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FocusPoliticsCapitalism, Bernie, and the military-industrial complex Capitalism, Bernie, and the military-industrial complex

2017-07-10T03:20:00.000-05:00

I’m really amazed at what is happening with the political discourse in the United States. Let me start out by telling you that I have been a Socialist for over two decades. I didn’t start out being a Socialist in fact, I was a Democrat and a staunch Democratic at that. My mother told me all about FDR and the depression, my father fought the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. In fact, I retired from the United States Army after 20 years of service.

During the election when Al Gore and George Bush ran against each other, I started to think that maybe this political system we have in the United States was just a little bit off. When the Supreme Court stopped the recount, and declare George Bush the winner, I started really paying attention to politics. The things the Bush administration did, and the war in Iraq, made me start to question everything that I read, and everything that was happening.

I noticed that the Democrats, seemed to go along with everything that the Bush administration proposed. They talked a good deal about their opposition for the press, but when the votes came out in the Congress and the Senate, there wasn’t really any opposition at all.

Today, with Donald Trump as president, the people who used to think of themselves as Democrats are starting to understand that the party that they belong to isn’t much different than the party they oppose. The so-called “journalists” on television and those that write for newspapers and magazines seem to toe the party line. Many independent journalists are starting to write that the Democratic party is a corporate party, and that they work for corporate America and the billionaire class.

I can’t believe that it took this long for Americans to understand the fact that the media and the two political parties in this nation have been compromised by corporations. It isn’t only for like billionaires that run these corporations that are threat to our society, but it is also to the people in Washington who really wield the power behind what the federal government. What I’m talking about is what they now refer to as “the Deep state”. These people “that make up the Deep state” “can’t really be identified. These people are largely unelected, and many are federal employees that have worked in the State Department and the intelligence agencies and former government office holders and Washington insiders that work for think tanks like the center for foreign relations and many other organizations.
These people, because they have working in the halls of power in Washington DC for years, have more power than some of our elected representatives. In fact, many of them have more power than almost all our elected representatives. They also have deep connections to corporations and lobbyists, and to the Defense Department. Because they have served so long in the federal government, Congressman and Senators along with people in the administration rely on them because they know the workings of the government and they also know what can be said and done, and how they should go about completing the things that they want to do, but conversely, they also know how to sabotage the things they don’t want done.

They also know what bills are going to pass, when they are introduced, and when they will be voted on. This is tremendous inside knowledge to be passed to Senators and congressmen before their staffs even have a handle on these things. This inside knowledge can be used in the stock market and other areas to make people tremendously wealthy. This is an example; every member of the Senate, is a millionaire. This list, also includes the Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders. I bet that shock some people.

Have you ever noticed that Bernie Sanders the great “progressive” has never said anything about the defense budget of the United States? For some people reading this, it may come as a shock that America spends 54% of its discretionary spending on defense. We spend as much on defense in the present day as we did during the height of World War II adjusting for inflation.

Bernie Sanders constantly rails that we should have Medicare for all and that our healthcare system should be based on single-payer. He also says that state run colleges and universities should be tuition free. He also decries the way our veterans are treated and how our infrastructure is crumbling.

Healthcare only amounts to about 10% of the budget. There are people who claim that tuition free universities and colleges could cost upwards of $10 billion over 10 years. Defense spending in the United States, without additional funds appropriated by Congress for special emergencies, and black operations, amounted to $598 billion. 10% of that amount would be almost $60 billion. That would be enough to pay for the healthcare of the American people, provide tuition free universities in state run universities and colleges, and fix our crumbling infrastructure and provide jobs the thousands of Americans.

Before anyone is up in arms about cutting our defense budget, and starts screaming that it would open the United States to foreign invasion, we must really seriously take a sober look at how much we spend compared other nations on defense. The fact is, we spend more on defense than the next 14 countries combined. Why is that? Is it because we are afraid of the Russian Federation? The Russian Federation has a GDP lower than South Korea. South Korea also spends more on defense than the Russian Federation.

So, who or what, is United States so afraid of? The answer is that United States is not afraid of anyone militarily. The fact is that the military-industrial complex is firmly entrenched in every state in America. Every Congressman and every Sen. has a stake in defense contractors employing people in their state. This didn’t happen by chance, it was designed to be this way. This is what Pres. Dwight David Eisenhower warned us about his farewell speech.

I think that Bernie Sanders doesn’t mention the fact that we spend 54% of our budget on the military and defense associated projects because the last president that mentioned this, was killed in Dallas in 1963. Other people who have mentioned how our bloated military-industrial complex takes money away from the citizens includes Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F Kennedy. There than others, but anyone with any power that mentions this is murdered.

There is no hope for the Democratic Party. In fact, there is no hope for our system of capitalism. Capitalism is in its death throes, and nothing can change that fact. The cycle of boom and bust is going on for so long that now, the bust will be so large as to take down the entire system. We produce more than we can consume. In fact, the entire world produces more than people with money can consume. The economists know this and so did the politicians. We can’t take down the military-industrial complex through our elected officials. There must be mass movement that demands that the United States reform its policies and decrease the money that we spend to promote war and havoc in the rest of the world.

Bernie Sanders, or a “reformed” Democratic Party is not going to get us out this predicament. The only way that we can possibly stop the billionaire class and the banks and investment houses from extracting the wealth of the United States for their personal gain is to wreck so much havoc that the government must bend to the People’s will. My advice to the American people is not to get sidetracked by Republican versus Democrat or fixing the Democratic Party, my advice is to work with each other and the trade unions to promote general strikes and boycotts and demonstrations until the government cannot function until reforms are implemented. If we cannot get the government to implement reforms, then we must go back to the Declaration of Independence:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

Maybe it’s time the American people consider those words. The government isn’t working for most Americans and maybe we need to withdraw our consent.

Are Saudi Jihadis Entitled to a "Safe Zone"?

2017-02-03T00:36:00.001-05:00

February 02, 2017 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - Straight after the “extreme vetting” blitzkrieg – which, technically, is not a “Muslim ban” - President Trump called the lucidity-impaired King Salman of Saudi Arabia and “requested, and the king agreed to support” (in the words of the White House), safe zones in Syria and Yemen.

No wonder serial eyebrows were raised facing the prospect of a Trump/House of Saud alliance in Syria — which the Saudis have been destroying for years via weaponizing/cash support for “rebels” – and Yemen – which the Saudis have been bombing in an unwinnable war.

Trump and King Salman did not exchange a single word on the “Muslim ban”. And why should they? Saudi Arabia is mercifully excluded from the “Muslim ban”.

The official White House statement did mention a Saudi request for Trump to lead "an effort" not only to "defeat terrorism" but also to improve the Middle East socially and economically. This could be easily interpreted as the House of Saud asking Trump to lead the Arab world. It will be no doubt exciting to monitor how the pan-Arab street will manifest its “approval”.
As for the safe zones, everyone is waiting for the Trump-ordered Pentagon assessment, to be led by “Mad Dog” Mattis, on how they would be enforced. Drones? Multiple Black Hawk patrols? Squadrons of fighter jets? Boots on the ground?

Certified jihadis with Saudi passports, meanwhile, enthusiastically turbo-charge their celebrations.

Are Saudi Jihadis Entitled to a "Safe Zone"?
By Pepe Escobar

I’ll bomb your visa to ashes

On the “Muslim ban”, let’s cut to the chase. Trump’s seven-nation list is the Obama administration’s list. These nations were “rounded up” by the Obama administration already in 2011, and are included in Obama's Terrorist Travel Protection Act 2015.

Homeland Security was already targeting these seven nations as “countries of concern”. Customs and Border Protection, detailing the “Visa Waiver Program and Terrorist Travel Protection Act of 2015”, even explicitly mentioned the seven nations. The whole package was signed into law on December 18, 2015, as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Act of fiscal year 2016.
So the Trump White House is essentially enforcing a law that already exists. In a nutshell, it has been official USG policy for over a year to target, and turn admission to the US, an absolute odyssey for these nationals.

Whether these nations should be in the list is a completely different issue. The notion that Iran “exports terrorists” exists only in the fantasies of neocons/deranged Likudniks and their shills.

What the list does is to evoke the notorious neocon-penned Pentagon memo, revealed by former NATO supreme commander Gen. Wesley Clark, describing “how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and then finishing off (with) Iran.” Yemen ended up replacing Lebanon.

The record shows the USG has bombed (into democracy or otherwise), directly or indirectly, no less than six out of the seven nations on Obama/Trump’s list. The exception is Sudan. In the case of Iran, Washington destroyed a packed Iran Air passenger jet in mid-air in 1988 with a missile, and has been consistently mute on Israeli targeted attacks on Iranian nationals.

Saudi Arabia's ideological matrix inspires Salafi-jihadis all across "Syraq" and beyond.

Yemeni refugees are fleeing a Saudi war — conducted with US weapons — on their nation. Syrian refugees are fleeing a war on Damascus where Riyadh plays a major role "facilitating" the work of "moderate rebels" which are in fact Salafi-jihadis.

Not to mention that most Daesh jihadis hail from Tunisia; their numbers are ahead of Saudi Arabia, Russia (essentially Chechens), Turkey and Jordan. None of these American allies — Russia, of course, is a strategic competitor — are on the seven-nation list.

Where’s section 6?

Something extraordinary happened along Trump’s Executive Order (EO)’s path to stardom.

Here’s the undated draft, that should be carefully compared with the final EO.

On both there’s no explicit mention of Muslims or Islam. Yet the key fact is how the former section 6, Establishment of Safe Zones to Protect Vulnerable Syrian Populations, simply disappeared.
The only reasonable explanation is that Trump, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (who helped draft the EO) and chief strategist and new National Security Council stalwart Steve Bannon, had to acknowledge that it’s Moscow who’s in charge in Syria, not Washington.

So the safe zones had to go, just to reappear in Trump’s call to King Salman.

The House of Saud is frantically spinning its (glorious?) absence from the list, plus the phone call, as evidence of Saudi Arabia configured as leader of the Arab/Muslim world.

For the official Saudi Press Agency, “the view of the two leaders were identical” in terms of confronting terrorism and extremism, as well as “those who seek to undermine security and stability in the region and interfere in the internal affairs of other states.”

That’s a not exactly subtle reference to Iran. A Trump-House of Saud anti-Iran axis is on the move – part of the Kissinger-advised strategy of breaking up Eurasia integration by seducing Russia away from China and harassing Iran.

Tehran, cautiously but predictably, is already engaged to retaliate against the visa ban. And the tension will be up a notch next week, when naval exercise Unified Trident starts in the Gulf, with US, British and French naval vessels simulating an attack on – who else — Iran.

So, essentially, Trump’s EO – while not technically a Muslim ban — is extremely harsh, and unfair to multiple actors (including Iranians, Iraqi “collaborators” with the US military, Syrian refugees). It is already being drawn into a swamp infested with crossfire bureaucracy, multiple lawsuits and even possible civil rights violations.

But the irrational seven-nation list is inherited from Obama. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus though has left open the possibility that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan may be added to the list. No mention of Tunisia.
This list is yet another proof that the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is the gift that will keep on giving. The Cheney regime blew the Middle East apart; the Obama/Clinton continuum entertained the illusion of managing it; and Trump wants an easy way out. Iranian engineers, Iraqi interpreters, Syrian and Yemeni refugees, are all caught in the crossfire.

Meanwhile, GWOT will remain a pathetic parody as long as Wahhabi Saudi Arabia – the ideological matrix of Salafi-jihadism — is not dealt with for what it is: a huge, unaccountable, threatening danger zone.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the autho

What is Really Going On in Politics

2017-01-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

All the people that have the hashtag "Not my president", are deluding themselves because guess what: he will your president because on January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be sworn in as be the president of the United States. I know this pains many progresses but this is the deal we got. Now that we have a Republican house and Senate, and a Republican president, it's up to us and everyone with any common sense to watch these people and make sure they don't destroy what we have left of a Republic.

I just want to illustrate that this election showed many people in the United States that they really don't have a choice of who runs for president. We have two parties in the United States that are totally off the rails. The Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans. Most people that read this article will probably agree with me.

I'd like to talk about the nomination of Sen. Jeff sessions as Atty. Gen. of the United States. If this is an example of Donald Trump "draining the swamp" in Washington, it is also something that I can't get my head around. This is in the right wing or left wing debate, this isn't about conservatism or liberalism,this is about right and wrong. This is man couldn't even get a federal judgeship back in the 1980's. This is a man who has stood against almost everything in the American Constitution. He is repeatedly called the NAACP a communist organization. He said he was for the Ku Klux Klan until he found out they smoke pot. This is a man who will do more to harm to American democracy than anyone could possibly imagine.

The head of the NAACP said this was never about left or right this is about authoritarianism versus freedom and I completely agree with them. We must stand up as a people and tell our elected representatives that we will not accept or condone a nominee like Sen. Jeff sessions as Atty. Gen.

If you think that writing your Congressman or your Sen. will not do any good look what happened when the Republicans tried to gut the Senate Ethics Committee last week, and the American people sent a flood of letters to the Congressman telling them to back off. You know what? They backed off. These are people who face election every two years and they can be manipulated by the American people which is the way our democracy is supposed to work. The same thing can be done against hare-brained and irresponsible nominations of people against the very agencies that are called on to head. I'm talking about the EPA and HUD and the Department of Education. If you look at the nominees closely you will see that they are against the very agencies there called on to represent. If this is draining the swamp the maybe we a should just let the water stand. You don't fix your democracy by destroying it.

Democrats and Republicans are both at fault and they have been for years. The appointment of Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee almost destroyed the Democratic Party. This is because of people who support the corporations run the Democratic Party and people noticed and will not put up with it anymore. Donald Trump didn't get elected because people like him. Donald Trump got elected because people hated Hillary Clinton more than him.

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This is a time of great change, and we need to understand that it is the people of the United States that called for great change. This doesn't mean that everybody who voted for Donald Trump is a right-wing fanatic and Donald Trump need to realize this too. Donald Trump need to understand that people in United States don't want authoritarian government they want a government that works for the people. This is not a left or right question or conservative or liberal question this is a question of whether or not the people of the United States are represented by the government.

Now the Republicans love Wikileaks and Julianne Assange because he released all of the emails from the DNC to the public, ruining Hillary Clinton's chance of the presidency. In 2010 they hated Wikileaks, they hated Edward Snowden, and they called for imprisonment or execution. Now, there are the heroes of the Republicans and the Democrats who used to support whistle-blowers are now trying to put them in jail. Is this not something that is just incredible?

If you look at this outside of the political spectrum you understand what this is all about; it is about opportunism. Both sides-- the Democrats and Republicans-- are just trying to support the people that support their agenda at the time regardless of right or wrong. Both the Democrats and Republicans will support anyone who support them regardless of what happens to the American people. This should make everyone in America understand that these two political parties don't care about what Americans really want. I think I've illustrated some of the things that I see happening in this country and I think that people should pass this on to other people who don't understand why everyone is switching sides from this caused that cause and what Donald Trump is really doing.

It is very clear to me that this is been going on for almost all our history and it's time for it to stop. What we have in America is to corporately we owned parties trying to manipulate voters into voting for them when both parties are responsible for so many egregious actions against their own constituencies that it makes you wonder why intelligent people in America only put up with two parties. There's so many different forms of expression and opinion in United States that two parties cannot possibly address the diversity of our nation. Americans like diversity, this is something the Trump administration was understand. Donald Trump another people who insist that America is white Christian and conservative are dead wrong. We are a country of people of different backgrounds and opinions. The Republican party and the Democrat party do not address the needs of the nation. It's high time that the American people demand more of the representative governmental system and demand more than two corporately owned parties to express their desire in government.

If you want to change this country, if you want to stop the military from gobbling up 54% of our budget every year, if you want to stop the endless wars and the corporate takeover of the American government, you need to understand that the Democrats and Republicans are not in the fight with you. The defense contractors in the military-industrial complex in the security state don't want to stop the wars and aggression that goes on in the world. Therefore, we need more than two parties in United States because both parties that we have now are owned by the same people that bring you endless war.

2016-11-25T13:00:00.001-05:00

2016-10-25T13:50:00.001-05:00

2016-10-20T16:16:00.001-05:00

Labor Day EXPLAINED Paul Craig Roberts

2016-09-05T18:47:00.001-05:00

Labor Day

Paul Craig Roberts

Labor Day—what is it? Perhaps not many Americans any longer know, so here is my explanation.

In my time Labor Day was the unofficial end of summer, because school began after Labor Day. Today school begins almost a month before. When I was in school that would not have been possible, especially in the South. The schools were not air-conditioned. If school had started in August no one would have showed up. It was difficult enough getting through May before school was out in June.

by Paul Craig Roberts
As most Americans probably thought of Labor Day as the last summer holiday, now that Labor Day has lost that role, what is Labor Day? The holiday originated as an apology capitalists tossed to labor to defuse a standoff.

Workers understood that labor was the backbone of the economy, not Wall Street moguls or bankers in their fine offices. Workers wanted a holiday that recognized labor, thus elevating labor in public policy to a standing with capital. Some states created labor day holidays, but it wasn’t until 1894 that Labor Day was made a federal holiday.

Congress created the federal holiday in response to the murder of strikers by US Army troops and federal marshalls during the Pullman strike of 1894. The factory workers who built Pullman railway cars lived in the company town of Pullman. George Pullman provoked a strike by lowering wages but not the rents charged in the company town.

President Grover Cleveland relied on Attorney General Richard Olney to restore capitalist control. Olney, a former railway attorney, sent in the federal violance to break up the strike. Olney still received a retainer from his railway company that was larger than his salary as US Attorney General. So we know whose side he was on. The presstitute media portrayed the beaten down strikers as unpatriotic foreigners, and the strike leader, Eugene Debs, was sentenced to federal prison. The experience radicalized Debs and turned him into a socialist.

The obvious injustice created more sympathy for labor than capitalists could stomach, so Congress defused the situation by creating Labor Day. President Cleveland washed his hands of the blood on them by signing the legislation.

Officially what we are celebrating on the first Monday of September is American labor, but what is really being celebrated is the success of capitalists again flummoxing the people and avoiding a real social revolution.

The labor movement, which gave us Labor Day, is no longer with us. The American labor movement died about ten years after the death of its most famous leader, George Meany of the AFL-CIO. Meany, born in 1894, died in 1980.

I remember when labor was at the center of politics and policy. There was even a field of economics called “labor economics.” The political influence of labor ended with the offshoring of US industrial and manufacturing jobs. For years US capitalists tried to avoid a fair shake for labor by locating their facilities in Southern states that had right to work laws. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the change in attitude of India and China toward foreign capital, capitalists learned that they could increase profits by using foreign labor offshore to produce the goods and services that they sold to Americans. The difference in labor costs flowed directly into profits, executive bonuses, and shareholder capital gains.

Free market economists, who live in a make-believe world, pretend that the lower labor costs flow into lower US consumer prices and that consumers beneift despite the loss of well-paying jobs. The problem with free market economics is that a priori reasoning takes precedence over empirical fact. For free market economists, the way the world should be prevails over the way that the world actually is.

As a consequence of jobs offshoring, industrial and manufacturing cities became semi-ghost towns with declining populations. Municipal and state governments, deprived of tax base, found themselves under duress to make pension payments. To avoid immediate bankruptcy, cities such as Chicago sold off public assets such as 75 years of parking meter revenues for a one time payment.

The Democratic Party, which had been the countervailing power against the Republican business party, was deprived of union funding as the jobs that paid union dues were no longer in America. By moving production offshore, capitalists turned the Democrats into a second capitalist political party dependent on funding from the business sector.

Today we have one party with two heads. The competition between the parties is about which party gets to be the whore for the capitalists for the next political term. As Democrats and Republicans swap the whore function back and forth, neither party has an incentive to do anything different.

The offshoring of high productivity, high value-added US jobs has destroyed the labor movement. How much luck will labor leaders have organizing people who hold part-time jobs as waitresses, bartenders, hospital orderlies, and retail clerks? As I have pointed out for years in my reports on the monthly payroll jobs reports, the United States now has the labor profile of a Third World country. The absence of jobs that can support an independent existence and family life is the reason that more Americans aged 24-34 live at home with parents than live independently. The absence of jobs is the reason the labor force participation rate has declined for years. The absence of jobs that pay sufficiently to provide discretionary income is the reason the economy cannot grow.

Looking at last Friday’s BLS payroll report, the jobs are in the lowly paid, part-time service sector. The goods producing sector of the economy lost 24,000 jobs. The jobs are in retail trade, health care and social assistance, waitresses and bartenders, and government which is tax supported employment.

Whether Washington policymakers realize it or not, the American work force smells like India’s of a half centruy ago. Whatever deranged Hillary and her neoconservatives claim, there is no evidence in the compositon of the US labor force that the US is a superpower. Indeed, what the employment statistics show is that the United States is a third world country, a country whose leaders are so out of their minds that they are picking fights with first world countries—Russia and China.

The United States of America is on its last legs. As there is no willingness to recognize this, nothing can be done about it. America’s last function is to cause World War 3 in which all of us will expire.

URL to article: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/09/04/labor-day/

The U.S. paid for NATO: $30 trillion and counting Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_us_paid_for_nato_30_trillion_and_counting.html#ixzz4JP1GbHYj Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

2016-09-05T12:15:00.000-05:00

By Sierra Rayne
As the firestorm ignited by Donald Trump regarding the structure and utility of NATO burns on, the freeloaders in the alliance continue to whine and ask for even greater levels of subsidization.

Take Lithuania, whose defense minister recently claimed that "the harassment of an American warship [by Russian fighter jets] shows why the US should help build the region's missile defenses." A correct translation of "help build" is "have the Americans pay for."

While Lithuania is apparently now on-target to reach the preferred NATO defense-spending target of just 2% of GDP within a few years, the Lithuanians have done nothing for the common defense since the small country on the alliance's volatile periphery joined in 2004. In fact, between 2004 and 2013, its military spending dropped from a puny 1.2% of GDP down to an irrelevant 0.8% of GDP.

Since 2013, all Lithuania did is bring this back up to 1.1% by 2015. Even after the invasion of Ukraine, the best Lithuania could muster is this small increase. When the USA had to remobilize for the Korean War in the early 1950s, its defense expenditures instantaneously skyrocketed from 4.9% of GDP in 1950 to 9.7% in 1951 up to 13.3% in 1952.

With Russia breathing down its neck in Central Europe, all these front line NATO members can do -- and Lithuania is certainly not alone -- is piddle around with post-Ukraine invasion annual increases to defense expenditures on the order of just a few tenths of a percent of GDP.

Estonia's military budget remained unchanged between 2014 and 2015 at just 2.0% of GDP, Hungary's actually declined from 0.9% to 0.8%, Latvia's went from only 0.9% to 1.0%, Bulgaria's declined from 1.5% to 1.4%, Romania's was held constant at 1.4%, and Poland's increased very slightly from 1.9% to 2.2%.

To say NATO's eastern front is unserious about defending itself is being kind. Mooching off the U.S. is what is actually taking place. If any of these countries were desirous of being a meaningful contributor and holding its own weight in the alliance, defense expenditures would have been at least doubled or tripled (or more) as a share of the economy during the past couple years. Given the low defense-spending base at which these nations are sitting, such efforts would not have greatly strained their respective economies nor involved levels of spending that would have been impossible to undertake without massive waste.

This ridiculous situation is par for the course in NATO, and it was only inevitable that eventually a leading presidential candidate would call the bluff. The real question to be asked is why so many in the American pundit class and think tank universe support the freeloaders. Whose side are they on?

Shifting our tinfoil hats around, this is a serious question. Don't underestimate the extent to which many -- if not most -- of the academic and think tank class is actually playing for the other side. In Canada, the infestation of the academic and federal government worlds by those who hold linkages to Russia, China, Iran, and others, and who don't see the world in traditional pro-American NATO-esque terms, is a serious problem. One suspects the issue is as great south of the 49th parallel.

In terms of who built NATO, it was America -- of course. Cumulative military spending since each current member joined the alliance will undoubtedly be skewed heavily towards the founding members, but even among the founders it is an exclusively American club.

The United States stands at US$30 trillion and counting, almost two-thirds of all expenditures by all NATO members since the founding of the alliance -- and nearly three-quarters of all spending by the twelve founding members.

This almost sounds like real money.

And even though the population ratio of the United States to Canada has been 10:1 for the entire period since 1949, the corresponding cumulative defense-spending ratio is 30:1 despite very similar per capita GDPs.

Whoops, the biggest freeloader sits next door. Canada is US$2 trillion in cumulative NATO defense spending debt to the U.S. Good luck repaying that when your entire annual economy is only US$1.8 trillion.

But Canada is really safe, the Canadian defense spending critics claim. Yes, and why is that? Could it be because the United States foots the bill for keeping it safe? Of course, perhaps Canadians who believe they live in a perpetually uncontested part of the world forget that the United States bought Alaska from Russia in the same year as Canada became a nation. For the historically challenged, that would be 1867.

But the real dangers only exist in Eastern Europe, and Canada can still contribute effectively to NATO at defense spending levels far below the current 1.0% of GDP, the Canadian defense spending critics go on to claim. Excuse us while we take some time to roll on the floor in laughter. Canada's current military stacks up well against the 7th century barbarians fighting in the Middle East, but not so well against 21st century (or even most 20th century) forces.

The best Canada could do to assist in a serious conflict between NATO and a major power would be to build giant catapults and launch our burning used submarines from the UK and some decrepit Sea King helicopters at the opponent. We all know the Sea Kings couldn't fly themselves to the front lines -- they would undoubtedly crash along the way -- and the submarines couldn't get there on their own, either, without self-igniting, melting, and then sinking. So we'd need to ask for help getting our junk to the theatre before launching it with the hopes that the mass of the metal falling from the sky will crush a nearby Russian tank or two.

One can see the lazy nations in western continental Europe getting complacent about military spending in recent decades as the border between good and evil kept marching further east, but for those on the eastern front of the continent to start off unserious and only get less serious suggests they deserve some tough love. As do other front-line freeloaders such as Norway and Canada.

Perhaps the U.S. should tell other NATO members that if they don't increase defense spending to match the American budget as a percent of GDP (currently at 3.3% for 2015) within three years -- a reasonable target -- that any mutual defense agreements are terminated immediately.

With the exception of the UK and France, who each have a credible nuclear weapons deterrent, all other members of NATO are the proverbial "dead meat" up against Russia. No nukes, and you immediately lose a conventional war against a nuclear-armed opponent. The nuclear state need not even fire a shot, it could simply say, "surrender, or we will destroy you." Convenient such power is.

But that would never happen, the naysayers shout. Of course not, because we have never before in history seen expansionary tendencies in the European theatre that could have been thwarted by a strong alliance of surrounding states? One seems to recall a conflagration a little over 70 years ago that followed this pattern of failure.

The U.S. needs to start throwing some chairs around inside NATO meetings. It may get the desired results, but knowing the unseriousness of most member states, it may not. But without a tantrum, the freeloading will go on forever.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/04/the_us_paid_for_nato_30_trillion_and_counting.html#ixzz4JP0JagPg
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Why Capitalism is Failing

2016-09-05T11:56:00.001-05:00

Tim Gatto
(Iam writing a series of articles on the failures of our capitalistic economy because I want people to start asking the question: Why is all this happening?)

When I started to write about politics, my biggest concern was the role money played in it. Consequently, my earliest articles were about campaign finance reform and stopping billionaires and multinational corporations from buying the election of politicians who would do their bidding. I saw that flouting of the democratic process as the greatest evil in our political system.
I still believe that money in politics is one of our most important problems and should remain a great concern. No doubt many supporters of Senator Sanders will agree with me. Bernie not only emphasized the corrupting effect of money in politics over the course of his presidential primary campaign; he has raised the issue again in his new spin-off movement, called “Our Revolution,” which is designed to support and elect genuine progressives to office at every level of government from the bottom up. I should note that I agree with Bernie not only on this issue but on most of what he says. At the same time, however, I feel he is missing the boat on something that is even more sinister and more dangerous to our republic than anything that has come before.
As background to this point, I should mention the following: I don’t have a PhD in economics or an MBA in business. I’ve never held political office, and I attended college for only two years. Still, that doesn’t mean I haven’t learned many things in the 65 years I’ve been on this earth. One important thing I’ve learned is that history is written by the victors. I watch many documentaries that portray leaders as people who are gifted with some kind of vision that allows them to do exceptional things; they are made to appear bigger than life and often presented as virtual demigods compared to other men. I’ve also seen how the narratives about such men differ, depending on when a documentary was made or an article was written, and how they change through the decades in parallel with evolving social values. A good example is Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I was brought up to believe that FDR was a giant among men. That seemed evident in the fact that he worked in behalf of the common man despite having roots in a wealthy family that came as close to aristocracy as you can get in America. Now, however, I read that FDR was not just trying to lift the common man; he was also trying to save capitalism.
Today, there are leading intellectuals, such as Chris Hedges among others, who are saying that capitalism is in its death throes. Having never been a fan of unfettered capitalism, I find this verdict a source of hope for constructive change, but also of fear for what could be very dangerous consequences. The outcome hinges precisely on the point on which I think Bernie Sanders--who wants to reform the capitalism we now have without changing its underlying structure--misses the boat. I strongly believe that, without fundamental structural change that extends to the political economy as a whole, the capitalist system will surely collapse. But I also believe that its fall carries with it the great danger of social chaos. In any developed nation, its economic system serves as the glue that holds society together. America’s economic system is capitalism, whether we like it or not. Its fall would cause destructive repercussions throughout the society, and, considering the global reach of the American economy, throughout the world as well. The combined result could be catastrophic.
Today, almost every major economy in the world is based on capitalism. That fact is no accident. Capitalism in fact works well when economies are expanding incrementally. At this point in history, however, many economic experts both inside and outside of government recognize that the system can no longer function as it did throughout the industrial age. The problem is that there are more things to buy and fewer people willing to buy them. The system is imploding. Markets for the goods being produced are shrinking, because they no longer offer what most people really need. This is especially true with respect to products being pushed in America.
In spite of diminishing markets, however, multinational corporations are making out like bandits. Dylan Rattigan, an insightful analyst who had a show on MSNBC, was pulled off the air after he went into a rant about how the multinationals are extracting wealth from the people, especially in the United States. But it’s not only Americans who are hurting; it’s also people in the European Union, in Asia, in Africa, and in most other places around the world.
It was a different story directly following World War II, when American productivity and wealth for the middle class were tied together. In those days, as productivity rose, so did wages. Regrettably, that’s no longer the case. Today, wages remain stagnant as productivity rises. This is because America’s financial leaders themselves recognize that capitalism in its present form is in its death throes. In consequence, they are trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of the economy before it finally collapses.
[VID0901]
In the early 20th century, the U.S. had the menace of communism hanging over its head. When the Great Depression came around, many politicians knew that, given the very bleak economic conditions, they had to do something to keep the American people from embracing Soviet-style socialism. In order to appease the masses, Roosevelt embarked on a giant jobs program designed to rebuild the country’s physical infrastructure and produce manufacturing jobs. He didn’t do this because he was a great visionary; he did it because he knew the government’s back and the American state were against the wall. At the time, communism was a real threat to the existing American power structure. Sad to say, it does not remain a threat today. What makes our own future bleak, and is so dangerous to both our country and the world, is that we no longer have a viable alternative to our unraveling capitalist system.
What We Can Do
Because America and the world now effectively operate under only a single economic system, capitalism, we have no choice but to restructure the system in a way that restores the balance between increased productivity and higher middle-class income, and also meets the real needs of people. In order for capitalism to function, the state must have the necessary capital to ensure that people have enough to eat, have access to health care, and are properly clothed and housed. When those essentials are unmet, it is pretty hard to achieve any kind of consensus as to what additional investments should come next. So, to my mind, the first thing we Americans must do to restructure our crumbling version of capitalism is to reduce wasteful spending. What follows are several ideas for achieving that goal.
• Lower military expenditures. Here’s an area ripe for real structural change that goes beyond the reforms Bernie has proposed (though, as you’ll see below, I also agree strongly with those reforms). We currently spend 54% of our discretionary budget—over $800 billion annually--on the military, not counting the money we spend on spy agencies and so-called “black” operations. That is ten times more than is spent by our nearest competitor, Russia. We in fact, spending almost as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, including the maintenance of hundreds of military bases around the world. Even adjusting for inflation, last year’s military budget was larger than it was during 1945, the last year of World War II. And we have never seen the so-called peace dividend that was promised to us after the fall of the Soviet Union.
• Adopt a single-payer health care system and eliminate the insurance companies and other middlemen that eat up our tax dollars. The U.S. spends more for health care per capita than any nation on earth, yet outcomes produced by our healthcare system rank among the lowest in the industrialized world. We could save billions of dollars a year if we allowed the government to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Eventually, we should nationalize our healthcare system.
• We need to overturn Citizens United and stop corporations from buying our politicians. As long as politicians rely on multinational corporations and political action committees and big-money donors to fund their campaigns, we will never have a fair and equitable political system that works for the benefit of all Americans. As long, too, as politicians rely on corporate contributions for their political funding, the American economy will never be equitable and those with deep pockets will continue to profit off the American taxpayer.
• Revise the tax code and stop the loopholes that allow large corporations to evade paying their fair share of taxes. There are many multinational corporations in this country that pay no income tax at all. There are millionaires and billionaires that pay less in taxes than people in the middle class. This is unacceptable and must be stopped.
• Renegotiate trade deals. NAFTA, CAFTA, and all other trade deals that benefit corporations and not the people of the United States must either be scrapped or renegotiated. The TPP should never be allowed to pass. These trade deals favor corporations, not the American taxpayer!
• Eliminate unemployment by upgrading our basic infrastructure. Water systems, highway systems, and bridges should be repaired, and rail systems and alternative energy resources should be developed. Such projects could employ many millions of currently unemployed Americans, giving them money to spend and reducing government outlays for economic and social support.
• Break the monopoly on American politics currently held by our two major parties. This proposal represents another structural change that I think is imperative and again goes deeper than Bernie’s proposed reforms. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by corporate interests. They will never allow control of the federal government to come into the hands of a president or a majority of senators and representatives who are committed to serve the broad common interest rather than the narrow special interests that keep the two parties in power.
• Recognize that the automobile is probably the least efficient form of mass transit that can be imagined. We need to break our century-long attachment to the automobile as a fixture of American life. Doing so can lead to another critical structural change that is not only important in itself but can help conserve resources needed to meet real human needs. Besides harming the environment and keeping the fossil fuel industry in business, automobiles make it necessary to maintain an extensive highway system and the extensive infrastructure that entails, imposing a constant drain on tax dollars. High-speed rail, bus systems, and even conveyor belts that move humans represent better options for transportation than does the automobile. Already, there are cities in the United States where people don’t even need to own an automobile. This should also be true in suburban and rural areas. There is no practical reason why someone who lives outside of city limits can’t be served by public transportation. The only thing missing is the availability of public transportation outside of large cities, which can be readily supplied.
If mass transit were to be implemented in suburban and rural areas, it would eliminate one of the largest household expenses, saving taxpayers a significant amount of their own money and greatly reducing government outlays for repairing highway systems and infrastructure. This is not to say that we should get rid of automobiles, but only that we could greatly stimulate the economy by replacing much of their use with public transportation.
These are just seven proposals for reforming and restructuring our political economy based on the capitalist system we have, and they are by no means complete. The proposals can all be expanded with additional points to justify their implementation, and other proposals could surely be added.
In summary, I want to emphasize the point that the United States is not only the wealthiest country in the world; it probably wastes more money than any other nation in history. One striking example is the massive amounts of money wasted by the Department of Defense on no-bid contracts, through overpayment on bid contracts, and by simply losing track of the expenditures it makes. It seems odd to me that a country supposedly in immense debt, and with a Congress that worries annually over deficits, never asks questions when it comes to paying for the arms, weapons and contracts of its military. If corporations, who are responsible to shareholders, were to waste billions or trillions of dollars in similar ways, there would be hell to pay. That simply doesn’t happen, however, with the United States government. Just recently, for instance, the Department of Defense was unable to account for almost $3 trillion that had somehow been lost. The loss was reported in muted tones, but where was the public outcry?!
I know I’ve written a lot at this point and there is much to take in. I’m therefore going to stop here and continue my critique of capitalism in the next of what I plan to be a continuing series of articles. As you read the articles, be aware that everything I write is not merely my opinion, but can be documented. My hope is that the information I provide will give OEN readers a better understanding of the real crises both our own nation and many other nations are facing. The next installment in the series will deal with ways in which I think ordinary people can help solve the problems I’ve raised in this first article. Later, I’ll also discuss other matters, such as the national security state, the military-industrial complex, voter fraud, and what can be done about what is happening in the African-American community. Most importantly, I want to go beyond merely citing what is happening in our country and world to my own understanding of why it is happening. I hope that by the end of this series of articles I will have convinced you that what is happening is happening because there are people in power that want it to happen.

PCR and Finian Cunningham Talk about WWIII with Russia 07/29 by Tim Gatto Unedited and Uncut | Politics Podcasts

2016-07-29T10:03:00.001-05:00

PCR and Finian Cunningham Talk about WWIII with Russia 07/29 by Tim Gatto Unedited and Uncut | Politics Podcasts: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Finiam Cunningham give us thier vauble insights

2016-07-27T01:33:00.001-05:00

2016-07-27T01:32:00.001-05:00

Interview with Rob Kall of OpEdNews

2016-07-26T15:49:00.001-05:00

PREVIEW

Morning Rant

2016-07-24T13:55:00.001-05:00

Is Sanders a "Principled" Sell-Out?

2016-06-28T22:25:00.000-05:00

Fascism by Old American Century
I would like to say a few things about the current state of our so called republic. The first thing I would like to say is that we have no republic. We have a group of sociopaths and extremely wealthy people that control this nation for their own benefit. We have no free and fair elections. The game is rigged and I believe that most people reading this are aware of it.
This is not a right or left problem, a liberal or conservative problem, it is an American problem. It affects everyone that lives in America.

What I find amazing is that the Republicans have actually nominated someone that the majority of their party wanted. While Donald Trump may be a terrible choice and a flawed human being, despite the best efforts of the hierarchy of the GOP, the people that voted in the Republican Primaries actually got the candidate that they wanted, no matter how despicable that candidate is.

On the other hand, the party that claims to represent the middle class, the party that speaks of "progressive" values, the party that elected FDR and JFK, chose a woman that has proven to everyone to be a liar, a war hawk and generally a despicable human being.
I have been following and writing about politics for a long time and honestly, I can't think of a single thing she ever did that benefited the American people. As Secretary of State she bullied foreign diplomats, was instrumental in destroying the nation of Libya, and used her undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland to undermine the Ukrainian government that enabled the CIA to perform a coup and oust the elected leader of that nation and force him to flee to Russia. The World can understand how well that worked out. This woman is a trigger for World War III.

Does anyone honestly believe that the majority of Democrats voted for her? If, in actuality they did, then now is the time that real progressives move away from the corrupt Democratic Party. I know that some will say that we can reform the party from within, but that is an impossibility. The Party is corrupt from the top down and it is impossible to change it from the bottom up.
I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom. There is a ray of sunshine that we can embrace. The people in power want us to believe that we Americans have only two choices. They've given us a choice of two narcissists, Trump or Clinton. Ask yourself, do you want either one of them with their finger on our nuclear arsenal? Do you honestly believe that Clinton is more trustworthy than Trump? Look at her track record. If you still want to believe that she is the lesser of two evils, you are still voting for evil.
American must truly understand what peril these two political parties have put us in. The World is hold its collective breath. When we are put into an impossible situation we as a nation must find a way to think outside the box that they have put us in.

Bernie Sanders can posture and tell the nation that he will carry his political revolution to the Democratic Convention. I say it is meaningless and that will gain nothing for America. If Bernie endorses Hillary Clinton because of his wonderful "principles", he will have turned his back on his political revolution and become a "principled" sellout. The Democratic platform is meaningless. Just look at the Presidency of Barack Obama who promised "Change We Can Believe In" and gave us more war and trillions to the banks that nearly destroyed our economy.

Bernie was sidelined by the mainstream media and the DNC. He tried to win in a rigged primary process and almost succeeded. The Democrats used purged voter fraud and the figures from the exit polls didn't square with the actual votes. He owes the Democrats nothing but his contempt. They sure as hell have my contempt.

If Bernie was serious about changing America's political landscape he would accept Jill Stein's kind offer of joining her ticket. He time for this isn't after the convention, the time is now. Understand something that is very important. Independents make up 51% of American voters. The problem we have is that Americans are brainwashed into believing we have only two choices, Republican or Democrat, Coke or Pepsi. We have choices and people need to understand that, especially when we see what is at stake.

What is at stake is the prospect of more wars, military interventions, wealth disparity, the right of Unions to negotiate for better wages and leaving our children with either a ravaged decimated planet or a planet better than it is now. You may believe that voting out the two party system is unattainable, and as long as you believe that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you believe that one person can make a difference, think of what millions of people could do. It is your choice to make.

Where Do Progressives Go?

2016-06-28T22:01:00.001-05:00

2016-01-16T09:02:00.001-05:00

In The Red Molotov

2016-01-15T09:39:00.002-05:00

Why the US Pushes an Illusory Syrian Peace Process

2015-12-20T23:41:00.001-05:00

December 19, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "MEE" - The anti-Assad coalition led by the United States continues to stagger toward the supposed objective of beginning peace negotiations between the Syrian government and what has now been blessed as the politically acceptable “opposition”. The first such meeting was scheduled for 1 January, but no one on either side believes for a moment that any such negotiations are going to happen any time in the foreseeable future.

The notion that negotiations on a ceasefire and political settlement will take place lacks credibility, because the political-military realities on the ground in Syria won’t allow it. Those opposition groups that are prepared to contemplate some kind of settlement with the Assad regime do not have the capacity to make such an agreement a reality. And those organisations that have the capacity to end the war against the Damascus regime have no interest in agreeing to anything short of forcible regime change.

On top of those serious contradictions, Russia is openly contesting the US plan for a negotiated settlement. The United States is pushing the line that President Bashar al-Assad must step down, but Russia is insisting that such a demand is illegitimate.

The contradiction between the pretensions of the US-sponsored plan and Syrian political-military realities was very much in evidence at the Riyadh conference last week. The conference, which was supported by the United States and the other “Friends of Syria,” including Britain, France, Turkey, Qatar and the UAE, was in theory to bring together the broadest possible range of opposition groups – excluding only “terrorist” groups. Belying that claim, however, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (YPD) being armed by the United States in Syria was excluded from the conference at the insistence of Turkey.

A key objective of the conference was apparently to bring Ahrar al-Sham, the most powerful opposition military force apart from the Islamic State (IS), into the putative game of ceasefire negotiations. But inviting the organisation was bound to backfire sooner or later. Ahrar al-Sham has been closely allied with al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, al-Nusra Front, both politically and militarily. Moreover, it has explicitly denounced the idea of any compromise with the regime in Damascus.

Ahrar al-Sham showed up at the conference, but refused to follow the script. The representative of Ahrar al-Sham called for “the overthrow of the Assad regime with all its pillars and symbols, and handing them over for a fair trial.” That is not exactly the game plan envisioned in the negotiating process, which assumes that Assad must leave after a transitional period, but that the government security institutions would remain in place. On the second day of the conference its representative announced that it was leaving, complaining that the conference organisers had refused to endorse its insistence on the “Muslim” identity of the opposition.

The Ahrar al-Sham refusal to play ball was the most dramatic indication of that the entire exercise is caught in a fundamental contradiction. But it wasn’t the only case of a major armed organisation whose attendance at the Riyadh meeting raised the obvious issue of conflicting interests. Jaysh al-Islam is a coalition of 60 Salafist armed groups in the Damascus suburbs whose orientation appears to be indistinguishable from that of Ahrar al-Sham.

The coalition is led by Salafist extremist Zahran Alloush, and has fought alongside Ahrar al-Sham as well as al-Nusra Front. Last April, Alloush travelled to Istanbul, where he met with the leader of Ahrar al-Sham. Like their close allies, moreover, Alloush and his coalition reject the idea of a political settlement with a secular Syrian state authority, with or without Assad.

If it is so obvious that the Riyadh conference and the larger scheme for peace negotiations is not going to come to fruition, why has the Obama administration been pushing it? The explanation for what appears to be a lost cause can be inferred from the basic facts surrounding the administration’s Syria policy.

First, the administration adopted the objective of regime change in Syria in late 2011, at a time when it was convinced that the regime was on the ropes. And although it has partially backtracked from that aim by distinguishing between Assad and the institutional structure of the regime, it cannot back off the demand for Assad to step down without a humiliating admission of failure and major domestic political damage.

Second in its pursuit of that regime change policy the administration allowed its Sunni regional allies – especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia – to do things that it wasn’t prepared to do. Obama tolerated Turkish facilitation of foreign fighters and

By Gareth Porter (ICH)

Turkish, Qatari and Saudi funnelling of arms to their favourite Islamist groups. The result was that IS, al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam emerged in 2013 and 2014 as the main challengers to the Assad regime.

But the White House has officially maintained its distance from al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, while continuing to collaborate closely with Sunni allies, as they have provided financial support to the “Army of Conquest” command dominated by al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham to help the forces under their leadership gain control of Idlib province and pose the most serious threat to the Assad regime thus far.

And the third fact about the policy is that the Obama administration embarked on its campaign of illusory peace negotiations with little more than one year left before Obama leaves the Oval Office.

The obvious implication of these facts is that the ostensible push for a ceasefire and peace negotiations is a useful device for managing the political optics associated with Syria during the administration’s final year. If it is not questioned by media and political elites, the administration will be able to claim both that it is insisting on getting rid of Assad and at the same time moving toward a ceasefire and political settlement.

Never mind that claim has nothing to do with reality. Being the dominant power, after all, means never having to say you’re sorry, because you don’t have to acknowledge your responsibility for the terrible war and chaos visited on a country because of your policy.

Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and winner of the 2012 Gellhorn Prize for journalism. He is the author of the newly published Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.

Eisenhower's Military Industrial Speech

2015-12-20T13:09:00.002-05:00

ublic Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040
My fellow Americans:
Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.
This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.
Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.
Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.
My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.
In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.
II.
We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.
III.
Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.
Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.
Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.
But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.
The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.
IV.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
V.
Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.
VI.
Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.
Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.
Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.
VII.
So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.
You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.
To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:
We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

It's Crunch time for America

2015-12-20T12:33:00.002-05:00

There might be many of you hat don’t need to read this article. People that have been reading me for the last decade know what I’m going to talk about. I’m no Chris Hedges or any other celebrity guru, but I can say this, I have been published on The Economist as many venues and my articles have been quoted on magazines like The Economist that used my assessment of capitalism to help somebody to win an award on an annual debate. Some may consider me a Sensationalist, but there are others that actually care about what I have to say. What I have to say today is probably the most important thing I have ever written.

For years I have been writing about how our government has been hijacked from the people and how special interests have been manipulating the media to fulfill the agenda of the Military Industrial Complex. You can call it the Military Industrial Corporate Complex or any new-age nuance, but it is still the thing that Dwight President David Eisenhower described in his last addresses to the nation. As you read this you must understand who I am.

I grew up in the ‘50’ saying the pledge of allegiance withy my hand over my heart all through my youth. I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout and at 17 in 1967, before I graduated, I joined the Army to serve my country. Sure I had my reasons, but I never really doubted why I did it. I got my GED in May of 1968, before my classmates graduated, and thought I was smarter than everyone else until I found myself in an organization that was despised by my peers. The entire nation started to hate the military. I wondered what it was all about and started to question my comrades who had been to Vietnam. I soon found out that reality had nothing to do with what you read I the newspaper or nothing you see on TV. The rea truth was hidden and unmentionable. The real truth is that e were killing people in Vietnam ad mot only that, but sacrificing our on soldiers on a war that was not really meant to be won. This was a “limited war”. It was run by politicians that used it for their own personal reasons. Our soldiers would take territory and lose hundreds of casualties, only to leave that territory the next day.

That is what I found out at 17. I saw that everyone was lying about this war. I saw that nobody but the Vietnam Vets knew wat was really happening over there and how some couldn’t even come to grips with it.

I really changed from the kid that joined u at 17. I was against the wat from the ag of 18 until it was over when I was 25. I stayed in the military, but went o every protest and anti-war gathering I could. I was in DC when Nixon flew off to Camp David and John Kerry was leading the Vietnam Veterans against the War. I actually met him but that’s another story.

What I’m getting at is that the mindless crap you hear on TV and see in print is just that…crap. This is what I have been writing about for decades. You can’t think that the government can lie to its people any more than they did during Vietnam until they do. And they have, over and over again. What’s worse, the America people, the so-called “exceptional” people keep buying it. Lock, stock and barrel. Over and over again.

I am so disappointed over my generation. We were so aware of what our government was morphing into, but as soon as the draft and the war was over, we turned into mindless clones. I believe now that most of the people (at least the men) who were against the Vietnam War were only trying to stop it so they didn’t have to fight it. Otherwise, how could they accept the crap the government passes off as fact now? Is everyone senile?

The unvarnished truth is that you have no say in what happens you have no say in whatever this government does. It is no longer a government of the people and for the people and hasn’t been for a very long time. Your vote means nothing. Because of gerrymandering and electronic voter fraud and disenfranchising certain segments of our population, it’s all a joke. Still, the American people roll over and play dead.

The Good news is that you finally have a choice. You can either allow the Democratic Party to coronate Hillary Clinton as the war-monger-in- Chief, or you can put that Socialist Bernie Sanders in as the Democratic nominee and change the entire paradigm. It’s all up to you. I don’t care. That much. This year I have had three strokes, can’t dress myself and can hardly type. Still, somehow I care enough to write this. It really is crunch time in America. You can either sit back or let the DNC decide who is going to lead this nation, or do some work and put in somebody that has been true to his word for over 40 years. Is this important enough to write about?

If Bernie gets elected, and things don’t change, we need a revolution.

Historic New Harpers Article Exposes Who Controls America

2015-12-19T00:58:00.001-05:00

By Eric Zuesse
December 18, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - There can be little doubt now: America’s decades-long catastrophic failures to make significant progress in eliminating even a single one of the numerous jihadist groups around the world is due to the American government’s secret under-the-table crucial ongoing assistance to those groups, and this American-government support has intentionally encouraged recent terrorist events especially in Syria, Libya, and other countries that had been allied with Russia — but which might be flipped ‘our’ way, by those jihadists. In such countries (America’s ‘enemies’), the U.S. government calls the jihadist groups ‘moderates’ and ‘pro-democracy.’ But in Christian, Jewish, and Shiite-Muslim dominant countries, they’re instead called “terrorists,” which is what they actually are. George Orwell called such linguistic tricks for fooling any nation’s mass of suckers, “Newspeak,” but America’s version is more sophisticated than his fictional one was. And so is America’s version of Orwell’s “Big Brother” more sophisticated than his — and now we know what it actually is, because of this:

The great investigative journalist Andrew Cockburn, in the January 2016 issue of Harpers Magazine, has come forth with what may be the best public-affairs article I’ve ever seen (it’s at that link), because he has interviewed key individuals in the U.S. government's CIA and other intelligence agencies, some of whom he even identifies by name (i.e., they’re retired), and all of whom provide different details of the very same stunning huge story, a story that I have been reporting only in bits and pieces over the past year, but for which Cockburn offers an astounding amount of fuller and entirely new documentation — it blows everything else away.

To boil it all down (which he sadly doesn’t): The fundamentalist-Sunni royal family of the Sauds have bought the highest levels of the U.S. government in order to control U.S. foreign policies, especially the ongoing wars to take down the governments of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and ultimately (they hope) of Russia itself, which latter nation has allied itself instead with Shiia countries. The controlling entities behind American foreign policies since at least the late 1970s have been the Saud family and the Sauds’ subordinate Arabic aristocracies, which are the ones in Qatar (the al-Thanis), Kuwait (the al-Sabahs), Turkey (the Tuktic Erdoğans, a new royalty), and UAE (its six royal families: the main one, the al-Nahyans in Abu Dhabi; the other five: the al-Maktoums in Dubai, al-Qasimis in Sharjah, al-Nuaimis in Ajman, al-Mualla Ums in Quwain, and al-Sharqis in Fujairah). Other Saudi-dominated nations — though they’re not oil-rich (more like Turkey in this regard) — are Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On December 15th, the Sauds formed their own Sunni-Islamic version of the American aristocracy’s NATO; and, though it shares one existing member with the 28-member NATO military alliance, which is Turkey, the other 34+ nations in it are, like the Sauds’ Kingdom itself, ruled by Wahhabist-Salafist leaders, and are likewise vigorously against both Russia and Shiite-led countries — just as NATO itself also is.

Cockburn mentions by name only the al-Sauds, but he documents the cooperation of the other Kingdoms in the ringleading Sauds’ fundamentalist-Sunni plan, for, essentially, a Saud Caliphate, which dream had actually started when Muhammad Ibn Saud and Muhammad Ibn Wahhab in the year 1744 swore their mutual oaths to one-another that started Saudi Arabia: Saud’s descendants would be authorized by Wahhab’s clerics to be approved by God to rule, in return for which the Sauds would impose upon their subjects the Wahhabist-Salafist version of Islam, and would allow the Wahhabist clerics to make the country’s laws, with the approval of (and enforcement by) the Sauds. It’s the traditional deal between a nation’s aristocrats and its clergy, but superpowered in the Sauds’ case with ‘god’s’ gift of oil, and America’s commitment of weapons (which is an endless boon to America’s weapons industry).

As I have documented previously, the bookkeeper for Al Qaeda, who also was their traveling bagman who personally collected in cash each one of the many multi-million-dollar donations to al-Qaeda, has testified in stunning detail, under oath (not merely as the interviewee of some journalist), regarding the identities of the chief funders of al-Qaeda; and, he said, to summarize, that, “Without the money of the — of the Saudi you will have nothing”; but, even Hillary Clinton, in a much quoted 2009 wikileaked cable telling America’s Ambassadors what to say to the Islamic-nation rulers (quoted from also by Cockburn), mentioned this Saudi problem, when she addressed the issue indirectly to the Sauds, via the U.S. Saudi Ambassador:

While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) takes seriously the threat of terrorism within Saudi Arabia, it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority. Due in part to intense focus by the USG over the last several years, Saudi Arabia has begun to make important progress on this front and has responded to terrorist financing concerns raised by the United States through proactively investigating and detaining financial facilitators of concern. Still, donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. … In contrast to its increasingly aggressive efforts to disrupt al-Qa'ida's access to funding from Saudi sources, Riyadh has taken only limited action to disrupt fundraising for the UN 1267-listed Taliban and LeT-groups that are also aligned with al-Qa'ida and focused on undermining stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So: we know that al-Qaeda was an operation financed chiefly by the Saud family not only pre-9/11, but until at least 2009.

She went on to request, almost to plead with them:

We would like to stress our interest in broadening and deepening this dialogue and information exchange as we still lack detailed information on the ultimate sources of terrorist financing emanating from the Kingdom.

No sanctions against them were threatened: a subordinate doesn’t threaten his (or her) master.

She also requested their:

cutting off the flow of funds from Saudi Arabia to foreign religious, charitable, and educational organizations that propagate violent extremist ideologies to vulnerable populations.

She went on also to mention, regarding Kuwait (whose Sabah family are ruling there only because the Sauds want them to):

the specific activities of terrorist financiers in country, Kuwaiti charities financing terrorism abroad, and Kuwait's lack of a comprehensive anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime. … Al-Qa'ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point. … A particular point of difference between the U.S. and Kuwait concerns Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS). In June 2008 the USG domestically designated all RIHS offices RIHS under Executive Order 13224 for providing financial and material support to al-Qa'ida and UN 1267-listed al-Qa'ida affiliates, including Lashkar e-Tayyiba, Jemaah Islamiyah, and Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya.

To Kuwait's Sabahs themselves, she said:

We remain concerned that the continued absence of counterterrorism legislation criminalizing terrorist financing will continue to prevent effective counterterrorist efforts.

She noted regarding Qatar:

Qatar has adopted a largely passive approach to cooperating with the U.S. against terrorist financing. Qatar's overall level of CT cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region.

However, she said nothing at all to the rulers, the Thanis, themselves.

To UAE’s Nahyans, she concluded by saying:

We urge your government to strengthen its regulatory and enforcement regime to interdict cash couriers transiting major airports.

To Pakistan’s rulers, she said:

We urge your government to support the international community's efforts to combat terrorist financing. … We urge your government to comply with UN and domestic legal obligations to enforce sanctions on the Pakistan-based, UN-proscribed NGOs al Rashid Trust and al Akhtar Trust, and all successor organizations that continue to funnel money and provide other forms of support to the Taliban and LeT. … We emphasize that social services provided by NGO extremist organizations, such as Jamaat-ud Dawa (JUD) challenge the legitimacy of your government to provide for its people.

The clergy in all of those countries are mainly Wahhabist, which outside Saudi Arabia is instead called Salafist. This is the fundamentalist wing of Sunni Islam, and it is rabidly anti-Shiite. It dominates not only Arabia but also Pakistan and Afghanistan; it’s the jihadist wing of Islam, the wing that promotes restoring the “Caliphate” or Islamic Empire.

Secretary of State Clinton had nothing to say in this cable, to Shiite-dominant countries, such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria, nor to Bahrain which is Sunni-ruled, by the Salafist al-Khalifa family, who continue to rule their majority-Shiite population only because in 2011, U.S. weapons and Saudi soldiers slaughtered opponents of the regime. Here was the never-telecast U.S. news-report about that, and here is an interview with its reporter, who was fired and blackballed from U.S. media for having tried to report it. (A youtube news-medium, Vice News, wasn’t as corrupt: they allowed their report to run.)

So, it’s remarkable that Andrew Cockburn is able to get his extraordinarily honest article published in a mainstream American news-medium. PerhapsHarpers Magazine is suddenly testing the limits of what the U.S. aristocracy will tolerate to be published. But whatever the reason is, it’s to be welcomed, and applauded.

The only scientific study that has yet been done of whether or not the U.S. is a democraacy or instead a dictatorship found that it’s a dictatorship; and now the international extension of that dictatorship, if not the chief figures in this dictatorship (if America’s aristocracy actually is subordinate to the Sauds), can be more clearly understood. But, perhaps, one can safely say that the alliance between the U.S. aristocracy and the royal Sauds, is emerging as a global dictatorship, a dictatorial type of world government. Because, clearly: those two aristocraciues have been, to a large extent, ruling the world together, for several decades now. From their perspective, jihadists are themselves a weapon, not merely a political nuisance.

This is a more realistic explanation of America’s decades-long catastrophic failures to make significant progress in eliminating even a single one of the numerous jihadist groups around the world: that’s how things have been planned to be. It’s not just ‘intelligence errors’ or ‘not being tough enough.’ Those ‘explanations’ are just cover-stories, propaganda, PR from the aristocrats. It’s skillful ‘crowd control’: keeping the people in their ‘proper’ places.

Listening to America’s Presidential campaign ‘debates’ in this light enables a viewer to understand better the pressures upon each one of the candidates — and upon the moderators who ask the questions, and who don’t ask the follow-up questions that will expose the lies in the answers. It’s not merely a contest between the candidates; it is all part of a collective war by the aristocracy against the public, to keep them in their ‘proper’ places.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Kerry's Love fest In Moscow

2015-12-19T00:50:00.002-05:00

By Mike WhitneyDecember 18, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - "Counterpunch" - If John Kerry doesn’t win an Oscar for his performance in Moscow on Tuesday, then there’s something very wrong with the system.
From the time he touched down at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport, to the time he left some 26 hours later, the Secretary of State was as cordial and conciliatory as anytime in recent memory. There was no hectoring, no lecturing, no threats of additional sanctions and no finger-wagging condescension, just pleasant give-and-take on the main issues followed by friendly chit-chat, multiple handshakes, and plenty of smiley photo ops. To say his hosts were surprised by Kerry’s behavior is a probably an understatement. After nearly three years of nonstop belligerence and confrontation, the last thing Sergei Lavrov and Vladimir Putin expected was an ingratiating Kerry oozing brotherly love and carrying on like an old buddy from college.
Then of course came the real stunner, the announcement that the US had suddenly changed its mind about toppling Syrian President Bashar al Assad and–oh by the way–‘we’d love to work with you on that ISIS-thing too.’ Here’s what Kerry said:

“The United States and our partners are not seeking regime change in Syria…(the focus is no longer) “on our differences about what can or cannot be done immediately about Assad…”

There’s no question that when the United States and Russia work together our two countries benefit. Despite our differences we demonstrated that when our countries pull together, progress can be made.”
The US is “not seeking regime change in Syria”?
No one saw that one coming. Maybe someone should remind Kerry that the Decider in Chief Obama reiterated the “Assad must go” trope less than two weeks ago. Now all that’s changed?
Apparently so. This has got to be the biggest foreign policy somersault in the last two decades and Kerry carried it off without a trace of shame, in fact, he never veered from his cheery script the entire trip. Case in point: In one particularly absurd photo, Kerry is seen grinning ear to ear while high-fiving Lavrov like he just got news that his horse placed first at Churchill Downs. Needless to say, Washington’s Skull and Bones diplomats know how to turn on the charm when it suits their purposes. And that’s exactly what’s driving Kerry’s slobbering tone and the “Can’t we be friends again” jocularity. Washington wants something, and its willing to devour a rather sizable crow to get what it wants.
Okay, but were the Russians taken in by Kerry’s performance?
Heck no, in fact, they acted exactly as one would expect them to act. They treated Kerry with the utmost respect, listened politely to everything he had to say, nodded, smiled and shook hands at all the appropriate times, and then got back to the business of bombing the holy crap out of the US-backed terrorists operating in Syria. That’s the way Moscow conducts business, they never take their eye off the ball. Here’s what Putin said immediately after Kerry left:

“I have repeatedly stated and I am ready to stress once again: we will never agree with the idea that a third party, whoever this party is, has the right to impose its will on another country. This does not make any sense and it’s a violation of international law.”

Sounds pretty inflexible to me. Then he added this tidbit as if to underscore the fact that Obama’s meaningless policy reversal will not effect Russian’s military offensive in any way, shape or form:

“As soon as we notice the political process has begun, and the Syrian government decides it is time to stop the airstrikes, [we are going to stop] … The sooner it [the process] starts the better.”

In other words, show us you’re sincere and maybe we can do business together. But, until then…
So why is Kerry wasting everyone’s time with all this glad-handing and kowtowing when the Russians are obviously not taking the bait?
Well, because US proxies in the field (aka–Sunni militants and extremists) are getting blown to smithereens, that’s why. You see, the US is losing its proxy-war with Syria rather badly which has everyone on Capital Hill and the Pentagon extremely worried. That’s why they sent Senator Botox to Moscow to see if he could conjure up a ceasefire before things get really out of hand. Here’s a brief recap of recent events:
The Syrian Army, Hezbollah and the elite 4th Mechanized Division are closing in on strategic town of Al-Zorba which will complete the encirclement of the country’s biggest city, Aleppo, cutting off critical jihadi supplylines to the north and signaling the beginning of a final offensive to clear the city of the many al Qaida-linked groups operating in the vicinity. This is the beginning of the end for the Jabhat Al-Nusra, Ahrar Al-Sham, and other terrorist vermin who currently occupy the city.
The Syrian Army has also made great strides in capturing the area along the Turkish border. On Tuesday, the 103rd Brigade of the Republican Guard – in coordination with the National Defense Forces (NDF) took full control over the strategic Al-Nuba Mountains after a ferocious week-long battle with Jabhat Al-Nusra. Once the Latakia offensive is concluded, the Turkish border will be sealed and it will be impossible for terrorists to come and go as they please. That, in turn will lead to a long mop up operation within Syria itself.
Get the picture? The Russian-led coalition is methodically going about its work, reopening the main highways, securing the border, liberating cities and villages across western and northwestern corridor, destroying oil fields, refineries and tanker trucks, rolling up jihadis wherever they find them, and gradually restoring the power of the central government. It’s a much tougher slog than many had anticipated, but that has a lot to do with the fact that anti-regime militias appear to be getting logistical support from allies outside the country. (Who could that be, I wonder?)
In any event, the situation on the ground is bad enough that Kerry decided it was better to swallow his pride and climb-down on the “Assad must go” demand, to see if Russia would go-easy on Obama’s “moderate” terrorists presently fighting in Syria. This is the real reason Kerry flew to Moscow.
This is also why the Saudis convened a two-day conference that included the various Syrian opposition groups just last week. The Saudis are trying desperately to create a fig leaf of legitimacy for the many groups of terrorists that have torn Syria to shreds in order to remove Assad and establish an Islamic Caliphate. The Russian-led offensive has forced the Saudis to rethink their approach. Now the Saudis want to create an umbrella group of so called “moderate” opposition forces who will be spared Russia’s wrath and allowed to participate in future negotiations on Syria’s political future. Unfortunately, it’s all for show. Washington’s objectives haven’t changed and neither have Riyadh’s. The Pentagon hawks are already gearing up for the next phase of the war as are the Saudis, in fact, just this week the Saudis launched an initiative to create a “Islamic military alliance devoted to combating global terrorism.”
Got that? The Saudis want to spearhead the fight against terror, which is bit like Xaviera Hollander chairing the Chastity League. Naturally, the macabre irony of the endeavor was lost on the media which reported the story without questioning the credibility of the source.
So what’s this new charade all about?
It’s another attempt for the Saudis to get a shoe in the door so they can raise more hell in Syria. They think that if they create a “broad-based international coalition” then they’ll be able to deploy their homicidal crackpots into Syria with impunity. It’s all part of the neocon plan to rip Syria apart by occupying a vast stretch of land in east Syria and west Iraq to establish Sunnistan, a de facto terrorist sanctuary where the Washington-Ankara-Riyadh axis can continue its proxy campaign for as long as they want keeping the Middle East in a permanent state of anarchy until the elusive Caliphate finally emerges and the last drop of oil has been extracted by avaricious western oil giants.
Fortunately, Putin is going to put an end to this nonsense. And he has the arsenal to do it too.

MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.

pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/debbie-wasserman-s

2015-12-19T00:25:00.001-05:00

http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/debbie-wasserman-schultz-2?mailing_id=32323&source=s.icn.em.cr&r_by=5404148

Speaking Truth to Insanity

2015-12-03T18:23:00.000-05:00

This Congresswoman from Hawaii is saying exactly what I have been writing about except she brings it to right to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter!