@Not Henry Kissinger

John Bolton also told colleagues he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.

I tried to torpedo peace talks with the Taliban by selling Trump on a manufactured intelligence report created by my Deep State 'colleagues'.

@MrWebster

link to my bookmarks.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for some squirmy retraction.

Nothing about Pentagon statement in WaPo or NYtimes. Nothing on CNN period. The major outlets and democratic party will push this through the election and beyond.

@edg
That's what it was intended to do. Everyone knew that. There was no secret.

Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, finance, train and support the mujaheddin in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989. This resulted in the death of nearly 15,000 Russian soldiers.

@fire with fire

Bless you.

To this day, we use "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," as an emblem for political manipulation couched in the form of "intelligence." It turned out that there were no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons under the control of Saddam Hussein and his government. So, we are correct when we remind people that "intelligence" is not necessarily accurate and is often just a pack of lies.

Left unexamined is the premise behind the assertion of WMDs in Iraq -- that if there were WMDs, the USA must therefore invade the country. That is insane, and it remains the infinitely elastic rationale for war against any country that the national security "community" deems unacceptable. Iran is the most obvious example of this now generally accepted idea across the alleged "spectrum" of American politics -- "we" cannot "tolerate" a "rogue state" with weapons of mass destruction.

This rationale was applied by the Trump government against Syria after an alleged gas attack led to our forces launching a farcical non-lethal attack as punishment. Within the current range of acceptable national politics, nobody from Tulsi Gabbard to Rand Paul is willing to go the whole route and say it is none of our fucking business who has the same kind of weapons that we deploy all around the world.

This preposterous tale of the Ruskies putting a price on the head of GIs is of course a hoked up lie -- but, once again, the bullshit within the bullshit goes unquestioned.

Suppose Russia paid money to Afghans to kill Americans who have been trying to control the uncontrollable territory that Alexander the Great failed to subjugate. So what?

Charlie Wilson's War is a 2007 American biographical comedy-drama film, based on the story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA operative Gust Avrakotos, whose efforts led to Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.

I thought the movie was exceptionally good as a movie, but idiotic propaganda as a narrative. Nevertheless, the reality is that the USA did, in fact, supply arms to the rebels in Afghanistan with the sole purpose of killing Russians.

Charlie befriends maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's Special Activities Division, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers. As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. Charlie enlists the support of Israel and Egypt for Soviet weapons and consumables, and Pakistan for distribution of arms. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury persuaded President Ronald Reagan to provide the Stingers to the Afghans.

The underlying premise of all this cheerleading for the CIA was that it was a GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT to kill Russians.

Like all these media balloons, the real agenda is not to get Trump to "get tough" with Russia, it is to define, "normal." And the normal they want is the Neo-Conservative notion of Full Spectrum Dominance, where America can kill or torture or depose governments at any time it pleases -- while all the other countries in the world are forbidden from doing the same, and we must invade any country BEFORE it is able to do such a thing.

Invented by George W. Bush, the policy is forthright, "We will not wait while dangers gather." Like Japan in World War II, our national security strategy is to strike first. Our efforts to control events in Afghanistan and Iraq have not been successful almost two decades into the forever war, but that has nothing to do with whoppers like The Bounty on GI Scalps. It is the premise behind those as yet unsuccessful efforts to control countries on the far side of the world that matters to our rulers.

That premise is that nobody else can defend themselves from us. If we as a citizenry buy that, we have become this century's Genghis Khan. I don't think anything like a majority of Americans even pays attention to stories like this, let alone believes them. But it is painful to see how many people who call themselves Democrats buy the premise that anybody who copies our behavior must be destroyed.

@fire with fire

Operation Cyclone began under President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Although commonly credited to Reagan (and thru the movie, Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson), it was Carter that got the ball rolling with his push for $695K funding in 1979 and $25M in 1980.

To this day, we use "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," as an emblem for political manipulation couched in the form of "intelligence." It turned out that there were no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons under the control of Saddam Hussein and his government. So, we are correct when we remind people that "intelligence" is not necessarily accurate and is often just a pack of lies.

Left unexamined is the premise behind the assertion of WMDs in Iraq -- that if there were WMDs, the USA must therefore invade the country. That is insane, and it remains the infinitely elastic rationale for war against any country that the national security "community" deems unacceptable. Iran is the most obvious example of this now generally accepted idea across the alleged "spectrum" of American politics -- "we" cannot "tolerate" a "rogue state" with weapons of mass destruction.

This rationale was applied by the Trump government against Syria after an alleged gas attack led to our forces launching a farcical non-lethal attack as punishment. Within the current range of acceptable national politics, nobody from Tulsi Gabbard to Rand Paul is willing to go the whole route and say it is none of our fucking business who has the same kind of weapons that we deploy all around the world.

This preposterous tale of the Ruskies putting a price on the head of GIs is of course a hoked up lie -- but, once again, the bullshit within the bullshit goes unquestioned.

Suppose Russia paid money to Afghans to kill Americans who have been trying to control the uncontrollable territory that Alexander the Great failed to subjugate. So what?

Charlie Wilson's War is a 2007 American biographical comedy-drama film, based on the story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA operative Gust Avrakotos, whose efforts led to Operation Cyclone, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.

I thought the movie was exceptionally good as a movie, but idiotic propaganda as a narrative. Nevertheless, the reality is that the USA did, in fact, supply arms to the rebels in Afghanistan with the sole purpose of killing Russians.

Charlie befriends maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mil Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's Special Activities Division, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers. As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. Charlie enlists the support of Israel and Egypt for Soviet weapons and consumables, and Pakistan for distribution of arms. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury persuaded President Ronald Reagan to provide the Stingers to the Afghans.

The underlying premise of all this cheerleading for the CIA was that it was a GREAT ACCOMPLISHMENT to kill Russians.

Like all these media balloons, the real agenda is not to get Trump to "get tough" with Russia, it is to define, "normal." And the normal they want is the Neo-Conservative notion of Full Spectrum Dominance, where America can kill or torture or depose governments at any time it pleases -- while all the other countries in the world are forbidden from doing the same, and we must invade any country BEFORE it is able to do such a thing.

Invented by George W. Bush, the policy is forthright, "We will not wait while dangers gather." Like Japan in World War II, our national security strategy is to strike first. Our efforts to control events in Afghanistan and Iraq have not been successful almost two decades into the forever war, but that has nothing to do with whoppers like The Bounty on GI Scalps. It is the premise behind those as yet unsuccessful efforts to control countries on the far side of the world that matters to our rulers.

That premise is that nobody else can defend themselves from us. If we as a citizenry buy that, we have become this century's Genghis Khan. I don't think anything like a majority of Americans even pays attention to stories like this, let alone believes them. But it is painful to see how many people who call themselves Democrats buy the premise that anybody who copies our behavior must be destroyed.

@Azazello

that so many unelected senior advisers consider the national interest to be whatever the hell they want it to be and that they so often get their way despite the best interests of the country.

You have to read between the lines, but just a little bit.

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.
The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

Look at the list of scoundrels who believe that Trump doesn't get it on Nat. Sec. issues, all war-mongering careerists.
From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials