America: Do as I say, not as I do

The U.S. is the world's spoiled bully.
We have absolutely no ability to see ourselves through someone else's eyes, and we wouldn't be bothered to do so anyway.

Consider how we think some Russian Twitter bots and possible email hack is an "act of war".

Meanwhile, months before any of this possibly happened, this was the news.

“Cyber can be a tool that we can use against our enemies,” he said before the committee Feb. 25.
At the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Tuesday, Carter added, “It is the kind of thing we’ve done in electronic warfare over the radio spectrum for decades and decades.”
It surprises no one that the U.S. government is using cyber as a tool for war. What was surprising was that the Pentagon publicly acknowledged it is waging active cyber campaigns against its adversaries.

It's-OK-When-We-Do-It.
Or to put it another way, the Russians should never have complained while we attacked them. Any response by Russia is unacceptable, in the same way as it is totally unacceptable for a smaller kid to fight back against a bully.

This was today's headline: How Putin meddles in Western democracies
It's not like we would ever do that.
Oh wait. We do it almost every single year for the last century.
Not only is It's-OK-When-We-Do-It, but when we openly rigged Russia's 1996 election, we thought it was a big joke.
No, really. Hollywood made a comedy about rigging Russia's election.
I'm sure the Russians took no offense at all.

This is how we know that Russia isn't a full democracy. Otherwise, how could we have rigged their election, amirite?
The U.S. is a flawed democracy, but there's a difference.
Russia is run by oligarchs. America is run by billionaires.
See the difference?

The difference is that Putin is a bad guy who assassinates people.
America doesn't assassinate people. We do "targeted killings".

Another example is this article from yesterday.

Millions of smartphone users in the United States, and around the world, are vulnerable to being spied-on by the Iranian government, according to a new report.

OMG! How shocking!
It's not like we would ever do something like that.
Oh wait. We spy on everyone in the world, even our allies.

Finally, we can't overlook Russia's aggression in Syria.

instead of proper diplomatic or military channels, the Russians instead dispatched a general to knock on the American Embassy door in Baghdad roughly an hour before strikes began to send the message. The Russian parliament passed hasty legislation authorizing the strikes, and called on the U.S. to vacate Syrian airspace.

Can you believe that? The Russian parliament actually had the nerve to pass an AUMF before bombing a country that the recognized government invited in.
Fortunately, America is above all that.

The Trump administration has decided that it needs no new legal authority from Congress to indefinitely keep American military forces deployed in Syria and Iraq, even in territory that has been cleared of Islamic State fighters, according to Pentagon and State Department officials.
In a pair of letters, the officials illuminated the Trump administration’s planning for an open-ended mission of forces in Syria beyond the Islamic State fight. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson foreshadowed the plan in a speech last month, saying that troops will stay in Syria to curb Iran and prevent the Syrian government from reconquering rebel-held areas.
...The State Department sent him a similar letter, which also argued that international law provided a basis for American forces to remain in Syria — despite the lack of consent from the Syrian government — to protect Iraq and the United States from terrorists.
And both letters said American troops may strike at Syrian government or Iranian forces deemed to threaten Americans or Syrian rebel groups that are assisting the United States in fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.

Right. Because we don't need any legal authority to partition Syria, which will inevitably lead to war with Syria and it's ally, Iran.
Not to mention the fact that those "rebel groups" are at war with the Syrian government, and by protecting them we are by definition at war with Syria too.

American troops carried out strikes against forces loyal to President Bashar Assad of Syria several times in 2017 in the name of defending American-supported rebel groups.

If Syria has the temerity to attack the head-chopping jihadists that are our "moderate rebel" allies trying to overthrow the Syrian government, then we will be predictably outraged at this unacceptable aggression.
We are so sure Congress would approve of going to war with Syria and Iran that we don't even need to ask them. Or the American people.
And why would anyone else in the world complain? It's-OK-When-We-Do-It.

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Amanda Matthews's picture

Former CIA Chief Admits US Meddling In Foreign Elections "For Their Own Good

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-17/former-cia-chief-admits-us-med...

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

@Amanda Matthews

Do you think Washington understands yet that this is the day of technology and all of their lies and dirty underwear are showing when they didn't show before?

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

Amanda Matthews's picture

@dkmich

it looks like they’re going to stick with it.

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I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

snoopydawg's picture

intentions. No trying to make up excuses for why the military needs to stay in Syria. No need for it to get authorization from either congress or the UN, they just do it.

stay in Syria to curb Iran and prevent the Syrian government from reconquering rebel-held areas.

It's not enough for us to be fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and gawd knows how many countries in Africa, threatening North Korea, Russia and China, we're going to go into Venezuela and overthrow their government too.

