thoughts on reasons key to amerikan forever wars: Israel & agitprop for Imperial world control

Military Defeats and Political Success’, James Petras, dissidentvoice.com:

“In a previous article (“US: The Century of Lost Wars“), I recorded the repeated US military defeats over the past two decades. In this discussion I will describe the role of military strategists who bear responsibility for the US defeats, but also for Israeli political successes.

The key to this apparent contradiction is to uncover how and why the destruction of Israeli adversaries prolonged costly US military invasions.

The two outcomes are inter-related. The same US military strategists whose policies lead to failed US wars in the Middle East facilitated and augmented the power of Israel.

US war strategists’ operations reflect ‘dual loyalties’. On the one-hand they receive their elite education and high positions in the US, while their political loyalties to Tel Aviv express their Israel-first strategic decisions.”

Petras hypothesizes that the dual loyalty strategists have fabricated threats, over-estimated created enemies military threats, as well as hyping up ‘threats to amerika’, and sent hundreds of thousands of troops to fight losing (I’d say unwinnable) wars to aid Israel in its quest for hegemony in the Middle East.

In his mind,it was the best and brightest academics among the war strategists are Israel-firsters, either Zionists or what he terms ‘fellow travelers’ who’d prosecuted the wars in Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Syria.  It’s not much of a coincidence that all those nations opposed the annexation of Arab lands and supported Palestinian self-determination.  He then has a longish section of ‘what can be done, then?’ wish list, but I’d like to move on, save for offering this from His Hissing Bellicosity speaking to (spoiler alert):

People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)

@Mojahedineng  Official account of PMOI/MEK, the main Iranian opposition group seeking to establish a free & democratic state respecting freedoms & gender equality.

From Reuters Sept 22 (h/t tony cartalucci on twitter): ‘Trump lawyer Giuliani says Iran’s government will be overthrown’

“President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani on Saturday said that U.S. sanctions on Iran are leading to economic pain that could lead to a “successful revolution,” contrasting with administration comments that government change in Tehran is not U.S. policy.

“I don’t know when we’re going to overthrow them,” said Giuliani, who spoke in his own capacity though he is a Trump ally, at an Iran Uprising Summit held by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities, which opposes Tehran’s government. “

Now this is kick-ass, imo, with some surprises within it: ‘The United States of America: The Real Reason Why They Are Never Winning Their Wars’, Peter Koenig, September 19th, 2018, dissidentvoice.org

He opens by saying that this essay was inspired by Petras’s article above, and he agrees with the current war list, but adds as well: World War II, the slaughter of civilians (including children) in Gaza, the warmongering and war-by-other-means, massive sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela.”

I’m so unfamiliar with the true history here, I’ll just paste it in:

“Other wars and conflicts, that were never intended to be won, include the dismantlement of Yugoslavia by the Clinton / NATO wars of the 1990s, the so-called Balkanization of Yugoslavia, ‘Balkanization’, a term now used for other empire-led partitions in the world, à la “divide to conquer”. Many of the former Yugoslav Republics are still not at peace internally and among each other. President Tito, a Maoist socialist leader was able to keep the country peacefully together and make out of Yugoslavia one of the most prosperous countries in Europe in the seventies and 1980s. How could this be allowed, socio-economic well-being in a socialist country?  Never. It had to be destroyed. At the same time NATO forces advanced their bases closer to Moscow. But no war was won. Conflicts are still ongoing, “justifying” the presence of NATO, for European and US “national security”.

Koening reminds people of the west’s part in the debacles in Central America, the Iran-Iraq war, Snortin’ Bolton screaming threats to the judges at the ICC just in case they might be thinking about opening cases against Amerikan and Israeli war criminals, and sneers at the world and the UN General Assembly failing to stand up to the bullies that have them cowering in the dark.  Trillions upon trillions of fake dollars are spent prosecuting wars never meant to be won.  I’d add ‘how many secular leaders in the Middle east have been deposed for fun and profit by the Imperium only to be replaced with US-approved Islamist ones?’

“If we, the 191 UN member nations allow these wars to continue, that is. Again, why is that?

The answer is simple. It is not in the interest of the United States to win any wars. The reasons are several. A won war theoretically brings peace, meaning no more weapons, no more fighting, no more destruction, no more terror and fear, no more insane profits for the war industry, but foremost, a country at peace is more difficult to manipulate and starve into submission than a country maintained at a level of constant conflict, conflict that not even a regime change will end, as we are seeing in so many cases around the world. Case in point, one of the latest ones being the Ukraine, after the US-NATO-EU instigated February 2014 Maidan coup, prepared with a long hand, in Victoria Nuland’s word, then Assistant Secretary of State, we spent more than 5 years and 5 billion dollars to bring about a regime change and democracy to the Ukraine.”

He chronicles the recent history of the US-aided Poroshenko government in Ukraine thousands killed, millions fleeing to Russia, the continual civil war on  the Donbass, etc. then asks: ‘Could this Kiev war of aggression end?’

Well of course it could, if only the West would let go of the Donbass, and acknowledge their independent self-declared republics; but no: it’s a US/NATO/EU proxy war against the Bear, besides which it’s creating despair and chaos among the citizenry, making them easier to manipulate.  Meanwhile, the neo-Nazis in Ukraine are marching openly under the Wolfsangel flag, and from today: ‘Ukraine’s right-wing Azov Battalion stages own version of Nazis’ ‘Cathedral of Light’ ceremony’, via RT; they’ve also launched wars against the Roma in Ukraine.  Okay, maybe not Kristallnacht…yet.

But he writes ‘in case you hadn’t known this’…rather blithely, but hell, no, I for one hadn’t as in ‘a surprise’:

…the US State Department has clearly exposed its plans to guarantee world primacy to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Commission. Assistant Secretary of State, Wess Mitchell, has declared that the United States is punishing Russia, because Moscow is impeding Washington from establishing supremacy over the world. It gets as blunt as that. The US openly recognizes the reason for their fight against Russia, and that Washington would not accept anything less than a full capitulation.

The full supremacy over the world is not possible without controlling the entire landmass of Eurasia, which for now they, the US, does not dominate. Mitchell added, contrary to optimistic hypothesis of earlier administrations, Russia and China are the most serious contenders to impede materially and ideologically the supremacy of the United States in the 21st Century, in a reference to the PNAC, Plan for a New American Century.

Then Mitchell launched a bomb: “It is always of primordial interest for the United States’ national security to impede the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.”  This clearly means that the United States will shy away from nothing in the pursuit of this goal – meaning an outright war, nuclear or other, massive killing and total destruction to reach that goal. This explains the myriad false accusations, ranging from outright insults at the UN by a lunatic Nikki Haley, the never-ending saga of the Skripal poisoning, to Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and whatever else suits the political circumstances to bash Russia. And these fabricated lies come mostly from Washington and London, and the rest of the western vassals just follows.’

Now his link is to an author at the Saker, but the Atlantic has it, as does stalkerzone.org, dated Sept. 1, 2018; I couldn’t find him on C-span.

So no more ‘China and Russia as ‘competitors, but Mitchell (and co.?) have twigged to Mackinder’s geopolitics 1904, as in: Heartland theory (has the ghost of Zbig been advising him?  Mika’s dad, yanno?) in combination with Nicholas Spyland’s Rimland theory:

“Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island commands the world.”

Spykman as I understand him: “Control of Eurasia’s Rimland, the coastal areas, is the key to controlling the World Island and later the world” (containment post WWII Soviet Union theory)

Heartland/Rimland

He then offers Roger Waters’ version of ‘War is a Racket’ (too profitable to stop), and a longer version of this:

“Russia today is attacked by economic and trade “sanctions”, by travel bans, by confiscated assets they have in the west. The Cold War which propagated the Soviet Union as an invasive threat to the world, was a flagrant and absolute lie from A to Z. It forced the Soviet Union, thrown into abject poverty by saving the west from Hitler during WWII – yes, it was the Soviet Union, not the US of A and her western ‘allies’ that defeated Hitler’s army – losing between 25 and 30 million people!  Imagine! By saving Europe, the Soviet Union became unimaginably devastated and poor.”

By the constant drumbeats painting by then impoverished Russia, captured by corrupt oligarchs through the aid of Bill Clinton and friends (wsws Clara Weiss reports), is once again seeking to recreate the Soviet Union, the Warmongering NATO keeps hope alive for believers who fear The Bear (and likely China) are coming to gobble up the West.

Unless the new alliances of the East; i.e., the SCO, BRICS, Eurasian Economic Union, half the world’s population and a third of the globe’s economic output, are able to subdue the United States economically, we may as well be doomed.”

Pax Americana

Following that he looks at post-WWII economics, sister wars, and conflicts at length.  Empires on their last legs sensing challenges to their hegemony are said to be erratic with over-reaching bluster and bellicosity; who will stop the West?  Those who can…and will.

“If a war was won, peace would break out – no war industry profit there, no debt-rent for banks from peace. Wars must go on and the exceptional nation may prevail, with the world’s largest military-security budget, the deadliest weapons and a national debt, called ‘unmet obligations’ by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) of about 150 trillion dollars, about seven and a half times the US GDP. We are living in the west in a pyramid monetary fraud that only wars can sustain, until, yes, until a different, honest system, based on real economic and peaceful output, will gradually replace the dollar’s hegemony and its role as a world reserve currency. It’s happening as these lines go to print. Eastern economies, like the Chinese, with China’s gold-convertible Yuan, and a national debt of only about 40% of GDP, is gradually taking over the international reserve role of the US dollar.”

So sure, as new financial and military alliances form, proxy wars must be fought, as the demonization of China and Russia continue, risking hot war because the Eurasian land mass is the prize for what Koenig calls ‘the Killer Empire’.

Is a Movement for Peace revitalizing even after Boss Tweet’s Grand Military Parade was put in mothballs?  Will Anti-war Autumn (actions from Sept. 30-Nov.16 help to stem the tide?  We can only hope so.  John Gorka says it right.

