Spinout - the latest close call in Syria

Tuesday's Russian/Syrian/Israeli/French fracas drove home to me how absolutely powerless I am in the face of events. Of course I know that I have no control over what various militaries do half a world away. But, this event emphasized that I have absolutely no idea what just happened (and therefore I have no ability to protest).

The conventional narrative is that the Israelis attacked Syria, and that their jets "hid" behind a large Russian spyplane that was on landing approach to the Russian airbase at Khmeimim. According to everyone, including the Russians, this hiding caused missiles the Syrians fired at the Israelis to hit the Russian plane instead.

To get the details and the technical context of the military action, the discussion at Moon of Alabama is very solid:

Syria - Israel's Provocation Kills Russian Soldiers - Moscow Will Take Political Revenge

But, if you have access to facts and have knowledge about how military equipment works, there are a lot of dubious aspects to the official narrative. The most interesting CT version of what really happened is:

Last night Lattakia was attacked by navy assets off the Syrian coast, as well as Israeli airforce, and Russia appears to be saying it was ‘also’ France insofar as they report that ‘French missile launches were detected’ during the attack. FRN is clear that Russia ‘appears’ to be saying it was France that hit Lattakia, but isn’t saying this conclusively. This point will be explained...

readers will take note of the inclusion of the French denial.
This French denial is bizarre and entirely out of place, since no one accused France. Do innocent parties randomly and yet officially deny involvement in things of which they are not formally accused? In most cases, no they do not...

Israel has refused comment, and this makes sense. They can’t deny their planes were up there, and Russia has confused the entire FUKUS and Israeli designed script. They have to sit back and think about this one. See, if Russia’s accepting the Western statements about Syrian friendly fire were predicted, then this would have been obvious by their early availability for comment. This means that something has happened which they need to ‘work through the variables’ to answer to.

The French ‘early denial’ when no accusation was made, means that the West had planned for France to be blamed, the French authorities were prepared to carry out their script and deny the accusations that the Russians were ‘obviously’ going to make.

Then something happened, and Russia didn’t make that accusation. But there were the French authorities, going forward with the script, and in an incoherent way which really exposes what they were up to, and tells us all quite clearly what was planned, and yet all the while Russia doesn’t at all blame France. Ridiculous, brilliant, absurd.

FULL ANALYSIS: RUSSIAN DISINFO CAMPAIGN ‘BLAMES’ ISRAEL FOR IL-20 PLANE DOWNING, YET EXONERATES FRANCE

The takeaway from this piece is that IFUKUS wanted Russia to blame France, in order to weaken Soviet-French relations and add another excuse for NATO hostility to Russia. But the Russians slipped the noose and managed to blame Israel AND call it "a tragic chain of circumstances". The actual takeaway, then, is that the Israelis add another devious, nasty incident to their long history of slippery provocateurism.

I know its CT. I know that all the players agree that it was a Syrian mistake. Its just that the proximity and behavior of the French smells bad to me.

----

I also know lots of people, like Paul Craig Roberts, think Putin is weak and an appeaser. But this looks like another temporizing play by him. He knows that time is on the side of China and Russia. He knows that America grows weaker by the day, closer to an economic implosion. By preventing the US from initiating the war it so desperately craves in the Middle East, he is winning.

Also, just what business do the French have in that region? All this BS about fighting terrorism really rings false in France. France has a huge, restive Moslem population. Does the French government think bombing the legitimate government of Syria and de facto supporting the ISIS terrorists is going to make their Moslems happy? Macron's poll numbers are already in the toilet. Was this stunt supposed to make the French rally round the flag?

Bottom line: there is simply too much space between the actual facts and what gets reported as news for normal folks to have a clue. Between pretending that we are fighting (instead of funding, arming, and supporting) ISIS/Al Qaida and pretending that Russiagate is real, but Hillary is not a criminal, America is spun harder than a serve at Wimbleton. The news is pretty much all lies; and the democracy that depends on facts is all but gone.

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dervish's picture

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

lotlizard's picture

https://jackpineradicals.com/boards/topic/great-read-israels-failed-atte...

. . . in reply to a post by “LaDeeDaaVA” titled “Israel’s failed attempt to start W.W. III is the beginning of the end” that links to an item on Mint Press News:
https://www.mintpressnews.com/wwiii-israel-syria/249577/

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arendt's picture

@lotlizard

They endorse the idea that the whole ploy was cooked up to get Russia to attack the French warship.

And the Peace Patriot comment tied our behavior all the way back to Allen Dulles - which is the truth, and not just some ideological boilerplate. This country has been going down the drain since that idiot Truman let Dulles create the CIA and staff it with a bunch of ex-Nazis (Ukranians prominent among them).

Thanks for the links.

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snoopydawg's picture

@arendt

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

EdMass's picture

in terms of what to protest as it has been since Vietnam.

"They" want to dissect and disassemble and get us to focus on who did what to whom when and how -- which is not the point we should be focused on.

Notice how no government now releases troop levels or count military/civilian casualties or deaths anymore? All "need to know" now and you and I are not in that category anymore. No more Walter Cronkite nightly reports and yes the MSM is wholly owned by the world wide MIC. So when "they" say, we're not gonna tell you the MSM says okay, at least we asked...

Stop the War!

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

Big Al's picture

to most of us? It's the same with everything, we go from one incident, action or corporate media generated theater to another, always wondering exactly what happened until the next thing happens.

Maybe we already know enough for "our" purposes, i.e., there's a criminal element at the top of the food chain that controls everything including our political system and media, commits crimes against humanity, and prevents democracy from taking place. The question as always is what are we going to do about it.

Relative to Syria, we know all country actions except Syria, Russia and Iran within Syria's borders are illegal. So whatever happened, Israel and France committed war crimes one way or another. And of course the U.S. is committing war crimes in Syria on a daily basis simply by being there.

I don't really pay attention to the details anymore, it's always the same. Something happened to the Global Research website awhile back and every time I logged on, which is almost every day, I'd get directed to a page with the entire list of essay entries for the last number of days, SIX years ago. I'd glance through them, many of which I had read six years ago, and for most people it would have looked like present day essays. The only thing that changes is the names and places and often just the dates.

We have plenty to protest about and plenty of evidence to back it up and nothing changes what we really need to do.

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arendt's picture

@Big Al

We are beyond democracy. We, the little people, don't get a say in the big picture anymore. The big picture is drawn by the corporations, the CIA, the banksters, and the MIC. We are all just along for the ride.

And, as you say, the ride has been the same for a long time. From time to time "pick a shitty little country and throw it up against the wall to show we mean business" (from neocon asshole, Michael Ledeen). Domestically, it has been bubble after bubble, with austerity for the little people and bailouts for the 0.1% after each bubble bursts. Yeah, nothing new lately.

I've stopped voting for Dems/Repubs. I have turned my focus to issues that are important to me and relevant to staving off the worst of the corporatist depradations. My issues are: the cannibalism of student loans /high tuitions and the barbarity of our prison system and the law enforcement that feeds it.

However, I can't ignore it everytime TPTB play another round of WW3 Russian roulette just for the fuck of it. But, as the OP notes, its getting harder to tell WTF is really going on.

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gulfgal98's picture

@Big Al

Maybe we already know enough for "our" purposes, i.e., there's a criminal element at the top of the food chain that controls everything including our political system and media, commits crimes against humanity, and prevents democracy from taking place. The question as always is what are we going to do about it.
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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

thank you for this essay and for the links. At this point I think it's worthwhile to keep showing the errors and falsehoods in any reporting of such events. It's exhausting for the people who keep at it, but it has to be done.

Because of what you wrote here, I looked back at two State Department Daily Briefings from September 2016. I can't even remember why I went there. Mostly it was to show State Department spokesperson John Kirby talking about MARBLEIZATION, about the Al Nusra Front "marbling" with moderate rebels.

The briefing, quite long, was about how it was supposed to work for Assad to be allowed to attack Nusra, acknowledged as Al Qaeda, but not to attack the Opposition, the moderates, when we openly admitted Nusra and the moderates were "marbled," meaning intermingled.

So Kirby snidely twists around about how awkward and possibly unworkable that is. This was about the ceasefire agreements Secretary of State Kerry had arranged with Russia. Date of the briefing: September 12, 2016.

Then, in the Daily Press Briefing of September 27, 2016, days later, spokesperson Mark Toner responds to questions about how it has all fallen apart, how Assad is barrel bombing Aleppo, and about whether or not the Saudis would now equip the rebels with MANPADS.

So clearly, the Military Industrial Complex takes all the time necessary to explain and un-explain what they're doing, and unfortunately the public has to call them on it by taking even more time to go through their lies. But I have to say, the painstaking scrutiny is effective.

Looking at these dates, I see they coincide with the dates of the scrambling to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page, et al. And very few people would now agree that the marbleization of Al Nusra with moderate rebels was a good idea, and most people, I think, would see it as treason, no matter how it was described by spokespersons.

Daily Press Briefing - September 12, 2016
John Kirby and MARBLEIZATION. (Syria discussion begins at 5:55.)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1smryz-D4xQ]

Daily Press Briefing - September 27, 2016
Mark Toner and MANPADS.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-m-FP8tbFo]

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arendt's picture

@Linda Wood

it's worthwhile to keep showing the errors and falsehoods in any reporting of such events. It's exhausting for the people who keep at it, but it has to be done.

The success of propaganda depends on repetition. If you repeat a lie often enough (and in a controlled/censored environment), you can obliterate the truth.

The "errors and falsehoods" are repeated 24/7 on all the corporate media. Meanwhile, the pushback is scattered across hundreds of leftwing (and rightwing) sites, none of which has critical mass. (When they get critical mass, they get "Alex Jones-ed".

At some point, there are so many reinforcing lies that they can simply work around the truth. Case in point, repeating the lie that Mueller has evidence keeps the stories about the crap that Mueller and the FBI have pulled out of the news. The corporate media just keep ping-ponging the lies back and forth, never allowing the truth a moment.

My only satisfaction is that the corporate media is now distrusted. The ratings for news shows are in the toilet. The problem is that rightwing alternate media is way more prominent than leftwing.

Anyway, I agree that telling the truth is vital. However, I just don't see a genuinely leftwing message breaking through in the current environment. The left doesn't know what it stands for since Obama and the Clinton's stole its clothes and Bernie sold out. I have supposedly leftwing friends with Ph.D.s who still defend Her and believe the crapola about the Skripals. They wouldn't know the truth if it was stuck up their ass.

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lotlizard's picture

@arendt  
on the fringes in truth-telling and dissent — is seeing right-wingers (including even neo-Nazis) trounce left-wingers in honestly recounting history and reporting recent events and relationships.

Endless war everywhere — banks and financial crises — mass migration — neocons’ and neolibs’ hand in all of these —

Globalists (claiming to be the Center): There is no alternative!
Right: Yes, there is! There always was! Come on, Left, join me in this! After all this time you’re not going to side with the bankers and capitalists now, are you?
Left: (mumbles and looks at shoes) . . .
Globalists: There is no alternative and you’re all racists!
Left: (turning to Right, finding their voice) Yeah, you’re all racists!

