Yemen – Appeal to President Putin

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Dateline: 20 November 2017



Dear President Putin,

Yemen, a peaceful and extremely poor country is being slaughtered, literally slaughtered by the Saudis, with the full weapons, funding and political support of the United States of America and the UK. The rest of Europe is fully complicit, due to their inaction, due to their lack of courage to bring a halt to this openly organized genocide. Europe, in the form of individual countries or collectively through Brussels, could stand up and stop this murder, not by war, but unilaterally and by strongly requesting the Saudis, the UK, the US and Israel, to stop the bombing, to open the seaports for immediate emergency shipments of medicine and food to reach the dying from cholera and famine.

The Anglo-Zion-Saudi aggressors would be shocked in surprise, but would listen. Surprise, because it would be the first time Europe would stand for justice and against their traditional criminal and genocidal allies.

What’s Europe’s leverage, if not weapons? Trade, for example. Shifting alliances to the East, to Russia and China – to Eurasia? – It would work, but I am afraid, not Brussels, nor Germany, or France, or Italy, or the Netherlands – none of the EU countries with any weight in the corrupt EU system would have the courage to detach themselves from their own slavehood, from vassalage to Washington – and stand up for peace and justice by stopping the human misery of a helpless people.

What’s Wrong with The World? – Is humanity totally gone and we haven’t even noticed?

Dear Mr. Putin, you have had the Grandeur to intervene in Syria, for the people of Syria. Your army in coordination with Iran and Hezbollah has helped save the Syrian people, the legitimate Syrian government, from the Daesh / Isis-led proxy war they are fighting on behalf of Washington. Your intervention is bringing back hope to the millions who are homeless and refugees in their own country, in neighboring countries – and in the countries of their hangmen, Europe. They will migrate back to their beloved Syria – the cradle of western civilization – an era that today can hardly be called anymore ‘civilization’.

What is the reason for this Saudi-led proxy-war for the (wannabe) emerging Anglo-Zionist empire? It is not oil or gas. It is not fear from the Houthi ‘rebels’, who are really just defending the legitimate interest of the majority of Yemenis, to bring democracy [or plain sovereignty] to a people that has been oppressed for decades by dictators, puppets of the United States. In the first place, it is a fight for the dominance of one of the geographically most strategic locations in the Middle East, right where the Red Sea connects to the Arabian Sea, overlooking the Tehran controlled Gulf of Hormuz, where daily 25% to 30% of the world’s hydrocarbon consumption passes.

It might also be an affront and provocation for direct war with Iran. If Iran were to step onto this barely veiled trap, the entire Middle east might go up in flames - worse, in a nuclear mushroom.

Who would benefit from a nuclear war? – Nobody, as you, Mr. Putin, widely and repeatedly said. It would bring misery destruction and tens of millions of deaths – an area under a toxic cloud, maybe for decades, centuries. Nobody really knows. The Middle East might have to be cordoned off from the rest of the world, if there still is something called ‘the rest of the world’ surviving, after one or several nuclear blasts that could easily spread north, east and west.

But foremost, Mr. Putin, my plea is for Russia’s humanitarian intervention on behalf of the Yemeni population; “humanitarian”, in the true sense of the world, not in the western sense, where ‘humanitarian aid’ has been highjacked as a meaning for going to war.

The International Red Cross reports that there are one million people, most of them children, at risk of being caught in the ongoing cholera epidemic that claimed already the lives of tens of thousands of people. This is mostly due to the maliciously and willfully destroyed drinking water supply and sanitation systems. The impact is being exacerbated by the lack of medication and food. Two thirds of Yemen’s 28 million people risk severe famine – the largest famine in recent history, if seaports and borders currently blocked by Saudi Arabia are not being opened immediately to let emergency medication and food into the country – for quick distribution to the victims.

Close to 50% of Yemen’s population is under 15 years of age. This outrageous, criminal and totally illegal war is literally and figuratively killing off an entire generation of Yemenis; it is destroying the future of this country, as more than 60 % of the victims are children and women. Those that are not killed have no future – no schools, no health system, no infrastructure, no housing. The Saudi-piloted American planes, dropped their UK-made bombs on purpose also on hospitals, health centers and schools – and of course roads and bridges. Yemen is perhaps the country with the least available drinking water resources in the world – and that even before the bombing.

Having worked in Yemen, particularly in the Hodeida area for years, helping building water supply and sanitation system, the people, their friendliness and hospitality, the endless smiles of the kids watching water fountains being built – have grown into my heart. It is devastating to see the human misery caused for greed and power – for world hegemony.

Mr. Putin, saving Yemen’s population alone is worth fighting for.

Then, there are other reasons for this infinitely growing western violence in the Middle East, and of course, along Russia’s borders, encircling China with over 60% of the US Navy fleet in the South China Sea, as Obama promised by 2018; and Trump’s threatening North Korea with “fire and fury the world has never seen before”. A destroyed DPRK (Democratic People’s republic of Korea) would be another strategic entry point for aggressions and war with Russia and China. In fact, that’s Washington’s and its dark behind then scene handlers only interest in Pyongyang – building a strategic platform for aggressing the key players of the new and emerging SCO – Shanghai Cooperation Organization, that – let me repeat it – already comprises half the world’s population and one third of the world’s economic output.

It’s the Petro-Dollar. It’s the looming end of the Petro-Dollar. There is from Washington’s point of view no peaceful handing over to the inevitable Petro-Yuan. The entire US hegemony depends on the US dollar’s world hegemony – “Who controls the money, controls the world” (Henry Kissinger, 1974, the world’s number one war criminal, and close buddy of the Rockefeller / Rothschild clan). He is right. A number of countries, starting with Russia and China, followed recently by Venezuela and Iran and others may soon follow, are no longer trading their hydrocarbons in US dollars. Imagine the gaping hole this is causing in the demand of the petro-dollar – the (still) main reserve currency – status of which will also soon be displaced by the Yuan and other economy-backed currencies. The fiat dollar is only backed by thin air.

Washington will not peacefully back down. It is an iron rule, written into the PNAC – Plan for New American Century, no concessions, just make believe and deceptions – but never give up on ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’. But the world economy can do it. Washington knows it. Therefore, there is no-holds-barred in Washington’s path of destruction of every country, every regime that could pose a vital threat to the (wannabe) hegemon. – And Yemen is just an unfortunate pawn in this bloody chess game.

Dear Mr. Putin, for the sake of the Yemeni people, for the sake of humanity and for the sake of taking another crucial step towards world peace, may I appeal to you to help stop this murderous bloodbath in Yemen, help save the population from dying from disease and famine. You may do this in ways of diplomacy in alliance with China, in a first instance through the UN Security Council – which obviously is a long shot – secondly, the Saudis want to sell their future hydrocarbons to Russia and China, [which provides] a leverage for stopping the killing which is not to be discarded; and finally, if nothing works, the Russian army may repeat in Yemen their miracle precedent in Syria.

