Vladimir Putin proves Russia’s new Kinzhal Missile is the best in the world [Video]

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The west laughed when he introduced it – they’re not laughing now

When Vladimir Putin described Russia’s latest advanced weapons in his last national address, he spoke of how Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missile blows away the competition. The western media simply laughed smugly, and a White House spokeswoman even called it cheesy. This arrogance is no different than the way the Nazi War Machine viewed the same Red Army (which later captured Berlin) as primitive, and so they laugh. Then Russia tested the Missile, proving Putin wasn’t exaggerating:

Considering what it's now at stake, America's global supremacy, and the ability to bully almost anyone with impunity, the AngloZionists must be willing to pay billions to any spy or web of spies that could betray the Russian secrets. How is Russia protecting them?

They’re not laughing now. The hypersonic missile is the fastest of its type, and has no analogs in the world according to Sputnik. No one can stop this missile. Now, who’s laughing? Certainly not Sen. Jim Inhofe [an old imperialist blowhard and tool of the corporate state] who asked Air Force General Hyten:

“If that happens, what kind of defense do we have against the hypersonic threat?” Inhofe asked.

Hyten replied, “We have a very difficult — well, our defense is our deterrent capability. We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.”

The General’s response was not exactly filled with confidence. Naturally, of course, the deterrent capability will work, mainly because Russia does not desire a war with anyone. Now She has gained a new ability to defend herself, and deter others from attacking her. And a powerful ability it is.

The Journal of Strategic Culture reports:

On March 11, the world saw the test of the new Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-to-surface missile. The posted video footage is far from cheesy. It shows a MiG-31 aircraft launching a Kinzhal carried on its under-fuselage pylons. The missile is capable of traveling ten times faster than the speed of sound and is able to hit sea and land targets as far as 2,000 km away. The MiG-31B also boasts a speed of Mach 2.83 and a range of 1,450 km, or up to 2,200 km if the plane is refueled in flight. These features greatly increase the aircraft’s killing range and allow the missile to be transported rapidly to the launch area.

The Kh-47M2 missile can handle very complex flight profiles, conducting high-G maneuvers as it goes into its terminal approach. It can carry a nuclear or conventional warhead. Over 250 test flights have been conducted this year. It would not be a great surprise to see the Kinzhal being used in Syria. Once this missile is operational, US aircraft carriers and other sea targets will become easy prey. No air or ballistic missile defense (BMD) will be able to protect sites on the ground.

The Russian defense industry has made manifest progress in recent years. It has met the American challenge and even pulled ahead of the US in the production of super weapons, including the systems capable of hypersonic flight. No other country is remotely close to being able to produce these.

And it’s not just the Kinzhal. There are other systems in the inventory of the Russian armed forces that Americans have been trying to develop on their own, but with no real success. Russia’s new Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missile, which will be put in service this year, is a good example. It poses a challenge to US naval supremacy on the high seas. Hypersonic systems are now part of Russia’s arsenal but America still has a long way to go before their versions are operational. US analysts admit this . Now America is going to have to make a real push if it wants to catch up.

The US has always touted its advantage in stealth technology but thanks to the weapons listed by President Putin, that is no longer a magic bullet that can penetrate an enemy’s defenses. Russia has made a quantum technological leap. Electronic warfare countermeasures and complex flight trajectories are no longer needed. Hypersonic weapons virtually neutralize the most sophisticated missile-defense systems.

Once such weapons are operational, this changes the whole concept of air defense. US BMD, both global and continental, has lost its relevance. Many years of effort have gone down the drain. Only the Russian S-500 can engage targets traveling at M5.0-M6.0. Air and missile defense is yet another domain in which Russia’s leadership is uncontested.

This is reality. The US may like it or not, but in this context preventing an arms race has taken on special importance. A strategic dialog is a much better alternative to a strident confrontation.

After President Putin’s landmark address was delivered, a group of US senators wrote a letter asking the administration to begin negotiating with Russia on arms control. The video footage posted by Russia’s Ministry of Defense provides evidence to confirm the Russian president’s claims . President Trump’s planned visit to North Korea in May is good news and many hopes rest on it. The problems that need to be discussed are urgent. So is the issue of the eroding system of arms control . After all, Moscow poses a far greater threat to Washington than Pyongyang. Changing its approach to US-Russian relations is in keeping with Washington’s interests. Actually, the first step was taken on Sept. 12 in Finland. Now is the time to take another. It must be done, because President Putin was not trying to impress anyone. He was just stating the facts.

This is just another example of why betting against Vladimir Putin, like trying to take down a Kinzhal missile, is never a good idea. While prior to its unveiling, the US doubted Russia could deploy such a weapon, now the United States changes their tune.

The Kinzhal is named after the dagger of Caucasian origin popularized by Cossacks.

