native
TOP and blinders
Let us continue to be the nasty horseflies biting around the ears.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Oh that is so evil.
Give em a good bite on the ass too.
native
@native
The ass and the elephant both!
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
How the rest of the world now sees the USA?
in one word
weak
To thine own self be true.
Obviously we need to start more wars
how else are we going to change that perception?
/s
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
What good is a strong military run by fools?
To thine own self be true.
It's way too late.
"They" can't stop it, only "we" can. They are part of the problem.
Third, if we look at the
Who is a complete and utter sociopath. Think about this:
The intelligent and rational person is the sociopathic CEO who killed the planet and sent the ME back to the Stone Age.
Unreal world we live in. Makes Vonnegut-style dystopia circa 2020 look just about spot on.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Exactly, if Tillerson is the best they've got
they've sunk very low.
To thine own self be true.
The people in this country have been bombarded with
Russian propaganda for over 3 years when our government overthrew Ukraine's government and backed the neo Nazis.
Since then, they have told us that Russia was responsible for the violence there, that Putin stole Crimea, shot down the plane that was re-routed by the Ukraine air tower and spouting all kinds of bullshit on Russian aggression. I haven't seen the evidence that supports their stances.
They claim that NATO HAS TO PUT TROOPS in the countries that surround Russia because of Russia's aggression.
This has worked. I see people repeating these talking points in every article that is about Russia.
The democrats and their ding bat followers are saying that Russia interfered with the election, hacked into Vermont's electrical grid and now they are saying that they hacked other state's grids.
Even though the Vermont story has been retracted, people are still saying that.
One prominent ding bat was upset when Tillerson said that Russia could decide what happens to Assad.
He stated that the 4 million people in Syria who have died and the millions of refugees were because of the actions of Assad and Russia. No mention of the terrorists that our country has armed, funded and trained by our military and our allies.
No mention of the fact that Russia wouldn't be involved in Syria if Obama hadn't accepted the Saudi's offer to pay for Assad's removal so they and Qatar can build pipelines after Assad told them no.
You'll never guess which website he writes for. Okay, you probably can and you are correct.
Remember how the news media responded when Trump bombed the Syrian airport. Brian Williams said it was a thing of beauty, and some else said that Trump finally looks presidential.
This means that the right of passage to become presidential must involve killing people in foreign countries. Go figure.
Hopefully, Trump and Putin can meet in private and have an honest and open conversation.
As to how close we came to nuclear war, I read that one captain of a Russian submarine was given orders to fire his nuclear missiles and he disobeyed them. That is very close.
The people who think that they can survive a first strike against Russia are insane.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
at some point Russia may figure a first strike
is their best chance to survive.
and then we are toast.
I agree and how scary is that?
same with North Korea and Iran. The countries that disarmed themselves have been erased, so what's the incentive to play by the rules? This country certainly doesn't.
Remember what the Nuremberg trials were about?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Putin must be tuning up the nukes.
Why wouldn't he be?
I'll be goddamned if I'd do nothing to save myself and my people from annihilation when I had the ability to stop it.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I hope Putin
tells Trump he is going to sell North Korea advanced guidance systems if he doesn't back off NATO troops from Russia's borders.
With the American deep state pushing Euopean States to surround and threaten Russia, he could push NK to threaten American soil.
Don't really want to see this happen, but it seems the only way to deal with these nutjobs running our country. Power speaking to power, it's all the deep state understands.
Detente has worked great for decades now.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Time to put one's affairs in order
distribute useful things, find one sane friend who lives nearby.