Venezuela: Revenge of the Mad-Dog Empire

Only in the world of comic-book fantasies is the United States a friend to the oppressed in Africa or anywhere else on the planet. In the real world, the U.S. is a predator, colonial/capitalist nation. But like the imagined nation of Wakanda, in the latest cultural assault on critical mass consciousness, “American exceptionalism” and “make America great again” – two slogans representing both sides of the imperialist coin, ruling class interests are obscured and the people are reduced to working against their objective interests and being accomplices to imperial lawlessness.

In every part of the world, the United States is engaged in maniacal, criminal assaults on democracy, basic human decency and common sense. From its support for armed jihadists groups in Syria and its illegal occupation of that nation, transferring heavy military equipment to its puppet regime in Ukraine, supporting unending war in Afghanistan, to the military invasion of African, the commitment to maintaining U.S. global dominance has moved war and militarism to the center of U.S. strategy.

Apparently this is not enough for this rogue, hegemonic, murderous country.

But nowhere is U.S. criminality more apparent and unrelenting than right here in the Americas where the Pan-European project was born in 1492. That was the year “Europe” was born, emerging from its relative cultural backwardness using with terrifying efficiency the only advantage it had over the more civilized people of the region—armor protection and steel weapons—to slaughter the people, take the land and begin the 500-hundred-year nightmare the people of the world have suffered ever since.

Much more in the article.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg who does the approval of US military interventions? Sure as fuk ain't us. Congress has it's hands tied behind their backs because of contributions. Executive is now in the business of War, Inc. Of the people, by the people is now a quaint distant memory. Judiciary is so flaming establishment, they should wear red capes and powdered wigs. When and if your local congress critter comes home to show it's value, shoot the MF with uglies.

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snoopydawg's picture

@QMS

Oil, natural gas and other corporations that want the resources that other countries have that ours doesn't. The banks make a ton of money off wars too. Why can't this country negotiate with those countries like others do? Why should men and women have to sacrifice their lives for the corporations? And most of all, why the Hell don't the corporations have to pay for their own damn wars? Then we could have money to spend on us and our schools and infrastructure instead. Nah, the sociopaths need to have their share of misery and death.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg banks, energy monopolies, military, wall street and all the other flesh eaters need to have always more of the resources and blood of the earth to fix their jones. Where does that leave us? Bloody hosts. Drained and poor. I was trying to make a quandary point about the peoples' inability to decide where military ventures are focused. Did anyone ask you if we should have invaded Iraq or Syria or Libya? Probably not. So from where does the military derive our (we the people) permission to intervene in foreign affairs?

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snoopydawg's picture

@QMS

I did see a lot of people defending the decision to "help save the Libyan people."

Oh look. Here's confirmation from Her herself talking about how the Libyan spoils were going. Anyone surprised at this?

Her's emails on Libyan conquest

On 10.20.2011, NATO-backed forces murdered their captive Muammar Ghaddafi grotesquely on camera. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said “I want him dead,” and after his death gloated that, “We came, we saw, he died,” refiguring Julius Caesar’s message to the Roman Senate after one of his own conquests in the same Mediterranean region. Less than a month later, in an 11.16.2011 “Tripoli Situation Report” in Hillary Clinton’s e-mail archive, “country managers of the three U.S. firms comprising the Waha Group (Marathon, ConocoPhillips and Amerada Hess) said meetings with its Libyan joint venture partner and the National Oil Company [NOC] this week were ‘extremely positive’ and that they were encouraged by an apparent sea change in the NOC’s attitude toward its U.S. partners.”

Heh, who needs Russia to tell us how we felt about Her? I made up my mind in the 1990's.

Americans didn’t need Russian Facebook posts to read horrible things about Secretary Clinton

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@QMS @QMS then we would have the option to vote on foreign ventures. It is our tax dollars paying for these escapades. Our elected reps won't even use their constitutional authority (a constitutional requirement) to debate these choices of expenditure and involvement. Therefore, we do not live in a democracy. This simple fact needs to be understood by the nation so the illusion of a free democratic state can be exposed for the fallacy which it is. It's weird how the rest of the world can see this glaring fact without the natives seeming to recognize any of the lack of empowerment. Legalized psyops and propaganda is working.

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@QMS

if this were a democracy

then we would have the option to vote on foreign ventures war crimes...

Also, a democracy would presumably respect international law and human rights and never for an instant consider invading other people's countries to overthrow their governments, murder/dispossess their citizens and steal their stuff.

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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.

CB's picture

Here's a copy of a previous post I made in Imperial Drumbeats Over Venezuela: a Public Service Announcement

US-Chile (1964-2005)

During the Chilean election campaign, when it becomes clear that leftist candidate Salvador Allende will win (see September 4, 1970), the US ambassador to Chile, Edward Korry, says: “Not a [US] nut or bolt will be allowed to reach Chile under Allende. Once Allende comes to power we will do all within our power to condemn Chile and Chileans to utmost deprivation and poverty.” Weeks later, President Nixon declares his intention to “smash” that “son of a bitch Allende” (see September 11, 1973).

