Trump, Pompeo, and Bolton bellow for Catastrophic War on Iran
‘Trump threatens Iran with a catastrophic war’, wsws.org, 24 July 2018, a few paragraphs:
(Just a quickie, as I’m on a different mission for Gawd, so to speak, nope: no hints or klews…)
“US President Donald Trump issued a bloodcurdling threat of all-out war against Iran late Sunday night.
Using language akin to that he previously employed in threatening North Korea, a state of 25 million people, with annihilation, the US commander-in-chief tweeted that Iran would “SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED, if it “EVER” dared to “THREATEN” Washington “AGAIN.”
Trump’s all in-caps tweet was no idle bluster. His administration is pursuing a provocative and reckless drive for regime change in Iran that threatens to ignite a catastrophic war that would set the entire Middle East ablaze, and potentially trigger a head-on clash between the US and other great powers.
In May, Washington blew up the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and relaunched full-scale economic warfare against Iran—an illegal act tantamount to war. Next month sanctions will “snap back” on Iran’s auto sector and trade in gold and other metals. In November, sanctions targeting Iran’s energy, shipping and insurance sectors and the transactions of its central bank are to take effect.
Yesterday, John Bolton, Trump’s national security advisor and a longstanding proponent of a US attack on Iran, gleefully reiterated Trump’s threat, saying the president had told him, “if Iran does anything at all to the negative, they will pay a price like few countries have ever paid before.”
Trump cast his ominous Sunday tweet as a response to a warning from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani that if the US persisted in seeking to destroy Iran’s economy and impose a pro-US government in Tehran, it risked unleashing “the mother of all wars.”
Earlier this month, Rouhani—unnerved by his failure to win a commitment from the European powers that they would not bow to US pressure and renege on their obligations under the Iran nuclear accord—said that were Iran denied the right to export its oil it might close the Strait of Hormuz.
Within hours, the Pentagon issued a statement vowing to ensure “freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce” through the strait, which is the conduit for one-fifth of all world oil exports.
Trump’s claims that Iran threatens the US are preposterous.
Trump’s eagerness to provoke a confrontation with Iran is bound up with his calculation that China must be confronted sooner rather than later. The re-subjugation of Iran would give the US a stranglehold over the oil resources of the Middle East, which are vital to sustaining China’s economy, as well as eliminate an important link in China’s One Belt, One Road strategy to deepen the integration of Eurasia.”
Not to mention that Iran was on the Cheney/Rumsfeld hit list: ‘Seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan and Iran.”
‘As the drumbeats for war on Iran grow more thunderous, ‘education is key’, café babylon, May 18, 2018: a Storify by Nyusha on Twitter, a fascinating compendium with art and historical photos
‘U.S. launches campaign to erode support for Iran’s leaders’, July 21, 2018, reuters.com
“The Trump administration has launched an offensive of speeches and online communications meant to foment unrest and help pressure Iran to end its nuclear program and its support of militant groups, U.S. officials familiar with the matter said.
More than half a dozen current and former officials said the campaign, supported by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, is meant to work in concert with U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to economically throttle Iran by re-imposing tough sanctions. The drive has intensified since Trump withdrew on May 8 from a 2015 seven-nation deal to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
A senior Iranian official dismissed the campaign, saying the United States had sought in vain to undermine the government since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He spoke on condition of anonymity.
A review of the State Department’s Farsi-language Twitter account and its ShareAmerica website – which describes itself as a platform to spark debate on democracy and other issues – shows a number of posts critical of Tehran over the last month.
On June 21, Pompeo tweeted out graphics headlined: “Protests in Iran are growing,” “Iranian people deserve respect for their human rights,” and “Iran’s revolutionary guard gets rich while Iranian families struggle.” The tweets were translated into Farsi and posted on the ShareAmerica website.”
[The bolds are utter rubbish, of course, but it’s been reified as: The Truth; the rest? yes, why not? on the soldiers, dunno about ‘diplomats’]
“Washington has long called Iran the world’s leading “state sponsor of terrorism” because Tehran arms and funds proxy militant groups like Lebanese Hezbollah. Iranian leaders urge the destruction of the United States and Israel, and Iranian proxies have killed hundreds of U.S. soldiers and diplomats since the Islamic Revolution.”
‘Tweet of Mass Destruction’ ratchets up tension on Iran; The Trump administration’s ultimate goal is regime change in Tehran, but was this just a distraction from the ‘treason’ in Helsinki as US Mid-Term elections loom? Or did he just want to destabilize the Eurasian giants and their New Silk Roads?’, pepe escobar, atimes.com (some longish outtakes)
“Rouhani, as his record attests, has always behaved as the epitome of cool diplomacy. Contrary to predictable US media spin, he never “threatened” to attack the US. His premise was that Tehran was pleased to offer Washington the “mother of all peace.” But if Trump instead decided to attack Iran, then (italics mine) that would open the way to the Mother of all Wars.
Ultimate goal: Regime change
Anyone claiming Tehran will capitulate shows an utter ignorance of the overall mood of defiance and scorn among the Iranian people, even as they are faced with massive economic hardship. And anyone stating there will be regime change in Tehran basically parrots a US “policy” that is just wishful thinking.
But, in the Middle East, at the moment there are three characters who are singin’ and dancin’ like everything is going according to plan: Saudi Arabia’s Mohamed Bin Salman (MBS), his mentor, the United Arab Emirates’ Mohamed bin Zayed, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Surely they are not heeding the expert advice of former Mossad head Meir Dagan, who stated that a military attack on Iran was “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”
“Back to reality, the stark options would come down to either Iran becoming a US satellite or closing the Strait of Hormuz – something that for all practical purposes would collapse the global economy.
I have been assured that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has the technological means to block the Strait and would not flinch to go for it rather than yield, if the going gets tough. President Rouhani cannot resist the IRGC. The Trump administration has, in fact, forced Rouhani to show his cards. All branches of the Iranian government are now united.
War hysteria, already on, is extremely irresponsible. In the worst Strait of Hormuz scenario, the US Navy would be impotent, as Russian-made SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles could wreak havoc. Washington could only bomb from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar or Incirlik in Turkey. Neither Qatar nor Turkey is inclined to antagonize Iran.”,and a more wide-ranging discussio.)
(cross-posted from Café Babylon)
Comments
i couldn't cross-post the tweets: here are most of them.
Heh.
Also on Twitter:
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
ha, good on them fwiw, and good on swanson.
a quick look seemed to say there hasn't been much action on it since, june, and no mention of a companion senate bill that i'd seen.
but do the mean that the new and improved AUMF ain't a license to kill at will? bomb nuke drone and strafe?
Actually they're violating the U.N. Charter
and international law by "threatening" war, waging economic war and violating the internal affairs of a sovereign nation. All impeachable offenses under the Constitution.
So on the one hand, this resolution is a good thing, on the other hand, it ignores the fact that the U.S. is waging and threatening war against international law, which isn't a good thing.
Agree 100%.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
great point,
ha, but you reminded me that some time ago, the head of the national aclu, anthony romero (?) suggested that obomba should pardon bush and 'those who tortured'. his reasoning was that i order to accept said pardons...the would be admitting their war crimes. what.an.idiot.
but obomba looked forward, not backward, which is partly what got us here now. he also knew that he'd be a War Criminal, as well.
@divineorder If the Republicans were
If the Republicans were what they tell their supporters they are, they would go for this tout suite.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
More sanctions would also be horrid but MIC just don't cayuh.
PeaceAction retweeted
Twitter profile:
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
thanks for both, and as far as sanctions (and more)
yes, to the history of strengthening authoritarian regimes, but i'll bold some of what pepe says in that regard (i was just coming over to include it):
‘Tweet of Mass Destruction’ ratchets up tension on Iran; The Trump administration's ultimate goal is regime change in Tehran, but was this just a distraction from the 'treason' in Helsinki as US Mid-Term elections loom? Or did he just want to destabilize the Eurasian giants and their New Silk Roads?’, pepe escobar, atimes.com
it's very wide-ranging, but a few longish snippets:
Breaking Russia-China-Iran
short answer is Nope; the mackinder heartland theory, pipelinestan/s, etc.
on edit: i finally realized i might be able to edit this version w/ escobar's take, and it did work, so i'm editing this comment save for the relevant parts regarding your comment. or so i hope, lol. this stuff gets purdy corn-fusing to me. but when one thinks: CIA, MI6, mosaddegh...how many of those spooks are inside iran tryin' to foment 'regime change'.
might not be working yet, eh wot? but according to guardian and other MSM: it's about to R2P: iran!
Thank you for bringing this topic here.
Europeans are also flaking on the nuke agreement, so the Iranians are probably thinking about what happened to Libya and formulating a last ditch plan if all else fails.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/24/the-oil-rou...
Sorry for linking to WaPo.
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
@divineorder This should lay to
This should lay to rest any idea that Europe has a better handle on things that the United States does.
Too often, people talk like Europe holds the salvation of the human race, when in fact, the chances of them ever standing up to the U.S. are basically nil.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
yeah, i'm locked outta the WaPo, but thanks.
the videos said a lot, and i would urge folks to read the storify but Nyusha's tweets i'd linked to in the OP. it's not clear to me how many videos i've been listening to, but they may have covered the most salient points in Nyusha's multi-part storify.
Show Trump is pretty much doing what the so called deep
state has wanted all along, and that he's been on board with it since he began campaigning for dictator.
I've wanted to write about it, I think it's an angle people need to consider, i.e., this is a giant game and most people are missing the big picture, even those I would have thot would catch it. It's the Trump effect, like the Obama effect.
i can’t disagree, but i think there are other deep states
besides the Spooks, as you indicate w. 'so called deep state'. too long to list them all, but you’ll know them all already. yes, iran has been on the short list for a long time, and one of the ‘axes of evil’, and i know you’re adamant about cartalucci’s’ “the JTOC was designed to fail’, and...here we are, although i’m agnostic on that belief. yeah, iran was grieved that the EU couldn't stop acting as the amerikan puppets they are.
but i do believe that the heartland might have pinged at last for some of them, and my fear is that bolton (some claim to be intelligent) has always wanted to ‘bomb iran into kingdom come’, as in the Red Queen video. but bless you for keeping awake, big al. i gotta take a break for a bit now. too much to read, too many RL things poppin’, and so on.
Hate to give you something else to read, but this guy nails
it pretty well regarding Trump. I just think all the conjecture and beliefs that Trump isn't getting to do what he wants relative to foreign policy, including this so called "peace" summit with Putin and rapprochement with Russia, is just "a bit outside" in the immortal words of Bob Uecker. As Butler says in the beginning, "Here’s where things get a bit complicated, but I will simplify. Donald Trump is president for the same people Hillary Clinton would have been president for. Washington today, for the lack of a better description, is a gigantic dog and pony show focused on moneymaking."
https://journal-neo.org/2018/07/22/helsinki-in-a-nutshell/
"The reason for the Helsinki meetup is simple. Putin has won. The globalists are forced into a fallback position, or a “hedge” on their bet to take over Russia’s massive natural resources by economic force. Trump appearing to acquiesce as the frontman of these western oligarchs is just a diversion, just like the media madness pressed out by Zionist and globalist controlled media is a deviation. The public (that’s all of us) has to witness the ongoing soap opera while new deals are forged. When the George Soros and Jacob Rothschild types lose, they still win. And now that Putin has saved Russia for Russians, these banker buzzards must deal on the square. But they can’t just back Trump, or the game will be revealed. Dog and pony show work this well, just like shell games and Ponzi Schemes. We are the suckers reading the sensational headlines. They are the investors raking in billions. In this, and only in this, Putin does hold the controlling hand. Russia’s riches may soon buy her people the lives they deserved."
https://journal-neo.org/2018/07/22/helsinki-in-a-nutshell/
whew; dodged that one, lol.
i've read it; i have any number of links from phil butler there in my 'to write about' stash.
one, of course was: ukraine. thanks, big al.
that reminds me,
on the #TreasonSummit post in answer to something you'd said, i'd left you the WaPo's transcript of putin's statement to the UNGA in 2015, some called it 'America, what have you done?' or close. it might just knock your socks off. if you can get in, of course, and ignore the waPo snarky introduction.
but as i'd been mentioning that the real horse-trading there would have been the side meeting between pompeo and lavrov, i'd brought this (possibly 'again') as well.
Sergey Lavrov: "Russia enters key positions in creating new architecture of international relations", march 2016
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=LH9QXvRe6dM]
on later edit: if you can't get into the wapo, i'd offered some of the most telling and salient passages at the café, so let me know if you're interested in them.
So refreshing to listen
to the words of real statesmen.
breathtakingly refreshing, if i may.
imagine him talkin' turkey with pompeo, though. whooosh; wouldda loved to have been a fly on that wall.
as was putin's speech to the UNGA; simply clear, direct, and a cogent analysis of what amerika has wrought.
Keep a sharp eye out, because you know the "Incident"
is going to happen vewy vewy soon...
You know, the one that causes congress to immediately vote for more war powers, which then the president has no choice but to use as the people wish and go to war, which you aren't allowed to question because of "Incident".
Odds are very good it will happen in an insufficiently loyal "Blue" state. I'd bet on the west coast, probably an area with a lot of Tech workers, so the internet censorship bills will find zero opponents among them, because it was their own that were affected.
Just my spitballing for a scenario that you know some asshole has put on the desk of Trump.
Aaaand a video for when I know I'm talking out my ass, because I really have no idea what will happen, just what would work, and they know it.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0aCAbR0ss0]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
False flags work.
Don't know how the one for justifying war with Iran with be "configured". One aspect of an Iranian false flag is that the Europeans will know it is bullshit and unlike other false flags against Russia, may not participate in attacks on Iran.
One false flag I am worried about is something within the US that causes fatal damage and will be blamed on the Russians. Russiagate is not playing in the heartland as it is abstract and far removed from the daily lives of normal people. A 9-11 type of event will be needed to shake the masses into an active day-to-day hatred of Russians. Russiagate is being compared to 9-11 but when 9-11 happened it directly affected the daily lives of a lot of people. So far Russiagate hysteria is limited to the media and political elites.
Yeah, that's the Archetype...
but nearly every American BIG war has had an incident where we provoked it, then blamed the enemy after the fact. And yes, I will go all the way back to the civil war on this one, because the North won, so therefore gets to write the history that the South fired the first shot and was completely at fault. (Some would argue that our Genocide against the natives is the same thing, and I'd be inclined to agree)
Same shit the Romans pulled. Only then people didn't have an option but to believe they were being attacked by barbarians, because the only barbarians they saw were pissed off ones who hated what the Romans had done, and thus had to be conquered... You get the idea. Same Shit, Different Millennium.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
Russia attacking the energy grid is being played up
We are being told that Russia has hacked into the energy grid, but they didn't do anything to it. Yet. This is being hysterically reported on the PTB media propaganda sites and their water carrying news sites.
Why are they ramping up people's fears if they aren't possibly planning a false flag event? I would think that they would keep this quiet while working to harden the grid, but where is the fun in that?
This is just a new play on the ole color alert system that we saw during the Shrub's administration. I guess we are getting close to being at color orange: Attack imminent.
After the WMDs scam and the Color Terror Alert system have been exposed to be false I would think that people would be smart enough to see that they are being manipulated and not fall for it, but sadly they are.
Be afraid. Be very afraid!
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
@snoopydawg I'm not saying they
I'm not saying they won't create an event, just because they can and it would be so much fun, but there are a hundred reasons for stoking up fear of "the enemy." It's always useful in the lead-up to war, regardless of whether you stage an event or not.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The power grid would be one for sure
Yup, turn off power to large metro area for a few days and watch the mayhem and chaos. That will burn Rassiagate/Putin/Russians into normal people. But that does risk people demanding a military response.
This has been the plan all along, IMO
Instead of telling us that Putin has WMDs and we have to stop him before the "smoking gun is a mushroom cloud" they just came at it in a different or softer way. Of course Putin does have WMDs so they are playing a very dangerous game. But even Putin's showing his new missile system hasn't gotten them to back down. Someone was upset that Trump and Vlad might have talked about talking about a new START treaty. Oh my, let's not let Trump do anything that would interfere with our trillion dollar overhaul of our nuclear weapons. There is too much money at stake for this to be derailed.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
OT sd but just now the energy grid is being challenged
by the heat wave. And that challenge may not let up any time soon!
Paywall
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931853-100-heatwaves-show-globa...
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
Good explanation for the global heat wave
It makes sense that the warming waters in the Artic would effect on the jet stream. I think we were warned about that some time ago when people first started talking about climate change. And Nero is fiddling while the world is adding fuel to the fire.
I'm sure that Mother Earth can not wait to get rid of us stupid humans. Too bad that so many species have and will go with us.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
About warming of the oceans
"Ocean acidification to hit levels not seen in 14 million years"
https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ocean-acidification-million-years.html?utm... [via Oll Transport Campaign]
@MrWebster Well, if by political
Well, if by political elites you mean white people with college educations (don't know how Black Hillary supporters are falling on this one; they could be jumping on the bandwagon in support of Her, or they could be agreeing with the white working class that they got too much on their plate to worry about that).
But I don't think of my mom and her friends as "political elites" nor my partner's sewing circle, well, former sewing circle, which she left for political reasons (they kept talking Hillary politics and thought she was a right-winger, which was hilarious since she's a socialist). I have close friends from college who are compliant. The markers for compliance seem to be Democratic party affiliation, college educations, and whiteness, in that order. Oh, and age. Age is a big one. People under 40 buying this much less. I'm ashamed of my generation, many of whom are falling for this shit, when we've always been the cynics. OTOH, we've always been a divided generation too. The cynical anti-authoritarian dissidents were never more than 50% of us, I think.
Anyway, point being, there's higher compliance than you think. It seems to track, like I said, with being a Democrat, being over 40, and having a college education.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
True on the demographics of Russiagate
I was watching some video feeds of one of the knock offs of the Women's March calling for an investigation of Trump and Russia. This was last year some time. I remember Michael Tracey and Max Blumenthal went to separate ones. And looking at the crowd it was all white, older, and judging by their clothes, "financially stable".
I guess I should have added "the TOP crowd" which are white, mostly well off political junkies and activists. Belief in Russiagate goes very deep into this crowd. Or maybe just the Hillary and Obama base within he democratic party which would be a good number of people.
And in my own direct experience the most rabid Russophobes were older, college educated, upper middle class whites.
@MrWebster It's a horrible
It's a horrible thing for me to watch, watching the brains of well-educated people embrace irrationality like a drug.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
the pink pussy hat mcResistance?
"and the police were sooo polite."
i'm rather embarrassed to bring this, given the little attention i've paid to the mueller investigation, but:
'The meaning of a crucial text message between two FBI officials appears to have been finally explained, and it’s not good news for the Russia-gate faithful, as Ray McGovern explains, consortiumnews.com
he opens:
"Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.
Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. If Solomon’s sources are accurate, it is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there."
beats me, but...there it is.
well now, i don't mind folks talkin' outta there asses
as a rule, but i do mind not knowin' what their asses are sayin', mr. wunnderful (and into which circle of hell did you cast your fishin' line to haul up that song on your hook?).
but seriously, please explain what sort of false flag in a insufficiently blue state, etc. sorry to be not catchin' our drift.
Just taking a look at incidents in the past...
It'll probably involve American Civilians, because that's the one that gets the most reaction. After the rise of the internet, only the most dramatic incidents will hold attention. Therefore, I'd expect an attack using something that the DHS wants to clamp down on. I expect some kind of public transportation incident, honestly, but I can't really think of how that could be spun... Honestly, I'd expect them to go after a bridge somewhere During Rush hour, in as dramatic a manner as possible.
Again, just my suppositions based on patterns in the past. There's always a domestic motive as well as a WAR motive.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
@detroitmechworks Again, you could
Again, you could certainly be right. But have you considered that the false flag incident has already happened? It was the hijacking of the 2016 election. They Came And Subverted Our Democracy, Those Damned Russkies. That's why the PTB have such a bug up their butts about the Wikileaks thing being a hack rather than a leak. They really want compliance on the so-called "DNC hack."
Hillary herself used this as a reason to go to war during her campaign. I couldn't believe my fucking ears, that any presidential candidate would say that, even her.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Yes ! That rings true
But what is there is climate change, which has to be very well hidden.
so..you hadn't meant a false flag on civilians that could be
made to look like it had iranian fingerprints on it, then? iranian novichok or something? or spooks in running an iranian white helmets psyop gas attack? no, sill old woman, those would occur in iran itself. but others seem to be guessing a false flag by russia, as well, might fill the bill.