Thank you.

Peter Koenig


About the Author
 is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. 


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PETER KOENIG—Having worked in Yemen, particularly in the Hodeida area for years, helping building water supply and sanitation system, the people, their friendliness and hospitality, the endless smiles of the kids watching water fountains being built – have grown into my heart. It is devastating to see the human misery caused for greed and power – for world hegemony. Mr. Putin, saving Yemen’s population alone is worth fighting for.

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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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Does Russia Produce ‘Fake News’? Or Does America? Or Both?



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The Ukrainian coup brought back to center stage the most rabid anti-Russian and Neonazi elements in that nation, with both the consent and encouragement of Washington and its vassal states in Western Europe. The proliferation and growing influence of these russophobic and Nazi formations deepened and accelerated the alienation of Eastern Ukraine's regions from Kiev.

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The U.S. and its allies say that what started it was in March 2014 when “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” and “the invasion of Crimea” and Russia’s “conquest of land” by means of that “invasion,” sparked America’s sanctions against Russia and NATO’s military buildup along Russia’s borders; but Russia says that what started it was in February 2014 when Ukraine was victimized, as Russian Television reported it, on 13 March 2014, by:
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an armed coup. The Maidan do not appoint these people; rather, it’s the US that does it. It’s enough to look at the newly appointed officials: Parubiy, Gvozd, Nalyvaichenko are all people who followed somebody else’s orders, the orders of the US, not even Europe. They are directly linked to American intelligence. 
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In the American account, Ukrainian democracy started when the democratically elected President of Ukraine was overthrown in February 2014; in the Russian account, Ukrainian democracy ended when the democratically elected President of Ukraine was overthrown in February 2014, and only after (and in response to) that, did two regions (Crimea and Donbass, both of which had voted more than 75% for that man) break away from, and refuse to be governed by, the newly installed Ukrainian Government, which was now being imposed upon them. 
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For nearly three years now, there has been this ‘debate’; but, there has actually been no debate at all, because the media on the two sides, have different alleged ‘historical’ accounts of what the cause of the ‘New Cold War’ is. The people on the two sides disagree about history (was it a coup that had occurred in Ukraine in February 2014, or was it instead a revolution?), and not only about the news. Fake ‘news’ isn’t the only issue here; fake ‘history’ also is.
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This is an exceedingly dangerous situation to exist between the two nuclear superpowers, because it goes deeper than mere semantics (‘coup’ or else ‘revolution’) to the real evidence, to reality. One side or the other is — or else both sides are — simply ignoring crucial evidence, in this case. This could produce nuclear Armageddon. There are two mutually contradictory accounts of the history, which have been continuing unchanged for nearly three years already, and the only way that the problem is being dealt with is by there continuing to be no public adjudication of the issue on the basis of the wealth of incontrovertible evidence that exists (including crucial leaked phone-conversations such as this and this) regarding this incredibly important matter.
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Was the precipitating event Obama’s ‘coup’ in February 2014, or was it instead Putin’s ‘invasion’ in March 2014? Western media don’t, at all, use the term “coup” to refer to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, but Russian media do.
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[dropcap]O[/dropcap]n Saturday, October 28th, the RT (Russian Television) website used the word “coup” to refer to the overthrow and replacement that occurred in February 2014 of Ukraine’s Government. In the U.S. and its allied countries, that replacement of the Ukrainian Government is instead called a “democratic revolution” or “2014 Ukrainian revolution” or “Uprising in Ukraine”, referring to it as a supposedly not-CIA-organized operation (though the Obama Administration had actually started planning it in 2011). The U.S.-backed article “Uprising in Ukraine” described this Governmental overthrow as follows (which provides a good summary of the official U.S.-and-allied ‘news’media’s account of what had happened):
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Three acts unfolded on the Maidan. First came the citizen protests. Then, the brutal government crackdown. And finally, after the first guy was killed on Hrushevsky Street, what I call “the Maidan of dignity.” At that point, it had become obvious that the people would never accept Yanukovych again. It was the beginning of his end, and the start of this journey toward Russia that is still playing out.
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The press gained freedoms under Yanukovych. But it wasn’t until 2013 that a group of us left our jobs at companies owned by oligarchs or political partisans and began to create a truly independent media. In the first months of the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych we formed Stop Censorship! to protest persecution of the press.
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Three years later, we founded the first Internet TV channel in the country that operates through donations from our viewers — Hromadske.tv, where I work now as editor in chief. The media showed everything that was happening—helping people to believe that if we all act together, we can accomplish great things.
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But the Russian media are different. They are trying to create a parallel reality. They are under Putin’s control, and he is trying to convince Russians that evil has overtaken Kyiv. The Russian people don’t have access to a free Internet, like we do. …