The Tsar's son Alexei Romanov wearing a Kinzhal dagger on his belt in Cossack style.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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Boris Johnson’s Putin-Hitler comparison is a provocation too far

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Dateline: 22 Mar, 2018

Boris Johnson’s latest outburst, comparing the upcoming World Cup in Russia to the 1936 Berlin Olympics under Hitler, is a provocation too far.

Appearing in front of a Commons Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, the UK foreign secretary enthusiastically took up the outrageous assertion made by Labour backbench MP Ian Austin that “Putin is going to use it [the World Cup] the way Hitler used the 1936 Olympics.” In response, Johnson said, “I think the comparison with 1936 is certainly right and frankly, I think it is an emetic prospect to think of Putin glorifying in this sporting event.”

Britain’s Eton-educated foreign secretary now appears intent on singlehandedly fracturing relations between Russia and the UK beyond hope of repair, to the point where unless he is reined in, and soon, the damage he does may well live on long after his tenure in frontline British politics comes to an end.

Comparing Russia to Nazi Germany is ‘disgusting’ – Kremlin on Johnson’s ‘Hitler’ remarks

In ordinary times, such a deranged outburst, tantamount to an insult directed not only at the Russian government but the Russian people in its entirety, would see the foreign secretary sacked. However, these are not ordinary times, and given the rolling thunder of Russophobia that has been unleashed across the UK’s political and media landscape of late, open season on Russia has been declared up to and including the willful and unconscionable distortion of history.

Russia’s role in defeating Hitler in World War II, the role of the Russian people in liberating Europe from the scourge of fascism, is an objective and unalterable fact. It is a role acknowledged by none other than Britain’s wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Boris Johnson’s supposed political hero.

During a statement to the House of Commons on August 2 1944, the very same House of Commons in which Boris Johnson now sits, Churchill said: “It is the Russian armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army. In the air and on the oceans we could maintain our place, but there was no force in the world which could have been called into being… that would have been able to maul and break the German army unless it had been subjected to the terrible slaughter and manhandling that has fallen to it through the strength of the Russian Soviet armies.”

Twenty-seven million dead tells its own story when it comes to Russia’s sacrifice in the struggle to defeat Hitler. It is a sacrifice that renders Johnson’s studied insult in comparing the upcoming World Cup in Russia to the Berlin Olympics of 1936 well-nigh unforgivable. Moreover, Johnson’s statement was made as part of a campaign to sabotage the upcoming World Cup – a campaign that is now well underway in the UK – thus making it all the more contemptible.

Though he and they may not succeed in sabotaging the World Cup, the foreign secretary may well have succeeded in making it difficult for England fans to attend, what with his invective guaranteed to whip up anti-English sentiment in Russia.

Putin’s World Cup is like Hitler’s 1936 Olympics – Boris Johnson (VIDEO)

From the moment Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in Salisbury, England on March 4, Johnson has embraced the rolling thunder of open and unending anti-Russia invective unleashed in response, in process of which we have borne witness to nineteenth century Russophobic tropes being peddled by the country’s establishment press, dredged from a swamp of British jingoism and racism. This is despite the fact that as yet not one shred of concrete evidence has been adduced in support of the accusation that culpability for the attack lies at the door of the Kremlin.

Indeed, with the investigation into this crime still ongoing, the only people who are certain of Russian state involvement is a political class in Britain that is acting not in the interests the British public but instead the interests of the country’s aforementioned establishment press, combined and in cooperation with a murky and evermore influential network of neocon think tanks. They have, it is clear, bounced a pusillanimous British government mired in crisis over Brexit, and therefore susceptible to the malign influence of the most extreme anti-Russia elements within the media, into making a grievously premature claim of Russian state culpability in the Skripal case.

Finally, indulging Boris Johnson’s foray into the sporting history of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, we direct the foreign secretary to 1938, two years after the Berlin Olympics – a Berlin Olympics which en passant Moscow boycotted unlike Great Britain – at a time when the British government and ruling class, with few exceptions, were mired in the appeasement of Hitler’s fascist regime.

It was a shameful period in the country’s history, culminating in Britain colluding in the fascist dictator’s expansionist ambitions in Europe with regard to his desire to annex Czechoslovakia. This collusion was enshrined in the Munich Agreement, reached in conjunction with France and fascist Italy on 30 September 1938.

Fearing Russia 101: UK news service for kids says Putin may be ‘most dangerous leader since Hitler’

In May of the same year, England’s national soccer team had travelled to Berlin to play a friendly against Germany. As both teams lined up for the usual pre-match rituals, the England players, under instruction from the UK Foreign Office, gave a Nazi salute. England won the match, but Hitler won something far more important: cultural and sporting recognition of the barbarous master race ideology that was to lead to the death of tens of millions across Europe and beyond over the succeeding decade.