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

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Big Al's picture

that gives me much hope. Not criticizing and wish them luck (I won't travel to D.C.) but it looks like the same old and more than likely will devolve into a democratic party vs Trump thing. What I don't see is any kind of challenge to the duopoly and this political system, which in the end is what those with the power, including the Zionists, use as cover to achieve their goals. Without that kind of pressure on the oligarchy I don't see any challenge to imperialism and militarism.

Perhaps the never ending nature of 21st century war will finally cause an uprising, but then again, they keep changing tactics to stay ahead of the curve, which is what's happening with North Korea imo.

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wendy davis's picture

@Big Al

(this message) from popular resistance: 'protest trump's parade' turned into 'it's now been cancelled (who cared, anyhoo?)

could the 'black is back coalition' action be more militant and heard? “There is No Peace: Africans and Africa are at War! U.S. to the World Comply or Die!.”

an anti-drone march is on the list. from dissidentvoice, christian sorensen's 'drone days of summer':

"This summer flew by. While many of us were baking in the heat, the U.S. war industry was raking in the money, selling unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. “drones”). All told, summer sales of drones and related technology topped $3,509,000,000. Such waste is a national tragedy." sigh.

at least it will be after the midterms, perhaps not as much incentive to register voters on the spot? cynical, i know...but there it is.

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machismo (for want of a better word) that seems to afflict many heads of nations, regardless of gender.

Not that it matters at this stage, but it probably began with the head of one cave person group challenging or attacking the head of another cave person group over which gets to hunt water buffalo in a particular area or some such survival-oriented reason By now, it may be hard-wired, regardless of whether a real life survival issue exists. (But wait until global warming makes food scarcer than it has already been becoming.

Why did the Cuban missile "crisis" get resolved without war? After all, people "close to the situation" then called their families and told told them to get as far away from Washington, D.C. as they could, so it must have looked like war was imminent.

The Bay of Pigs, long referred to since as "the Bay of Pigs fiasco," was planned during the Eisenhower administration and some of the people who had made government their careers* had convinced JFK to proceed with the existing plan. Ehen they urged him to show Cuba and Russia who was "king of the world," he balked. Then, he decided to trust only his brother.

*Using the term "Deep State" was apparently acceptable to Democrats only until Trump took office. On another site, a Dembot literally cursed me and called me a sociopath on another site. Why? In response to a poster's asking what Deep State meant, I posted consisting solely of a link to a definition of Deep State, as follows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States (Guess which of us was actually the sociopath, in my opinion.)

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

the ovien queen. whooosh. but dagnabbit, who was that beside her? i'll kick myself in the morning for not remembering his face and voice....

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@wendy davis Secretary of State under Bush the elder. Texas and Princeton connections...

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wendy davis's picture

@peachcreek

the big heads are almost interchangeable parts. i knew it wasn't marshmallow-in-his-throat david gergen, but... ; )

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Bollox Ref's picture

(see Other Apes)

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

wendy davis's picture

@Bollox Ref

for me. if you'd expand, i'd appreciate it. as in: you believe all threats of moar war are just empty breast-beating?

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Bollox Ref's picture

@wendy davis

But it seems the US doesn't do diplomacy these days. Just straight off to war and the use of very expensive, dangerous 'toys' that kill people left, right and centre.

Quite why the Dept. of State exists is beyond me. Negotiation/peace is obviously too wimpy/cheap.

(Edited)

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

wendy davis's picture

@Bollox Ref

yes, diplomacy is for other regimes, isn't it? lavrov? oh my, he could tickle salmon from a stream for dinner. when i learned a decade ago that amerikan diplomatic parties (fareed, et. al.) were all about horse-trading for weapons systems, my bubble burst.

with israel, haven't many of us wondered: who's the client, who's the state? no one cares that israel has nukes (undeclared), and never signed the NPF. dudn't matter; the US still sends them how many billion a year? client/state. have you ever watch an AIPAC conference and seen the fervor of the amerikan candidates for prez? hillary may have been the most shiver-worthy, but all of them have gotten religion on how to genuflect. no, it's not just the holocaust any longer; the millennial jews don't recall any of it, as some essayists note. something else, it is. the power of campaign lucre?

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GreyWolf's picture

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wendy davis's picture

@GreyWolf

there's the man; and what a peach he is. moral compass at true north, yes?

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

is often called a human trait from tribal times, but i'm not sure it is. lust for power and control is different, yes? 'deep state' claims are almost too ubiquitous, aren't they, as in the wiki: there are too many versions afoot. how many shadow gummit forces are in search of supremacy, say?

no, i didn't know that bay of pigs history as you tell it, including that the plan had been hatched under ike. JFK had decided to listen to RFK? but the world froze in fear at the time; i remember the terrified whispers of the adults in my life. is that when we had to do drills hiding under our desks in grade school?

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
on one October day in 1962. Not sure anymore exactly which day on the missile-crisis timeline. Probably whatever day it was when Soviet warships actually sailed right up to U.S. warships blockading Cuba.