Too many on the Left have thrown in with the Merkel globalizing “Center.”

Too many, to fight the Right, would smother any truth and spread any lie to deny the Right a talking point, regardless of the facts.

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mimi's picture

@lotlizard @lotlizard
it is called, I guess. I am giving up to understand anything. If activisism is televised, the camera is the bribing tool, while at the same time a tool to prove the truth. That is to me a tragedy and photoshopping video editing software is a criminal in this.

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lotlizard's picture

@mimi  
then maybe the alternative I want for my $282.00 a year would be a further public-funded German TV channel that carries contrary — including right-wing — points of view, to balance all the existing globalist, neocon-neolib conformist public TV programming.

Only then could I perhaps see something on German TV news like what Jimmy Dore saw, watching U.S. TV news, back in April:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbQB1EQ32CE]

Yep, the right-wing network and news show takes the reasonable position on Syria against the supposedly “progressive” networks and newspeople propagandizing the U.S. and NATO into war there.

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arendt's picture

@lotlizard

Yes, the rightwing seem more realistic than screaming harridans like Rachel Madcow. And, to think, I used to listen to her. But she sold out in a heartbeat and did a complete 180.

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mimi's picture

@lotlizard
and can only start to deny a person to talk aboout their thoughts, when you are willing to shut down opposition from the right, which again makes you part of the empire or fascistoid police state. A tragedy again.

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arendt's picture

@lotlizard

The left doesn't know what it stands for anymore. That's because the left, although always standing up for civil liberties, used to be primarily about economic justice, i.e., regulation, progressive taxation, social programs. The use of Identity Politics to sideline or crack economic solidarity has wrecked the left.

Its the IP that reduces the left to spluttering "racism" when the working class calls bullshit on our economic arrangements, which include massive numbers of H1-B visas and out of control illegal immigration. Yes, there are racists among them; but in the US, they are not the majority. I'm not sure about Germany. The neo-Nazism there looks scary from over here, but so does their refugee problem.

Then the Clintons completely hijacked Democratic Party economics by walking away from unions and introducing neoliberalism. Since 1992, the Democratic Party has been corporatist, with Identity Politics window dressing to cover up the destruction of the working class and lately the middle class.

And still, people support the likes of Hillary and buy into the next round of corporatist candidates: the superannuated Biden, the Wall St. sellout (and lately foolish handwaver) Corey Booker, and all the other wannabees trimming their sails to the corporate/MIC wind.

You are accurate, the left hasn't a clue and is barely alive - the result of a long campaign against them (going back to "starve the beast") run by the deep pockets of the hardcore right (Kochs, Bradley, etc.).

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snoopydawg's picture

We are watching unfold my concern that the acceptance of provocations results in more provocations and that the provocations escalate in their danger. What will Putin do now? If he backs down again, he can expect a yet more dangerous provocation until the only choice becomes surrender or nuclear war.

Washington’s provocations would not have reached the current level of intensity if Putin had put his foot down several provocations ago. Indeed, the entire Syrian crisis would have been over except for the repeated hesitations and premature withdrawals of Russian forces.

Does the Russian government not understand that Washington is conducting war against Russia, not against terrorists?

If Vlad continues to let himself or Syria be bullied then it makes him look weak. This is his second article on this topic and I think like many of us he wants our murdererous hegemony to be stopped and Putin is probably the only one who can do it.

Bibi doesn't care how many people are killed in his lust to be the only superpower in the Middle East. He has had our government dancing to his tune for decades and they will continue to do so until this country decides that they have had enough. The PTB knows that time is coming, but they don't know when.

Here's another article where he talks about this.

Israel wants Syria as a wasteland, like Iraq, and intends to produce that outcome in Iran as well. Israel wants the water resources of southern Lebanon, but the Hezbollah militia, supported and supplied by Syria and Iran is in the way. Twice the Israeli Army sent to occupy southern Lebanon was defeated and driven out by Hezbollah. Israel cannot risk a third defeat, so Israel uses its American puppet. Indeed, the only reason Washington has been at war in the Middle East for the entirety of the 21st century is because Washington is serving Israel’s agenda.

**
In my opinion, Russia’s inability to stand firm in the face of Western and Israeli aggression will be the principal cause of World War Three in which we will all die and the planet as well.

I see both points of view. Israel will keep pushing for Russia to hit back which will trigger a war of untold proportions which is what Putin is trying to avoid. But if Putin does continue to give ground then that war will come regardless.

The chess graphic is what's happening in real time. Right now it looks like Vlad is winning, but?

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

arendt's picture

@snoopydawg

if Putin does continue to give ground then that war will come regardless.

Every day that Putin delays war, the US gets weaker and Russia/China get stronger.

The Chinese navy has more ships than the US navy
, albeit the US has more carriers (whose survivability near massive Chinese hypersonic missile launchers is problematic).

The Russians keep rolling out state of the art weaponry, while the US rolls out crap like the F-35 and the Littoral Combat Ship - both trillion dollar turkeys.

The bulk of the US aircraft are 30 year old F-16s, forty year old F-15s, and 60 year old B-52s. The army has been in continuous deployment mode for 18 years. The equipment is worn out, the troops are worn out, the conscripts are of dubious quality. The navy is stretched to the breaking point. The crews are constantly pushed without sleep, resulting in collisions and other FUBARs.

The bottom line is that the US is on the decline, the Russia/China alliance has "interior lines" and massive manpower and material resources. NATO is a joke, with most of the combat power being supplied by the US.