CIA covert policies (at an expense of $8 million from 1970-73) lead to a coup d’etat in which Allende is killed and Augusto Pinochet brought to power. [Kornbluh, n.d.; Time, 9/24/1973; US Congress, 12/4/1975, pp. 148-160; BBC, 11/14/2000] After Allende’s assassination, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will explain to Congress, “The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”

"But we don't do that anymore."

WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO

https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil

Philip Zimbardo knows how easy it is for nice people to turn bad. In this talk, he shares insights and graphic unseen photos from the Abu Ghraib trials.

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@CB
in the race to imprison and torture people.
They've also fallen behind the U.S. in the important, shooting our own children category.

The sad fact is that Russia is no longer a super power in imprisoning, torturing, and murdering their own children.

America is still #1.

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CB's picture

@gjohnsit
There's been a revolution in Russia. It's an entirely different country now.
“Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart. Whoever wants it back has no brain.” - Putin

Unfortunately, ninety-nine out of a hundred Americans can be readily confused by TPTB due to their abominable lack of knowledge of world geography and world history. I don't believe for a moment that this was accidental. The US education system has propagandized American exceptionalism from K up for the last century. This has ended up giving many Americans an extremely narrow and stunted world view.

Russian children are much better educated than American children. Many even learn English from Grade one. Russian schools now surpass American schools in practically every measure. Putin realized from day one of his presidency that education of a nation's young is first and foremost the most important thing that needs to be done to make a country strong and dynamic.


The Distortion of Russia

One does not need to love Vladimir Putin to appreciate that Washington shares interests with Moscow.
...
In my previous life I encountered many Russians overseas and so was prepared to note yet again that they are by and large like what most Americans believe Americans to be—hard working, friendly and somewhat chatty. Like nearly everyone else on this planet, the talk of Russians turns quickly to their children, schools, where they live and what kind of lives they want to have. They are quick to produce photos of their pet dogs and cats. They are also increasingly religious, with the Russian Orthodox church playing a leading role in the state. Christmas lights were on display everywhere, churches destroyed by Stalin are being rebuilt and there was even a bustling Christmas Market in Red Square.

But there was also a dark side that kept surfacing. Both ordinary Russians and those who are journalists or teachers kept coming around to the same issue: why does the United States hate Russians so much and why does the American press seemingly have nothing good to say about them? They were questions I could not answer in any coherent way....
...
Other speakers at the conference were as dismayed as I was by the negativity towards Russia and also provided some additional insights into why Americans just don’t get it. One European speaker joked that U.S.A. could stand for United States of Amnesia in that developments elsewhere in the world are subjected to a superficial 24-hour news cycle before being completely forgotten. Professor Peter Kuznick of American University observed that students in the U.S. rank low on science and math scores, which makes the news, but the area in which their scores are actually lowest is history. He quizzed a class of top students on the Second World War and asked how many Americans died in the conflict. The response was 90,000, which is nearly 300,000 short of the true number. How many Russians? The answer was about 100,000, which is 27,900,000 short. Not knowing something about that number means not understanding what motivates Russia. Kuznick observed that roughly 3,000 Americans died on 9/11. To use the numbers of 9/11 as a basis for appreciating the impact of the Russian war deaths would require the U.S. to experience a 9/11 attack every day for the next 24 years.

But there maybe is hope....
...

The Deep State can only thrive if they prevent the peoples of different nations from knowing and understanding one another.

[video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0lxvAsAUL0]

[video:www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9gBJQDmC00]

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@CB
thank you for bringing up the problem of public education, as several people have in our discussions about American ignorance. In the highly contentious debates online and in academia about public education there have been the Reading Wars and the Math Wars, but I agree with your point that we should also have had the History Wars. American young people are dangerously ignorant in a world in which knowledge is not only power but also a matter of survival.

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@Linda Wood
I've noticed that people with the loudest opinions are usually the most ignorant.

People who believe strongly in capitalism have never read a book on it, and couldn't tell you how money is created.

People who believe strongly in religion couldn't tell you how the bible was created.

People who are most patriotic couldn't tell you much about the history of America, or much about the Constitution.

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Song of the lark's picture

The No Such Agency with its black box rooms in ATT and Google and other places beat them to the punch. Iran is going together a great nation once they get rid of those religious nitwits. You need oil to prosper and they have it in abundance and I hear that Iran is a beautiful country unlike our erstwhile allies KSA fucking sand dune. Iran is half way around the world. NSA is what I'm worried about!
Keep an eye out for the lizard people. I think they took over our .gov.

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