That Putin is not Hitler and Russia is not Nazi Germany goes without saying. What remains in doubt is whether Boris Johnson and his ilk are dangerous clowns or fanatical ideologues in whose eyes Russia can only exist as a vanquished enemy or a deadly enemy that needs to be vanquished.

While such people may have prospered in British political life in 1818, in 2018 they have no business occupying positions of responsibility and leadership in frontline politics within a country that wishes to be taken seriously.

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John Wight is the author of a politically incorrect and irreverent Hollywood memoir – Dreams That Die – published by Zero Books. He’s also written five novels, which are available as Kindle eBooks. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnWight1

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It is Us

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"Americans are, by and large, an astoundingly mean spirited people. At least white America. Snarky, snide, suspicious, vainglorious and provincial; THAT is the great USA, as well as Puritanical, prudish, narcissistic, and generally xenophobic..."

The flag—chauvinism—is usually the first conditioned response to any crisis among well indoctrinated ordinary Americans.

“The war mentality represents an unfortunate confluence of ignorance, fear, prejudice, and profit. … The ignorance exists in its own right and is further perpetuated by government propaganda. The fear is that of ordinary people scared by misinformation but also that of leaders who may know better but are intimidated by the political costs of speaking out on such a heavily moralized and charged issue.”— Gabor Mate

The manufacturing of Russia as the arch enemy of not just the U.S. but mankind in general has reached levels of absurdity and pathology. This is all sort of obvious, though, I think. The yellow journalism of the creepy Max Boot at the New York Times is emblematic of the current toxic demand for war. I do wonder what these people are thinking. I mean do they know something I don’t? And the list of propagandists, both in media and governments throughout the west, is quite long. In fact finding someone who objects to this war mongering is much harder. There are some, of course, but they are largely invisible in mainstream media.

What does the ruling class want? Almost every major government official who propagates the anti Russia rhetoric is wealthy. Or at least affluent. Why do they want to promote conflict? To make more money? If so, what can that extra money buy them? What does John Bolton not have that he wants? What does Rachel Maddow want that she can’t afford? This has always troubled me. When I ask such questions I usually get an answer like “they want power” or “they want control;”. But why? What does more power bring you? The ability to create institutions in your own image, in accordance with your ideological leanings? Is that it? If this is correct, for some, what does being able to shape institutional authority actually bring you? What benefits? Is it some moral demand for change? Is Mike Pompeo driven by moral or ethical issues? What do the Clintons want? Are they motivated by a moral calling? What does Chuck Schumer want, or Nancy Pelosi? They lead extraordinarily comfortable privileged lives. What would an even limited conflict with Russia or China bring such people? Are the Koch brothers concerned with the happiness of the people of the world? Of course not. They are, in their minds, concerned with their own happiness. But does promoting their irrational ideology bring them a feeling of well being? But then I am not at all sure what happiness looks like to Charles Koch. Not what it looks like to you or me I’d venture to guess.

No, the answer is more complex. It is maybe even, in considerable measure, unconscious. It is resentment and fear, it is ambivalence and narcissism. For the reality is that nobody benefits from a nuclear war. NOBODY. But tens of millions die. And maybe everyone dies.

Is this not something the propagandists know? Do they want to die? All month I’ve been thinking of Wilhelm Reich’s small book Listen Little Man.

This is why I am afraid of you Little Man, deadly afraid. For on you depends the fate of humanity I am afraid of you because there is nothing you flee as much from as yourself. You are sick, very sick, Little Man. It is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to rid yourself of this sickness. You would have long since shaken off your oppressors had you not tolerated oppression and often actively supported it.

Anyone not angered is not well. But I think many are angry, but they feel unable to formulate ways to express this anger. Dissent is an unpopular position. It might cost you work. It might get you fired. And for many, they think of their families. Their children must eat. So they stay silent. They use pseudonyms when they do protest. But it is hard to blame them, really. And yet, and yet, the world is hurtling toward extinction. In the United States there are working families living under freeway bridges and in shelters and living off food stamps. The affluent liberal in America is OUTRAGED at gun laws. And yet they are indifferent to the massive violence visited upon countries like Yemen or Libya or Honduras or Iraq. They claim not to like war but they will salute soldiers and thank them for their service. Nothing is quite so ridiculous as that ‘thanks for your service’ meme. Service to what? To whom? I really do want to know. What is being served? What good does the military do for anyone? The answer, if you ask most people, is to protect them from foreign invasion. In today’s case that means Russia. They are OUTRAGED Putin tried (or succeeded, depending on who they believe) meddling in the US elections. Are they not aware their own government has meddled in dozens of foreign elections? Or worse, have orchestrated coups and propped up dictators. Do they not know Mobutu was a US invention? Do they know their own government trained SAVAK, the murderous] secret police of The Shah? They do remember it was the U.S. who labeled Mandela a terrorist ? Do they remember Vietnam? Do they care?

Anyone not angered is not well. But I think many are angry, but they feel unable to formulate ways to express this anger. Dissent is an unpopular position. It might cost you work. It might get you fired. And for many, they think of their families. Their children must eat. So they stay silent. They use pseudonyms when they do protest. But it is hard to blame them, really. And yet, and yet, the world is hurtling toward extinction.

Do they believe Muslim terrorists are on the verge of attacking America? They remind you of 9/11 …three thousand died….but that body count is about what Yemen suffers each day, and has suffered for the last year or two each day. How many Iraqis have died at the hands of the US military? Do they know what happened at Fallujah? Many are angry at Trump. Which is fine, but they are not angry at Obama or Hillary or Bernie. Do they believe Trump is some significant sea change in governance? Do they realize all his Pentagon advisors were advising Obama, too. And George Bush. Why do so many people regard US foreign policy as coherent? The answer is the overwhelming majority of Americans don’t think about US foreign policy at all. They might know of Kim Jong Il, but they know nothing of the history of US/Korean relations. And they have no idea just how extensively the CIA has funded the very same Muslim jihadists they fear are ready to break into their homes. They hear some mainstream media story, often with a celebrity front person, about stopping this or that genocide (invariably caused by the United States) and decide yes, *we stood by* in Rwanda. Or, *we HAD to go into Yugoslavia to stop the Serbs*, etc. The reality is always diametrically opposed to the one manufactured by the U.S. State Dept. The reality of Kagame or Milosevic, or Hezbollah, or China, or Venezuela is obscured and mystified. And the *white saviour* narrative remains the most popular. Posit that the third world NEEDS western help and you have a winner in the minds of most Americans.

And any opportunity to ridicule and demean other cultures, so it seems, is readily embraced. Americans are, by and large, an astoundingly mean spirited people. At least white America. Snarky, snide, suspicious, vainglorious and provincial; THAT is the great USA, as well as Puritanical, prudish, narcissistic, and generally xenophobic.

On twitter, certifiable retired general Barry McCaffrey [an old lunatic reactionary] tweeted the following :

Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that is he, for some unknown reason, under the sway of Mr. Putin.

Now this is not in and of itself unexpected but what is unexpected is the number of Democrats and liberals re tweeting it approvingly. The bourgeoisie is aligning itself openly with the most fascist elements in the authority structure of the US military. One conclusion that is reached from all this is that Trump is indeed a very useful tool of the ruling class. The sheer revulsion he elicits in most people is being harnessed, quite consciously, to the propaganda machine of the US state — it is as if the personal repugnance of Trump helps to pull focus from historical precedent and actual material policy implications to the subjective feelings of disgust Trump the man brings out in people. And I get it, I really do. Having to watch Trump and his damaged family and various hangers on and cronies on a daily basis is enough to cause a certain genuine palpable nausea. But this use of Trump is effective because of the basic fundamental narcissism of the bourgeoisie. What matters is how THEY feel. Not the death of children in Gaza, or slavery flourishing in Libya, or mass rape by the Cedras Junta in Haiti back under the Clinton regime — let alone cholera in Yemen and massive displacement of hundreds of thousands in Syria — no it is the personal *feelings* of liberal americans. They don't *like* Trump. And as I say, I get it. Nobody likes Donald Trump. Just as nobody likes Jeff Sessions. Nobody likes Mike Pompeo or John Kelley or John Bolton or H.R. McMaster, or Betsy DeVos or Jared Kushner. It is literally as distasteful an assemblage of humanity as it's possible to imagine. But then who liked Rahm Emanuel, or Joe Biden? We know NOBODY likes Hillary Clinton. But the optics were managed. It's almost as if Trump wants people to recoil in disgust. Why would that be?

Look at the United States today. In Oklahoma the corrections department came up with a new way to execute people (cost saving benefits) — they force the oxygen out of them (by forcing in Nitrogen.). This innovative new experiment in death is the result of a shortage of the usual drugs used in lethal injection. This sort of logic is apparently perfectly acceptable in Oklahoma. Mike Christian (sic), the former highway patrolman who came up with idea, is quoted in The Intercept article on the topic, as saying…one way or another “we will put these beasts to death”. I think the average person in the US has lost touch with just how barbaric and compassionless the culture is today. How insensitive and sadistic. People take refuge psychologically in small circles of friends — many of whom might in other contexts be just as sadistic as society overall– and manage the engagements with these friends so as to not have to discuss unpleasant topics.

The so called Chinese wall (sic) that has migrated from the legal and political professions to people’s personal lives. As a sort of psychic safety valve they simply ignore the rest of the country they live in. Remember that Trump’s moronic reality TV show was a big hit. It ran for six years I believe. So many of the same people who recoil in horror at Trump the President, were happy to watch, with feelings of superiority, the cartoon millionaire exercising meaningless edicts. It was kistch schadenfreude. I guess, anyway. The entire Trump political narrative is fraught with temptation to imagine just who is or was pulling the strings. Who wanted him as President? Whatever the story behind the story the fact is that the people running the United States, and these are people largely invisible to the public, operate from motivations I simply cannot fathom. Yes, to make MORE money, I get it, I get it. But this is a loaded sort of thought experiment, I understand this. Why does anyone want more than they can use or need? Let alone a thousand times more than they can use in a lifetime, or in their children or grandchildren’s lifetime. Why does anyone want to live in bizarre five hundred room mansions full of expensive furniture and with multiple swimming pools and tennis courts. What do people feel as they stroll around their estate? Do they feel deserving? Does it not occur to them that most of global humanity live in dire soul deadening poverty?

I remember Barbara Bush during a photo op tour of post Katrina New Orleans commenting about not troubling her beautiful mind about such things. Does she really believe she has a beautiful mind? So one question has to do with the subjective mind of the ruling class. The second has to do with the people who vote FOR their own oppression. Who actively support inequality. There is a new TV reality show where celebrities take part in trying to run a 5 star hotel. They don’t take part in trying to run a homeless shelter, no, for that isn't very fun now is it. Why does anyone care about who the British royal family is going to marry? But people do care, and they spend money following this sort of news. Even people living week to week, working two jobs and hanging on by a thread — often even they are consuming the same cultural product as the more affluent populace. Why are people not angrier? Why is there is not far more social unrest and open revolt? Is it simply fear? I can understand that in a nation that incarcerates over 2 million people. The last growth industries are prison construction and private security. Both relate to a growing underclass that looms as a threat to the very wealthy. Remember that the policing apparatus of the US, on both federal, state, and local levels is draconian and operates with almost total impunity. City police departments trace their origin back to *Slave Patrols*. I think many sense that it is not far fetched to imagine being arrested and then subjected to years of both custody and legal expense. And behind all this is Hollywood and the endless stream of jingoistic and racist TV and film. In fact Russia is now a plot point in nearly all TV drama. If you think that is an exaggeration then you haven’t been watching. The extraordinary xenophobia of American television is mind numbing, honestly. From shows like Designated Survivor to Madame Secretary to stuff like The Shooter or Chicago PD or SEAL Team — the message is uniform. There are no TV dramas with socialists or politically radical protagonists. No shows questioning the virtue of the military (thank you for your service). An Oscar for the portrayal of Churchill, a war criminal racist colonialist. Who wins Oscars for portraying Lenin or Toussaint L’Ouverture? But then those films don’t get bankrolled by Hollywood. Do screenwriters simply instinctively know that back stories that feature ‘tours in Iraq’ or the like as the accepted character foundation for heroism? It is breathtaking how alike most Hollywood product really is and how nakedly reactionary.

Madam Secretary—the revolting, high-handed adulteration and cosmeticization of ruling class "tribulations" as they manage the perils of a world whose messes they have themselves created. (A central point NOT explained to the audience). In a ridiculous role, beautiful Tea Leoni is really whitewashing the ugliness of all Secretary of States, especially liberal favorites like Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton. The show is another CBS pile of manure in the tradition of another popular but basically dishonest show, again, boffo with the liberals, The West Wing.

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]eanwhile the US lurches toward military conflict with nuclear powers. Conflicts that would wipe out humanity. At the least the US is manufacturing a new Cold War. Perhaps that provides a certain comfort. People are given an external enemy to hate, an enemy on which to focus their frustration, resentment, and aggression. The system encourages managed protest about issues that are themselves of little consequence. Gun control for one. Nobody talks about the MILLIONS of dead at the hands of the US military over the last twenty years. Nobody protests 900 military bases globally. What are those bases there for? Oh, to protect us….from *enemies*. The US needs its enemies. Identity issues are fine to argue about, just don't argue about class inequality. Argue about gender and racial identity. About multiculturalism but not about a hierarchical social structure where 0.0001% of the populace own 95% of the wealth. Why is there such poverty if America is so special? A bridge collapses the other day in Dade County, Florida. The infrastructure is falling apart, literally, as I write this. It won’t be the last bridge to fall down. Infant mortality is the same as that of Peru, last I looked. And Peru is seen as an inferior nation in the eyes of most Americans. Don’t raise the issue of military pollution, military rape, military economic waste, or military sadism. Funny how those photos of Abu Ghraib have mostly disappeared from the collective memory of the U.S. The 50th anniversary of My Lai passed without much comment. Vietnam is being given a revisionist re-narration. “Mistakes” were made. etc. Ask about Israel and you get a lot of either hostility or discomfort. Did Russia attack one of our naval vessels? No, that was Israel. Greg Barrett has an article out now pointing out similar realities…

The Russians, therefore, are not responsible for the destruction of the Iraqi state, for the more than one million civilian casualties since the invasion, for the massive waves of terrorism and sectarian violence and refugees entering Turkey and Europe which have resulted, or for the birth of ISIS in the US-controlled Abu Ghraib prison — the same ISIS which was formed by former Saddam military officers imprisoned there. ( ) The Russians did not join together with the UK and France in 2011 to destroy the Libyan state in a major bombing campaign which killed an estimated 30,000 civilians, following US/UK support for Libyan rebels designed to set up the “revolution” in Africa’s most prosperous nation. The Russians then did not abandon the country to its fate, which soon turned out to be rival governments and militias, a growing ISIS presence, actual slave markets where helpless refugees are sold like cattle, and thousands of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean after paying human traffickers to take them to Europe in tiny, overloaded boats. The Russians did not respond to a question about the death of Libyan head of state Muammar Gaddafi — by sodomization with a long blade — by laughing maniacally and loudly on national US television and proclaiming, “We came, we saw, he DIED! Ha ha ha!”

And on and on. It was not Russia who bankrolled Osama Bin Ladin and it wasn't Russia who supported ISIS as they targeted Assad for removal. It wasn't Russia who just helped Saudi Arabia from day one in their genocidal assault on Yemen. Nor did Russia annex Crimea, for the record (as Greg points out “unless a vote of 98% of the population to return to Mother Russia, of which they had always been a historical part until the 1960s, is considered invalid. No responsible party has challenged those numbers.”). Nor does Russia engage in assassination by drone. That is the USA. In fact most of the Muslim world (save the puppet regimes in the KSA, Jordan, and the UAE) aligns with Russia and feels nothing but anger toward the US. And the people in the streets of Jordan and the UAE et al are also aligned against the US, not with it, despite what their corrupt leaders say. Wasn’t Russia who orchestrated the destruction of the former Yugoslavia either. But the public does not engage in such discourse. It is not allowed, for all intents and purposes. The public today, in the US, knows what to say and what to believe. And they rarely go off script.

The Kagans—impervious to rabid antisemitism in their Nazi proteges, a curious if not outrageous stance that Israeli officials themselves share, just witness their silence about the Neonazi plague engulfing Eastern Europe. .

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hich brings me back to what these people want, the ones manufacturing this wave of anti Russian propaganda. Is it war? I don’t honestly know if they are that crazy or not. Some are, lunatics like John Bolton or Robert Kagen or his brutish wife Victoria Nuland. Does anyone ask during presidential debates about Ukraine and the US support for an open Nazi Party? One answer is that they want *global hegemony*. But what does that mean? Why do they want that? What does that provide for them personally? Millions dead and they get what? Power? And what does power give you? Does it provide peace of mind? Happiness? A rich sense of self worth? I honestly don’t know. Maybe I am just dense. But I have never understood the idea of seeking privilege unless everyone can have it. I don't want to fly first class if anyone is flying coach. It makes me uncomfortable. I don't feel special. Why do so many Americans fawn over the rich? Why are the wealthy so admired? I know some partial answers; I know Americans, or American white males, in particular, see the world through a lens that lumps everyone into two categories: winners and losers. On social media the other day there was a story about a man who has lived in the US for forty years but is being deported. The comments were astounding and yet utterly predictable. Men said he was a ‘dumb ass’ for not getting his citizenship. Compassion? That’s for sissies. For losers. And people wonder at the spate of school shootings? Oh, it must be guns, too many guns. No it is the psychology of Capitalism that creates such violence. Competition against your neighbour, not cooperation. Hoarding not sharing. It is a culture of violent scapegoating and stigmatizing and shaming. All reality TV is really the same show and that show is humiliation. Vicarious voyeuristic sadism.

“Your life will be good and secure when aliveness will mean more to you than security; low more than money; your freedom more than party line or public opinion; when the mood of Beethoven or Bach will be the mood of your total existence (you have it in you, Little Man, buried deeply in a corner of your existence); when your thinking will be in harmony, and no longer at variance, with your feelings; when you will be able to comprehend your gifts in time and to recognize your ageing in time; when you will live the thoughts of great men instead of the misdeeds of great warriors; when the teachers of your children will be better paid than the politicians…”

— Wilhelm Reich

“Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer.”

— Gabor Mate

Perhaps Mate is right. It is a self hating nation that internalized the ethos of Puritanism and produced Manifest Destiny. It was a slave owning nation. It was, at its inception, a genocidal nation. A nation founded on those sorts of psychic wounds is a nation that is repressing and sublimating at extraordinary rates and degrees. It is this self loathing America, the only real failed state in the world, as far as I can see, that is now a dire threat to the survival of humanity. The one core truth for me today, at least politically, is one must resist western Imperialism. You don’t have to agree with the rest of the world that resists it, but you must stand with them. It is only white privilege, hubris, that allows for a westerner, an American, to criticise Maduro, or Assad, or the DPRK. Or Iran. Yes Iran was a conservative revolution, but they are part of a bulwark against the nightmare of Western capital today. Self determination. America has never wanted to save anyone. Ever. America has always had ulterior motives. The self loathing American. The Ugly American. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

About the Author

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Reader mail: ‘I am more dangerous than a Russian!

Reader mail: ‘I am more dangerous than a Russian!’

The letter writer with his ISIS pals. “Greetings!”, he says.

As a daily journalist covering a wide range of fields, I get a lot of unsolicited emails which give me news tips, unique outlooks and recommendations.

This email below came with so many threats and oaths against my person that I almost didn’t publish it, but I think some of what was written regarding the Russophobia campaign across the West makes sense.

However, anyone familiar with me or my work knows I don’t condone terrorism or bigotry of any manner.

I absolutely will not be following this reader’s advice, but I encourage you to read his thoughts, nonetheless.

—RM

Dear Mr. Mazaheri,

Seeing as how you work for the Iranian government, I have no doubt that you fully support Islamic terrorism. That is why I have come to you with my problem:

America’s Russophobia campaign has shunted aside hysterical fear-mongering over Islamic terrorism for entirely too long. As a hard-working Islamic terrorist, let me be clear: I am not amused.

The Russophobia campaign was funny at first. It was clearly a slapped-together lie to rationalise the election victory of Trump, rather than discussing the morally-bankrupt Democratic Party. Certainly, it was amusing to watch Rachel Maddow’s nightly attempt to hypnotise American fake-leftists in to believing that Russia was the sole reason for Hillary’s loss.

As a card-carrying Islamic terrorist, I was sincerely quite sad to see Hillary lose – she’s been so good to us. I’m ideologically opposed to supporting women in power but – in my country – if you wear a suit every day…you must be a man, right?

Anyway, we Islamic terrorists would sit around our Syrian campfire at night and, rather than actually read the Koran (boring!), we would gamble big bucks about when US public opinion would finally force the end of Russophobia narrative in order to get back to good old Islamic terrorism.

I actually lost a lot of my US Petrodollar-funded salary because I failed to remember that Americans are idolaters: their idol is television, and they believe whatever it says as if it was divine revelation.

One night, quite drunk, one of my Islamic terrorist friends made a good point: “This will last until the US mid-term elections so the Democrats don’t have to address their failures at all. They’re going to use Russophobia to regain parliamentary control.”

After I had sobered up the next day I realised: That’s a good point.

But then it hit me – what if the Democrats don’t win their parliamentary elections in 2018 – Russophobia is going to go on until 2020?!

Well, such a long-term marginalization of Islamic terrorism I cannot abide! Don’t they realize my high salary depends on our popularity?

Ok, fine, I admit it: Syria has proved that I am not more dangerous than a Russian. We never thought they’d actually get involved…and they kicked our butts.

However, as you are an Iranian journalist, you are therefore also an apologist for Islamic terrorism. That’s why I am emailing you to give you some good propaganda tips on how we Islamic terrorist comrades can get Islamic terrorism back at the top of the newscast. Trump seems totally disinclined to orchestrate another 9/11 – at least not until 2020 presidential polling gets serious – so we have no choice but soft power.

Please begin promoting the follow points:

1) Does the American media not realize that 20% of Israelis are Russian? This Russophobia can negatively impact them, and as an Islamic terrorist in 2018 I obviously refuse to support any movement which threatens Zionism.

I think what is also needed is a reminder of the many advantages of fear-mongering against Muslims as opposed to Russians:

2) Russophobia can bring no imperialist benefits to the average American. Think of all the things the average American has gained from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course, the list is too long to mention here.

Russia, however, is not going to be invaded and we all know it. All the US can do is destabilise their neighbors, like Ukraine or North Korea. So, from an economic point of view: Russophobia over Islamic terrorism makes no economic sense! Why do Americans not vote their interests anymore?

3) The Russophobia campaign is only focused on Putin…but imagine if Putin dies of natural causes tomorrow? For certain, this Russophobia campaign would fall apart! Americans can’t find Russia on a map – do you think they can name Russia’s previous president? America needs – nay, deserves – a phobia which is broadly grassroots-based for a hateful relationship that is reliable and lasting.

And the US has already spent so many years building a hate-based relationship with Islam! How can we throw out the window all those bad times we spent together? Don’t leave me, baby! We can still make this thing not work, just like it used to – I promise!

And this leads to my next point:

4) Russians look too much like White people – you can’t pick them out in a crowd. A Muslim, conversely, ranges from Black to pale brunette to even redhead – you can easily justify stopping a Mexican or following an African-American around your store by citing “Islamic terrorism”. Certainly, a woman wearing any sort of hat deserves to be viciously eye-balled thanks to the security necessities easily provided by Islamophobia.

Furthermore, we all agree: this Russophobia campaign hasn’t produced the goods after all this time, so it’s just plain boring now. I almost feel bad for Americans…but what are they going to do – turn off the TV?

Islamophobia over Russophobia makes long-term economic and cultural sense – you should be doing more to make it happen, Mr. Mazaheri.

Of course, Mr. Mazaheri, you are obviously a shameful excuse for a Muslim, and you and your family belong to a sinful sect of apostates who are all consigned to the eternal damnation and will be forever boiled in sheep excrement – but I kindly thank you in advance for all your help on this matter.

Sincerely,

NAME WITHHELD

US military base, Al-Tanf Syria

About the author

RAMIN MAZAHERI, Senior Correspondent & Contributing Editor, Dispatch from Paris • Ramin is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Breaking! Another major false flag being planned by the West in Syria. Russians sound a warning.

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

Gen. Gerasimov briefing his colleagues about the US/NATO preparations for a false flag in Eastern Ghouta.

As the West is furiously hatching one false flag after another to further poison the image of Russia, and, even more dangerously, seek ways to harass her whenever her personnel or allies may be found, the situation in the world continues to deteriorate at a rapid clip, with the possibility of a major armed confrontation between the nuclear superpowers becoming a tragic reality in 2018 or not much later than that, unless the US and its vassal states change course, not likely at this point given the depravity of their ruling cliques and the miasma of exceptionalism and supremacism still permeating their brains, and the culture in general.

Thus, out of nowhere the London-Washington axis of (real) evil has come up with the latest spurious story about Russia, and naturally Putin, being the culprits for the groundless poison attack on an exiled former Russian spy living quietly in Britain, S. Skripal and his daughter. Without the benefit of even completing a preliminary investigation, politicians and media in both Britain and the US have already formed a hysterical chorus of accusers, and pronounced their verdict, the Russians did it, while PM Theresa May, who apparently has no notion of what decency or even self-preservation means, has kept busy haughtily issuing ludicrous ultimatums to Moscow. In one of today's dispatches, our colleague Stephen Lendman noted the following about this latest insult:

In response to British PM Theresa May demanding swift Russian answers to questions posed about the incident, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman (speaking for her government) replied sharply saying: “One does not give 24 hours notice to a nuclear power,” adding the “Skripal poisoning was not an incident but a colossal international provocation,” adding: Not a “single international legal mechanism (exists) to probe the Skripal case.”

Indeed. Who do the Brits think they are? One does not give 24 hours notice to a nuclear power.
Incidentally, with the West (and that includes Israel and Japan, etc.) it's almost always about the money. In this case the old refrain, "Cherchez la femme," must be updated to "Cherchez l'argent!". "L'argent" in question is the desire by Washington to scuttle Russo-German plans to complete Nord Stream 2, a new pipeline to supply Western Europe with Russian gas that, as frequently proclaimed, the US ruling circles are determined to block come what may (it's also part of why they continue to meddle in Syria).

Meanwhile, in the Syrian theater of confrontation, the US and its propaganda assets, which naturally feature the ubiquitous White Helmets, created and deployed to fill this role, along with plenty of ISIS cadre (aka "moderate rebels") are hurriedly preparing another monstrosity, a replay of the old "Assad gassed his own people!" routine, first floated as an excuse to attack Syria by Obama (2013), eventually dissuaded by prompt Russian diplomacy, (this incident was eventually shown to have been a frame-up by the West, with Saudi miscreant Prince Bandar acting as channel for the requisite money and gas supplies to the rebels). This time the plotters are clearly targeting Eastern Ghouda, a propaganda stage already pre-saturated with Western disinformation, not to mention that the American public, ultra convenient for the ruling mafia, while soaked in jingoist narratives, knows little and remembers nothing. The object is to stage more aggressive "retaliatory" attacks on Damascus, a posse likely to include the US and its coterie of accomplices, probably to include Israel and the Saudis, too, always willing to shed someone else's blood in pursuit of their ignoble ends. This time around, things risk getting out of control if Russian personnel falls in these attacks. —P Greanville

BREAKING: Russia Issues Warning to US! DO NOT ATTACK OUR TROOPS, We WILL Respond

BELOW: BONUS REPORT, BY PRESS TV (IRAN)
With US analyst John Steppling
(Which Google did not want us to present it to you all that easily, hence we had to do technical contortions to get it here). Incidentally, our colleagues at PressTv apparently confused Gen. Gerasimov (clearly identified in the first video) with Russia's Defense Minister, the capable Sergey Shoygu. Alas, not a capital offense.