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War with Russia: Two Great American Myths

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There are two myths which are deeply imprinted in the minds of most US Americans which are extremely dangerous and which can result in a war with Russia.

The first myth is the myth of US military superiority.

The second myth is the myth of US invulnerability.

I believe that it is therefore crucial to debunk these myths before they end up costing us millions of lives and untold suffering.

In my latest piece for the Unz Review I discussed the reasons why the US armed forces are nowhere nearly as advanced as the US propaganda machine would have us believe. And even though the article was a discussion of Russian military technologies I only gave one example, in passing, of Russian military technologies by comparing the T-50 PAKFA to the US F-35 (if you want to truly get a feel for the F-35 disaster, please read this and this). First, I am generally reluctant to focus on weapons systems because I strongly believe that, in the vast majority of real-world wars, tactics are far more important than technologies. Second, Andrei Martyanov, an expert on Russian military issues and naval warfare, has recently written two excellent pieces on Russian military technologies (see here and here) which gave many more examples (check out Martyanov’s blog). Having read some of the comments posted under Martyanov’s and my articles, I think that it is important, crucial, in fact, to drive home the message to those who still are thoroughly trained by the propaganda machine to instantly dismiss any notion of US vulnerability or, even more so, technological inferiority. 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“False Flags” Are So Common that U.S. Officials Commonly Discuss Them

“False Flags” Are So Common that U.S. Officials Commonly Discuss Them

Despite the attempt to marginalize the concept, “false flags” are so common that U.S. officials frequentlyuse that phrase.

For example, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell:

Former Director for Transnational Threats on the U.S. National Security Council, Roger Cressey:

Former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Mudd:

Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney, a high ranking Air Force official:

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (and Neocon warmonger) John Bolton:

The Washington Post notes that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved as an acceptable interrogation method

A technique known as “false flag,” or deceiving a detainee into believing he is being interrogated by someone from another country.

NBC News points out:

In another document taken from the NSA by Snowden and obtained by NBC News, a JTRIG official said the unit’s mission included computer network attacks, disruption, “Active Covert Internet Operations,” and “Covert Technical Operations.” Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a “false flag” operation. The same document said GCHQ was increasing its emphasis on using cyber tools to attack adversaries.

Washington’s Blog asked high-level NSA official Bill Binney* if he had heard of the term “false flags” when he was with the NSA.

Binney responded:

Sure, they were under deception and manipulation programs.  I was not involved in doing them; but, I did have to figure out some that the other side was doing.  The other side called them “dezsinformatsiya” and Manipulatsiya.”

The Brits have been doing this for several hundred years and are quite good at it.

Washington’s Blog asked Philip Giraldi – a former counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer with the CIA – the same question with regards to his experience with the CIA.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border

US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border

US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border

The deployment of US Special Operations Forces in Europe is never in spotlight but it is rapidly increasing. There can be no other purpose than acquisition of capability to deliver strikes deep into Russia’s territory.

The Trump administration is relying heavily on Special Operations Forces (SOF). They are deployed to 137 countries or 70% of them in the world. At least 8,000 of SOF are operating in around 80 countries at any given moment. The numbers have ballooned from a few thousands in the 1980s to 70,000 at present. In 2016, the US deployed special operators to Taiwan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. In 2006, 3 percent of special operators deployed overseas were in Europe. In 2016, the number topped 12 percent.

Much has been said recently about SOF operations in Africa, which are going to expand and intensify. Formally, they are on train and assist missions to counter terrorist threats. But one can hardly imagine the need to deploy such special purpose forces from overseas to fight terrorists in the Old Continent.

The United States increased the presence of SOF in Europe four times last year. The forces are mainly deployed near Russia’s borders, including such countries as the Baltic States, Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia. In 2017, SOF have deployed to more than 20 European countries.

In March, SOF (Army Green Berets) trained along local troops in Lapland, Finland, during exercise Northern Griffin 2017. In May, Navy SEALs were part of exercise Flaming Sword 17 in Lithuania. In June, members of the US 10th Special Forces Group trained near Lubliniec, Poland. In July, naval SOF took part in Sea Breeze annual military exercise in Ukraine.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oh Canada, Why Can’t You Shelter War Resisters?

Oh Canada, Why Can’t You Shelter War Resisters?

Deb Ellis’ and Dennis Mueller’s film Peace Has No Borders tells the story of U.S. war resisters in Canada in opposition to the 2003-present war on Iraq, and the efforts of the War Resisters Support Campaign to win them the right not to be deported.

Many members of the U.S. military in recent years have deserted and moved to Canada, where they have in some cases spoken out against the U.S. war on Iraq. This film shows us a bit of some of their stories.

Jeremy Hinzman was the first.

Kimberly Rivera was a U.S. Army truck driver in Iraq who lost her belief in the lies about the war.

Patrick Hart was also in the Army. He says another soldier told him he’d pulled the hair of many Iraqi children out of the grill of his vehicle, and that one needed to simply treat kids as speed bumps. Hart wasn’t down with that.

Chuck Wiley was in the U.S. Navy for 16 years and finally objected to bombing civilian buildings, which he says — wearing his Veterans For Peace shirt — left him the choice of going to prison or leaving the United States.

The War Resisters Support Committee was founded in 2004 and grew rapidly in 2005. Resisters sought refugee status on the grounds of refusing to participate in an “illegal war.” They were denied.

Polling found that two-thirds of Canadians wanted to allow resisters to stay. The Canadian government was much more reluctant, representing — as it does — the United States government, more so than Canadian people.

Olivia Chow, MP, said that she believed anyone resisting the war on Iraq was courageous, and that Canada needed more courageous people. Chow proposed a non-binding motion, which passed through Parliament. Every member of Parliament had to choose, said Chow, to say yes to the war or yes to the courageous war resisters.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pay Any Price, by Robert Gore

Pay Any Price, by Robert Gore

Empires get stupider and more corrupt as they age.

Why are US Green Berets, four of whom were recently killed, in Niger? Why does the US have at least 36 bases, outposts, and staging areas in Africa, located in 24 countries? Why does a website, TomDispatch, have to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get that information, which contradicts years of assurances from AFRICOM, the US’s African military command, that the US has only one base in Africa, in the Republic of Djibouti? Why is AFRICOM headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany? How does anything that happens in Niger, or most of the rest of Africa for that matter, affect anyone’s way of life in the US? Why do we say the dead were heroes protecting our way of life when the country where they died poses no threat?

From the AFRICOM website:

The United States and Niger have a long-standing bilateral relationship. Our militaries have been stalwart allies focused on working together to deter and to defeat terrorist threats in the West African nation and across the Sahel region.

A war on a tactic, terror, can provide the rationale for anything. Terror is ubiquitous, it can be fought anywhere. Anyone who uses or threatens to use violence in furtherance of political or economic ends can be deemed a terrorist. Any “terrorist” who yells, “Death to the United States!” can be deemed a threat to Americans. Terrorism will never be eradicated, so the war against it is perpetual. President George W. Bush even arrogated the right to wage that war preemptively, before terrorists actually struck the US or its citizens. And that’s how the US finds itself in Niger, its “long-standing” and “stalwart” ally that 999,999 out of a million Americans can’t find on an unlabeled map.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Iran Threatens America: If New Sanctions Pass, US Military “Would Be At Risk”

Iran Threatens America: If New Sanctions Pass, US Military “Would Be At Risk”

In the coming days, president Trump is expected to announce that he will decertify the Iran Nuclear Deal, a step that potentially could cause the historic Obama-era accord to unravel. Under the 2015 deal, Iran agreed to limit its disputed nuclear program in return for the easing of economic sanctions. Realizing the dire threat that such a move presents for its economy – not to mention Iranian oil exports –  Iran has escalated the rhetoric, and overnight it warned the United States that U.S. regional military bases “would be at risk” if further sanctions were passed or if the US designated its Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist group.

On Friday the Financial Times reported that Donald Trump is expected to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group,  as part of a new hardline strategy against the Islamic republic.

Mr Trump is expected to announce new measures against Iran, including the prospect of additional targeted sanctions, the designation of the Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation and the adoption of a tougher stance on Iranian proxies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, according to a person briefed on the matter.

“It’s an integrated Iran strategy focused on neutralising and rolling back Iran’s malign activities regionally and globally,” the person said.

Iran was not happy: “The Americans should know that the Trump government’s stupid behavior with the nuclear deal will be used by the Islamic Republic as an opportunity to move ahead with its missile, regional and conventional defense program,” Guards’ commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said, quoted by Reuters. He then explicitly threatened US presence in the region, warning that “if America’s new law for sanctions is passed, this country will have to move their regional bases outside the 2,000 km range of Iran’s missiles.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is This The Geopolitical Shift Of The Century?

