US ‘Democracy’ – A Spectacle of War Party

Source

August 2, 2019

With over 20 Democratic party candidates vying for the US presidential election in 2020, there appears to be an abundance of choice from a glance at the mere number of contenders. But the superficial optics are far from “2020 vision”.

Unfortunately, lamentably, on crucial foreign policy concerning militarism, war and peace, and on relations towards Russia and China, there seems little difference between the crowded field. The single notable exception, so far at least, is the Hawaiian congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard.

As our columnists Philip Giraldi and Tom Luongo have both separately assessed in recent commentaries for SCF, Gabbard appears to be the only genuine anti-war candidate.

Gabbard, a veteran soldier who served in Iraq, has trenchantly criticized America’s overseas militarism and covert wars for regime change. She has also clearly called for an end to Cold War-style hostility towards Russia, and for better bilateral relations.

In some ways, Gabbard is an echo of Donald Trump when he was running for the 2016 presidency as the Republican candidate. Trump back then condemned US foreign wars and proffered developing normal relations with Russia. Since then, however, Trump has failed miserably to end Washington’s militarism. Indeed he has emerged as an even bigger militarist than previous presidents, boosting the Pentagon’s already gargantuan budget, and embarking on a policy of reckless aggression towards Iran.

In regard to Russia, Trump has expressed wanting friendly relations with Moscow. Nevertheless, he has not scaled back on NATO’s provocative build-up along Russia’s borders; his administration continues to sanction Moscow over spurious claims, including on the matter of gas energy trade with Europe; and, to cap it all, this week the US has officially ended its adherence to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear (INF) Treaty. The US termination of the INF raises the specter of a new arms race with Russia and gravely undermines global peace and security. It was President Trump who personally pushed ending the INF by citing baseless claims of Russia violating the treaty.

In short, Trump is no friend of Russia and his past electoral promises of challenging the US status quo on malign foreign policy have turned out to be pathetic empty rhetoric.

It remains to be seen whether Tulsi Gabbard advances to the nomination as Democrat candidate for the presidency. And whether she retains her commitment to fundamentally change US foreign policy on matters of militarism, war and peace and in particular on creating a real reset in relations with Russia.

As both of our columnists cited above have appraised, the US mainstream corporate-controlled media and Washington political establishment have embarked on a systematic and scurrilous campaign to smear Gabbard as “soft on Russia” and a “Kremlin stooge”. The same smear campaign, of course, has been a non-stop effort to politically eviscerate Trump since he entered the White House more than two years ago. He appears to have conformed to the pressure by self-censoring and suppressing his erstwhile promise to restore relations with Russia.

That brings us back to the other 20 or so Democrat candidates. Virtually all of them conform to the giant media hoax (“psyops”) known as “Russiagate” which bombarded the US public with specious allegations of Russian “interference in American democracy”.

Democrat front-runners Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are proponents of this nonsense. So too are supposed “radical left” candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. A handy compilation of all the candidates’ stated views on Russia as “an enemy” and their denigration of President Vladimir Putin as a “dictator” illustrate the execrable poverty of independent, intelligent thinking among America’s political class. These “opponents” are supposed to be offering American voters a change from Trump. Admittedly, Trump has scoffed at the whole Russiagate claims as “fake news” – and he is right to do that. But what has Trump actually done to pursue normal relations with Moscow? Very little.

All the Democrat candidates – with the honorable exception of Gabbard – are on record for harboring, to varying degrees, Cold War-style ideology of depicting Russia as an enemy or adversary. They have used this baleful and offensive view of Russia as a way to attack Trump. Instead of challenging Trump on his dubious economic policies favoring the wealthy and big corporations, the Democrats have used a futile and destructive tactic of trying to paint Trump has a “Kremlin agent”. Such thinking has only consolidated ever-more hostile US relations with Russia, which has culminated this week in the deplorable collapse of the INF Treaty.

As well as supporting the status quo of obscene US military spending and militarism generally, the so-called political opposition to Trump demonstrate with crystal clarity that there is only one party in the US – the War Party.

Republicans and Democrats are in reality two sides of the same coin that promotes oligarchy and imperialistic wars. That conformity of thinking even among so-called “radical left” candidates is a repugnant reflection on the degraded state of US politics and democracy.

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

What Tulsi Gabbard’s caving in to the Israel Lobby really shows

The Saker

July 24, 2019

Yes, Tulsi Gabbard’s name was not found in the list of those members of Congress which voted “no” to the resolution condemning the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.  This is the full list as reported by The Forward: Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon), Andre Carson (D-Indiana), Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan), Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Illinois), Raul Grijalva (D-Arizona), Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington), Barbara Lee (D-California), Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Betty McCollum (D-Minnesota), Gwen Moore (D-Wisconsin), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), Mark Pocan (D-Wisconsin), Bobby Rush (D-Illinois), Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey).

Thank you, so-called “US free and independent media”!

Truth be told, the Israeli Lobby did a superb job focusing what is left of the mind of those who expose themselves to the corporate Ziomedia’s propaganda on nonsensical pretend-issues such as who is in the so-called “squad”  (Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez & Rashida Tlaib), on Ilhan Omar alledged anti-Semitism (what else is new?) and on Trump’s brilliant idea to send her “home” (only to disawow it later – in typical Trump style).  As a result, a major chunk of the First Amendement has now been chipped away.

I also note with interest that these 17 Democracts prove that the most pro-Zionist party is the GOP, not the Democrats.  I salute the courage of Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky)!

There were plenty of other signs that showed that for all her very real qualities and her likely sincerity, Tulsi Gabbard does not really dare to speak truth to power.  Here is a very good example of that:

I agree with the slogan she chose: the Kremlin’s darling?  Think again!

A very wise friend of mine wrote this about why Gabbard had to cave in:

I told you she is a single issue politician. It’s about wars without end. Everything else is Realpolitik and nothing is more real than Zionists controlling the politics and legislation in Washington.  She would have no hope of surviving the next round of laws. They are going to make anything “anti-Israel” equal “anti-Semitic” and that will be a crime like it is in France. She has high ideals on only a single issue. It’s a great issue. But you cannot count on a politician to be a noble warrior. Forget anyone doing the right thing all the time.  She shines bright on one issue. If she was really wise or clever, she would have abstained. So, she is neither. 

Again, I can only agree with him.

My personal conclusion from all this is that this is yet another strong indication that the US political system is completely unreformable.  And, furthermore, any political system which cannot adapt to new realities and reform itself is simply condemned to a sudden, catastrophic (and often violent) collapse.

This being said, Gabbard is still the only running candidate who wants to legalize cannabis (at least as far as I know), she wants to reform what is justly called the “US Gulag” system and she backs Medicare For All.  I still think that she is very likable and probably sincere.  But she sure does not have what it takes to tackle what is by far the worst problem of the United States: they are just a subservient and voiceless colony of the last openly racist state on the planet and that is a moral issue.  This is the type of issue in which no compromise is possible, at least for an honest person.  Gabbard chose to compromise on that, and this makes her useless to those who want to free the United States and restore in full their full sovereignty.

Too bad.

The Saker

Memo to Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi

PAT BUCHANAN • JUNE 28, 2019

“For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end.”Donald Trump, circa 2016?Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism came from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii during Wednesday night’s Democratic debate. At 38, she was the youngest candidate on stage.

Gabbard proceeded to rip both the “president and his chickenhawk cabinet (who) have led us to the brink of war with Iran.”In a fiery exchange, Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio countered that America cannot disengage from Afghanistan: “When we weren’t in there they started flying planes into our buildings.”“The Taliban didn’t attack us on 9/11,” Gabbard replied, “Al-Qaida attacked us on 9/11. That’s why I and so many other people joined the military, to go after al-Qaida, not the Taliban.”When Ryan insisted we must stay engaged, Gabbard shot back:“Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? ‘Well, we just have to be engaged.’ As a solider, I will tell you, that answer is unacceptable. … We are no better off in Afghanistan that we were when this war began.”

By debate’s end, Gabbard was the runaway winner in both the Drudge Report and Washington Examiner polls and was far in front among all the Democratic candidates whose names were being searched on Google.Though given less than seven minutes of speaking time in a two-hour debate, she could not have used that time more effectively. And her performance may shake up the Democratic race.

If she can rise a few points above her 1-2% in the polls, she could be assured a spot in the second round of debates.If she is, moderators will now go to her with questions of foreign policy issues that would not have been raised without her presence, and these questions will expose the hidden divisions in the Democratic Party. Leading Democratic candidates could be asked to declare what U.S. policy should be — not only toward Afghanistan but Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jared Kushner’s “Deal of the Century,” and Trump’s seeming rejection of the two-state solution.

If she makes it into the second round, Gabbard could become the catalyst for the kind of globalist vs. nationalist debate that broke out between Trump and Bush Republicans in 2016, a debate that contributed to Trump’s victory at the Cleveland convention and in November.The problem Gabbard presents for Democrats is that, as was shown in the joust with Ryan, she takes positions that split her party, while her rivals prefer to talk about what unites the party, like the terribleness of Trump, free college tuition and soaking the rich.Given more airtime, she will present problems for the GOP as well.

For the foreign policy Tulsi Gabbard is calling for is not far off from the foreign policy Donald Trump promised in 2016 but has since failed to deliver.

We still have 2,000 troops in Syria, 5,000 in Iraq, 14,000 in Afghanistan. We just moved an aircraft carrier task force, B-52s and 1,000 troops to the Persian Gulf to confront Iran. We are about to impose sanctions on the Iranian foreign minister with whom we would need to negotiate to avoid a war.Jared Kushner is talking up a U.S.-led consortium to raise $50 billion for the Palestinians in return for their forfeiture of sovereignty and an end to their dream of a nation-state on the West Bank and Gaza with Jerusalem as its capital.

John Bolton is talking of regime change in Caracas and confronting the “troika of tyranny” in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Rather than engaging Russia as Trump promised, we have been sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine, sending warships into the Black Sea, beefing up NATO in the Baltic and trashing arms control treaties Ronald Reagan and other presidents negotiated in the Cold War U.S. policy has managed to push our great adversaries, Russia and China, together as they have not been since the first Stalin-Mao decade of the Cold War.

This June, Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing where he and Xi Jinping met in the Great Hall of the People to warn that in this time of “growing global instability and uncertainty,” Russia and China will “deepen their consultations on strategic stability issues.”Xi presented Putin with China’s new Friendship Medal. 

Putin responded: “Cooperation with China is one of Russia’s top priorities and it has reached an unprecedented level.”At the end of the Cold War, we were the lone superpower. Who forfeited our preeminence? Who bled us of 7,000 U.S. lives and $6 trillion in endless Middle East wars? Who got us into this Cold War II?Was all this the doing of those damnable isolationists again?

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

Paradigms Flip as Trump and Tulsi Emerge as the Winners of the Democratic Party Debate

Joaquin Flores

June 29, 2019

The single truth that many mainstream Democrats will have a very difficult time acknowledging coming out of the June 26^thDemocratic Party Presidential Debate, is that Donald Trump’s positions on China and Latin America have become a Democratic Party line. Is this is a mere matter of pandering to the polling data on questions like Latin America and China? Even if just that, it would be a Trump success in and of itself.

But it also raises whether Trump has indeed accomplished more – a tectonic shift, a sea-change in elite policy formation focus from Russia and the Mid-east over to China and Latin America. The ties between the DNC and China still appear too strong, and so the reality would seem to tend to rotate around a pandering to the polling data.

From China to solving the migration problem through a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Latin America and more, Trump’s nominal views on these questions found expression as dominating themes in the debate.

In the war of positions, this is a victory for Trump.

The June 26th Democratic Party Presidential Debate was astounding in its representation of a major paradigm shift in the United States.

TULSI GABBARD COMES AWAY THE WINNER

Connected to Trump as the ‘winner’, it was Tulsi Gabbard who stood out from the rest of the candidates. Interestingly, reliable polling data just out from the Drudge Report shows that Gabbard emerged as the winner of the debate on ideas and policies overall. She won some 40% of the vote, and when compared to the candidates whom the other 60% was divided, it was a landslide.

Before anyone dismisses Gabbard, it’s critical to understand that mainstream media lost most of its credibility over the lat election. This is the age of underdogs and dark horses

When the subject moved to Afghanistan and occupation, Gabbard was on confident and really on fire. This is significant because while historically Gabbard’s anti-imperialist line on occupation would be associated with (normally later broken) Democratic Party talking points, it was here that Trump defeated Clinton at the polls, when Trump won the anti-war vote in 2016.

Worth noting as well as that in the aftermath of the debate last night, Gabbard’s new social media campaign on Twitter features her name scrolling across the bottom of the screen in undeniable Trump 2016 campaign font. Coincidence? Nothing in politics is coincidental – nothing.

Gabbard destroyed Ryan on Afghanistan, and Booker’s attempt to attack Gabbard fell tremendously short and felt very artificial, saying that Gabbard’s position on LGBTQ ‘isn’t enough’, but then switching incoherently to the subject of African Americans, Jim Crow, and lynchings – a misfire and very much off-topic.

CHINA

Of the ten candidates debating, four responded that China was the primary threat to the US – but this was the single-most consistent answer. Delaney, Klobuchar, Castro, and Ryan all answered this way.

This was a win for Trump’s entire line for the last thirty something years.

De Blasio stood out as the lone Russiagater, definitely representing the mindset of his New York City electorate and the coastal media establishment.

Gabbard, meanwhile, was wise to name ecological threats as this helped her maintain her position as an anti-war candidate.

The pivot to a focus on China is much less dangerous than the focus on Russia. The US does not really believe it can challenge China in a military sense, and their anti-Chinese rhetoric, while full of sword rattling and imperial bravado, amounts to noise and little more. There is some hope in American quarters about curtailing China’s economic strength, but the focus on China appears more as a question of a state requiring the spectre of an anthropomorphized threat in the abstract, in order to justify the existence of a state and a military budget, and to make a foreigner responsible for matters of wealth disparity and a lack of employment opportunities in the US – a prominent tactic and talking point in market-driven societies based in private property norms.

But the pivot to a focus on China was tremendous and not expected, given the relationship historically between China and the Democratic Party – a friendly one.

Until now, it’s been just the conservative corners of the alt-light in the US-centric internet who view the ‘rising Chinese threat’ as a serious concern for the US. This trope was primarily focused on the twin threat of Chinese rising military prowess and its population size, along with the US practice of outsourcing American jobs to China – a policy that saw short term consumer savings, and mid-to-long term slashes to US wages and employment. It created a trade imbalance which the US can only resolving by defaulting on and then drawing its guns to force a new deal.

Taken all together, this means that whoever Trump gets into the big race with, it will not be a question of ‘whether’ China is a threat, but how to ‘best contain’ the Chinese threat. This is a victory from ‘go’ for Trump.

LATIN AMERICA

Here is another major subject where Trump’s influence on the entire discourse has prevailed, though it’s a little less obvious and requires a minor bifurcation to reveal.

We are of course obliged to mention that the location of the debate in Miami Florida was strategic given its representation of Latinos in the US – traditionally Cuban and more recently Venezuelan Republicans as hardline anti-communists and cold-warriors, who see their children increasingly becoming more ‘center-left’ as they have Americanized and become ‘Latinos’ in the US. They are still at odds geopolitically with Latinos, primarily Mexican-Americans from the American southwest, who tend to be friendlier to socialist ideas and have represented the far-left of the Democratic Party on economic issues as well as anti-imperialism, even if sharing with Cuban-Americans some more socially conservative values. This communitarian axis of Latinos in the US, however, has grown and become a real force of its own.

Trump’s hardline on Cuba and Venezuela is appealing to the Florida wing of the Latino constituency (to the extent we can speak of a single constituency), and this is where the Democratic Party understands it needs to fight in order to win Florida.

There hasn’t been a Republican candidate to win the Presidency without winning Florida in many generations, and the Republican victory of Rick Scott in the state’s most expensive senatorial race against Democrat incumbent Bill Nelson in 2018 shows that Republicans are aiming to win Florida in 2020. The Democratic Party concern is palpable and well founded.

So we find the extraordinary focus on Latinos was represented in the ultimately surprising display of whole Spanish language answers from both Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker, and a few questions wholly or partly in Spanish from the moderators. The entire debate was brought to viewers not just by NBC but also by Spanish language network Telemundo.

At face value, Trump and Democrats seem to be 6’s and 7’s over immigration. But when we really look at what the real deal is, we find yet another alignment of the Democrat’s position to that of Trump’s. How can this be?

To understand this is to understand the overall trajectory now that the US empire is all but finished. Its historical aim now is to be able to disentangle from the Mid-East, a prominent Trump position which used to be Obama’s until it wasn’t, and on the Democratic side today is only being carried forward by Tulsi Gabbard. The so-called neo-isolationism of the US isn’t so much that, as it is a return to the Monroe Doctrine. This author has written about this several years before Trump took office, in the article ‘From Pax Americana to Pan Americana’. Here this author argued that the US must transform from a Sea Power into a Land Power. This isn’t isolationism, but a right-sized regional hegemon, a regional hegemon for the Americas.

Trump’s rhetoric on the immigration question and Mexico has never failed to mention that the mid-to-long term solution is not only that Mexico enforces its own borders to its south, but that the Mexican economy grows – and this requires investment.

The trade-offs are several fold. For one, the US goes back to its China position, and wants Latin American countries to agree to reduce the Chinese influence in exchange for real industrial capital investments from the United States into Latin America.

This is not to say that the Democratic Party has ignored Latin America to date, far from it. It was under Obama’s two terms that the US worked the most to reverse the Pink Tide in Latin America, and this came with a few ‘own goals’ when the ultimate consequence of the regime-change operation in Honduras was to stoke a human wave migration crisis. This was, in short, the American version of the Libya scenario.

While Trump is nominally strict on immigration, it was under Obama that the US deported the most migrants in history. This is a fact that Democrats ignore in their talking points and attacks on Trump’s ‘inhuman policy’ that tears families apart. And so in a strange departure from what might otherwise occur to us, it was Obama’s policy that was worse by the numbers for pro-migration advocates, and it’s been Trump who has openly called for investment into Latin America with a named reason being to stem the migration ‘crisis’.

And it’s this exact talking point that numerous Democratic Party candidates picked up on, and a very telling term was introduced by Julian Castro – a Marshall Plan for Latin America. Cory Booker stood beside and nodded in apparent agreement, and that the words came from the token Latino (no, not Beto), Castro was both intentional and symbolically telling.

While Bolton and Pompeo have operated under the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ term, this is so entirely distasteful for all of Latin America that it offends anyone and everyone, even the US’s own lackeys, puppets, and proxies in the region.

But this Marshall Plan for Latin America was already introducedby none other than Mexican President AMLO himself, in talks with Trump.

“Why it matters: AMLO has worked energetically since taking office to sell the White House on a “Marshall Plan” of support to address the region’s growing migrant crisis. The US commitment is a preliminary sign that he’s at least being heard…

While he campaigned as a compassionate voice on immigration, Mexico’s new left-wing leader spied the need for a grand solution. The US funding will contribute to a $30 billion aid package envisioned by AMLO…

AMLO even dangled the prospect of Chinese investment to bring Trump to the table, according to the NY Times — reasoning that the US might be more willing to pay up if it feared that China might try to expand its influence in the region by opening its wallet.”

Since them, numerous articles have popped up describing Trump’s potential ‘Marshall Plan’ for Central America.

WHAT NEXT? CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

What Tulsi Gabbard, the clear winner of the debate, will do next is to appropriate Julian Castro’s ‘Marshall Plan’ line on Mexico and Central America. It dog-whistles numerous Trump talking points in relation to Mexico, as well as taking a ‘less migration is good migration’ approach to what is no doubt a real problem, without engaging in reactionary attacks on the migrants themselves. To get ‘to the source’ of the problem, as Castro explains, requires investment into Latin America.

Gabbard will be well positioned to nominally attack Trump’s policy implementation along human rights grounds, while not being specific on anything except getting ‘to the source of the problem’.

Gabbard is the dark horse, and along with Yang (in the second night’s debate) will no doubt pull ahead of the conventionally pre-selected winners that were supposed to be Booker, Sanders, Warren and especially Biden. We will see much more focus on Gabbard now in virtual spaces, even while the mainstream media will continue to wrongly focus on Biden and Booker. Booker played his left-most game in the debate, but as prospective voters sort him on questions as far and ranging as Palestine, war, and labor (economy) – they will find him sorely lacking.

With 60% of American generally supporting Trump’s approach to the economy, these are his highest approval ratings, and ones which Americans care about and highly prioritize. Gabbard would be wise to approach the question of distribution, winners and losers of the economic boom, and focus on the 1% vs. the 99%. Doing so will help her move beyond her initial base of support as the anti-war candidate.

This will angle the populist line, and position her well not only against all other Democrats, but even against Trump himself should she win the nomination. It’s a long shot, but remember indeed: this is the age of underdogs and dark horses.

See also

• Iran and US Officials Attend a Russian Security Forum but Nobody Is Talking About It
• Tulsi Gabbard: Hope and Change 2.0
• Democrats’ Descent Into Liberal Madness Has Killed the ‘Progressive’ Brand and so Much More
• “We Don’t Want a Monarchy”: Rep. Al Green Says Democrats Have No Choice But to Impeach Trump
• Democrats Scapegoat Russia for Historic Failure
• Trump Will Be Impeached. The Stupid Party Says, ‘Bring It On!’
• Is Tulsi Gabbard for Real? America Is Ready for a Genuine Peace Candidate

Absolute Proof that Trump Is Stupid

June 26, 2019

by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog

On June 26th, U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox Business News that, as the Washington Post immediately headlined it, “War with Iran Would Not Involve Ground Troops and Would Not Last Long”. He said: “I’m not talking boots on the ground. … I’m just saying if something would happen, it wouldn’t last very long.” However, even if his planned surgical missile-strikes against Iran’s non-existent facilities for manufacturing nuclear warheads ‘succeeds’, how is it even possible for anyone to be able to know that none of the blowback from the invasion of Iran by the United States would require placing U.S. boots-on-the-ground in Iran, and that none of the blowback would entail Iranian-and-allied retaliatory missile-strikes against, for example, water-purification facilities in the extremely arid lands of Trump’s friends, Israel and Saudi Arabia — and maybe even against U.S. air bases and other military facilities in the region? Of course, the answer is: There is no way for anyone to know that, and anyone who would trust Trump’s words to the contrary would be taking them on pure faith, just as religious believers believe the Bible, the Quran, or any other allegedly sacred Scripture. Maybe Trump knew that this is so and was merely talking to his base, the people who do still trust him, but a recent event excludes such mere lying, and can be explained only by his being, actually, stupid:

One of the most important and highest quality news-reports to have appeared in the New York Times was by Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and Thomas Gibbons-Neff on June 21st, and was titled “Urged to Launch an Attack, Trump Listened to the Skeptics Who Said It Would Be a Costly Mistake”. It reported that Trump had called-off the planned June 20th missile-attack against Iran at the last moment because he had asked his advisors how many Iranians would be killed in it and was told that 150 would be, and because he considered that number of Iranian corpses to be too high, and so he called it off. This same day, Trump himself tweeted that those 150 Iranians were the reason why he had called off the invasion. In other words, even according to his own account (which he since has repeated many times), he totally ignored the millions of people that could very possibly be killed from the general conflagration in the Middle East and elsewhere, which would likely result from America’s invasion upon sovereign Iranian territory. It’s stunningly short-sighted, but he is the person who is presenting himself this way. Maybe he’s not even intelligent enough to recognize that he is there confessing himself to be stupid. If he really doesn’t recognize it, then he’s an idiot, because that would be sub-stupid: below merely stupid.

Though Iran has no military assets which could threaten the United States, it does have sufficient military assets to defeat one of America’s two allies who are urging the U.S. to invade Iran: Saudi Arabia. And it also possesses sufficient military assets to wreck another U.S. ally who is urging the U.S. to invade Iran: Israel. Though it does not possess sufficient military assets to defeat Israel, because Israel is nuclear-armed and Iran isn’t, Iranians are fiercely opposed to imperialism and a great many of them would rather die than be conquered — especially if they are being conquered by invaders who aren’t even Muslims. Furthermore, stirring the hatreds that almost all of Israel’s Jews feel toward Muslims, and also the hatreds that almost all of Iran’s Muslims feel toward Israel, would make impossible for any stooge whom either the U.S. or Israel would try to impose upon Iran to rule there; and, consequently, any government that would be imposed by either of them would fail and ultimately become overthrown — and what would follow from that would be vastly worse for the United States than when Iran in 1979 overthrew the U.S.-imposed (in 1953) dictator there.

It is obvious that if Trump hadn’t called-off the attack that all of his advisors except the Obama-appointed General Joseph Dunford were urging upon him, then the Middle East would have become destroyed, and a war between the United States and Russia would likely be resulting.

For Trump to have been concerned only about the 150 Iranians that his military advisors thought would likely be slaughtered in this planned invasion, and for him not to have been concerned at all — and especially — about the likely millions of corpses that would almost certainly have followed from such an attack, is simply amazing stupidity on the part of a nation’s leader. It might not be as stupid as Hillary Clinton’s repeated and constant and never even moderated urgings for a “no-fly zone” to be imposed by the U.S. regime over sovereign Syrian territory, which almost certainly would have resulted quickly in World War III (a U.S.-versus-Russia war) (since Russia wouldn’t accept the U.S. shooting down Russia’s planes over Syria), but it’s close to being as stupid as that.

If America’s political Parties again choose two such incompetents as Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, as being the final contenders for occupying the most powerful post on this planet, then what chance is there that civilization won’t be destroyed in fairly short order? The only U.S. Presidential candidate who is campaigning upon the theme of “no more regime-change wars” is the Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, and her polling-numbers from registered Democratic Party voters are below 1%; so, anyone who in such a world as this, is willingly bringing new children into the world, has to be either uninformed or else unconcerned about the world in which that child will be living. The likelihood of global catastrophe during the next few years is vastly higher than most people are aware. This issue is virtually ignored in American politics. An uninformed and misinformed electorate is impossible in an authentic democracy, and the future of the world is now dependent upon precisely such an electorate, in the most powerful nation on this planet.

According to the Times report, what finally swayed Trump against invading Iran was “one of his favorite Fox News hosts: Tucker Carlson. While national security advisers were urging a military strike against Iran, Mr. Carlson in recent days had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran’s provocations with force was crazy. The hawks did not have the president’s best interests at heart, he said. And if Mr. Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.”

Though that might have been, for Trump, an even bigger factor to consider than the number of only-Iranian corpses that would result immediately from the attack, it still is not denying that what Trump had asked from his advisors was only for them to estimate the likely number of deaths that would result directly from the proposed invasion. To say that Trump’s main concern is instead his re-election (such as one might infer from that passage) is to say that he’s a psychopath; and, yet, what is even scarier than his being such, is his being so stupid as to have tasked his advisors to consider, as the possible down-sides of the planned attack, only its direct and immediate negative consequences, and not the negative consequences from those negative consequences. Apparently, Trump’s stupidity poses, to the world, an even more enormous threat than his psychopathy does.

This impression is also supported from a different angle: that Trump is so stupid that he allows his staff to control his decisions. This argument was well put in an anonymous blog-post on June 19th titled “How John Bolton Controls The Administration And Donald Trump”. It presents evidence to the effect that Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, stovepipes (filters) the information that gets to Mr. Trump — Trump doesn’t get to see or hear anything that doesn’t fit Bolton’s agendas. That analysis would also explain why Tucker Carlson, who isn’t part of the U.S. Government and certainly has no power to “stovepipe” the information that Trump receives from his advisors, might have been the only way that dissenting information or analysis was able to get through to Trump regarding this issue. Bolton wasn’t able to prevent Trump from talking to Carlson or other people outside the White House. According to that blogpost, not only does Bolton control Trump, but the Secretary of State, the equally neoconservative Mike Pompeo, now controls not only the State Department but the Defense Department. If this is the case, then probably the team of Bolton and Pompeo is what actually will decide U.S. foreign policies and invasions (unless Trump will increasingly rely upon outsiders such as Carlson). The only possible hope for Trump, and for the world, would be if he fires very soon both Bolton and Pompeo, and replaces them with non-neocons. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not only stupid, he’s evil, because he’s virtually inviting such catastrophes as he luckily avoided in the present instance. That seems to be the path he is on: stupidity, psychopathy, and evil.

This is an exceedingly perilous situation, all-around. It is intolerable. If Trump actually did care more about an estimated 150 Iranians who might have been killed from his planned invasion than he cared about the follow-on millions-or-more corpses that could result from it, then he is not merely a psychopath, but an idiot — totally incompetent to serve as the U.S. President.

—————

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.6, 201June 2
6, 20199

Rep. Gabbard War with Iran would make Iraq war look like a cakewalk

May 24, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard on the US seeking a pretext to go to war with Iran

May 21, 2019

US Politicians, Journos, Activists Condemn Saudi Arabia’s Mass Beheadings

By Staff, Agencies

Human rights groups have hit out at the most recent brutal wave of punishment, revealed by the Saudis on Wednesday, in which 37 people killed.

Critics say the majority of those executed were convicted after sham trials that violated international standards and relied on confessions extracted through torture.

They also say the grisly and public punishments are being used as tools to crush pro-democracy campaigners, human rights activists, intellectuals and the Shia minority — to which at least 33 of those executed belonged to.

The mass execution was also denounced by a number of American politicians and journalists. Below are a few statements that went viral on social media:

Senator Dianne Feinstein: an American politician serving as the senior United States Senator from California.

I’m deeply troubled by the Saudi government’s mass execution of 37 prisoners, including 33 members of the kingdom’s Shiite minority. Human Rights Watch has reported that many of the confessions in two mass trials were obtained using torture and the prisoners later recanted.

I’ve called for the US to reconsider our relationship with Saudi Arabia and spoken out against the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the kingdom’s oppression of women’s rights activists and the numerous human rights violations committed by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

These latest reports reinforce my concerns. We can’t look way from Saudi Arabia’s increased use of executions, particularly when so many questions surround the validity of the trials.

Presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard: US Representative for Hawaii’s 2^nd congressional district.

Trump/Pence continue to try to hide the truth from their Christian supporters–the terrorist attacks on Christians/Christian churches in Sri Lanka and elsewhere are inspired by the extremist Saudi ideology that Saudi Arabia spends billions propagating worldwide

The tweet also had a video pointing that the Saudis have been spending billions of dollars spreading an “intolerant form of Islam,” which she said inspires terrorist groups such as al Qaeda, the Wahhabi Daesh [Arabic acronym for “ISIS” / “ISIL”], and Boko Haram.

“It’s an ideology that preaches hatred and bias toward Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists, and Muslims who are not followers of that extremist ideology,” Gabbard said. “Yet President Trump and Pence, who pose as defenders of Christians and Christianity, have embraced the Saudis, the purveyors of this anti-Christian jihad.”

Gabbard concluded her video by saying people who believe “in the freedom of religion must demand that President Trump and Vice President Pence give up their unholy alliance with Saudi Arabia.”

Ilhan Omar: US Representative for Minnesota’s 5^th congressional district.

This is appalling. We have to stop selling the Saudis weapons and supporting this brutality.

Rashida Tlaib: US Representative for Michigan’s 13^th congressional district.

Saudi Arabia’s ruler MBS tortures & executes children. Already this year, he has killed 100 people. At least 3 today were arrested as teenagers & tortured into false confessions. He killed them for attending protests! Think about that.

Bernie Sanders: US politician and junior United States Senator from Vermont

Yesterday’s mass execution underscores how urgent it has become for the United States to redefine our relationship with the despotic regime in Saudi Arabia, and to show that the Saudis do not have a blank check to continue violating human rights and dictating our foreign policy.

Nicholas Kristof: American journalist and political commentator, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist.

Student slated to attend Western Michigan University beheaded in Saudi Arabia, after attending a pro-democracy protest. Remind me, @realDonaldTrump, why are we best buddies with Saudi Arabia?

Niraj Warikoo: an American journalist and the religion reporter for the Detroit Free Press.

Mujtaba al-Sweikat, a student slated to attend Western Michigan University, is beheaded in Saudi Arabia. He had been arrested when he was 17 by Saudis in 2012 after taking part in democracy rallies, and tortured while in custody.

Seth Abramson: an American professor, poet, attorney, and author.

Now MBS has beheaded a freshman acceptee to Western Michigan University.

Kenneth Roth: an American attorney who has been the executive director of Human Rights Watch since 1993.

Among the 37 men just executed by the Saudi government was Mujtaba al-Sweikat who at age 17 was detained at the airport on his way to attend Western Michigan University. His supposed offense was attending a pro-democracy rally during the Arab Spring.

Randi Weingarten: an American labor leader, attorney, and educator.

“.@AFTunion joins the international human rights community in condemning the government of #SaudiArabia for forced confessions, torture, beatings and now execution of young student protestor Mujtaba al-Sweikat. @Reprieve @amnesty @AFTIntlAffairs”

Lena Sun: the national reporter for The Washington Post.

One of the people executed on Tuesday was arrested at an airport in Saudi Arabia in 2012 as he was preparing to leave the country for a college visit to Western Michigan University, a human rights group said. He was 17 at the time.

Steven Metz: an American author and Senior Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute

America needs to limit ties with that dark and backward despotism.

Jesse Singal: a Brooklyn-based journalist

This is an utterly horrific regime and in a world that made more sense no US president of any party would feel comfortable getting filmed gladhanding with its tyrants. Student slated to attend Western Michigan University beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

Related

• Student Slated to Attend Western Michigan University Beheaded in Saudi Arabia
• UN Saudi Kingdom of Execution

Sitrep: ASSANGE and the patriots

April 13, 2019

By Chris Faure for The Saker Blog

It is hard to believe that Assange may end up in the tender care of the vicious: those that run Washington; those that treat Venezuela with state terror; and who daily kill in Syria, in Yemen, in Afghanistan, and a dozen other places.

Shame, Shame on those that are celebrating this miscarriage of justice and attack on freedom.  Shame on Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin that bellowed:  So now he’s our property and we can get the facts and truth from him.  The Senate Intelligence Committee vice chair Mark Warner said his hope is that British courts will “quickly transfer” Assange to US custody “so he can finally get the justice he deserves.” Sen. Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, another member of the Intelligence Committee, said Assange’s arrest is “good news for freedom-loving people.” and “Julian Assange has long been a wicked tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence services” and “He deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Shame on the Patriots that are thrilled and are literally rejoicing to see Assange arrested.  Their message is the same as that of Senator Manchin.  So now he’s our property and we can get the facts and truth from him.   They are sure that taking away this man’s freedom, and making him US Property by extraditing him to the US, will force him to testify so that they can ‘lock her up’ and the swamp will be drained. Are you still slave owners Patriots, trying to make this man your property?  You like to say:  “We have the source”.  Are you now into owning others or do you truly not understand what you are saying?  The source does not have you!

You are being led up a garden path. Consider Pompeo:

Wikileaks is a non state hostile intelligence service aided and abetted by the Russians.

Read this again, slowly:  Wikileaks is a non state hostile intelligence service aided and abetted by the Russians. 

This is the administration that is trying to get its hands on Julian Assange.

What is not said in the Patriot youtubes of which I watched too many in the last hours, is that:

Assange lived in an Embassy with a Cat for Company for 7 Years to AVOID this exact same rendition.

Somehow the Patriots do not mention this or pay any attention to the violation to this man’s rights, but they dare rejoice in a rictus of a 4D chess delirium!

It will not be a friendly rendition and he will be moved with handcuffs and ankle restraints.  Is this what you want for this man?  Can you pause your rejoicing for one moment and start working to get him out of the shackles and out of jail?  Or do you want ‘her’ to walk free while you rejoice that Assange is shackled?

Have you no shame, Patriots?  Assange is not your plaything or your slave to sacrifice on your ‘Lock her Up’ Altar.  Are you such wussies that you cannot lock her up all by yourselves?  Can you not fight your fight against the Democrats all by yourselves?

Go and join the rest of the human world and work to get Assange released: https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-the-extradition

Do you not understand that if this man’s rights are violated to the extent that they are, yours and mine can be violated in a similar way, in a New York minute?  When will they extradite me for saying these things?

Do you not understand that Assange did not skip out of that embassy in joy into the loving Patriot arms to be borne on angel’s wings of innocent rendition to the US to testify of his own free will and volition.  He was dragged out against his will and is in prison – Belmarsh prison, as far as we know.

Do you not understand that this man does not want to be rendered forcefully to the US and has nothing criminal to answer for in the US?

Craig Murray writes: To support the persecution of Assange in these circumstances is to support absolute state censorship of the internet. It is to support the claim that any journalist who receives and publishes official material which indicates US government wrongdoing, can be punished for its publication. Furthermore this US claim involves an astonishing boost to universal jurisdiction. Assange was nowhere near the USA when he published the documents, but nonetheless US courts are willing to claim jurisdiction. This is a threat to press and internet freedom everywhere.

Do you not understand that Assange represents all of the rights of humankind?

And how are you going to make him testify Patriots?  Are you going to coerce him by torture?  The same as what is reportedly being done to Chelsea Manning right at this time because she does not want to testify against Assange.  Have you not thought about that?  Have you not thought about freedom of speech and freedom from persecution for no crime?

Have you not thought that the US could have given him securities of safe passage and freedom before now, in exchange for testimony?  Why did they not do this? Is this not the humane way of doing things instead of jailing the man? Do you really think keeping him in a jail cell before and after rendition is the right thing to do? Do you not think that this rendition under cover of espionage or helping Manning to break a password or ask for more information or some other trumped up charge cannot be increased by further accusations and charges? Of course they will throw their book at Assange.  Do you not get it that Mr Trump did not actually state anything about the separation of powers for a independent judiciary as the Patriots now present, but that the cock crowed when Mr Trump denied knowledge of Assange and Wikileaks just days ago? Do you not get it that the US administration wants to punish Assange for publishing their atrocities and that he is not being extradited to speak on ‘Hitlery’ and her crimes?

Yes, I hear the stories.  Bring him to the US, make him testify and Mr Trump will pardon him and life will be all roses for everyone.

Pardon him for what?  He does not need to be pardoned.  He needs to be set free.

Understanding the timing issues is also necessary.  Theresa May is hanging by a thread.  It was necessary for these authorities to move now against Assange, as the risk of Corbyn taking over is too big. Corbyn would just let the man Assange go free as he said.  Understanding that the Ecuadorian elites were rewarded with a massive IMF loan for their help in this issue, is also necessary. They were bribed and paid off with ‘the Benjamins’ baby!. It stinks to high heaven and yet, the Patriots rejoice and forget this piece.

Note that the usual dehumanization methods are being used against Assange now, to soften up the population to think he was just a dirty and messy filthy person that nobody would want to have around.  We did not see or hear any of this with the former Ecuadorian President, Rafael Correa.  Note, that this former president was devastatingly clear in stating what Ecuador did in inviting British Law Enforcers into the Ecuadorian embassy, but I cannot give you a direct quote because they cut off his Facebook account and made him unable to comment.  Does this sound fine to you? Do you realize that just a year ago, one of the Wikileaks reporters was killed?  Do you get it that in Ecuador another Wikileaks reporter has just been arrested?

Does this all portray to you a sweet and innocent rendition of Assange to the US where he will be put into a summer-camp jail and not coerced at all?

Assange should be freed to continue his work and so far the proceedings create a dark precedent that affects us all. Tulsi Gabbard has it right.

Assange Arrest: The message is clear. To journalists and all Americans, if you try to take away our power, you will pay a high price.

Tulsi Gabbard‏Verified account @TulsiGabbard

Shame on those that are celebrating and claiming ownership of this man Assange like property to use shamelessly for their own political purpose and burn him as sacrifice on their own altar.

The World’s voices are again raised in collective outrage.

Jimmy Dore:

Jonathan Cooke:  https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2019-04-13/uk-media-mps-unveil-latest-assange-deception/

Chris Hedges: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-martyrdom-of-julian-assange/

Bill Binny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=9HPs1RY1wvM

John Pilger: https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/12/assange-arrest-a-warning-from-history/

Real journalism is being criminalized by thugs in plain sight. Dissent has become an indulgence.

When will they come for you, or for me, or for you Patriot?  The extradition has to be stopped.

Tulsi Gabbard now and then

March 23, 2019

Tulsi Gabbard now:

Tulsi Gabbard then (2015):

People change.

Maybe she changed.

Maybe not.

I am deeply skeptical and simultaneously deeply sympathetic, but I reserve judgement.

The Saker

More Power to You Miss Omar

EDITOR’S CHOICE | 10.03.2019

More Power to You Miss Omar

Eric S. MARGOLIS

“Tell me who you cannot criticize and I will tell you who is your master”. (Attributed to Voltaire).

Saying anything negative about Israel has long been the third rail of US politics and media. Israel is our nation’s most sacred cow. Any questioning of its behavior brings furious charges of anti-Semitism and professional oblivion.

I keep in my bookcase a cautionary book, ‘They Dared Speak Out’ written by US senators and congressmen who all lost their positions after rebuking Israel for its mistreatment of Palestinians or daring to suggest that Israel had far too much influence in the US.

Journalists learn this first commandment very early. Criticize, or even question, Israel at your own peril. Until recently, we journalists were not even allowed to write there was an ‘Israel lobby.’ It was widely considered Washington’s most powerful lobby group but, until lately, mentioning its name was seriously verboten.

Now, young Democratic stars Tulsi Gabbard, Kamala Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a feisty congresswoman from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, have suddenly broken the taboo and said what dared not be said: there is too much rightwing Israeli influence and there must be justice for Palestine.

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have come to the defense of Ilhan Omar against the usual charges that she is anti-Semitic. So have black groups and smaller liberal Jewish groups. The Democratic Party, that once received half its financial support from Jewish sources, . Its old guard is retreating and does not know what to do beyond issuing fiery denunciations of the heretical Miss Omar. The Democrat Party split comes just at a time when it is trying to bring down President Donald Trump.

Many people seem unaware that Islam is now America’s third largest religion and may soon surpass the number of Jews. In Canada, Muslims are already the second religion.

Ilhan is not anti-Semitic. I grew up in New York and New England where vicious anti-Semitism abounded. I know real anti-Semitism when I see it. But she is quite right in charging that vast amounts of pro-Israel money have bought Congress and the media.

Sheldon Adelson, the pro-Israel casino tycoon, has given well over $100 million to the Republican Party and its leaders. This money comes from legal gambling, a sickness that preys on addicts and the unfortunate.

In the 1700’s, Dr. Samuel Johnson well defined lotteries and gambling as ‘a tax on fools.’ Such is the source of Adelson’s billions and his influence over the US political process. He is also the primary financier of Israel’s prime minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who now faces serious charges of corruption.

Interestingly, Britain faces a similar political storm. Its left-leaning Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, has called for justice for the Palestinians and a viable state for them. Britain’s pro-Israel groups and media have launched furious counterattacks on Corbyn and his allies, barraging them with false accusations of being anti-Semitic. This is utter nonsense. To find real anti-Semitism in Britain you need look into the recesses of the Conservative Party. I’ve seen its ugly face.

Israel’s brutal repression of Palestinians has sparked bitter anti-Israel sentiments across Europe. Not so much in America, where media leans far over to Israel’s side and evangelical Christians have been bamboozled into believing that a Greater Israel is somehow necessary for the Second Coming.

But young Americans, and even more so Europeans, are increasingly hearing the call of justice for Palestine. They want no truck with Israel’s right-wingers, whom many leftist Israelis, including the late great writer, Uri Avnery, brand ‘fascists.’

The prescient and courageous Pat Buchanan said it years ago: the US Congress was ‘Israeli occupied territory.’ His political career was ruined.

So was my mother’s career. She was one of the first American female journalists to cover the Mideast in the early 1950’s. After extensively reporting the unknown fact that there were nearly one million Palestinian refugees driven from the new state of Israel, she was silenced by advertisers pulling ads from the papers she wrote for and, finally, threats to throw acid in my face. Her career was ruined.

So I say to Miss Omar and the other brave ladies, full speed ahead. Damn the torpedoes. Do what is good for the world and your country. Break the hold of big money over our republic.