@detroitmechworks Not really sure they need
Not really sure they need one. They have high enough compliance as it is, though the fact that Trump's asking for it should create cognitive dissonance in the Resist crowd who both want that war and hate Trump. I guess they'll pretend it was them putting the fear of God into Trump that made him take this tough stand against Russia.
I'm not saying there aren't people who are dissenting from all this, but most of them have simply opted out of politics, since there is no political option, including Bernie Sanders, which includes opposing World War III.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
It's not just the politicians.
The Troops have negative morale and low recruitment. Most Civilians tell their children not to join the military if they have any brains. Veterans are on the streets, and it doesn't help recruiting either.
An Incident, however? Bam. 18 year olds sign up in droves. Veterans who speak against the war are immediately told to shut up because of "Incident". The Army's been fudging the numbers, but they are running out of bodies.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
@detroitmechworks Just to clarify, I
Just to clarify, I wasn't talking about the politicians. As I said above, there's a frightening level of agreement around here--amongst the people--that yes, the shady Russians are threatening our way of life and hijacked our election and have Trump by the balls. Even my boyfriend believes in a little of that (not the election hijack; he can smell that bullshit from a mile away).
I know Gainesville is a blue dot in a purple-leaning-red state, but still, I'm not in NYC or San Francisco/Silicon Valley, or Los Angeles, or even Chicago. We're not exactly flyover country because Florida has such a high population--but we aren't exactly the coastal urban rich either. And there's a lot of people here who believe.
However, your point may stand regarding the military. I admit to confusion as to the military's feelings about all this, because originally, most of the rank-and-file (as far as I could tell) preferred Trump to Hillary (I think they could tell how fucking crazy she was on the subject of war). The honeymoon period may be over, however. I guess you'd know more about this than me.
If it's the PNAC policies the soldiers don't like--and, leaving the fanatics among them aside, why would any soldier like those policies?--they're going to dislike every President, and their own COs, because those policies are all that's on the menu.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Gotcha.
However, the visceral fear that 9/11 and similar incidents cause isn't really there with Russia "hacked the election", IMHO. (Of course, I also am in a VERY "Blue" area in a primarily Red State, so YMMV)
I think TPTB think they need an incident that will get people flying flags from their cars again. Not just the die hards, but the casuals as well.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
I'm thinking that
the inter-tubes will now have a moderating effect. The CIA/MIC controlled MSM no longer has a stranglehold on information and it will be much more difficult to "catapult the propaganda".
I personally no longer watch the crap they
producespew. I get all my information on line. If I happen to hear something on the media, I go online to check it out. How many here are doing the same?The Food Network now has higher ratings than CNN. How embarrassing. They definitely need a new war to get those ratings back up.
There are citizen blogs and YouTube channels operated by individuals that readily beat CNN numbers, some by factors of 10.
No MSM for me anymore.
Only to check what todays propaganda is (NYT, Guardian) and only online. Once in a while I consider trying to watch a good old MSM propaganda network TV "news" but I haven't actually done it since I gave it up in 2016. While I'm curious sometimes to see how they spew it, I don't bother because I'm just going to scream back at it anyway, no point.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
Someone posted a graphic that showed how every media site
had the exact same headline about a news story that they wanted people to know about. I wish I had grabbed it so I could post it here. I start my day at huffpo to see what the daily false story is going to be about and lo and behold the exact story is repeated on every site and news show.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
Exactly, because you know the MIC won't "Embed"
citizen journalists in units, or allow them into the warzone. This one will be TIGHTLY scripted and controlled. (Until we lose the war, of course. Which will of course, NEVER happen, because the US doesn't lose wars.)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X6QqZF3J14]
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
This is why they ended net neutrality
and why Google and Farcebook changed their algorithms to stop people from seeing what the alternative websites were telling people. The WSWS and others lost around 70-90% of the traffic to its site when people searched for certain topics. The internet providers aren't just going to be slowing down speeds for Netflix and the other companies that people are using instead of paying obscene amounts of money for cable, but to slow down speeds to websites that tell us the truth. Many people have finally caught on to the fact that cable news shows like MSDNC and CNN are just repeating what the PTB tells them. One of them hired Brennan to give people his expert opinion on what's happening. Like when they got ex military officers to come on to tell us how great the wars were going. People think that if those types of people were saying something then it must be true.
Putin isn’t going to make you homeless or kill you or deny you health care.
Your government will allow it to happen though.
I have to think
this is why we're still in Afghanistan, so that we have fully supplied and operational military bases on Iran's east flank.
Iran has a population of 81 million. They've been fighting and preparing for war for decades. They are OPEC's second largest oil exporter.
A war with Iran would be the largest military endeavor America has pursued since WW2.
It's much easier to bomb (or missile) the Straights of Hormuz shut than to keep them open.
America's nearby naval vessels (generally including two carrier task groups) would be at the bottom of the sea within 24 hours. Missiles are MUCH cheaper than ships, and MUCH faster to produce, and their use or loss does not require recruiting and training new soldiers/sailors. Navies are obsolete at this point, just don't try to tell the Navy that.
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone
The US carrier groups are only effective
in threatening and attacking third world nations now. Against more powerful nations they are becoming a liability - holes in the water waiting to be filled. Their protective standoff distance is now greater than the effective range of the aircraft they carry. In a pending conflict with Russia or China, we would see them being moved away from the line of conflict.
(No subject)
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
brrrrr on the video.
‘Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List’, William Blum;
‘Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government)’
oddly, i haven't ever counted, but it's a long list. blum recently wrote that he knows, but cannot prove, of course, that the CIA assassinated hugo chavez. (the wiki says 'toe cancer'
"Protests are growing"
In other words, the CIA is cooking up another color revolution.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Iranians are much more tech savvy
and have a good grasp of their history. The US has not had the opportunely to "seed" a color revolution with their NGO's for a decade in advance as was done in the European color revolutions and with the Arab Spring.
MoA has always been a source of good info re Iran.
bernhard usually has his finger on the correct pulse,
doesn't he? and thank you for Javad Zarif's 'color us unimpressed'. pepe escobar had referenced him also:
"Geopolitically, Russia-Iran relations remain extremely solid, as shown by the recent meeting between President Putin and Khamenei’s top foreign policy adviser Ali Akbar Velayati. As Professor Mohammad Marandi at the University of Tehran told me: “The Putin-Velayati meeting went very well. Velayati plans to go to Beijing in a few weeks. People in Iran hate Trump, and all political parties and factions have become much more united. Rouhani’s speech was widely watched and very well received.”
Khamenei and Rouhani are on the same page – and that’s very significant in itself. They now agree any negotiation with Washington is futile. Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif provided the coup de grace, tweeting that Iran had lasted millennia and had seen many empires fall. He wrapped up with an all-caps Trumpism: “BE CAUTIOUS!”
The whole soap opera is ridden with pathetic overtones as US “experts” posing as extras digress that there are only two outcomes left for Iran: capitulation or implosion of the “regime”.
Anyone claiming Tehran will capitulate shows an utter ignorance of the overall mood of defiance and scorn among the Iranian people, even as they are faced with massive economic hardship. And anyone stating there will be regime change in Tehran basically parrots a US “policy” that is just wishful thinking.
oh, my; did i quote some of that upthread? ah, well.
@CB Thanks so much for this
Thanks so much for this info. Good, hard data. I love it. I was just speculating based on past patterns and what I knew of certain factions' agendas.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
All out war on Iran would damage the US
irreparably. It takes very little to close the Strait of Hormuz where 1/3 of global oil passes through as well as Qatar's LNG en route to Europe. I'm sure Iran considers this their "nuclear option" should the US bomb the country.
The US economy is not particularly robust at this time, especially with the burgeoning trade disputes now going on. The greatest damage to the US economy would be a collapse in the stock market. The US has much too great a percentage of it's economy based on trust in paper and promise. The US becoming more and more a pariah in global affairs does not bode well for the future.
From the world's vantage point, the US now looks like the home of an extremely dysfunctional family with everyone screaming, swearing at one another, throwing the furniture around, breaking the china.
What Mechanism Will Be Used to Retain Value on Investments
if TSHTF?
Bail in? Lock out? New currency? Digital currency?
For this to be OK and approved by TPTB there has to be a secure economic restructuring plan.
I don't think Dollar Hegemony will hold up to something like war in Iran.
Any ideas?
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
The only tool for hedging
market fluctuations are derivatives. These tools fail spectacularly if even a moderate part of the market goes south. In fact, they are almost guaranteed to drag a substantial amount of unrelated securities down with them. We had a small taste of what happens when the mortgage backed securities crashed in 2008.
The parties that created the risk got their assets asses covered by the feds. The rest of us had to eat shit. Imagine if you were retired or about to retire at that time. Your pension was cut in half or more if it was dependent on investment in the markets.
If the US stock market crashes, it will take the world financial centers down with it as well as the US dollar (being closely tied to the markets). The world's current stock market valuation is greater than the entire global economy which means much of it's value is only the electrons in the memory chips within the computers that record it.
I think we are in the end stages of the great digital Monopoly game. The world has never been here before. It's uncharted territory.
it's a good analysis,
and add to it that partially due to, but not altogether due trumps insane trade wars he'll never win, but china and russia, forbes says iran after herr trump's 'muslim ban' in jan. 2017, maybe others are dropping their dollar-based paper as well.
boy, howdy, though, did i love this metaphor of yours:
"From the world's vantage point, the US now looks like the home of an extremely dysfunctional family with everyone screaming, swearing at one another, throwing the furniture around, breaking the china."
i don't know what dreams iranians are dreaming
with respect to their future, but i'm guessing they aren't much like john bolton's bloodsoaked wet-dreams of american ordnance raining down on tehran and parts thereabouts.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
no, i don'timgine they'll be dreaming of mad bolton's blood-
drenched dreams, but let this serve as tonight's lullaby. the last thing that john trudell (rest in power) recorded before his 'ride came for him' as he'd put it. he was a powerful truth-teller, and his family was burned alive for his...sins.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRTMe_EPgSM]
Anyhow
question everything
'every time i turn around, there we/you are'
thanks. and since this is my own diary, lol, i'll add the best white folks blues (and heart-piercing) i've ever heard.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbOlgESKbIc]
Damn! That tune reached right inside me
Memories flood in.
I'm so far over the hills that I'm halfway up the last one. So good to see the music of my youth living on.
"You know, in that other life if I come back..."
B.B. King, Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi - Rock Me Baby (Live at Royal Albert Hall)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhCfehYJxXA]
from a fellow geezerette:
whoosh! T, T, & Lucille! got me grinnin' ear to ear. mr. wd is in awe of that bass player. i did poke about, and in those days it was Oteil Burbridge, from what i could make out.
And if Hillary had been elected President....
at least crazy warmonger pants would have had herself a good laugh about bombing Iran! And that, folks, sums up my view of the alleged choice voters had in 2016.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch3anrlkIJE]
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvhBoF_pCHo]
And that was by far not the only nation she wanted to war with/at.
we can hear her cackling around the world,
but the spooks loved her! she was robbed!
Many "spooks" seem to share her penchant for
"meddling" in the elections and other internal affairs of sovereign nations, and not only with political speech, either. The Russkies came; they saw; they bought a few thou worth of facebook ads. (What's that one about sticks and stones" may break my bones" again?)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlz3-OzcExI]
BTW, before she had even announced her 2016 candidacy (was there ever really any genuine doubt?), Dembots claimed that it was sexist for anyone to mention Hillary's weight, her wardrobe or footwear choices, her, um, laugh, her shrill voice, her heavily re-touched photos, or anything else about how she looks or sounds. Or her age, or how off-putting she is to the general public.
Turned out, though, that their complimenting her about any or all of those things and their dissing Sanders and Trump for anything or all of those things were perfectly fine.
Apparently, their rationale was that anything with respect to males is acceptable, even perfectly pc, even ageism, but not for females running for the same office. And that, IMO, is one of the most anti-female positions I've ever heard anyone take openly, not to mention self-righteously. Of course, when Sarah Palin ran to be a heartbeat away from the same office....but enough about the extent of bot hypocrisy.
rotflmao!
yeah, but chelsea had a nose job, and is primed to bein' POTUS!