Is This The Geopolitical Shift Of The Century?

Putin

The geopolitical reality in the Middle East is changing dramatically.

The impact of the Arab Spring, the retraction of the U.S. military, and diminishing economic influence on the Arab world—as displayed during the Obama Administration—are facts.

The emergence of a Russian-Iranian-Turkish triangle is the new reality. The Western hegemony in the MENA region has ended, and not in a shy way, but with a long list of military conflicts and destabilization.

The first visit of a Saudi king to Russia shows the growing power of Russia in the Middle East. It also shows that not only Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, but also Egypt and Libya, are more likely to consider Moscow as a strategic ally.

King Salman’s visit to Moscow could herald not only several multibillion business deals, but could be the first real step towards a new regional geopolitical and military alliance between OPEC leader Saudi Arabia and Russia. This cooperation will not only have severe consequences for Western interests but also could partly undermine or reshape the position of OPEC at the same time.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is currently hosting a large Saudi delegation, led by King Salman and supported by Saudi minister of energy Khalid Al Falih. Moscow’s open attitude to Saudi Arabia—a lifetime Washington ally and strong opponent of the growing Iran power projections in the Arab world—show that Putin understands the current pivotal changes in the Middle East.

U.S. allies Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and even the UAE, have shown an increased eagerness to develop military and economic relations with Moscow, even if this means dealing with a global power currently supporting their archenemy Iran.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Worst Mistake in U.S. History

THE WORST MISTAKE IN U.S. HISTORY

The worst mistake in U.S. history was the conversion after World War II of the U.S. government from a constitutional, limited-government republic to a national-security state. Nothing has done more to warp and distort the conscience, principles, and values of the American people, including those who serve in the U.S. military.

A good example of how the national-security state has adversely affected the thinking of U.S. soldiers was reflected in an op-ed entitled “What We’re Fighting For” that appeared in the February 10, 2017, issue of the New York Times. Authored by an Iraq War veteran named Phil Klay, the article demonstrates perfectly what the national-security state has done to soldiers and others and why it is so imperative for the American people to restore a constitutional republic to our land.

Klay begins his op-ed by extolling the exploits of another U.S. Marine, First Lt. Brian Chontosh, who, displaying great bravery, succeeded in killing approximately two dozen Iraqis in a fierce firefight during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Klay writes,

When I was a new Marine, just entering the Corps, this story from the Iraq invasion defined heroism for me. It’s a perfect image of war for inspiring new officer candidates, right in line with youthful notions of what war is and what kind of courage it takes — physical courage, full stop.

Klay then proceeds to tell a story about an event he witnessed when he was deployed to Iraq in 2007. After doctors failed to save the life of a Marine who had been shot by an Iraqi sniper, those same doctors proceeded to treat and save the life of the sniper, who himself had been shot by U.S. troops. Klay used the story to point out the virtuous manner in which U.S. forces carried out their military mission in Iraq.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Military’s Warning on Global Warming 

The Military’s Warning on Global Warming 

The U.S. military, which gets called on to cope with unrest tied to global warming, is taking the climate threat seriously as opposed to civilian politicians who are pandering to special interests, says ethicist Daniel C. Maguire.


It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The really neat American idea was that the military’s zest for battle would be restrained by the measured judgment of a civilian-led government. But the spreading perception internationally is that President Trump’s generals are the last-ditch guarantors of common sense in a deranged White House.

The image of the Earth rising over the surface of the moon, a photograph taken by the first U.S. astronauts to orbit the moon.

Let’s admit it. The military can be right. Secretary of State Colin Powell, a retired general, warned President George W. Bush privately against the crazy invasion of Iraq though he later betrayed his own good sense and joined the criminal conspiracy.

What the military recognizes and the civilian government does not, is that the biggest security threat, the biggest security threat our species has faced in 10,000 years, is global warming. The military doesn’t call it a hoax. The 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review calls climate change “an accelerant of instability” and a “threat multiplier.”

In October 2015 a diverse group of experts, including three former Defense Secretaries, said that climate change is “shaping a world that is more unstable, resource-constrained, violent, and disaster-prone.”

Africa is a case in point. Andrew Holland writing in Scientific American writes: “In northern Nigeria deforestation, overgrazing and increased heat from global warming have turned what was once productive farmland and savanna into an extension of the Sahara Desert. Lake Chad has lost more than 90 percent of its original size from drought, mismanagement and waste.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Race Against Time

The Race Against Time

The Race Against Time

For decades, in discussing the ever-increasing hegemony of the world’s principal governments (US, EU, et al.), I’ve been asked repeatedly, “When will the governments understand that this obsession they have to become all-powerful is not in the interests of the people?”

The answer to this question has also remained the same for decades: never.

Although most all thinking people will readily admit that they regard their government (and governments in general) to be both overreaching and corrupt, they somehow attribute political leaders with a desire to serve the people. This is almost never true.

In my own experience in working with (and against) political leaders in multiple jurisdictions, I’ve found them to be remarkably similar to each other in their tendency to be shortsighted, self-aggrandising, and almost totally indifferent to the well-being of their constituents. Indeed, it’s a real rarity to encounter a political leader who does not fit this description.

Therefore, we should take as a given that all political leaders will continue to pursue their own power and wealth, at the expense of their citizenries.

Well, here, history informs us that this is not the case. All governments will tax the people as much as they can, regulate them as much as they can, socially dominate them as much as they can, and remove as many rights as they can. However, they rarely totally succeed and, even when they do, the clock is ticking against them.

This, then, begs the question: “If they won’t stop themselves in this progression, is there no other outcome than eventual total slavery to the government?”

In 1999, I began to warn that the US military would steadily increase its warfare against other nations and would only cease their military expansion if and when economic collapse made it impossible to continue the expansion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EXCLUSIVE: Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA

EXCLUSIVE: Documents expose how Hollywood promotes war on behalf of the Pentagon, CIA and NSA

US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows

Plato’s Cave reimagined for the Hollywood era — copyright Derek Swansonn

Tom Secker and Matthew Alford report on their astonishing findings from trawling through thousands of new US military and intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents reveal for the first time the vast scale of US government control in Hollywood, including the ability to manipulate scripts or even prevent films too critical of the Pentagon from being made — not to mention influencing some of the most popular film franchises in recent years.

This raises new questions not only about the way censorship works in the modern entertainment industry, but also about Hollywood’s little known role as a propaganda machine for the US national security apparatus.


When we first looked at the relationship between politics, film and television at the turn of the 21st century, we accepted the consensus opinion that a small office at the Pentagon had, on request, assisted the production of around 200 movies throughout the history of modern media, with minimal input on the scripts.

How ignorant we were.

More appropriately, how misled we had been.

We have recently acquired 4,000 new pages of documents from the Pentagon and CIA through the Freedom of Information Act. For us, these documents were the final nail in the coffin.

These documents for the first time demonstrate that the US government has worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles.

The previous best estimate, in a dry academic book way back in 2005, was that the Pentagon had worked on less than 600 films and an unspecified handful of television shows.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trump’s ISIS Plan: Another US Invasion?

Trump’s ISIS Plan: Another US Invasion?

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Just over a week into the Trump Administration, the President issued an Executive Order giving Defense Secretary James Mattis 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS. According to the Order, the plan should make recommendations on military actions, diplomatic actions, partners, strategies, and how to pay for the operation.

As we approach the president’s deadline it looks like the military is going to present Trump with a plan to do a whole lot more of what we’ve been doing and somehow expect different results. Proving the old saying that when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail, we are hearing increasing reports that the military will recommend sending thousands of US troops into Syria and Iraq.

This would be a significant escalation in both countries, as currently there are about 5,000 US troops still fighting our 13-year war in Iraq, and some 500 special forces soldiers operating in Syria.

The current Syria ceasefire, brokered without US involvement at the end of 2016, is producing positive results and the opposing groups are talking with each other under Russian and Iranian sponsorship. Does anyone think sending thousands of US troops into a situation that is already being resolved without us is a good idea?

In language reminiscent of his plans to build a wall on the Mexican border, the president told a political rally in Florida over the weekend that he was going to set up “safe zones” in Syria and would make the Gulf States pay for them. There are several problems with this plan.

First, any “safe zone” set up inside Syria, especially if protected by US troops, would amount to a massive US invasion of the country unless the Assad government approves them. Does President Trump want to begin his presidency with an illegal invasion of a sovereign country?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Guns and Hotdogs

GUNS AND HOTDOGS

How the U.S. Military Promotes Its Weapons Arsenal to the Public

America’s wars take place far away — Kabul is 6,700 miles from New York or, traveling in the other direction, 7,400 miles from San Francisco. They also involve fewer and fewer Americans — the Army now has about 475,000 active duty soldiers, the lowest number since World War II.

This leaves the Pentagon free to promote itself to a country that largely has no idea what war actually entails. In addition to standard TV advertising and flyovers at the Super Bowl, the U.S. military spends tens of millions of dollars each year on live events that function half as recruitment pitches and half as visceral plugs for its spectacular high-tech weaponry.

Photojournalist Nina Berman has spent 10 years traveling to Fleet Weeks and air shows to document the peculiar collision between the Pentagon’s idealized self-image and the people who pay for it but have little comprehension of what they’re truly buying.

US Marines in Times Square for Fleet Week  - demonstration weapons including rifles and arriving in an armored personnel carrier

U.S. Marines on a light armored vehicle in New York City’s Times Square during Fleet Week in 2015. In the background is an ad for Shandong, China, where U.S. Marines landed at the end of World War II to intervene on the side of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang in China’s civil war.

Marines land attack helicopters, paint children in camouflage and unfurl infantry weapons, including pistols with silencers for the public's amusement with the unspoken aim of recruiting new marines. Some of the young men had just signed up to go to Iraq, Orchard Beach, the Bronx, New York,  2007

Civilians handle a pistol with a silencer during Fleet Week at Orchard Beach in the Bronx in 2007. Some of the young men had just signed up to join the Marines and potentially go to Iraq.

Applying camouflage,   US Marines event,  Orchard Beach,   Bronx, NY, 2007.

A U.S. Marine applies camouflage paint to a young woman’s face at an event at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, New York, 2007.

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Tomgram: William Hartung, What a Waste, the U.S. Military

Tomgram: William Hartung, What a Waste, the U.S. Military

Late last year, I spent some time digging into the Pentagon’s “reconstruction” efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, countries it invaded in 2001 and 2003 in tandem with a chosen crew of warrior corporations. As a story of fabled American can-do in distant lands, both proved genuinely dismal no-can-do tales, from roads built (that instantly started crumbling) to police academies constructed (that proved to be health hazards) to prisons begun (that were never finished) to schools constructed (that remained uncompleted) to small arms transfers (that were “lost” in transit) to armies built, trained, and equipped for stunning sums (that collapsed).  It was as if nothing the Pentagon touched turned to anything but dross (including the never-ending wars it fought).  All of it added up to what I then labeled a massive “$cam” with American taxpayer money lost in amounts that staggered the imagination.

All of that came rushing back as I read TomDispatch regular William Hartung’s latest post on “waste” at the Pentagon.  It didn’t just happen in Kabul and Baghdad; it’s been going on right here in the good old USA for, as Hartung recounts, the last five decades.  There’s only one difference I can see: in Kabul, Baghdad, or any other capital in the Greater Middle East and Africa, if we saw far smaller versions of such “waste” indulged in by the elites of those countries, we would call it “corruption” without blinking.  So here’s my little suggestion, as you read Hartung: think about just how deeply what once would have been considered a Third World-style of corruption is buried in the very heart of our system and in the way of life of the military-industrial complex.  By now, President Dwight Eisenhower must be tossing and turning in his grave. Tom

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Clinton Emails Reveal Google’s Role in Attempting to Oust Syria’s Assad

Clinton Emails Reveal Google’s Role in Attempting to Oust Syria’s Assad

Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.

Carter unveiled the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cyber security conference in San Francisco, saying it would give the Pentagon access to “the brightest technical minds focused on innovation.”

– From the Reuters article: Former Google CEO Schmidt to Head New Pentagon Innovation Board

It’s been observed for quite some time that Google isn’t just a private corporate behemoth, but that its executives are often times more intricately involved in U.S. foreign policy than most people would find appropriate.

It’d be one thing if this support was for a sane and humanitarian foreign policy, but we all know it’s precisely the opposite. In fact, certain Google executives have demonstrated a particular interest in overthrowing governments throughout the Middle East, which has achieved nothing but sow chaos and result in the creation of powerful new terrorists groups such as ISIS.

Two days ago, Wikileaks announced the following to the world via Twitter:


Hillary Emails: Google tried to boost Assad defections https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12166#efmAMoAbj More: https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ 

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