Putin is simply stalling for time while the Russians build what they can afford, and the Chinese build as much as they can. Every day that goes by, the power balance is shifting.

Many analysts believe that neither of the two MICs want an actual non-nuclear war - because it would demonstrate whose equipment actually works. Because the best weapons are withheld from combat to disguise their capabilities, both sides lack confidence.

All in all, I'm glad the Russians are behaving sanely. To me, it looks more like rope-a-dope than appeasement. The US is punching itself out for no gain.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@arendt

Especially regarding the exposure of weapons capability.

I have been filtering out American voices from the measures of propaganda effectiveness and the global opinion wars. The foreign policy opinions of the American people mean nothing to anyone, particularly to those who control the federal government. From this more refined perspective, I believe you are right when you say that with every day that passes, the US loses advantage across the board. That gives Russia (and China) every reason to continue and expand their rather spectacular finesse at stalling.

Personally, I don't have a problem with appeasing the weak, once it is framed that way. And the US is weak — by any metric. Even its strengths make it weak because they highlighting its defective ethics and morality in the way they are used.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

The foreign policy opinions of the American people mean nothing to anyone, particularly to those who control the federal government.

That's quite obvious when the duopoly refuses to debate foreign policy, and the corporate media refuse to give space to people who object to it from the left.

Given that the "defense" budget (and ancillary items under DOE) consume more than 50% of the budget, the refusal to debate reducing it, when 75% of the country wants fewer bases and fewer wars, demonstrates clearly that we are no longer a democracy. OTOH, its quite easy to arbitrarily and nearly unanimolusly add $100 B to it - the only true bipartisanship in America today.

We are an empire, not a democracy. We spend our treasure controlling the world for the benefit of our oligarchy, the 1%.

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k9disc's picture

@arendt

There is no reason to be drawn into a conflict on your opponent's terms. That would be bad strategy.

It reminds me of how I wanted the US to respond to all the false flags, deep state shenanigans, and actual terrorist attacks over my lifetime. You know, with some fucking common sense and strategy.

See, I don't think Russia is playing the same game as the US. They are not playing to be a hyper-power, or the sole arbiter of fact on the planet. They appreciate their culture and would like to maintain it.

There is no need to spread across the planet like the Romans (or the Borg), and history has shown that Empires get their ass handed to them. Seems like a wise course to me.

All this talk about "getting pushed around" and whatnot is bullshit. It is authoritarian jingoistic bullshit. Weak minded tough guys in a fist fight is an anachronistic Establishment frame for global politics - Drumpf excluded. One part joker as wildcard, and one part court jester to shine the light on the absurdity of the king and his court.

Fascinating times, eh?

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

arendt's picture

@k9disc

I don't think Russia is playing the same game as the US. They are not playing to be a hyper-power, or the sole arbiter of fact on the planet. They appreciate their culture and would like to maintain it.

I strongly agree with you. Your explanation of their motivation calls to mind a famous (to those in the field) philosophy book:

There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite; the other infinite.

Finite games are the familiar contests of everyday life; they are played in order to be won, which is when they end. But infinite games are more mysterious. Their object is not winning, but ensuring the continuation of play. The rules may change, the boundaries may change, even the participants may change—as long as the game is never allowed to come to an end.

- James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

The thoughts expressed in this book are like applied Buddhism. It is a deeply spiritual book that completely avoids wallowing in religion.

In some ways, life is like pinball: when you win, you get to play again.

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arendt, snoopydawg, Pluto's Republic, and k9disc,

your comments are breathtaking and terrifying, some of the most clear thinking I've seen expressed about this crisis over all these months of brinksmanship. But snoopy, I agree with Paul Craig Roberts, as you quote him,

What will Putin do now? If he backs down again, he can expect a yet more dangerous provocation until the only choice becomes surrender or nuclear war.

Yes. That appears to be the situation. The American leadership has been bat-shit crazy since the time of George Herbert Walker Bush. They are on record, and they are behaving accordingly, as saying if anyone stands up to them, they'll kill everyone. Bye-bye baseball, good-bye birds, toodle-loo Bach, no more babies, no more music, no more love. It's that bad, and it's our fault for building this monstrosity, a crazy, psychopathic Council of Jerks, jerking off on power, armed with nuclear weapons.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the only person to see this reality and to see the solution, to disarm. He agreed to destroy all his nuclear weapons, to allow the American government to destroy all his nuclear weapons! The Bush people put an end to it. Putin has no choice but to surrender whatever and wherever he can to prevent these imbeciles from destroying life on earth. So far, it appears he's doing an incredible job of preventing the worst.

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arendt's picture

@Linda Wood

Putin has no choice but to surrender whatever and wherever he can to prevent these imbeciles from destroying life on earth.

As I said earlier:

The bottom line is that the US is on the decline, the Russia/China alliance has "interior lines" and massive manpower and material resources. NATO is a joke, with most of the combat power being supplied by the US.

Putin is simply stalling for time while the Russians build what they can afford, and the Chinese build as much as they can. Every day that goes by, the power balance is shifting.

I hear you that our cabal is insane, that they are willing to risk using nukes. The question is, how will the Russians and Chinese convey to these criminally insane people that nukes will be met with nukes?

The Russians have a massive civil defense program and a huge country into which to disperse people. The Chinese have over a billion citizens. Both countries have known privation in the last 50 years. Meanwhile the US has become a nation of obese, pampered, uninformed dunces. There are no civil defense plans to speak of. Guess which countries have a better chance of staying together as a society in a nuclear exchange?

BTW, most nuke scenarios begin with high-altitude EMP attacks that would fry every civilian computer that isn't in a Faraday cage. The result of those attacks would be complete devastation. Transportation would fail (40+ microprocessors in every car). Oil pipelines and electricity grids would fail, which would result in the supply chain being broken. Hospital systems would crash. Patients in ICUs would die. Surgery would become impossible. The inventory systems for warehouses would be fried, so no one would no where anything was located. We would be paralyzed, starving, and freezing within a week.

In short, you can do a lot of damage without a single mushroom cloud at ground level.

There are all kinds of nuclear wars. Not saying I want to fight one; but the Russians are smart enough to fight it there way - cleverly, asymmetrically.

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snoopydawg's picture

@arendt

but at some point he is going to have to tell us that he is not going to continue to tolerate our attacks in Syria or elsewhere.

The question is, how will the Russians and Chinese convey to these criminally insane people that nukes will be met with nukes?

This is what he does have to do. He needs to make it clear that he too has a red line.
Imagine if he had told Trump and the rest of the Fukus idiots that if they bombed Syria again after the WH did another false flag event in Idlib that no weapons platform would be left standing.

Israel has made a big mistake by using the Russian plane to hide their attack. This may give Vlad reasons to support Syria with the better weapons system that he put on hold. I think that Bibi really screwed the pooch by doing that. Bibi desperately needs to have his nose bloodied.

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

arendt's picture

@snoopydawg @snoopydawg

Putin is executing a Fabian strategy, and doing a very good job of it. So far, we haven't laid a glove on him. He lost Ukraine but kept Crimea. Sanctions helped him grow the domestic economy and make it self-sufficient. He has done major deals with China. His oil pipelines to Europe are driving the US crazy, and making Europe think twice about who is a good ally.

Just as, these days, one does not turn on one's radars until the big battle starts to avoid tipping one's hand, so also, one does not declare red lines.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

..imperiousness, today. A lashing out and provocation that I found shocking — because from my perspective, the US is deliberately pushing together China, Russia, and the entire Eastern Hemisphere to act as an opposing force against it.

Quite simply, the US is guided by the most inept foreign policy and war strategists in all of human history.

U.S. sanctions China for buying Russian fighter jets, missiles

September 20, 2018

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration imposed sanctions on the Chinese military on Thursday for buying fighter jets and missile systems from Russia, in breach of a sweeping U.S. sanctions law punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

The US thinks it can punish China in order to punish Russia for a problem that the US invented to hide its failed internal coup?

The U.S. State Department said it would immediately impose sanctions on China’s Equipment Development Department (EDD), the branch of the Chinese military responsible for weapons and equipment, and its director, Li Shangfu, for engaging in “significant transactions” with Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main arms exporter.

The sanctions are related to China’s purchase of 10 SU-35 combat aircraft in 2017 and S-400 surface-to-air missile system-related equipment in 2018, the State Department said.

They block the Chinese agency, and Li, from applying for export licenses and participating in the U.S. financial system.

It also adds them to the Treasury Department’s list of specially designated individuals with whom Americans are barred from doing business.

Every day the US pokes China with another sharp stick. These Neocons who have seized control of the Federal Government have no idea what they are creating, but the US is forever reeling and spinning from the unintended consequences of their murderous actions on the world stage. And then, they double down.

The administration also blacklisted an additional 33 people and entities associated with the Russian military and intelligence, adding them to a list under the 2017 law, known as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA.

CAATSA also seeks to punish Russia for its aggression in Ukraine and involvement in Syria’s civil war.

Doing significant business with anyone on that list can trigger sanctions like those imposed on China.

Some of those added to the list, which now contains 72 names, were indicted in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, the official said.

As if to confirm that the US is as intellectually challenged as one might suspect, an anonymous official weighs in:

One U.S. administration official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the sanctions imposed on the Chinese agency were aimed at Moscow, not Beijing or its military, despite an escalating trade war between the United States and China.

“The ultimate target of these sanctions is Russia. CAATSA sanctions in this context are not intended to undermine the defense capabilities of any particular country,” the official told reporters on a conference call.

“They are instead aimed at imposing costs upon Russia in response to its malign activities,” the official said.

Yep. Onlookers agree. US policy is dumb as a stump:

“The imposition of U.S. sanctions will have zero impact on Russian arms sales to China,” said Ian Storey, of Singapore’s ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.

“Both countries are opposed to what they see as U.S. bullying and these kind of actions will just push Beijing and Moscow even closer together,” he said.

Next, the Neocons turn to threaten NATO member Turkey because that's going to work out really well, they think:

Administration officials said they hoped the action... would send a message to others considering buying the S-400... particularly with NATO ally Turkey, which wants to buy the Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries.

Washington has expressed concern that Turkey’s planned deployment of the S-400s could pose a risk to the security of some U.S.-made weapons and other technology used by Turkey, including the F-35 fighter jet.

“We hope that at least this step will send a signal of our seriousness and perhaps encourage others to think twice about their own engagement with the Russian defense and intelligence sectors,” another U.S. official said.

This announcement was made just in time for Asia morning news and right now, Europe is just waking up. They'll have a chance to see this before Americans ever hear about it. If they ever do, would they understand what it means? The US is a zombie.

This story has traction in the World News lineup.

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mimi's picture

@Pluto's Republic
trying to read about it in the German news to get more distrusting everything I read anywhere.
That's exactly not for what I am reading. My brain is in FUBAR status.

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@mimi

When almost every bit of electronic and computing equipment in everything is "Made in China", just how fucking stupid does a government have to be to piss off the Chinese?

What if China said, "All right, that's it, no more electronic goodies for YOU!"?

Somebody, somewhere, needs to reread Isaac Asimov's "Foundation", especially the chapter in which the Foundation wins a war without a shot fired because it had supplied the other side with all sorts of elaborate doodads - and then just sat back and let the doodads wear out.

Maybe the Chinese leaders have read it, and maybe they're thinking about it. Betcha Putin has and is.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

arendt's picture

@TheOtherMaven

And the Japanese folded like a cheap suit. (NYT story.)

This year, there is much reporting about Japan finding rare earths on the seabed near one of their islands. This may or may not change the rare earth situation, because it takes years to ramp up rare earth separation technology.

But, rare earths is simply one of many strategic bottlenecks that have upped stakes and moved to China over the last two decades. Literally entire factories were packed up in the US and shipped off to China.

It is completely idiotic to sanction China for trading with whom it pleases. The Chinese have literally hundreds of economic pressure points with which to retaliate. Then there is the nuclear option of dumping their US Treasury bond holdings. China and Russia have been creeping towards the exits on that by buying lots of gold and slowly selling off their T-bond holdings.

IMHO, the Chinese must be getting pretty pissed at us. We constantly mess with their OBOR initiative - by setting up counter-alliances, by dropping terrorists groups into countries along the OBOR routes. We demand to control the South China Sea and stage provocations there almost monthly. Now we are going to tell this mercantile giant whom they can trade with (Iranian oil, Russian aircraft)? It is f-ing insane. The neocons must all have tertiary syphillus rotting their brains.

And that's just the economic side. Militarily, China has the second largest military in the world. Their defense budget is already half of ours, and you can bet it isn't blown on crap like the F-35. The US Navy has admitted that it cannot beat the Chinese in the South China Sea, which is the only naval theater that the Chinese care about. Again, crazy.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@arendt

But they are being pushed to grow it beyond what they expected by US threats and aggression.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

How much KSA spends. How GB spends as much as Russia. How China spends 3x what Russia does.

It really points out that expenditures do not equal capability. KSA is a joke, so is the UK. Meanwhile, Russia punches well over its weight. China's expenditure seems to be in line with results, although you can't tell since they haven't fought anyone since the 1979 Viet Nam dustup.

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@arendt
spending is quid pro quo for being a Platinum Member USA Client State -- they agree to spend a big chunk of those petrodollars that we funnel their way on weapons produced by our MIC.

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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.

arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I mean, yes the neocons are rabid animals. But Trump is an idiot, and TPTB find ways to use him.

What if TPTB have decided they have looted all they can easily get away with from the US? We sort of suspect that Trump's trade wars are designed to crash global trade so that TPTB can buy up failed businesses at low prices. That's the standard "disaster capitalism" playbook.

I mean the stock market is inflated beyond belief. The value of the dollar is being driven up by all the uncertaintly. Therefore, now is the time to get out of dollars and short the market. If all this provocation pushes China to retaliate, the smart crooks could make out like Joe Kennedy, Sr. in the 1929 crash.

As an added bonus, a complete economic collapse of the US would blow away Medicare and SocSec. Those programs still have too much support for TPTB to privatize and loot them. An economic disaster would vaporize those plans, and the government itself - which has been the goal of the neoliberals since forever.

Just thinking out loud. But the lack of adult supervision here is starting to look like a feature (for the 0.01%) not a bug.

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arendt's picture

@arendt

Turkey is screwed because their currency got hammered, while their loans are in dollars. But, if the US currency gets hammered, it just means we get to pay off with depreciated dollars. Being the world's currency printer is a huge advantage.

Someone at ZH agrees w me.

Maybe these fuckers are trying to get rid of the debt by blowing up the USD hegemony on purpose. Devalue, print, and repay.

Yeah, its a commenter at ZH. I must be nuts to reference such material. Smile

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@arendt

...by the US, I ran across this post, which sounds like the course that some dying empires follow on their way out. China can easily be slipped into this mix, although I think this over-the-top development must have surprised this expert.

What do Russia, Turkey, and Iran have in common? All are on the receiving end of punitive action by the United States over allegations of misbehavior that have not been demonstrated. Nobody has shown that Russia poisoned the Skripals, Turkey just might have a case that the Reverend Brunson was in contact with coup plotters, and Iran is in full compliance with the nuclear arms agreement signed in 2015. One has to conclude that the United States has now become the ultimate angry imperial power, lashing out with the only thing that seems to work – its ability to interfere in and control financial markets – to punish nations that do not play by its rules. Given Washington’s diminishing clout worldwide, it is a situation that is unsustainable and which will ultimately only really punish the American people as the United States becomes more isolated and its imperial overreach bankrupts the nation. As America weakens, Russia, Turkey, Iran and all the other countries that have been steamrolled by Washington will likely seek revenge. To avoid that, a dramatic course correction by the US is needed, but, unfortunately, is unlikely to take place.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest

It doesn't have to be this way. Russia went through it, the UK went through it, without making such an unholy mess on the world stage.

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k9disc's picture

@Pluto's Republic

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

k9disc's picture

Let the domestic colonization begin. Caught between Drumpfonomics, BRIC investors, and Western Neoliberals; we're going to get diced up one way or the other.

So depressing.
@k9disc

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

TheOtherMaven's picture

@k9disc

although it certainly seems that practically anybody would do a better job of running this mess of a country than the psychotic morons currently in charge.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@TheOtherMaven

...and dangerous. And feral. So isolated, they can't even visualize where their global murder sprees are taking place. They feel nothing. Even their own police regard them as enemy combatants. With Republican Jesus whispering in their ears, they're basically the American Taliban. Canada and Mexico would be wise to build walls.

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

Even their own police regard them as enemy combatants.

After 911, the US adopted wholesale the Israeli police model used against Palestinians in the occupied territories. It was the police who chose to treat citizens as the enemy. After that, the "stand your ground laws" were introduced.

Its not that the citizenry desired to become animals. That was imposed from above by rewriting the laws of policing and self-defense.

The statistics show that while the number of guns is up, the percentage of gun owners is down. That is, a small subset of gunowners is responsible for a lot of the purchases - the same way a small number of alcoholics are responsible for a disproportionate amount of alcohol purchases. Most gunowners and most police think the NRA leadership is crazy and dangerous. The NRA, of course, gets its funding from the same rightwing billionaires who want democracy destroyed.

So, I do agree with you about going feral. I just don't think it was a natural event. Its all part of the plan to make the country essentially ungovernable by democratic means.

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arendt's picture

@k9disc

Americans are about to experience what the third world has experienced. There are some valuable mineral resources under our land. They will be mined, and the environment and the local population be damned.

TPTB have been avoiding the overpopulation issue for decades. They probably think they can avoid for a bit longer by destroying the living standards of the first world, thereby lessening the drain on resources and reducing the pollution. They are ready to pull the plug, what with their shelters in New Zealand, Patagonia, and various small islands.

I hate to sound like a prepper, but there doesn't seem to be an ounce of sanity or feeling for the average American left in Washington. We are pretty much on our own.

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k9disc's picture

burning food to protect profits. It's going to take some Grapes of Wrath shit to red pill people.

What kind of an eta you got on that? I'm betting on the first Blue Ocean Event if we don't fall into some kind of war trouble before hand.

@arendt

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Pluto's Republic's picture

@k9disc

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The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

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arendt's picture

@k9disc

The Trumptards don't believe in climate change. Does a BOE automatically caused a noticable and directly attributable stretch of extreme weather? From what I've seen, the idiot demographic has been bamboozled that weather = climate, so that whatever happens, its just "normal" variation.

So, I think if its not a military event, it will have to be an economic one. That would be the next big crash that has to come soon. The ability of governments to print money is running out. The BOJ owns something like 75-80% of the Japanese ?stock? ?bond? market. Other central banks, Switzerland IIRC, are in similar positions. They are basically destroying markets, destroying price discovery.

When this Ponzi scheme crashes, the governments are going to give the little people a massive haircut to preserve the "assets" of the 1%. You are probably aware that in the US, after the latest round of financial "reforms", derivatives and other securities have priority over retail deposit accounts in the face of a bank going bankrupt. At this point, TPTB is simply grabbing and stashing as much loot as they can in tangible assets. When TSHTF, they will scrape off what's left of the bank assets, and walk away to New Zealand.

That's when the Red Pill moment happens. The people who still think the government will protect them, that the FDIC is a meaningful entity, that Social Security will continue to be paid - those folks will get a two by four across the face. And it will be way too late to do anything.

Just my humble opinion.

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k9disc's picture

society. Kind of with Guy McPherson on that front.

I don't think people realize how necessary prevailing climate patterns are to mass food production. 24 hours of sunlight up there for 6 months straight is going to produce a different world.

I think we're going to get a look at the trouble this winter if the media decide to tell us. I think crops took a beating in 2018, but not sure.

@arendt

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

arendt's picture

@k9disc

24 hours of sunlight up there for 6 months straight is going to produce a different world.

I assume that means there will be sunshine instead of clouds for six months. Then the sunshine heats the water. I suppose that will have bad effects on the North Atlantic Conveyor - i.e., really mess up the climate.

But, wouldn't all this take several years, if not decades to develop? Wouldn't the climate effects be diffuse and not easily attributable, given our propagandistic media? The collapse of the US from economic and military causes might happen a lot sooner.

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@arendt

in your extensive comments here, which are just brilliant, this part:

So, I think if its not a military event, it will have to be an economic one. That would be the next big crash that has to come soon.

The economic crash has already happened in huge parts of this country. If you have time or a way to see it, this FRONTLINE piece on Dayton Ohio is illustrative. Poverty, decayed infrastructure, an epidemic of drug-related deaths, closed schools, overstretched medical services, rotted vacant housing, death by homelessness, this is an area in which the house of cards collapsed long ago.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/left-behind-america/

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arendt's picture

@Linda Wood

If it doesn't happen to the 1%, it isn't real.

Another Wall St. wipeout is what I was referring to. It will hurt the professional class, the one that owns some small percentage of the stocks, as opposed to the bottom 90% that owns practically nothing.

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arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

The US is too stupid, too spoiled to do that.

The Brits handed over to the US. The Soviets didn't believe in their own ideology anymore, and were glad to be rid of the imperial baggage that went with messianic communism.

Unfortunately, the US still is messianic, with neocon/neolib-ism being the religion being flogged. More and more we resemble the 1980s Soviet Union.

Economy sinking fast as rest of world, esp. China, makes better and/or cheaper stuff.
Gerontocratic, true believer leadership.
Overextended military trying to win in third world shitholes.
Domestic unrest as no one believes the BS capitalism narrative. ("They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work.")

Time to visit Dmitri Orlov's website again.

I propose a taxonomy of collapse, splitting it out into five stages—financial, commercial, political, social and cultural—and tied each of the five collapse stages to the breaching of a specific level of trust, or faith, in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is generally quite swift, because it is something of a cultural universal that nobody (but a real fool) wants to be the last fool to believe in a lie.