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Using Facebook, Nayem was one of the first activists to urge Ukrainians to gather on Independence Square in Kiev to protest Viktor Yanukovych's decision to “pause” preparations for signing an association agreement with the European Union.[9] His summons to rally on Facebook on November 21, 2013 were the start of the Euromaidan protests which led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government.[10]
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His main financial backer was actually an American “oligarch” or aristocrat, the lifelong hater of Russians, George Soros, whose Open Society Foundation and other rabidly anti-Russian ‘non-profits’ and ‘charities’, such as the International Renaissance Foundation, had pushed that writer forward to become ultimately a member of Ukraine’s post-coup parliament or “Rada.” But in that article by him, which was published at Soros’s Open Society Foundation site on 4 April 2014, he was identified at that time as: "Mustafa Nayem is a Ukrainian journalist and co-founder of the online channel Hromadske.TV.” In other words: Nayem was very successful as a Soros employee, not only before the “uprising” but after.
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Where Nayem had used in his article the phrases “the brutal government crackdown” and “the Maidan of dignity,” I thought of the event that occurred on 25 January 2014, and that was captured so well in a video uploaded that day to the Web by Russian Television, “Ukrainian rioters brutally assaulting police”, in which the terrified police, who are being beaten and worse by America’s hired masked paramilitaries, try to ward off the clubs and brickbats by means of their shields. The assault’s PR agents labelled such realites as “the Maidan of dignity,” and Soros’s Nayem parroted the phrase, for whatever trusting fools (people who don’t ‘need’ evidence) might happen to be reading Soros’s site — which is just about everyone who reads there. Those PR agents had actually been inside the Vatican (institutionally hostile toward Russia); and, in fact, on that very day (January 25th), Vatican Radio had headlined "Ukraine movement a ‘Maidan of dignity', says bishop", and Orthodox Churches, including the Russian one, were infuriated. But, anyway: this was the reality behind “the Maidan of dignity.”
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Here was a superb article by the tech journalist Carola Frediani on 28 February 2014, the last day of the coup, in which she had explained "How Ukraine's EuroMaidan Revolution Played Out Online” (because calling it a “coup” that early was too shocking even for her; she apparently still trusted the Western ‘news’media), and reported: 
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Protestors began to mobilize on Nov. 21, 2013, after the Ukrainian government suspend preparations for the EU-Ukraine Association agreement. They gathered in Independence Square (Maidan) in Kiev and used the hashtags #euromaidan and #евромайдан on Twitter and Facebook. The Facebook posts of Hromadske TV journalist Mustafa Nayem, encouraging Ukranians to gather at Maidan, received more than 1,000 shares in a few hours. At the same time, a number of independent video streams were set up, on platforms like UStream, live broadcasting what was happening on the streets.
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The demonstrations swelled on November 24 when ultimately 250,000 people took to Kiev’s streets, demanding reforms as well as Ukraine’s European integration. The first social media pages also started to gain traction: the Euromaidan Facebook page gained 70,000 followers in less than a week. As noted by two NYU researchers in the Washington Post, Facebook was being used much more actively than Twitter, acting as a news hub, as well as coordinating protests by noting the location of demonstrations, providing logistical and support information, distributing flyers for printing and dissemination, giving tips on how to behave and react to police, and uploading videos of police brutality.
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A recent independent research study conducted by Kyrylo Galushko and Natalia Zorba from the National Pedagogical University 'M.P. Drahomanov' in Kiev confirmed the predominance of Facebook in organizing the protests. According to a poll of 50 Ukrainian social media experts and Internet opinion leaders, conducted between December 2013 and January 2014, Facebook played the largest role in mobilization. Twitter came in second place, followed by the Russian social networking site, Vkontakte, which is the second most popular social networking site in Europe. “Social networking services were the leading communication feature of protesters, instrument of mobilization for taking part in different actions and establishing other forms of social support,” explains Galushko. …
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Even she didn’t recognize, at the time, that she was covering a coup. But, on 12 March 2014, was uploaded to the Web this stunningly brilliant 12-minute video showing that it was actually a coup and a very bloody one; and, then, six days later, that video was used as the opening 12 minutes of a 62-minute video which added yet more videos of what had been happening behind-the-scenes there. And, then, on 27 January 2015, a deeper layer of the behind-the-scenes operation was revealed, and I picked up on it and tied it in with the other extremely reliable evidence that was by now available on the Web about the overthrow, and all of it fit into the same picture: that of its having been a U.S. coup. On 8 February 2015, I posted “New Video Evidence of America’s Coup in Ukraine — and What It Means” and linked to this video which had been taken inside the Ukrainian Rada on 20 November 2013, immediately before the “Maidan ‘Revolution’,” in which video a Rada member, Oleg Tsarev, delivered an address to the other members, providing there a detailed description of what had been happening for months already, inside the U.S. Embassy, “tech camps” training far-right paramilitary Ukrainians how to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter in order to raise a mass of ‘democracy’ demonstrators, behind which those paramilitaries would then be able to take over the Ukrainian Government by their guns, and become the country’s new rulers. Tsarev said:
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In my role as a representative of the Ukrainian people, activists from the Volya Public Organization turned to me, providing clear evidence that within our country, with support and direct participation of the US Embassy in Kiev, a "TechCamp" project is under way in which preparations are being made for a civil war in Ukraine. The "TechCamp" project prepares specialists for information warfare and for the discrediting of state institutions [the Government] using modern media — potential revolutionaries for organizing protests and the toppling of the Government. This project is overseen by and currently under the responsibility of the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey R. Pyatt. After the conversation with the Volya Organization, I learned that they actually succeeded to access facilities in the “TechCamp" project [they had hacked into it] disguised as a team of IT specialists. To their surprise, were found briefings that were held on peculiarities of modern media. American instructors explained there how social networks and Internet technologies can be used for targeted manipulation of public opinion as well as to activate potential protest to provoke violent unrest on the territory of Ukraine — radicalization of the population, and triggering of infighting. American instructors show examples of successful use of social networks to organize protests in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. “Tech Camp” representatives currently hold conferences throughout Ukraine. A total of five events have been held so far. About 300 people have been trained as operatives, who are now active throughout Ukraine. The last conference took place on 14 and 14 November 2013, in the heart of Kiev, inside the US Embassy!
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That article also described Tsarev’s background, and his past and subsequent enormous courage, risking his life and losing his fortune, to protect Ukraine’s democracy — and, then, failing that, to help Donbass to protect itself from the new Ukraine’s ethnic-cleansing operation. I furthermore noted there:
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The U.S. Embassy in Kiev had even posted in Spring of 2013 an announcement of its "Tech Camps." Here is an announcement from the Embassy in Ukraine, on 1 March 2013, titled, “U.S. Embassy Hosted TechCamp Kyiv 2.0 to Build Technological Capacity of Civil Society.” (That Ambassador is now our Ambassador to Russia.)
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This new evidence from Tsarev, piled on top of all the other evidence that already proved the assertion by the founder of the “private CIA” firm Stratfor, that the overthrow of Yanukovych was “the most blatant coup in history,” simply cements the reality, that all of the sanctions against Russia, and all of the “me too” statements supporting Obama’s coup and ethnic cleansing in Ukraine, by David Cameron, Stephen Harper, and Obama’s other co-nazis, are abominations, which should be loudly condemned by all decent persons in all countries. The aggressor here is Obama, not Putin; and NATO must end, now: all decent nations should quit it ASAP. (War crimes trials against Obama and his agents should follow. After all: these people are bringing the world closer to a nuclear war than has been the case since 1962, and there is no decent reason for it.)
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Subsequently, on 17 September 2016, I traced the origin of the February 2014 coup back farther, to a meeting that had occurred on 23 June 2011 between Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, Google’s Eric Schmidt, and the Hillary Clinton U.S. State Department’s Jared Cohen (now hired by Google), in which Schmidt and Cohen drilled Assange for tips on how to use social media to foment a revolution, and Assange didn’t figure out till later, that they were planning both the Arab Spring operations and the takeover of Ukraine. On 23 October 2014 Assange headlined “Google Is Not What It Seems”, and called Cohen “Google’s ‘director of regime change’.” Assange also explained his disillusionment: “I began [prior to meeting Schmidt] to think of Schmidt as a brilliant but politically hapless Californian tech billionaire who had been exploited by the very U.S. foreign-policy types he had collected to act as translators between himself and official Washington — a West Coast–East Coast illustration of the principal-agent dilemma. I was wrong.”
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The great investigative historian Nafeez Ahmed took that insight even farther, in his stunning 22 January 2015 “How the CIA made Google”, which tells, in remarkable detail, the origin of the military-industrial complex’s takeover of the then-emerging digital economy — the internet, Google, the ‘news’media, and, more broadly, of Americans’ emerging fascism-accepting political attitudes and beliefs — the manipulation of the public mind (mass mind-control), starting with the mathematician William Perry’s service as U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton. Whereas the anodyne CIA-edited Wikipedia article on Perry presents him by deceptive phrases such as “Perry did everything he could to improve relations with Moscow,” and ignores the deeper reality to the exact contrary (which followed through on President G.H.W. Bush’s lie issued on 24 February 1990), Ahmed recognizes this deeper reality (which I documented at the present link). Perry was doing everything he could — and not just in the former Yugoslavia — to expand America’s empire right up to Russia’s borders.
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On 3 January 2015, I submitted to all U.S. newsmedia, for them to consider for possible publication, a news-report that opened:
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Eric Zuesse
The Czech Republic’s President Milos Zeman said, in an interview, in the January 3rd edition of Prague’s daily newspaper Pravo, that Czechs who think of the overthrow of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych, on 22 February 2014, as having been like Czechoslovakia’s authentically democratic “Velvet Revolution” are seeing it in a profoundly false light, because, (as Russian Television translated his statement into English) "Maidan was not a democratic revolution.” He said that this is the reason why Ukraine now is in a condition of “civil war,” in which the residents of the Donbass region in Ukraine’s southeast have broken away from the Ukrainian Government.
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He furthermore said that, "Judging by some of the statements of Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, I think that he is rather a prime minister of war because he does not want a peaceful solution, as recommended by the European Union (EU), but instead prefers to use force.”
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He added, by way of contrast to Yatsenyuk, the possibility that Ukraine’s President, Petro Poroshenko “might be a man of peace.” So: though Zeman held out no such hope regarding Yatsenyuk (who was Obama’s choice to lead Ukraine), he did for Poroshenko (who wasn’t Obama’s choice, but who became Ukraine’s President despite Obama’s having wanted Yatsenyuk’s sponsor, the hyper-aggressive Yulia Tymoshenko, to win the May 25th Presidential election, which was held only in Ukraine’s pro-coup northwest, but claimed to possess authority over the entire country). ...
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That news-report was published at no mainstrean news-site and was rejected by almost all alternative-news sites, but was published at the following six: RINF, washingtonsblog, thepeoplesvoice, countercurrents, blacklistednews, and pontiactribune. 
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If such news-reports were published in U.S. newsmedia, especially in mainstream ones, then one could reasonably trust U.S. newsmedia, but such news-reports are not published in the U.S. (nor in its allied countries)
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Here is terrific journalism (click onto that link) from “The Saker” documenting both with video from Hromadske TV, and with links to that TV operation’s annual financial reports, that the three top funders of Hromadske TV — Nayem’s springboard into Ukraine’s Rada —  were, in order: the Dutch Embassy, the American Embassy, and the International Renaissance Foundation (mis-identified there as the “International Renaissance Fund” — this is one of Soros’s ‘non-profits’, not one of his hedge funds). That report by The Saker was dated 3 August 2014, and afterward the linked-to “Hromadske TV Annual Financial Report, 2013” was taken down, but here it had been web-archived, so that you can see and authenticate it for yourself, showing on its second-to-last page, exactly what the screen-shot by The Saker showed. Interestingly, the “International Renaissance Fund” error was in the original financial report itself. The error wasn’t by The Saker.
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That article by The Saker included the 31 July 2014 video of a Ukrainian ‘journalist’ being interviewed on George Soros’s and Mustafa Nayem’s and the U.S. Government’s and the Dutch Government’s Ukrainian TV station, explaining why “You need to kill 1.5 million people in Donbass” — arguing for ethnic cleansing there, of the genocidal type. The U.S.-imposed Ukrainian regime did attempt that, and such ethnic-cleansing started being Ukrainian Government policy as soon as the new Government was installed. On 19 November 2014, I headlined “Meet Ukraine’s Master Mass-Murderer: Dmitriy Yarosh” and noted that Yarosh had been the person who not only was very active in the ethnic-cleansing program, but he had trained the paramilitaries who had executed the overthrow, and I linked to a video of Yarosh being interviewed as a hero on the new regime’s television. I also wrote:
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As Yarosh said this past March in an interview with Newsweek, he has “been training paramilitary troops for almost 25 years,” and his “divisions are constantly growing all over Ukraine, but over 10,000 people for sure.” More recently, in October, a pro-Government Ukrainian site interviewed Yarosh and he mentioned specifically a “DUC,” or Volunteer Ukrainian Corps of fighters. He was then asked “How many soldiers in DUC?” and he answered, “About seven thousand men.” These would be his real military force, by far the biggest private army in Ukraine. So, in his private files are everyone’s individual background and skill-level as a “paramilitary,” or far-right mercenary, and they all respect and obey him as the top man. He is the indispensable person in this new Ukraine. Yarosh’s teams carry out the most violent operations for the CIA in Ukraine (including the coup). 
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Already by the time of 9 December 2014, Russian Television headlined “'They’ll try to shut you down': Meeting Assange & the non-stop 'War on RT’”, and RT’s chief Margarita Simonyan covered 5 specific ways in which Assange was predicting that the U.S. would try to shut down RT in America:
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1. Pressuring of our employees.
2. Hordes of Western media outlets attempting to discredit our work.
3. Flogging the ‘cash cow’
4. Explicit threats to revoke our broadcasting license.
5. Pressuring independent experts who appear on RT.
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Assange there scored a 100% accuracy-of-prediction; and, so, on 1 October 2017, RT headlined “‘If RT leaves the US, American media might stop broadcasting in Russia’ – RT editor-in-chief”.
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On 28 October 2017, RT bannered “Budapest vetoes Ukraine-NATO summit, says Kiev’s new law a ‘stab in the back’”, and reported that some of the formerly Russia-allied European nations were turning away from the U.S. (NATO & EU) alliance. The core of that news-report was the statement from Hungary’s Foreign Minister saying “Hungary cannot support Ukraine's integration aspirations, so it vetoed the NATO-Ukraine summit in December.” RT’s article linked to the Hungarian Government video of that person saying this. However, my Web-search of that statement “Hungary cannot support Ukraine's integration aspirations, so it vetoed the NATO-Ukraine summit in December” brings up only the RT news-report, none other. A Web-search for that Minister’s name, Peter Szijjarto, also fails to bring it up. Perhaps his statement isn’t suitable for inclusion in “All the News That’s Fit to Print”. Apparently, it just doesn’t fit; so, it won’t be printed. Like none of this has been published in America.
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On 22 August 2014, Steven Starr, who is one of the world’s leading experts on what would be the results of a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, headlined “'The Russian Aggression Prevention Act' (RAPA): A Direct Path to Nuclear War with Russia”, and he opened:
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The “Russian Aggression Prevention Act”, introduced to Congress by U.S. Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), will set the US on a path towards direct military conflict with Russia in Ukraine.
Any US-Russian war is likely to quickly escalate into a nuclear war, since neither the US nor Russia would be willing to admit defeat, both have many thousands of nuclear weapons ready for instant use, and both rely upon Counterforce military doctrine that tasks their military, in the event of war, to preemptively destroy the nuclear forces of the enemy.
RAPA provides de facto NATO membership for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova via RAPA
The Russian Aggression Prevention Act, or RAPA, “Provides major non-NATO ally status for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova for purposes of the transfer or possible transfer of defense articles or defense services.” Major non-NATO ally status would for practical purposes give NATO membership to these nations, as it would allow the US to move large amounts of military equipment and forces to them without the need for approval of other NATO member states. Thus RAPA would effectively bypass long-standing German opposition to the US request to make Ukraine and Georgia part of NATO.

Fortunately, Corker’s bill turned out to have ended on 1 May 2014 when it was sent to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and failed to be voted on even there. Corker is that extreme a neoconservative. No one in the U.S. Government can be more fascist than that. He was even more of a fascist than U.S. President Barack Obama was.
.
On 28 October 2017, the AP bannered “Corker: Possible 2020 run against Trump not ruled out” and reported that Senator Corker, who had earlier announced that he won’t be running for another term in the Senate, is now leaving open the possibility of a primary campaign to block Donald Trump from again receiving his Party’s nomination. The article said: “And any impeachment of Trump isn’t realistic today and is not going to happen, Corked added.” So: maybe the reason why he wanted not to be a Senator after 2018, is that he had decided he wants to be free during 2019 and 2020 to campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination for himself. The AP noted that, “Early this month, Corker charged that Trump had turned the White House into an ‘adult day care center’ and was setting the U.S. ‘on the path to World War III’.” But, of course, Corker was actually describing himself there (regardless of whether he was also describing the current President), and no one in the U.S. ‘news’media was pointing out this important fact about him. Corker was already running for the White House. He seemed already to be aiming to be the Republican version of Hillary Clinton who would win what she had failed to win: the White House.
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This article, like every article that I do, is being sent free-of-charge for publication, to all U.S. newsmedia that cover international issues; but, all of the major newsmedia, and almost all of the “alternative news” sites, have refused to publish any among the many hundreds like this that I have submitted to them in the past. Perhaps the reason for this is the same reason why the U.S. ‘news’media never admitted that they had entirely uncritically reported to the American people, in stenographic fashion, really as propaganda instead of as a democratic newsmedia, the lies that George W. Bush and his Administration asserted in 2002 and 2003 regarding ‘Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction’ etc., as if it those lies weren’t clear, even at that time the lies were made. How does a ‘news’media which has a record of deceiving its public into invasions, ever admit that this is what they long have been doing, and continue even now to do? Any of them that would publish the present article would be making a fundamental change-of-course, to becoming finally part of the press in a democracy, no longer part of the propaganda-operation in a dictatorship. Can a leopard change its spots? We’ll see, by web-searching the title here, “Does Russia Produce ‘Fake News’? Or Does America? Or Both?” and seeing where this article has been published — and where it hasn’t.
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Perhaps the people who run America’s ‘news’media don’t care whether they are participants in bringing about nuclear Armageddon. We’ll soon see. 

About the author

EricZuesse

ERIC ZUESSE, Senior Contributing Editor

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. Besides TGP, his reports and historical analyses are published on many leading current events and political sites, including The Saker, Huffpost, Oped News, and others. 

ERIC ZUESSE—The great investigative historian Nafeez Ahmed took that insight even farther, in his stunning 22 January 2015 “How the CIA made Google”, which tells, in remarkable detail, the origin of the military-industrial complex’s takeover of the then-emerging digital economy — the internet, Google, the ‘news’media, and, more broadly, of Americans’ emerging fascism-accepting political attitudes and beliefs — the manipulation of the public mind (mass mind-control), starting with the mathematician William Perry’s service as U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton.


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As ISIS Flees, Syrian Troops Find Arms Cache From US, NATO

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

Don't wait for this important news to be seen on CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, PBS, or the BBC. The empire and its vassals no longer have true journalists, only self-conscious careerists and propagandists selling Washington's supremacist line. 


An abandoned Islamic State group vehicle in al-Mayadin, as per photo distributed by AFP.

“We have encountered a huge arsenal of advanced U.S., British and Belgian weaponry,” said Syrian General Hasan Suhel.

The Syrian Armed Forces have discovered a large cache of military arsenal from Western countries, particularly from the United States, left behind by the Islamic State group as its forces fled the city of al-Mayadin in the east of the country, according to Sputnik.

“We have encountered a huge arsenal of advanced U.S., British and Belgian weaponry,” said Hasan Suhel, the Syrian general who led the military operation to liberate al-Mayadin.

The arsenal included rifles, anti-tank weaponry, projectiles, artillery, armored vehicles, tanks, satellite communication systems, radars, medical equipment and a garage with several functional drones. Syrian forces also found a 115 mm howitzer manufactured in the U.K., according to Sexenio, with a large portion of the armament constituting weapons and weapon systems used by NATO.

“We'll need at least six days to remove all of these trophies (the Islamic State group) left here while fleeing,” Suhel indicated.

RELATED:
Syria: US Moves to Arm Rebels with Anti-Aircraft Weapons

Syrian forces, coupled with Russian air support, were able to regain control of al-Mayadin from the Islamic State group on Oct. 14. Until then, it had been used as an organizational and logistic center, complete with an arms depot, for the terrorist group. The town is located 40 kilometers southeast of the capital Deir Ezzor.

According to Syrian and Russian officials, Syria has been able to reclaim 95 percent of its national territory. Speaking at a conference in the Philippines, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated that terrorist groups used to occupy over 70 percent of Syria prior to the Russian military launching an aerial campaign in support of Damascus in 2015, according to PressTV.

Meanwhile, one of several Syrian news sources has reported that 14 civilians were killed and over 30 injured during air strikes conducted by U.S.-led coalition warplanes flying above the Al-Qusor neighborhood in Dayr Zawr city.

 

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TELESURTV—The arsenal included rifles, anti-tank weaponry, projectiles, artillery, armored vehicles, tanks, satellite communication systems, radars, medical equipment and a garage with several functional drones. Syrian forces also found a 115 mm howitzer manufactured in the U.K., according to Sexenio, with a large portion of the armament constituting weapons and weapon systems used by NATO.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.



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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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Sputnik interviews the Saker

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

US' Plan B? From Alleged Evacuation of Daesh to the Murder of Russian General


Here is the original and full transcript of my recent interview with Sputnik (by email):

PREFACE
Having realized that they lost in Syria the US has shifted to "Plan B" to maintain control over the oil-rich regions of the country, military analyst The Saker told Sputnik. The Russo-Syrian advance in Deir ez-Zor has endangered the US plan, prompting the Pentagon to target the Syrian Arab Army and Russian military personnel on the ground.

Sputnik: Could you comment on the US recent actions in Deir ez-Zor? What could have been behind the alleged US provocations in the region?


Jabhat al-Nusra fighter (File). Part of the Takfiri infestation injected into Syria by the Americans. An international war crime by any reasonable standard, not to mention UNO bylaws and treaties.

The Saker: The US has lost the war in Syria: the good and the bad terrorists are in full retreat, Assad is firmly in power and nobody believes anymore that he can be removed, the Israelis are in a total panic mode, the Saudis are enraged, and the Russian peace initiative is backed by all the actors who truly matter: the Syrians themselves, of course, but also Iran and Turkey.  Even Hezbollah has declared victory.  This is a massive loss of face for the Empire and a humiliation for the USA.  As a result, the Americans are falling back to their plan B – that is to partition Syria, and keep control of at least some areas in the northeast of the country in order to keep US military forces (illegally) present in Syria, keep control of the oil fields east of the Euphrates river and continue to destabilize and subvert the liberated regions of Syria.  The Americans hope to achieve that by using the Syrian Kurds as their boots on the ground.  The problem with that plan is that with the help of the Russians, the Syrians have freed the city of Deir-ez-Zor and their forces have now crossed the Euphrates river.  Now it is the American plan B which looks increasingly threatened.  This is why the Americans are engaging in terrorist attacks against Russian military personnel.

Sputnik: What are the US’ major objectives in Syria and what could Russia expect from the US-led coalition in the near future? Did the US State Department really abandon the idea to topple Bashar al Assad?


The Saker: The US-lead coalition is composed of three entities: the US armed forces, the good terrorists and the bad terrorists.  The rest of that ‘coalition’ is entirely theoretical.  This means that all that the Russians can expect from such a ‘coalition’ are more terrorist attacks, more provocations.  The US State Department can abandon the idea to topple Bashar al Assad or not, this will make exactly zero difference on the ground.  Secretary Tillerson has proven himself a weak man, unable to even contain Nikki Haley at the UN, nevermind taking any effective actions against the Neocons and their allies in the US deep state.  The latter are now back in total control of the USA.  These people have a single operating mode: war, war and more war.  As for a sudden outbreak of peace, that is their worst nightmare.  The Russians fully understand that and this is why they work with everybody else in the region, even crazy states like Israel or Saudi Arabia.  At least those two are capable of making a deal and sticking to it.  In contrast, the USA are what the Russians called “non-agreement capable” (недоговороспособны).  This is why even Putin said that it is “hard to talk with people who confuse Austria and Australia”.

Sputnik: Is it possible that Daesh struck some sort of a deal with the US in order to save the lives of terrorists and preserve their positions in Syria?

The Saker: Of course!  Daesh and all the other terrorist groups are working hand in glove with the United States.  The recent satellite photos published by the Russians prove that: they are all working together and they have been doing that for years.

Sputnik: Is it possible that Washington is considering Daesh and Al-Qaeda’s affiliate al-Nusra Front as an effective bulwark against the Assad regime?

The Saker: Not anymore.  That was their original plan, but now that all the terrorists, good and bad, have been either defeated or have switched sides and are part of the Russian peace plan, the last American hope is for the Kurds.  Of course, the Americans will still be working with Daesh, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, ISIS and all of the other labels the various Takfiri groups use, but by now they know that it is over and that they will not topple the Syrian government or even conquer most of Syria.

Sputnik: If there is cooperation between US military personnel and Daesh, was it authorized by Washington or has the Pentagon/CIA taken the liberty to collude with terrorists in order to achieve America’s objectives (oust Assad, split Syria up) using all means possible?

The Saker: I don’t have access to secret US negotiations transcripts, but it is an easy guess to make that the CIA and the Pentagon have been working with Takfiri terrorist groups as far back as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  This has then continued in Bosnia, Chechnia, Kosovo, and, of course, on 9/11 when Takfiri terrorists have been used as patsies to sit in the planes which were slammed in the Twin Towers before they, along with World Trade Center 7, all brought down by controlled demolition.  You have to understand a simple but crucial fact: Takfiri terrorists are the footsoldiers of the Empire.  They are the creation of the US and the US has always tried to control them, more or less successfully.

Sputnik: Could Moscow continue its cooperation (intelligence sharing, etc.) with Washington on Syria given the US controversial actions in the region? Will the US continue efforts to disrupt the Syrian Arab Army’s advance in Deir ez-Zor, Idlib, northern Syria? And what should Russia do to avoid possible US traps?

The Saker: Moscow should continue to engage in deconfliction efforts with the USA, just because there might be mentally sane US officers in Syria who would want to avoid a potentially very dangerous incident between US and Russian forces.  But the real solution is to begin to demand a full withdrawal of all US forces from Syria as they are they are there totally illegally.  The Russians should also accept as a fact that the US will continue to break agreements, refuse to abide by the terms of any negotiated deal, and continue to support all the terrorist forces in Syria and the rest of the region.  The United States is simply unable to collaborate in any meaningful way.  All they can do is sabotage any and all peace efforts and subvert the Syrian government.  This is very sad, but this is also a fact of life.  Instead, what the Russians should do is give their fullest support to the Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah forces on the ground until they finally liberate Syria from all the terrorist forces, including the Americans.  Finally, Russia ought to work with Turkey and Iraq to prevent the Kurds from creating the next “Kosovo” with a local version of the American “Camp Bondsteel” in Syria or Iraq.

If you are interested, you can find what Sputnik actually posted here: https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201709281057790173-us-syria-daesh-alnusra/

Due to the decision by the Sputnik editors to remove parts of my replies which I consider to be essential, I have taken the painful decision not to grant any further interviews to Sputnik.

—The Saker

The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world


About the Author
 The Saker, a former military analyst of Russian extraction is the founding editor of the Vineyard of the Saker and its international editions.  

THE SAKER—I don’t have access to secret US negotiations transcripts, but it is an easy guess to make that the CIA and the Pentagon have been working with Takfiri terrorist groups as far back as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  This has then continued in Bosnia, Chechnia, Kosovo, and, of course, on 9/11 when Takfiri terrorists have been used as patsies to sit in the planes which were slammed in the Twin Towers before they, along with World Trade Center 7, all brought down by controlled demolition.  You have to understand a simple but crucial fact: Takfiri terrorists are the footsoldiers of the Empire.  They are the creation of the US and the US has always tried to control them, more or less successfully.

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




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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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Listening to The Donald at the UN

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

By The Saker
VINEYARD OF THE SAKER


Dateline: September 19, 2017 

Late this morning, outraged emails started pouring in.  My correspondents reported “getting sick” and having their “heart ache”.  The cause of all that?  They had just watched Trump’s speech at the UN.  I sighed and decided to watch the full speech for myself.  Yeah, it was painful.

You can read the full (rush, not official) text here or watch the video here.  Most of it is so vapid that I won’t even bother posting the full thing.  But there are a few interesting moments including those:

We will be spending almost $700 billion on our military and defense. Our military will soon be the strongest it has ever been

This short sentence contains the key to unlock the reason behind the fact that while the US military is extremely good at killing people in large numbers, it is also extremely bad at winning wars.  Like most Americans, Trump is under the illusion that spending a lot of money “buys” you a better military.  This is completely false, of course.  If spending money was the key to a competent military force, the US armed forces would have already conquered the entire planet many times over.  In reality, they have not won anything meaningful since the war in the Pacific.

Having surrounded himself with “Mad Dog” kind of “experts” on warfare, Trump is now reusing that old mantra about how money buys you victory and this is something extremely important.  This kind of magical thinking signals to the countries most threatened by the USA that the Americans are unable to engage in a basic “lessons learned” kind of exercise, that history teaches them nothing and that, just like all his predecessors, Trump conflates handing out money to the Military Industrial Complex with preparing for war.  Frankly, this is good news: let the Americans spend themselves into bankruptcy, let them further neglect their military and let them continue to believe that this kind of magical thinking will bring them to victory.

[Sidebar: for the record, I have met and studied with plenty of excellent, well-educated, honorable, courageous and patriotic American officers and the kind of money-centered hubris I describe above is in no way directed at them, if only because they know even much better than I how bad the situation really is.  There are plenty of highly-educated officers in the US armed forces who understand history and who know that money brings corruption, not victory.  But they are mostly kept at ranks no higher than Colonel and you will often find them in military teaching institutions and academies.  Having studied with them and become good friends with many of them, I feel sorry for them and I know that if they had the means to stop this insanity they would]

America does more than speak for the values expressed in the United Nations charter. Our citizens have paid the ultimate price to defend our freedom and the freedom of many nations represented in this great hall. America’s devotion is measured on the battlefields where our young men and women have fought and sacrificed alongside of our allies. From the beaches of Europe to the deserts of the Middle East to the jungles of Asia, it is an eternal credit to the American character that even after we and our allies emerge victorious from the bloodiest war in history, we did not seek territorial expansion or attempt to oppose and impose our way of life on others.

The only question here is whom exactly Trump’s speech-writers are aiming that nonsense at?  Do they really think that there is anybody out there who sincerely believes this?  If the target audience are US middle schools then, yes, okay.  But does anybody believe that US middle school students listen to UN speeches?!  Okay, maybe senile folks also believe that, I sure know a few who will swallow it up and ask for more, but why speak to that audience from a UN podium?  Is it not embarrassing when such nonsense is greeted in total silence instead of a standing ovation from all the putatively grateful countries out there who are so deeply grateful for all these altruistic and heroic sacrifices.  My only explanation for why this kind of nonsensical drivel was included in this speech is that it has become part of the ritual of typical American “patriotic liturgy”: big hyperbolic sentences which mean nothing, which nobody takes seriously or even listens to, but which have to be included “because they have to”.  This reminds me of the obligatory Lenin quote in any and all Soviet speeches and statements, they also were basically filtered out by any thinking person, everybody knew that, but that’s how things went on then.  It is really sad, and scary, to see how much the USA of the 2017 looks like the Soviet Union of the 1980s.

The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

Wow!  Now that is a sentence which could only be written by a person utterly unaware of the impact it will have on the intended audience (in theory, all of mankind, this is the UN, after all).  Totally destroy North Korea.  I wonder how this will be received in South Korea and Japan.  No, I don’t mean by the puppet regimes in Seoul and Tokyo, but by the people.  Will they simply dismiss it as hot air or will they be horrified.  I bet for the former reaction.  It is much more psychologically comfortable to dismiss it all under the heading “nah, that’s crazy shit, they don’t mean it and they sure as hell ain’t gonna do it” rather than think for just a few minutes about the implications and consequences of such a threat.  And let me be clear here: the United States most definitely does have the means to totally destroy North Korea.  For one thing, they already did so during the Korean war, and they can easily repeat that today.  That does not mean that they can win a war against the DPRK.  There is a huge difference between laying waste to a country and winning a war against it (see Israel vs Hezbollah).  The only way to meaningfully win a war against the DPRK is to invade it, and that the Americans cannot do, not even close.  In contrast, the DPRK probably has the means to invade at least the northern part of South Korea, including Seoul.  At the very least, they can totally destroy it.  Along with much of Japan.  I wonder if the USA decided to one day “protect” South Korean and Japan by “totally destroying North Korea”, will they be totally shocked when they realize that the South Koreans and the Japanese will turn out not to be grateful for such a “protection”?

Last month I announced a new strategy for victory in the fight against this evil in Afghanistan. From now on, our security interests will dictate the length and scope of military operation, not arbitrary benchmarks and timetables set up by politicians. I have also totally changed the rules of engagement in our fight against the Taliban and other terrorist groups.

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat we see here is undeniable evidence that far from being “real warriors” or “strategists” the military gang around Trump (Mattis, McMaster, Kelly, etc.) are either primitive grunts or folks who owe their rank to political protection.  Why do I say that?  Because none of what Trump describes as a “strategy for victory” is, in fact, a strategy.  In fact, the US has not had anything remotely resembling a strategy in Afghanistan for years already.  If it wasn’t so sad, it would be laughable, really.  What we really see here is the total absence of any strategy and, again, a total reliance on magical thinking.  Ask yourself a basic question: have you ever heard from any Trump administration or any US General anything which would suggest to you that these guys have i) a clear goal in mind ii) an understanding of what it would take to achieve this goal and iii) a timeframe to achieve this goal and iv) an exit strategy once this goal is achieved?  No?  Well, that is not your fault, you did not miss anything.  They really don’t have it.  The amazing reality is that they don’t have a goal even defined.  How one achieves “victory” when no goal is even defined is anybody’s guess.

[Sidebar: without going into a lengthy discussion of Afghanistan, I would say that the only chance to get anything done, any viable result at all, is to negotiate a deal with all the parties that matter: the various Afghan factions, of course, but also with the Taliban, Pakistan, Iran and even Russia.  Pakistan and Iran have a de-facto veto power over any outcome for Afghanistan.  This may not be what the USA would want, but this is the reality.  Denying reality is just not a smart approach to these issues, especially if “victory” is the goal]

In Syria and Iraq, we have made big gains toward lasting defeat of ISIS. In fact, our country has achieved more against ISIS in the last eight months than it has in many, many years combined. The actions of the criminal regime of Bashar al-Assad, including the use of chemical weapons against his own citizens, even innocent children, shock the conscience of every decent person. No society could be safe if banned chemical weapons are allowed to spread. That is why the United States carried out a missile strike on the airbase that launched the attack.

When I heard these words I felt embarrassed for Trump.  First, it is absolutely pathetic that Trump has to claim as his success the victories that the Syrians, the Russians, the Iranians and Hezbollah have achieved against the Wahabi-crazies of Daesh/al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/etc, especially since the latter are a pure creation of the US CIA!  The truth is that it was the Americans who created this Wahabi monster and that they aided, protected, financed, trained and armed it through all these years.  The USA also viciously opposed all the countries which were serious about fighting this Wahabi abomination.  And now that a tiny Russian contingent has achieved infinitely better results that all the power of the mighty CENTCOM backed by the Israeli and Saudi allies of the USA in the region, The Donald comes out and declares victory?!  Pathetic is not strong enough a word to describe this mind-bogglingly counter-factual statement.  And then, just to make things worse, The Donald *proudly* mentions the failed attack against a Syrian air force base which had nothing to do with a false flag fake chemical attack.  Wow!  For any other political leader recalling such an event would be a burning embarrassment, but for The Donald it is something he proudly mentions.  The hubris, ignorance and stupidity of it all leaves me in total awe…

Next The Donald went on a long rant about how bad Maduro and Venezuela were, which was terrible, but at least predictable, but then he suddenly decided to share this outright bizarre insight of his:

The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.  From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure.

Since when did Trump become an expert on political science and world history anyway?  Who does he think he is lecturing?  Yet another US middle school classroom?!  Does he not realize that a good number of the countries represented at the UN consider themselves Socialist?!  Furthermore, while I don’t necessarily disagree with the notion that Socialist and Communist ideas have often been a disaster in the 20th century, Socialism in the 21st century is an entirely different beast and the jury is still very much out on this issue, especially when considering the social, political, economic, ecological, psychological and even spiritual disaster Capitalism is now proving to be for much of the planet.  Being the President of a country as dysfunctional as the USA, Trump would be well-advised to tone down his arrogant pontifications about Socialism and maybe even open a book and read about it.

I won’t even bother discussing the comprehensively counter-factual nonsense Trump has spewed about Iran and Hezbollah, we all know who Trump’s puppet-masters are nowadays so we know what to expect.  Instead, I will conclude with this pearl from The Donald:

In remembering the great victory that led to this body’s founding, we must never forget that those heroes who fought against evil, also fought for the nations that they love. Patriotism led the Poles to die to save Poland, the French to fight for a free France, and the Brits to stand strong for Britain.

Echoing the nonsense he spoke while in Poland, Trump is now clearly fully endorsing that fairytale that “The West” (in which Trump now hilariously includes Poland!) has defeated Hitler and saved the world.  The truth is that the Nazis were defeated by the Soviets and that all the efforts of the Poles, French, Brits and even Americans were but a minor (20% max) sideshow to the “real event” (Those who still might believe in this nonsense can simply read this).  Yet again, that the Americans would feel the need to appropriate for themselves somebody else’s victory is, yet again, a clear sign of weakness.  Do they expect the rest of the planet to buy into this nonsense?  Probably not.  My guess is that all they want is to send a clear messages to the Comprador elites running most countries that this is the “official ideology of the AngloZionist Empire” and if they want to remain in power they better toe the line even if nobody takes this stuff seriously.  Yup, back to a 1980s Soviet kind of attitude towards propaganda: nobody cares what everybody else really thinks as long as everybody continues to pretend to believe the official propaganda.

[Sidebar: When my wife and I watched this pathetic speech we started laughing about the fact that Trump was so obscenely bad that we (almost) begin to miss Obama.  This is a standing joke in our family because when Obama came to power we (almost) began to miss Dubya.  The reason why this is a joke is that when Dubya came to power we decided that there is no way anybody could possibly be worse than him.  Oh boy were we wrong!  Right now I am still not at the point were I would be missing Obama (that is asking for a lot from me!), but I will unapologetically admit that I am missing Dubya.  I do.  I really do.  Maybe not the people around Dubya, he is the one who truly let the Neocon “crazies in the basement” creep out and occupy the Situation Room, but at least Dubya seemed to realize how utterly incompetent he was.  Furthermore, Dubya was a heck of a lot dumber than Obama (in this context being stupid is a mitigating factor) and he sure did not have the truly galactic arrogance of Trump (intelligence-wise they are probably on par)].

In conclusion, what I take away from this speech is a sense of relief for the rest of the planet and a sense of real worry for the USA.  Ever since the Neocons overthrew Trump and made him what is colloquially referred to as their “bitch” US foreign policy has come to a virtual standstill.  Sure, the Americans talk a lot, but at least they are doing nothing.  That paralysis, which is a direct consequence of the internal infighting, is a blessing for the rest of the planet because it allows everybody else to get things done.  Because, and make no mistake here, if the USA cannot get anything constructive done any more, they retain a huge capability to disrupt, subvert, create chaos and the like.  But for as long as the USA remains paralyzed this destructive potential remains mostly unused (and no matter how bad things look now, Hillary President would have been infinitely worse!).  However, the USA themselves are now the prime victim of a decapitated Presidency and a vindicative and generally out of control Neocon effort to prevent true American patriots to “get their country back” (as they say) and finally overthrow the regime in Washington DC.  Step by step the USA is getting closer to a civil war and there is no hope in sight, at least for the time being.  It appears that for the foreseeable future Trump will continue to focus his energy on beating Obama for the status of “worst President in US history” while the Neocons will continue to focus their energy on trying to impeach Trump, and maybe even trigger a civil war.  The rest of us living here are in for some very tough times ahead.  As they say in Florida when a hurricane comes barreling down on you “hunker down!”.

—The Saker

NOTE: This article was written for the Unz Review 


About the Author
 The Saker is the nom de guerre of the founding editor of the Saker network off sites commenting on global politics and the struggle between the empire and Russia and its allies.  

THE SAKER—This short sentence contains the key to unlock the reason behind the fact that while the US military is extremely good at killing people in large numbers, it is also extremely bad at winning wars.  Like most Americans, Trump is under the illusion that spending a lot of money “buys” you a better military.  This is completely false, of course.  If spending money was the key to a competent military force, the US armed forces would have already conquered the entire planet many times over.  In reality, they have not won anything meaningful since the war in the Pacific.

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




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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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