You didn’t have to be an expert, or even a grown-up, to know that if all-out war came, a multi-megaton hydrogen bomb would be vaporizing Honolulu because of Pearl Harbor and all the other military bases on the island.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

on bay of pigs; no time to read much less guess if it's close to accurate.

but we'd had to duck and cover as early as jeez...well, maybe it was around 1961.

but the fallout out from that still exists within the political class in florida, esp. iirc, marco rubio and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whose name i had to bingle. are they who started the rumors of the buzzing e-noise making ambassadors to cuba ill and psychotic? kinda kidding about the psychotic, but...

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@wendy davis

no, i didn't know that bay of pigs history as you tell it, including that the plan had been hatched under ike.

I tell the history as I do because that is how I learned it. However, this wiki article agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

i know that supremacy for resources is often called a human trait from tribal times, but i'm not sure it is.

How would anyone alive after cave people evolved know for sure? I assumed that anthropologists have a reason for their conclusions, but maybe not. However, it seems like a common sense conclusion whenever and wherever resources, especially food and water, are scarce. IMO, that is why Al Gore got a Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming, rather than a Nobel science prize of some sort.

lust for power and control is different, yes?

My post did not equate them, nor was I focused on whether they were equivalents when I typed the post. However, now that you ask specifically, perhaps they are not different. I imagine that, in those days, the ones with power and control got to decide who got the water buffalo and that is today's bottom-line reality. At a minimum, I think they are closely-related. ymmv

'deep state' claims are almost too ubiquitous, aren't they, as in the wiki: there are too many versions afoot.

The poster who cursed me out and called me a sociopath for posting one link to a definition of a term another poster had inquired about likely thought so. I'm not sure agree, though. Again, ymmv

how many shadow gummit forces are in search of supremacy, say?

I'm not sure I know what you intended that to mean.

JFK had decided to listen to RFK?

No. My prior post said that JFK trusted only RFK, rather than anyone from the Pentagon or his National Security Advisor, etc. I'm as sure as one can be about the workings of another person's mind that JFK knew that the decisions had to be his own, even if he trusted RFK to advise him without his (RFK's) own agenda.

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

lust for power for its own sake is different than tribal control for resources. for one thing, i'd think that when a tribe had enough water buffalo, fish, etc., thy wouldn't harvest more than they need, i.e.: hoard resources including human labor capital, wealth, property, stocks, etc.

but thanks for clearing me up on what you'd meant about the kennedy bros. but iirc, they did have different agendas as far as the black civil rights movement, but that's another topic and i'd hate to defend that statement w/o enough time to review the history. ; )

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@wendy davis

I am not sure about the basis for even anthropologists' claims about the practices of (all) tribes of cave people. And, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it may all depend on the definition of "need."

At a more general level, I usually try to remember to avoid giving examples in posts as the discussion then often attenuates to the example, rather than remaining on the original point. In this case, the original topic was causes of war and I cited lust for power/control as being among the causes of war.

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wendy davis's picture

@HenryAWallace

talking past one another, but even if early man societies all competed for resources (i've read hypotheses that some cooperated instead), i don't think that the greed, gluttony, and accumulation of wealth past all reason is intrinsically 'human nature'; think how many of us have figured that out. ; )

peace to you and to all of us...when it's possible.

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@wendy davis

not that we were talking past each other, but peace to you as well.

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wendy davis's picture

last night la luna bella was full and i just watched her rise over menefee mountain to our east (yes, i howled at her w/ the coyotes out in the dryland). yesterday was the autumnal equinox; fall's creeping into the air here. the quakies in the la platas are starting to turn golden yellow, the big bucks in our yard are beginning to shed the velvet on their antlers. tonight's lullaby: sam bradly owns this song now, i think.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaMz8pgua_0]

g' night.

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snoopydawg's picture

Isn't that what Israel says is the reason why Iran and other countries have to be regime changed? Because their existence threatens Israel's.

The key to this apparent contradiction is to uncover how and why the destruction of Israeli adversaries prolonged costly US military invasions.

The two outcomes are inter-related. The same US military strategists whose policies lead to failed US wars in the Middle East facilitated and augmented the power of Israel

.

I can't understand why people who are military worshippers can't see that not one of our wars has been for the protection of the USA. Or that our military isn't fighting to protect our freedoms or the country. Terrorists might be able to do some damage to a few cities, but there is no way terrorists could do more than that. That we are using the exact same terrorists that we're supposed to be fighting is well known and yet people apparently refuse to believe it. The 28 pages of the 9/11 report shows how the Saudis were helping the "terrorists that attacked us that day" and yet the country yawned when they heard about it. This information is what should have gotten people in the streets to demand that we bring the troops home and close the 800-1,000 military bases we have over seas.

Instead of signs saying no wars for oil they should say no wars for Israel. And why are our friends and families dying instead of Israel's troops? Are they cowards that can only kill unarmed civilians in gaza and drop bombs from their jets knowing that if someone shoots too many down then Israel's buddies would have their back? I say that they are. Cowards!

Unwinable? We know that they are achieving exactly what is expected. Failed states where people are now being ruled by the terrorists who we used to overthrow their governments. And homes for terrorists to use as base camps. Look at what is happening in Libya and countries that border it. Boko Harem has exploded after Gaddafi's death. Swell job, Hillary and Barry! Just swell!

With our arming the neo Nazis in Ukraine and Israel's continued aggression in Syria is why I'm wanting Vlad to put his foot down and stop our bullying. Yes I've heard the arguments for why he can't do it now and that he's buying time for Russia and China to get their ducks in a row. But there's the possibility that we'll attack Russia before that happens. The idiots that run the country can't allow that to happen and I don't think that those idiots really believe that they will survive nuclear war can they? Even New Zealand will see the fallout from it.

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

but USian FP military misadventures without the agitprop: “we’re protecting your freedoms” and worse: “We’re exporting democracy©” wouldn’t work. no budget for “wars of choice for resources and total control of the planet” which is why i was thrilled to hear of wess mitchell’s speech. let’s get it out in the open, okay, unmask the truth that had been until recently hiding in plain sight? pivot! pivot! agitate!

regarding libya: how many US-approved ‘provisional govts. were there in how many different zones, misrata, tripoli, tra la la? then they began warring against each other, selling blacks into slavery; ah, hell, i can’t even finish this after looking for it.

but never forget: the first thing hillary did was to set up a central bank. where did all the trillions of libya’s gold go, please? never, never, give up your weapons of mass destruction while you plan to switch to another currency than the not-so-mighty dollar. hillary might laugh as you get a bayonet up your bottom.

but the same processes are authored by africom: create cia/ned chaos failed states, help install corrupt leaders who love isis/isil clones, then rush in to militarily secure bases, more bases in...insert nation here.

glad you found b’s news below.

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snoopydawg's picture

Shortly after the event happened we noted:

On Netanyahoo's personal request Russia had stopped the delivery of original Russian S-300 long range air-defense missiles to the Syrian military. These would have been less likely to veer off towards the wrong target. In consequence an Iranian 747 was damaged and 15 Russian soldiers were killed. Netanyahoo can forget about any further such 'favors' from Moscow.
Yesterday we added:

The incident will have consequences on several levels. For one - the airspace along the Syrian coast will now be off limits for Israeli flights
...
The Syrian air defense will be further strengthened and modernized. Its personal will get more specialist training. But the probably worst issue for Israel's military will be cooled down relations with the Russian forces. There will be no more freebies, no more looking aside and direct Russian fire on Israeli forces should they again try such stunts.

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snoopydawg's picture

Inquiring minds want to know. After all it was Hillary Clinton who made the decision to remove them from the terrorists watch list during her tenure as SOS.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is expected to notify Congress that the MEK will be removed from the terrorism list in the coming days.

The article shows which congress members received donations from the group. Rohrabacher was the only one who responded to the guardian about why he thought that they should be removed.

He said he was comfortable accepting donations from MEK supporters but that the money has no influence on his position that it should be unbanned.

"I wouldn't doubt that people would donate to my campaign if it's something that they see as beneficial to them, to what they believe in, whether it's the MEK or whether it's anybody else," he said.

"The question is whether it's the right position to take or not and whether it's a benefit to the people of the United States as a whole. In this case I've no doubt that supporting the MEK under this brutal attack from the Mullah regime [in Tehran] is in the interests of what I believe in but also in the interests of the people of the United States."

Rohrabacher said the MEK's past attacks on Americans, its bombing campaign in Iran that killed top politicians and civilians, and its support of Saddam Hussein were history and the group has turned its back on violence. He also denied that public support for a designated terrorist organisation might put him in conflict with the law.

"This isn't a bad group. A long time ago, in their history, they certainly had a questionable time – 20, 30, 40 years ago. But I don't know of any evidence they've engaged in terrorism for many, many years," he said. "They're not a terrorist group simply because some bureaucrats in the state department say so."

Why were they put on the list to begin with? I'm glad that you asked.

The campaign to bury the MEK's bloody history of bombings and assassinations that killed American businessmen, Iranian politicians and thousands of civilians, and to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran has seen large sums of money directed at three principal targets: members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials.

"They're not a terrorist group simply because some bureaucrats in the state department say so.

Alrighty then .... however when the were on the terrorists watch list none of the Americans that were supporters of it had any trouble from the state departments. Of course not. There was money to be made.

Soudjani told the Guardian that the moneys were raised from Iranian Americans in the US. "The Iranian community is wealthy. It has more than $600bn in the United States. This is pennies for supporting freedom," he said.

However, Soudjani was careful to say that the support is not for the MEK as an organisation, which could open donors to investigation under anti-terrorism laws.

"We are not giving material support to the MEK. We are supporting freedom of speech for justice and peace in Iran," he said.

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lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg  
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=howard+dean+mek

https://thinkprogress.org/giuliani-dean-paid-to-advocate-for-terrorist-g...

Democrats who depict themselves as “antiwar” in election campaigns have a way of not staying “antiwar” for very long.

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snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

Dean the scream and Rude-y were well known MEK supporters as well as other big name politicians during the time that they were on the watch list and of course nothing happened to them. This is Edwards two Americas where as long as one is rich or powerful enough nothing happens to them. Kirikou went to prison for exposing torture while those that actually did the deed got away with it. Ole Gina is now running the CIA after being in charge of torture sights and overseeing it in Thailand. Gagh!

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

as long ago as 2011? giuliania's a devotée! and islamist/marxist?

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wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

memory, please? i'd promise not to sully it...much. ooof! and nice diggin', choice clips.

now here's toni carlucci's exposé on Giuliani's via reuters. too long to bring much, but a few outtakes:

“The Brookings Institution in a 2009 policy paper titled, "Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran" (PDF), under a chapter titled, "Inspiring an Insurgency: Supporting Iranian Minority And Opposition Groups," would openly admit (emphasis added):

Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MeK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

“Brookings would elaborate regarding its terrorist background, stating (emphasis added):
Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MeK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001.

Brookings also mentions MEK's attacks on US servicemen and American civilian contractors, noting:
In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran.

file under: but this takes the cake for terrorist impunity:

“Additionally, at the New York City "Uprising Summit," MEK leader Maryam Rajavi would admit to MEK organizing riots through "resistance units." In her official message, now posted on various MEK websites, should would openly admit:

Today, the ruling mullahs’ fear is amplified by the role of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) and resistance units in leading and continuing the uprisings. Regime analysts say: "The definitive element in relation to the December 2017 riots is the organization of rioters. So-called Units of Rebellion have been created, which have both the ability to increase their forces and the potential to replace leaders on the spot."

The roadmap for freedom reveals itself in these very uprisings, in ceaseless protests, and in the struggle of the Resistance Units.”

“A similar process of whitewashing listed terrorist organizations occurred regarding Al Qaeda-affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) used by the US and UK to overthrow the Libyan government in 2011, delisted as a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department in 2015, before members of the terrorist front carried out a suicide bombing in Manchester, UK in 2017 killing 23 (including the bomber).”

his link to LIFG only goes to the state dept. terr'ist page, though.

in a similar vein, before hindu nationalist thug narendra modi hired himself some great PR firm and the sainted tulsi gabbard took him across two charm tours of amerika (silicon valley for one stop, iirc) he'd been denied entry by the state dept. for his crimes against humanity while he was the governor, PM of gujarat.

egad, i bingled, he's been white-washed, and head to gujarat yesterday...to inaugurate a mahatma (kashmiri-born) gandhi museum...who must have rolled over in his metaphorical ash grave. but namaste to you, too, you criminal PoS.

and craig murray's weighed in on the fake news of assange's 'escape plan' (h/t wsws) ‘Extraordinary and Deliberate Lies from the Guardian’, craig murray, sept. 23

yeah, a two-fer: trash both putin/roosia and assange in one swell foop.

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snoopydawg's picture

@wendy davis

suicide bomber and his buddies were well known to the authorities and that they had allowed the terrorists to come and go as needed? We found out about that not long after it happened, but I'm not sure if the people in Manchester did. The rest of the group were arrested quite soon after the bombing because the authorities knew where they lived. This is called 'the war of terror comes home.'

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

wendy davis's picture

@snoopydawg

i'd had to look up the manchester suicide bomber to say the truth. meaning: i have no idea. but at the telegraph, lo and (surprise) behold, found this: 'Skripal 'hitman' unmasked as GRU colonel awarded Russia's highest military honour by Vladimir Putin', sept. 26

they know because: bellingcat. i wonder how the anti-war movement, say dave swanson, et.al. feel about war for defense, as in: russia helping syria? in my what could prompt a 'revolution of higher consciousness hippie' diary, i'd noted that academics, unless wise should stay in their ivory towers. next da, the Counterpunch editors featured this video approvingly (and i finally tracked it down as from 2017, that's how hard they'd had to reach. bah, humbug.

note the stills of the White Helmets.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=fu_5nzvPWao]

yes, bellingcat: where the Truth Gets Exposed!
https://twitter.com/bellingcat

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lotlizard's picture

In Germany especially, for anyone in public life, the charge of anti-Semitism is magic.

Think public-relations “cruciatus curse” followed by career “avada kedavra” — much safer to want what Israel wants without being told, in vorauseilendem Gehorsam, no “imperius curse” even necessary.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

but now esp. since the BDS israel movement, equating pro-palestinina, anti-zionism, or even anti-IDF is called anti-semetism. and oh, it creeps in on cat's paws while folks are thinking 'well...kinda anti-semitic' >>> 'yeppers, srsly anti-semitic!' if i read correctly at consortium news, corbyn finally knuckled to those charges...at least kinda/sorta.

Q: i've seen headlines that uber-nationalism is high in germany right now; is it so, or the headlines click-bait?

on later edit: here it is: ‘Corbyn Might Long Regret Capitulation on Anti-Semitism’, daniel lazare, consortium news

"After months of pummeling, Jeremy Corbyn, the besieged leader of Britain’s Labor Party, gave in to the Zionist lobby and adopted a fiercely contested definition of anti-Jewish hatred that Arab activists say essentially brands the Palestinian cause as anti-Semitic.

Opinion varies as to what the capitulation will mean.

Alexander Mercouris, editor of the pro-Russian website The Duran, wrote on Consortium News that the impact will be limited. It “will not end criticism of Israel within the Labour Party or in British society,” he said. “Corbyn himself will not change his views, nor will other supporters of the Palestinian struggle … .”

But the redoubtable freelance journalist Jonathan Cook, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was more convincing two or three weeks earlier when he argued in a piece republished on Consortium News that adopting the new definition “will be a major victory both for Israel and its apologists in Britain, who have been seeking to silence all meaningful criticism of Israel, and for the British corporate media, which would dearly love to see the back of an old-school socialist Labour leader whose program threatens to loosen the 40-year stranglehold of neoliberalism on British society.”

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
can come across as perfectly normal from an eastern European perspective.

Is 15 to 18 percent for a right-wing populist party really that much? That means five out of every six voters who actually go to the polls still endorse the status quo.

The West-German acculturated elite, unnerved, sees a big “nationalism” problem and there’s alarmist drums beating about how it’s five minutes to midnight —

At the same time lots of people in the East shrug and say, “What do you expect?” — or perhaps, if they count themselves in that 15%, “Oh, can you hear us now?”

See my attempt to elaborate further here:
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/369980#comment-369980

Since people in the East always assumed that they were being misinformed by politics and the media, they got information in a different way: Neighbors, friends, friends of friends. People in the East talk to each other about what happens to people they know much more than in the West, and they draw conclusions about reality. We understand the world according to what is happening in our environment and do not accept interpretive narratives from “those up there.” [or: from “the people on top.”]

If someone’s children are bullied by migrants in the schoolyard, if women are sexually harassed without this being recorded as a crime, here in the “East” the news spreads quickly, even if it does not appear in the media at all. And we usually have a very clear opinion; namely that it is not us who are the problem, but the respective migrants, and the politicians who let them into the country. That is true even when most migrants are quite nice, normal people.

Westerners, on the other hand, see the world through the ideals taught to them by teachers, politicians and the media. It is not about reality, but about “values” as a belated consequence of the 1968 movement, which had a lasting impact on the West’s world of ideas. All people are equal. Misgivings about people from other countries is called racism. Religion is a problem. Pride and love for one’s own country is nationalism.

In the East we see it differently: People are not equal, and the peoples of the world are not “brothers.” Politics is never about “solidarity,” but fights for power and interests. We know these phrases from the communist dictatorship’s slogans. We know that they are hollow. People in the East are interested in reality, those in the West want to adapt reality to their “values” and therefore often do not recognize them at all.

In this respect we see East Germans and the events in Chemnitz as follows: The “Ossis” have remained normal, they are like us. That is why they reacted to the murder of a citizen in the same way as we would have reacted here — with anger and incomprehension about politics.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

seems mimi dinnae agree, but the 'bold raccoons' simile made me laugh.

this paragraph beginning: "In the East we see it differently: People are not equal, and the peoples of the world are not “brothers.”...is indeed jarring to a card-carrying hippie hoping for a revolution of higher consciousness...to change that. not only are we all made of stardust, but are all descended from the san bushman tribe, y-chromosome adam and mitochondrial eve, er...not lucy, i think, but from somewhere in eastern subsaharan africa. or something.
; )

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
because the unequal demographics will produce millions and even billions of Africans dreaming of — and as soon as means become available, determined to make — the crossing to Europe.

https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/09/22/why-europe-should-focus-on-i...

The globalist cat is being let out of the bag.

Is it (uber-)nationalist (or racist) for people to organize, agitate, and vote to say, “No, we don’t think we like that vision”?

Of course, the globalists’ position will remain that of Margaret Thatcher: TINA — “There is no alternative.”

Background info regarding world population trends, also from The Economist:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/09/22/what-to-do-about-africas-da...
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2014/08/23/can-it-survi...
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2015/12/12/the-young-continent
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2015/08/04/global-population-fo...
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/05/13/the-world-in-2100

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

with the economist links, although i finally got your first one to load, calling out libyan criminality post-arab spring? wot arab spring? a nato/us putsch? ooof. & toooo many africans havin' babies; how bill gates malthusian of them.. but let me ask you the same question re:

"The globalist cat is being let out of the bag.

Is it (uber-)nationalist (or racist) for people to organize, agitate, and vote to say, “No, we don’t think we like that vision”?

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
Can’t I just flat-out refuse to examine demographic differences rationally and dispassionately? Can’t I make it so that it’s immoral and heretical to model those aspects of the future using science and math? Group birth rates are like groups’ average IQ. Taboo, taboo! Can’t I fudge things so that science and math arguments only apply when I feel I have the oh-so-green moral upper hand, like with global warming?

If I were a billionaire, I too would say, “Look, maybe we enlightened deciders can talk honestly about this among ourselves at Davos and Bilderberg and places, but for heaven’s sake, keep the public’s attention away from this.”

I don’t have children. Am I saying it’s bad, “racist” even, that people love their own children and families, want to do more for them, care more about them than about others’ kids? What could be more natural, what’s almost the defining instinct for a mammal?

Globalists: Non-whites are the future and white countries and societies as we have known them are toast.
White person: You don’t say? (quoting poem) “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (goes off to join right-wing identitarian militia)

Bottom line:
(a) “Sixties Me” thinks it’s racist.
(b) People think their survival is at stake and do not care what Sixties Me thinks.
(c) Sixties Me is angry and frustrated that people do not care what she thinks.
(d) However, “2018 Me” knows and accepts that people’s survival may well be at stake and that such people may not care what she thinks.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

many issues in as arguments, and as i have chores galore backed up, i'll have to be brief for now. as far as contributing to climate chaos, the african underclass (what, 90%) has about tenth the carbon footprint size compared to developed nations.

myself, i'd look to the many african nationals who are in diaspora not only to the EU but north america and ask how much of it is due to rule by capital and imperialist wars. i did look up some 'facts' as to who went where, the whys sadly weren't expounded upon much, but as w/ trump, the EU for migration, home affairs, etc. advises allowing the educated class in, keeping the rabble at bay, much like herr trump.

at least PEW research mentioned the sub-saharan blacks in libya pre-R2P have been marketed abroad as slaves.

science and math only count when it's capitalists like the economist speaking? or the Lords of Davos and Bildeberg? or are you satirizing them? ; )

more later as i can. but you're a 'she'? as w/ snoopydawg, i'd thunk your screen name indicated a 'he' for some odd reason.

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
are two books by San Francisco author Laura Albert, published under the pseudonym J.T. Leroy.

My handle started out as an allusion to the profession (cough) of those books’ protagonists.

So it is / I am.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

‘enlightened billionaires’ is an oxymoron, of course. they are all soulless grifters, and make their filthy lucre of the backs of labor, finance capital schemes/casinos and stolen resources that should still have been The Commons, or gifts from mother earth.

and no, they’re saying it rather baldly: ‘overpopulation is why you can’t have Nice Things’ (as if that should be the goal), and here are the offenders. the gates foundation gets applauded for their eugenics programs for african women, no matter how many diseases they create, but i guess they call it ‘blowback’. their implantable e-birth control devices have on/off e-switches, thus hackable, so yeah...i’d trust those.

yes, it *might be* humans are hard-wired to protect only their own, but imo, that’s exactly what’s wrong with us, if so. some studies say that chirren are hard-wired for kindness, although the visuals of the experiments...are iffy to me, in that the mothers in the room may be giving subtle signals to the chirren. but that may be true as well, who can say? would they be socialized over time to protect only their own?

me, i’m a planetary citizen, and truth be known, tend to like the average person of color over their white counterparts. but then we adopted both a black/azteca son and a ute first american daughter, so tended to hang with non-white people at social gatherings more: unconscious gravitational pull?

i enjoyed you a.b.c.d. list a lot, but for me and survival? i could give a fuck. not long ago a Very Weighty Blogger his fans pay to write...put up a post on ‘how to survive the coming apoclypse while millions die’. i asked why the fuck should i? mr. wd and i have already decided that when those imagined armed banditos come for our full cellar of food, we’ll say: please take it, leave us some, and share with others. please. but then, i’m an old crone hippie in my dotage...even now. 'give whirled peas a chance!' ; )

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
Cosmopolitan writer thinks cosmopolitans (globalists, world citizens) will inevitably win in the end, leaving populism-prone “steady-eddies and salt of the earth people” behind.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/gloryseed/2016/05/globalists-versus-the-res...

Borders are for losers. The best talent should be able to move freely from place to place. Things move fast in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. You can’t wait for the public schools and universities to supply you with the needed talent to keep the growth machine going. Besides, no one really believes welfare-states have a future. People may not be willing to say that out loud, but among the things the Panama Papers tell us is the people who run their countries don’t believe in them.

The writer concludes that

We need institutions for people who don’t want to live in the shining alabaster cities of tomorrow. And I think the institutions that we will need to rely upon for this are religion and the natural family. They’re proven, after all. And many of the left behind are already loyal to them.

Except that most people who grew up in former East Germany don’t even have religion.

German east-west regional economics:

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-the-gap-between-east-and-west-is-narrowing...

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

miz 'She'. ; ) nah, i'm not a cosmopolitan/globalist in the way that author means. just not a nationalist of any sort, as i'd said, a world citizen.

when our small local peace vigil walked, i carried a flag of planet earth, much to the supreme annoyance of the Yellow Ribbons folks who'd...well, never mind.

but wm blum's weighed in with his September 25, 2018 ‘Bombing Libya: the Origins of Europe’s Immigration Crisis’, counterpunch

we just disagree on this is all. and i still have miles of chores to go before i sleep. i'll leave us all with AIM founder joun trudell's 'i have no country'.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJBgqt1Mzq4]

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lotlizard's picture

@wendy davis  
For a long time, I was automatically having a hate reaction against everything and everyone that clashed with my Sixties idealism.

It made me unable to acknowledge a lot of what was actually happening in Germany and Europe in recent years, and how people around me were feeling.

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wendy davis's picture

@lotlizard

no. it's no big deal, esp. as we agree on a lot, i think.

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