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in “business as usual” is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that “the market shall provide” is lost.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that “the government will take care of you” is lost.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that “your people will take care of you” is lost.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in “the goodness of humanity” is lost.

A casual perusal of history books will show that these various stages of collapse occur with great regularity. Unlike other animals, humans have a marked tendency to form complex social hierarchies which never endure because collapse is programmed into the very nature of complex social hierarchies. In fact, the first three stages can often be viewed as healthy developments.

- D. Orlov, The Five Stages of Collapse

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@arendt

...that the US would collapse the same way as Russia. But I do remember him saying that if you had to collapse somewhere, Russia was the place to be. Why? Because everyone had a home and you couldn't be kicked out. And everyone had a farm. A piece of land all your own to grow your food, a little way out of town. That continues to this day.

I also got from him the breaking up of the US into regional countries, fully autonomous. Thar be salvation and survival. Smaller governments that can respond to the people and put them to work. Civilian oversight into everything, if they're smart.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

He likes to have a general theory about collapse. So he focuses on the commonalities in collapse, instead of the differences. (Jared Dimond does the same thing in his book "Collapse".) I agree with you that it will be completely different here. I agree with you and him that the country will fragment. The South can go its own way AFAIAC, and good riddance.

But I agree with him that the population of the US is horribly underprepared for privation. They can't boil water without a microwave. They think food comes from a freezer.

Interesting times coming.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

dupe

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
arendt's picture

@Pluto's Republic

I believe that a case can be made that these are all one thing: the US—the world’s imperial overlord—standing on a ledge and threatening to jump, while its imperial vassals—too many to mention—are standing down below and shouting “Please, don’t jump!” To be sure, most of them would be perfectly happy to watch the overlord plummet and jelly up the sidewalk. But here is the key point: if this were to happen today, it would cause unacceptable levels of political and economic collateral damage around the world. Does this mean that the US is indispensable? No, of course not, nobody is. But dispensing with it will take time and energy, and while that process runs its course the rest of the world is forced to keep it on life support no matter how counterproductive, stupid and demeaning that feels.

What the world needs to do, as quickly as possible, is to dismantle the imperial center, which is in Washington politically and militarily and in New York and London financially, while somehow salvaging the principle of empire. “What?!” you might exclaim, “Isn’t imperialism evil.” Well, sure it is, whatever, but empires make possible efficient, specialized production and efficient, unhindered trade over large distances. Empires do all sorts of evil things—up to and including genocide—but they also provide a level playing field and a method for preventing petty grievances from escalating into tribal conflicts....

Lest you think that the US isn’t an empire—a collapsing one—consider the following. The US defense budget is larger than that of the next ten countries combined, yet the US can’t prevail even in militarily puny Afghanistan. (That’s because much of its defense budget is trivially stolen.) The US has something like a thousand military bases, essentially garrisoning the entire planet, but to unknown effect. It claims the entire planet as its dominion: no matter where you go, you still have to pay US income taxes and are still subject to US laws. It controls and manipulates governments in numerous countries around the world, always aiming to turn them into satrapies governed from the US embassy compound, but with results that range from unprofitable to embarrassing to lethal. It is now failing at virtually all of these things, threatening the entire planet with its untimely demise.

What we are observing, at every level, is a sort of blackmail: “Do as we say, or no more empire for you!” The US dollar will vanish, international trade will stop and a dark age will descend, forcing everyone to toil in the dirt for a millennium while mired in futile, interminable conflicts with neighboring tribes. None of the old methods of maintaining imperial dominance are working; all that remains is the threat of falling down and leaving a huge mess for the rest of the world to deal with. The rest of the world is now tasked with rapidly creating a situation where the US empire can be dealt a coup de grâce safely, without causing any collateral damage—and that’s a huge task, so everyone is forced to play for time.

D. Orlov, The Suicidal Empire

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dervish's picture

@arendt if Israel isn't mentioned.

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"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."

arendt's picture

@dervish

I mean, yes, we are a de facto colony of Israel, the same way India was a de facto colony of Great Britain. We do what they ask, we send them pots of money, we defend them militarily, diplomatically, and culturally (with the whole anti-semitism racket).

But, if the US goes down, Israel goes with it. Either they collapse finacially along with us, or they get run over by the Arab World. If they think they can start nuking Arab countries, Russia is there to tell them otherwise.

So, other than their oligarchs fleeing along with our oligarchs, and taking their loot with them, I don't see why I have to consider Israel as a special case.

Please enlighten me.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@dervish

I don't expect it to last out a full century. Not in its current state.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

irony to the hilarious madness of the weaponry origination topic, here are a few sites illustrating the origins of weapons in the conflicts we're waging. In the Wikipedia article on ISIS weapons, skroll down, way down, and you will see it mentioned that ISIS even has thermobaric bombs, the kind that explode the internal organs of children, as we were able to see in the film of our attack on Libya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_equipment_of_ISIL

Weapons production[edit]
IS has an indigenous weapons industry. Their workshops can produce identical copies of the RPG-7 and SPG-9. In addition, they have developed an indigenous rocket launcher, which comes in four varieties. Two variants fire PG-9 munitions at short and long range. A third fires PG-7V munitions and the fourth fires an unspecified thermobaric munition. They also produce grenades to be fired from the muzzle of an AK pattern rifle or dropped from a drone. They also produce mortar ammunition and rockets.[62] [63]

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/09/world/yemen-airstrikes-intl/

https://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ScreenHunter-56...

https://www.occrp.org/en/makingakilling/the-pentagon-is-spending-2-billi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_equipment_of_ISIL

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Linda Wood

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato