Tuesday news dump: Trump's October Surprise edition

There's been a lot of speculation about what sort of underhanded surprise Trump would pull out this October. Would it be war? Would it be money? Turns out it's peace.

Public support for Trump administration-backed peace talks to end the 19-year U.S. war in Afghanistan is surging, according to a report provided to Foreign Policy, as Afghan and Taliban negotiators began talks in Qatar this weekend.

Though the talks remain mostly shrouded in secrecy from the U.S. Congress and the American public, the Eurasia Group Foundation, a New York-based nonprofit, found strong public support among both Republicans and Democrats for the planned withdrawal of all remaining U.S. troops over the next 14 months. Meanwhile, the portion of those calling for U.S. forces to stay in Afghanistan to ensure the defeat of the Taliban and al Qaeda has halved since last year, to just 15 percent of respondents.

The survey found that fatigue with the Afghan war is dovetailing with a broader public desire to see the U.S. Defense Department reduce its footprint overseas and for Congress to slash military spending while reasserting its authority over U.S. war-making authority.

Combine this with withdrawing thousands of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the collapse of the Russian bounties story, and you have a worst-case scenario for all the neocon warmongers in the Democratic Party.
What will they do? Will they try to sell us that trump needs to be more militaristic? We need more war?
Speaking of war crimes, it seems that our leaders are afraid of being arrested if they travel overseas.

A report from The New York Times revealed that some US officials are concerned that their role in facilitating arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, while ignoring the harm to civilians each country has caused in Yemen, could lead to their arrest overseas for war crimes. A Congressional hearing over these arms sales is set to take place on Wednesday.

The report said that officials from both the Obama administration and the Trump administration have considered hiring lawyers to discuss the possibility of being arrested while vacationing overseas.
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Last week, the UN issued a report on atrocities in Yemen and asked the Security Council to bring actions by all parties in the conflict to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible war crimes prosecution. The Times said that legal scholars believe the ICC could charge US officials based on their knowledge of the pattern of indiscriminate killing by the parties the US supports in the conflict.

And this is even before we consider the criminal investigation by the international criminal Court for our war crimes in Afghanistan, that we are currently sanctioning.
Finally we should note Trump's latest pathetic attempt at undermining the Venezuelan government.

Venezuela's chief prosecutor on Monday accused a recently arrested US citizen of spying and planning to sabotage oil refineries and electrical service in order to stir unrest and kill innocent people.

The man, alleged to have CIA ties, had help from three Venezuelan conspirators, who were arrested last week near a pair of oil refineries on the north Caribbean coast, Venezuela's Chief Prosecutor Tarek William Saab said on state television.

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Delaware is the last Democratic primary of the year. Progressives are challenging Biden's hand picked replacement Sen. Coons. Who is just like Biden.
It's a long shot but there's a chance

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@gjohnsit

The Delaware Machine rolls on.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven link

Changes are coming to the Delaware General Assembly based on Tuesday’ sprimary results.

Four Democratic incumbents, including the top Democrat in the State Senate, were defeated by Progressive challengers.

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travelerxxx's picture

What will they do? Will they tried to sell us that trump needs to be more militaristic? We need more war?

Well, yes. That's exactly what they'll do.

If there's a doomsday clock for false-flag events, it will have only a couple of seconds left to tick should Trump attempt something as low-down and dirty as make peace.

It's amazing how easy it is for Trump to outflank the Democrats to the left. He's done it once and he'll probably do it again. I mean, why not? Even Goering knew: "Naturally the common people don't want war..."

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Bollox Ref's picture

has already nominated The Donald for the Nobel Peace Prize....

Good Times. The insanitary continues.

(Edited)

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

@Bollox Ref
Cuban doctors.

Just do a Google Search for "cuban doctors nobel prize".
They are almost universally loved by anyone outside of the United States.
While the rest of the world pulled back because of covid, Cuba sent out thousands of doctors, and they saved countless lives.

When covid slammed the world, Cuba was ready. Its medical brigades went to Italy, when that country was hardest hit, and its doctors received a standing ovation when they arrived in the airport. A medicine Cuba developed, interferon alpha 2b, showed so much promise with covid patients in China back in January that 45 countries have since requested it from Cuba. But there is no mention of this covid treatment in the U.S. media. Cuba, a small, relatively poor island country, has shared its medicines and its medical personnel – at great risk to their lives – with countries across the globe throughout the covid pandemic. This has led to a push for Cuban doctors to get the Nobel Prize. They certainly deserve it.
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“The conspiracy of silence surrounding the resounding success of Cuba’s health system,” Fitz writes “is egregious and it casts a doubt on the good intentions of” international health organizations. Fitz is too kind. This conspiracy reveals active, bad intentions. Those were never so fully on display as during Hurricane Katrina, when Cuba offered to send 1500 doctors to New Orleans. The Bush administration refused, revealing, as Fitz comments, that the U.S. preferred needy Americans to die than to accept help from Cuba and thus concede the superiority of Cuban medicine.

The same happened with Covid-19. As the lousy U.S. for profit health care system has led to over 175,000 deaths, Cuban medical personnel have travelled the world, saving lives. Just as they did after Chernobyl, when Cuba took in 25,000 Ukrainian patients and treated them gratis – for years. For many in the Global South, the only doctor they’ll ever see is a Cuban doctor.

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@gjohnsit

nor to defend the US healthcare system, but I have to take issue with this:

As the lousy U.S. for profit health care system has led to over 175,000 deaths

Trump, clueless federal agencies, big pharma, irresponsible blue state governors, not to mention Chinese bioweapons research, social media suppression of information about therapeutics *and* the US health care system have all contributed to the high US death toll - but a big, if not the biggest factor - one that rarely seems to get mentioned - may well be simply the poor state of Americans' health.

Japan has never gone to severe lockdowns, kids are back in school (about half of universities are still doing remote classes only) and total COVID-19 deaths (about 1500) are less than 1% of US deaths - in a country with 1/3 the US population.

The numbers may change and there are no doubt multiple factors involved - but I'm convinced that a major one is that Japanese are, overall, much healthier than Americans.

Not unlike debt - keeping people in ill health is profitable for some, and enforces dependency. Still, if people acquiesce in letting corporations and bureaucrats make their healthcare decisions and fail to take personal responsibility - or demand it of their leaders - the situation is not going to improve.

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generally has the advantage. The often cited exception is 1972, but that overlooks that 1) Feb 1972 Nixon went to China b) October 1972 Kissinger announced that peace was at hand c) the McGovern campaign fell apart right after the convention and conservative Dems did their best to undermine his campaign.

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Lookout's picture

He's had 4 years to pull out of these absurd wars.

Biden has already declared he will increase the military budget and keep troops in the ME. Whatta disaster.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

I can't think of any other candidate this season who is not a bloodthirsty warmonger, including Bernie. Trump talks like he wants to get out of wars and not start new ones. His actions are inconsistent. He's obviously ready to pull the trigger on the flimsiest of evidence, with really nasty, aggressive taunts. On the other hand, he has not started any new wars, and he has tried to reduce troop count. The push-back becomes horrendous and he gives in not wanting to seem soft on defense, offense, maiming and killing children, etc.

Trump and the Republicans are diametrically opposite to my views on politics, on the other hand so are the Democrats. On social issues the Dems sound slightly better but do nothing so they are worse than nothing. I would not vote for a Republican, but I can't vote for a Democrat. Still, I hope that Trump can pull off an October Peace surprise. If that causes him to win, fine, as it sends a strong message to the Democrats.

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Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.

usefewersyllables's picture

that is, for proper definitions of the word "peace", of course.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.