Hillary and The Long War

My new video on Hillary's plans to continue "the Long War" in the Middle East to preserve access to their oil reserves. Sources follow the video.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJbuyOS4Xnc]

Sources:

Rand Corporation Paper for US Army: "Unfolding the Future of The Long War" (2008)

The geographic area of proven oil reserves coincides with the power base of much of the Salafi-jihadist network. This creates a linkage between oil supplies and the long war that is not easily broken or simply characterized... For the foreseeable future, world oil production growth and total output will be dominated by Persian Gulf resources... The region will therefore remain a strategic priority, and this priority will interact strongly with that of prosecuting the long war."

Divide and Rule focuses on exploiting fault lines between the various
Salafi-jihadist groups to turn them against each other and dissipate their energy on internal conflicts. This strategy relies heavily on covert action, information operations (IO), unconventional warfare, and support to indigenous security forces

[T]he United States should use decisive conventional military force to change the regime in certain key Muslim countries and impose democracy in its place. T
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG738.pdf

Cost of Wars in Iraq & Afghanistan

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/10/01/the-war-in-afghanistan-...
The Afghan war had already cost almost $1 trillion (less than the $1.7 trillion spent on Iraq, but still staggering).

Cost of Syrian War

http://www.vocativ.com/346487/cost-of-americas-war-against-isis-surges-t...

The swelling price tag for the United States offensive against the Islamic State has surpassed $8 billion, according to the Pentagon.

Hillary on Iran
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-iran-idUSN2224332720080422
"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Hillary Plan for Further Middle East Wars

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/tweets-vs-war-crimes-clintons-...

1. Take out ISIS's stronghold in Iraq and Syria.
2. Dismantle the global terror network.
3. Harden our defenses at home and prevent attacks.

Clinton defends policy of regime change
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/20/bernie-sanders...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/03/15/chris_matthews_grills_...

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/04/14/hillary-clinton-has-no-regrets-about...

Hillary Clinton defends her policy of regime change in Libya and Syria. "You know, there's always these historical games you can play," she explained. "If somebody could have assassinated Hitler before he took over Germany, would that have been a good thing or not?"

Syria
No Fly Zone – 10/1/2015
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-clinton-calls-no-fly-zones-syria

“I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone and humanitarian corridors to try to stop the carnage on the ground and from the air, to try to provide some way to take stock of what’s happening, to try to stem the flow of refugees,” Clinton said in an interview with NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston after a campaign event nearby.

Hillary Rather be "Caught Trying"
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.html...
Anne-Marie Slaughter, her director of policy planning at the State Department, notes that in conversation and in her memoir, Mrs. Clinton repeatedly speaks of wanting to be “caught trying.” In other words, she would rather be criticized for what she has done than for having done nothing at all.

“She’s very careful and reflective,” Ms. Slaughter said. “But when the choice is between action and inaction, and you’ve got risks in either direction, which you often do, she’d rather be caught trying.”

Hillary on Russia and Putin
http://www.newsweek.com/where-do-clinton-and-trump-stand-russia-487777

Clinton in 2008 repeatedly warned Republican President George W. Bush that he should be wary of basing foreign policy on his personal relationship with Putin, and in 2014 she compared Putin to Adolf Hitler. During her current campaign, she took a long pause when asked about her relationship with Putin, before calling it “interesting” and branding him “a bully.” She is keen to maintain U.S. sanctions on his inner circle and to persuade the EU to do so as well.

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I went to an OR party to see Bernie's live stream. He never mentioned war & the people there refused to talk about war. Yikes! This is the most important thing for the next administration & almost makes me think i should campaign for Trump! And how can anyone claim to care about the environment & not want to stop war?

Seriously, what can we do? And now Ds & Rs both want to have Assange assassinated because he's a "cyber terrorist". And the use of Russia as an enemy to deflect from the content & import of the wikileaks is so scary.

On a positive note, we'll be doing an education campaign against TPP at the annual labor picnic Sept 5 at Stewart Park in Ithaca, NY from 11-3:00. Maybe there will be local actions throughout the country? We need more people to realize what's going on.

Please post also if you know of actions against our endless wars. Thanks everyone.

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RantingRooster's picture

the fact that our military...

The U.S. military is the largest institutional consumer of oil in the world. Every year, our armed forces consume more than 100 million barrels of oil to power ships, vehicles, aircraft, and ground operations—enough for over 4 million trips around the Earth, assuming 25 mpg.

Two issues, War and Climate Change, which if you think about it, one can't really speak about one, without acknowledging the others inter-connectedness and impact on societies around the planet.

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C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote

riverlover's picture

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.

mimi's picture

and I thank you for going through all of it and providing the links.

I feel lnumb and muted, and also angry about the history and the "long war plan". I wonder, if the European Allies, like Germany, really associate with Hillary Clinton a future "long war President".

There should be an anti-long-war movement developing in Europe. I don't see it. All I see is the foreign media covering Trump.

I will try to find out what is said so far about Hillary Clinton in the German press. It's a tragedy nobody knows really what they are dealing with her upcoming Presidency.

I remember how upset we were when Wolfowitz became World Bank President between 2005 and 2007. Your review of the history is very helpful.

I think too many people who have served in GWBush' Iraq and Afghanistan or before under HWBush Iraq war zones are too tired to revive a strong anti-war movement and may be the very young don't get the whole history of it.

It's just so depressing. Thanks for not giving up and posting your videos.

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Thanks Steven D. I guess this is also part of why long war:
Dawat Media

May 28, 2016
[...]
United States Geological Survey teams discovered one of the world’s largest untapped reserves of lithium there six years ago. The USGS was scouting the volatile country at the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations. Lithium is a soft metal used to make the lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries essential for powering desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. And increasingly, electric cars like Tesla’s.

The vast discovery could very well propel Afghanistan — a war-ravaged land with a population of 31 million largely uneducated Pashtuns and Tajiks, and whose primary exports today are opium, hashish, and marijuana — into becoming the world’s next “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” according to an internal Pentagon memo cited by the New York Times.[...]

In Silicon Valley and beyond, tech companies like Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and Tesla rely on continual, and uninterrupted, access to lithium, as lithium-based batteries are the primary power storage devices in their mobile hardware.

A Tesla spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.

Some of the Valley’s biggest and most powerful tech companies either declined to comment for this story or never returned calls. But they didn’t deny the importance of lithium-ion batteries.

The USGS did (sic) return multiple calls seeking comment. Nor did the Pentagon.

Sheesh, no comment much? Clearly nothing to see, move along?

Longing for Peace

Edit: Added (sic) to the copy pasta, think "not" was dropped.

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is at the root of the unsustainability of our lifestyle and unchecked population growth. Our militant stance in global affairs revolves around our addiction to abundant energy resources that feed the lifestyle we have come to expect.

Can we willingly renounce our profligate way of life and it's attendant comforts in order to "live within our means" globally, or are we doomed to expire as global climate change quickly makes our planet uninhabitable?

I find it impossible to be optimistic. We seem to want our comforts, whatever the cost.

I sure hope mankind does not succeed in infecting another planet with our "superiority" before the next great extinction.

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“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

brought/bought, you decide. ;-D Secretary Clinton on Energy Diplomacy in 21st Century

One year ago this week, after a major strategic review of our nation’s diplomacy and development efforts, the State Department opened a new bureau. It’s called the Bureau of Energy Resources, and it’s led, as Dean Lancaster said, by my Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, Ambassador Carlos Pascual, who is here today. The bureau is charged with leading the State Department’s diplomatic efforts on energy. And in the coming weeks, I will be sending policy guidance to every U.S. embassy worldwide, instructing them to elevate their reporting on energy issues and pursue more outreach to private sector energy partners.

Ka-ching! Oops kind of let slip (my bold)

But let me start with the basics. Energy matters to America’s foreign policy for three fundamental reasons. First, it rests at the core of geopolitics, because fundamentally, energy is an issue of wealth and power, which means it can be both a source of conflict and cooperation. The United States has an interest in resolving disputes over energy, keeping energy supplies and markets stable through all manner of global crises, ensuring that countries don’t use their energy resources or proximity to shipping routes to force others to bend to their will or forgive their bad behavior, and above all, making sure that the American people’s access to energy is secure, reliable, affordable, and sustainable.

Second, energy is essential to how we will power our economy and manage our environment in the 21st century. We therefore have an interest in promoting new technologies and sources of energy – especially including renewables – to reduce pollution, to diversify the global energy supply, to create jobs, and to address the very real threat of climate change.

And third, energy is key to economic development and political stability. And we have an interest in helping the 1.3 billion people worldwide who don’t have access to energy. We believe the more they can access power, the better their chances of starting businesses, educating their children, increasing their incomes, joining the global economy – all of which is good for them and for us. And because corruption is often a factor in energy poverty as well as political instability, we have an interest in supporting leaders who invest their nations’ energy wealth back into their economies instead of hoarding it for themselves.

Like the U.S/? ~doink!~ Way to burst the clean electric future thought bubble. Can anyone 'splain it to my 'sploded head? Never mind, it is in the comment to which I reply. Thanks

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Damnit Janet's picture

Let's not forget the hidden water and land "rights" issues going down in S. America. We have our little war machines everywhere. Soldiers and Corporate Mercenaries.

we are the terrorists.

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"Love One Another" ~ George Harrison

of Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Ukraine and Syria respectively, are to be regarded as merely the beginning of "the Long War". The Long War itself having no foreseeable ending, and no precisely defined purpose, is meant to be extended to the indefinite future. In the process of this continuation, the world is to be made safe for Democracy, large Corporations, and US politicians simultaneously. It will unfortunately not be made safe for anyone else... in the real world one cannot expect miracles. Entitlements like steady employment, health care, sustainable energy, clean water and the like may have to wait - be put on the back burner as it were - until the Long War is successfully concluded.

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native

... In the process of this continuation, the world is to be made safe for Democracy, large Corporations, and US politicians simultaneously. ...

Great and humorous comment, but if I may add a couple of points? Unless this is NewSpeak Democracy referred to, actual democracy interferes with the profits and power of large corporations and the politicians who represent them against the public interest and is about to be done away with, even as a concept, in the Bush Admin-initiated, Hillary-promoted and Obama-rammed TPP and other corporate coups.

And the Long War may not have much time to progress, depending on how long it takes for the Mutual Assured Destruction Obama and Hillary are honing for in using nuclear threats against Russia and China, as - unlike their usual much smaller and weaker victims - they can forcefully defend themselves against attack/invasion and the progression of the slated global hostile corporate take-over to be completed using the public money, lives and militaries of countries and the people to whom these countries and governments belong, each supposedly bound by a traitors signature on a private agreement purportedly (if illegally and unconstitutionally) enslaving the people and countries unwittingly involved in these top secret 'trade deals'.

The claim is that Simon Says that democracy (and the country and citizens) belong(s) to anyone happening to hold public office sworn to maintain it who decides s/he'd really rather trade it (and them) off for more personal money and power from hostile outside forces. Of course, that only works if the people are conned into believing that.

And in any event, even if we are not all nuked out of existence, the rapidly increasing ecological collapse will be further sped by unlimited corporate/military pollution/destruction and the resulting oxygen shortage might just be making it difficult to breathe within the next few decades, rather than perhaps a couple of decades on, with inadequate oxygen production to support life on the planet at all having been estimated - at current rates - to have occurred by about 90 years from now and with the shortage very obviously showing long before this.

Either way, we're hosed, barring a Bernie miracle or a Green Party win. But they may all perish not long after the rest of us and even before they succeed in conquering the globe for exclusive corporate/billionaire possession of whatever they imagine might remain, other than the rotting/radioactive corpse, of course, rather than killing each other off in squabbling over the bits the other guy has.

When you lie down with psychopaths, sooner or later, you won't be getting up at all.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

what Bobby Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men going oft agley, that applies to warmongers and corporate overlords too.

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native

Steven D., thanks for all the work, especially on the costs of the wars. I'd like you and others to consider the possibility that oil is the deep cover story for war in the region. Bringing the joys of democracy is the public face.

The problem with the oil explanation is that these interrelated wars have had exactly the opposite effect. Sanctions on Iran have reduced the production of oil. Destruction and chaos in Iraq have had the same effect. Libyan production has declined. And through it all the price of hydrocarbons has plunged.

There existed a line of SECULAR dictatorships across the region from Libya to Iraq. The dictators were ruthless and, when challenged, bloody. But they maintained stability in areas where religious/ethnic constraints were such that civil war was always a possibility. These dictators were challenged by their own people. In many cases a majority opposed them. Unfortunately, these majorities were divided in factions that didn't agree on much else. One thing they absolutely didn't agree on was sharing power democratically through elections.

The U.S at a minimum encouraged resistance to these dictators. In some instances it appears likely that the U.S. or proxies had a role in arming them. As the dissidents became more aggressive the dictators responded, predictably, with a heavy, bloody hand. The United States and local dissidents used the responses to generate more opposition to the dictators and support for intervention. Predictably, coalitions against these dictators dissolved into competing factions fighting each other as well as the dictator. The result has been multi ethnic, multi sectarian conflict among multiple factions resulting in chaos and orders of magnitude more bloodshed than the dictators would have ever caused. The US has armed parties in one state that it was fighting in another.

Suppose regional chaos is the objective. The big winner in the midst of the bloodshed is Israel. They move ahead with the annexation of the West Bank while the world is otherwise occupied. Potential enemies are crippled. It is interesting that countries with relatively solid relations with Israel have been largely exempt from the violence. The government in Saudi Arabia is extremely unstable. No outbreak there. Jordan exerts no pressure on Israel and is stable. Egypt had its attempt, but the military, heavily subsidized by the US, is firmly in charge and keeping the border with Gaza closed.

We have to consider the possibility that the orgy of destruction tearing Islamic people apart is an end in itself.

Thanks again. Peace.

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ggersh's picture

and you've lost it once you used the Hitler card

Hillary Clinton defends her policy of regime change in Libya and Syria. "You know, there's always these historical games you can play," she explained. "If somebody could have assassinated Hitler before he took over Germany, would that have been a good thing or not?"

Godwin's Law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

always play these historical games, but she certainly hasn't been very good at it. I mean what is she now, 0 for 4?

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native

Bob In Portland's picture

It's in order to control the energy resources. That is, profit. There is no imminent danger of the world running out of oil. Afghanistan is about the oil and gas in Turkmenistan. Brzezinski, who toiled in laying the groundwork to oust the pro-Soviet regime there in the seventies, was negotiating in the mid-nineties with the Taliban for the TAPI pipeline, TAPI being "Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India". Readers may recall that that was about the time Bill Clinton was laying the groundwork for moving American factories and jobs from the US to India. In 2001 Colin Powell was supplying the Taliban with money to control the opium crops there along with the pipeline. For some reason the Taliban stopped negotiating for the pipeline in the summer of 2001. Then the guy we had been giving SAM missiles to to shoot down Soviet helicopters, bin Laden, suddenly became international criminal #1. The rest, as they say, is history, albeit with some details left out.

The coup in Ukraine has been to interfere with Russia's gas pipelines which run across Ukraine to Europe. Qatar was negotiating to run a gas pipeline from their fields in the Gulf across Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean and then Europe. When Assad decided to go with the Shia alternative gas pipeline, originating in Iran, all of a sudden weapons suddenly began flooding to Salafist military formations in Iraq and Syria, thus the corporate-backed "civil war" in Syria. Curiously, it's around this time that various Sunni governments got particularly big weapons deals with the US and donated large amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation.

Any connection? Of course not. Billionaires and regimes run by billionaires give money to the Clinton Foundation because the Clintons do good things.

Unfortunately, the whole peak oil story was yet another scam from the energy industry. What we will run out of is a breathable atmosphere.

It would be interesting for someone to go back to sixties and figure out how many US-backed coups had to do with controlling petroleum around the world, starting with the coup in the capital of the US oil industry, Dallas in 1963.

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