State of Failure

SUBHEAD: How is it in Bashar al-Assad’s interests to provoke a fresh international uproar against him and his regime?

By James Kunstler on 9 April 2018 for Kunstler.com  -
(http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/state-of-failure/)


Image above: War Criminal Votes. Bachar al-Assad and his wife Asma at a polling place during a recent vote in Damascus, Syria. From (http://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2018/mar/19/syrias-assad-congratulates-vladimir-putin-on-natural-victory-1789486.html).

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Days after President Trump said he wanted to pull the United States out of Syria, Syrian forces hit a suburb of Damascus with bombs that rescue workers said unleashed toxic gas.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me, the old saying goes. So, tread carefully through the minefields of propaganda laid for the credulous in such low organs as The New York Times.

There are excellent reasons to suppose that the American Deep State wishes strenuously to keep meddling all around the Middle East.

The record so far shows that the blunt instruments of US strategic policy produce a consistent result: failed states.

Syria was well on its way to that sorry condition — prompted by an inflow of Jihadi maniacs fleeing our previous nation un-building experiment in Iraq — when the Russians stepped in with an arrantly contrary idea: to support the Syrian government.

Of course, the Russians had ulterior motives: a naval base on the Mediterranean, expanded influence in the region, and a Gazprom concession to develop and manage large natural gas fields near the Syrian city of Homs, for export to Europe.

The latter would have competed with America’s client state, Qatar, a leading gas exporter to Europe.

But the US objected to supporting the government of Bashar al-Assad, as it had previously with Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, as well as Russia’s presence there in the first place.

So, the US cultivated anti-government forces in the Syrian civil war, a hodgepodge of Islamic psychopaths variously known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), Daesh, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, Ansar al-Din, Jaysh al-Sunna, Nour al-Din al-Zenki, and what-have-you.

As it happened, US policy in Syria after 2013 became an exercise in waffling. It was clear that our support for the forces of Jihad against Assad was turning major Syrian cities into rubble-fields, with masses of civilians caught in the middle and ground up like so much dog food.

President Barack Obama famously drew a line-in-the-sand on the use of chemical weapons. It was well-known that the Syrian army had stockpiles of chemical poisons.

But the US also knew that our Jihadi consorts had plenty of their own. Incidents of chemical atrocities were carried out by… somebody… it was never altogether clear or proven… and Mr. Obama’s line-in-the-sand disappeared under dust-storms of equivocation.

Finally, a joint mission of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was called in to supervise the destruction of the Syrian government’s chemical weapons, and certified it as accomplished in late 2014.

Yet, poison gas incidents continued — most notoriously in 2017 when President Donald Trump responded to one with a sortie of cruise missiles against a vacant Syrian government airfield.


Image above:  War Criminal Votes. Donald Trump, with his wife Melania, votes for himself at polling place during 2016 Presidential Election. From (https://qz.com/831181/election-2016-how-do-you-write-donald-trump-in-chinese/).

And now another incident in the Damascus suburb of Douma has provoked Mr. Trump to tweetstormed threats of retaliatory violence, just days after he proposed a swift withdrawal from that vexing corner of the world.

Surely by now the American public has developed some immunity to claims of nefarious doings in foreign lands (“weapons of mass destruction,” and all).

The operative sentence in that New York Times report is “…Syrian forces hit a suburb of Damascus with bombs that rescue workers said unleashed toxic gas.”

Yeah, well, how clear is it that the toxic gas was contained in the bombs, or rather that the bombs dropped by the Syrian military blew up a chemical weapon depot controlled by anti-government Jihadis?

Does that hodgepodge of maniacs show any respect for the UN, or the Geneva Convention, or any other agency of international law?

As in many previous such incidents, we don’t know who was responsible — though there is plenty of reason to believe that parties within the US establishment are against Mr. Trump’s idea of getting the hell out of that place, and might cook up a convenient reason to prevent it.

Lastly, how is it in Bashar al-Assad’s interests to provoke a fresh international uproar against him and his regime? I’d say it is not the least in his interest, since he is on the verge of putting an end to the awful conflict. He may not be a model of rectitude by Western standards, but he’s not a mental defective.

And he has very able Russian support advising him in what has been so far a long and difficult effort to prevent his state from failing — or being failed for him.

[IB Publisher's note: We have been at war in the Middle East since 2001 and at war in Syria since 2013. As Americans we are now in a state of perpetual war in that region that accelerates ecosystem collapse and permanent climate change and mass exodus. Next stop Iran!]

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Syriasly! 4/2/18
Ea O Ka Aina: US shoots down Syrian jet 6/19/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Australia suspends Syria overflights 6/ 20/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Syria poison gas story unravels 4/18/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Source of Sarin gas attack faked? 4/14/17
Ea O Ka Aina: US has used DU in Syria 2/19/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Ms Gabbard goes to Syria 1/29/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Trump amps up war in Syria 1/29/17
Ea O Ka Aina: US shoots down Syrian drone 1/20/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Need for New Syria Policy 12/19/16
Ea O Ka Aina: To prevent still worse in Syria 10/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: WWIII has begun in Syria 9/23/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Skidding towards Syrian War 6/19/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Hillary and the Syrian Bloodbath 2/15/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Road to World War III 2/14/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Don't Bomb Syria 11/28/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Ten reasons not to overthrow Syria 11/23/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Tulsi Gabbard on Syria 11/1/15
Ea O Ka Aina: Michele won't go to Syria 9/10/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Pentagon's Syrian Blackout 6/6/13
Ea O Ka Aina: Syria a preview of 2030 6/2/13

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Syriasly!

SUBHEAD: Nature’s way of correcting those imbalances is very ugly, and easily mistaken for mere politics.

By James Kunstler on 2 April 2018 for Kunstler.com -
(http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/syriasly-2/)


Image above: Before and After photos of a street in Homs, Syria, after attempt to end terrorism there. From (https://www.pinterest.com/pin/314266880219519388).

[IB Publisher's comment: "In order to save the village, we had to destroy it." Quote attributed to unidentified US Army Major concerning Ben Tre, South Vietnam reported by AP correspondent Peter Arnett, "Major Describes Move"in the New York Times (February 8, 1968), p. 14.]

“Peace with Honor” was President Nixon’s anodyne phrase for futzing around as long as possible in Vietnam to conceal the reality that the US military was getting its ass kicked by what we had initially thought was a 98-pound weakling of a Third World country.

That was a half-century ago and I remember it now at age 106 thanks to my diet of kale and pepperoni sticks.

Not ironically, the long struggle finally ended a few years after Nixon quit the scene, with the last straggling American evacuees waiting desperately for helicopter airlifts off the US embassy roof. And now, of course, Vietnam is a tourism hot-spot.

And so just the other day, the latest POTUS declared (in his usual way) that “we’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now.” The utterance sent the neocon partisans in government into a paroxysm.

Cries of “Say What?” echoed up and down the Great Mall. Which “other people” was Mr. Trump referring to? The United Auto Workers? Gandalf the Grey? The cast of Glee?

I doubt that the average Harvard faculty member can state with any conviction what the fuck is going on in Syria.

Vietnam was like a simple game of Animal Lotto compared to the mystifying puzzle of Syria. And then, of course, once you get handle on who the players are, it’s another matter altogether to descry what US interests there might be.

One angle of the story is whether it is in America’s interest for Syria to become another failed state in a region of several other failed states.

Whatever else you might say about US policy in that part of the world, the general result in places like Iraq, Libya, and Yemen has been anarchy and irresolvable factional conflict.

In today’s world of nation-states, a central government is required to avoid that fate, and the embattled one in Syria happens to be the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The US has long militated for the overthrow of Assad, but I would also challenge you (and the Harvard faculty) to name any credible party or person who we have hypothetically proposed to replace him with.

You might argue that the Great Age of Nation States is winding down, that the world does not need them anymore, that they are the cause of too much strife and anguish.

But then you would have to account for all the strife and anguish that occupied the world when it was composed of petty kingdoms, principalities, fiefdoms, and tribes.

And, of course, following that logic you’d also have to inquire into the legitimacy of the US government — which, by the way, California is well into testing these days.

One might also propose that the battlefield of Syria, with its array of militant religious maniac armies, is just a proxy action for the tag-teams of the USA/Israel versus Russia/Iran. If so, the US has not been very clear or honest about it.

Anyway, it has hardly been demonstrated that Russia is all that comfortable with Iran extending its influence to the Mediterranean Sea.

I would take Russia’s presence in Syria as an attempt to block, or at least moderate, Iran’s influence there — which is one of the arguments for a US/Russia partnership in cleaning up the mess there.

That possible outcome has been hugely compromised by the "RussiaRussiaRussia!" hysteria engineered by the neocon warhawks of the US permanent bureaucracy (a.k.a. the Deep State).

The latest ploy by these players is the overcooked story of Vladimir Putin personally moving to poison the Russian/British double agent Skripal (and daughter) in Salisbury, UK.

Given the extremely lethal nature of the supposed poison, Novichok, and the method supposedly used (smearing it on the Skripal doorknob), it’s hard to believe that the Skripals were able to walk to the park bench where they collapsed, nor that other persons ranging from the police to the medical examiners didn’t come into contact with the substance and fall ill.

But this is the sort of cockamamie melodrama that it has come down to on our side of the gameboard.

The other part of the story worth considering is this: Syria, like other new-ish nations of the Middle East, was able to hugely increase its population in the post-WW2 era due to oil wealth (now all but gone in Syria), and other perks of modernity like cheap grains for feeding all the newcomers.

Dwindling oil revenue and severe drought (arguably induced by climate change) that caused crop failures commenced in 2006.

So Syria became a workshop study in population overshoot and resource scarcity — problems that are sure to spread around other regions of the world in the years ahead. Nature’s way of correcting those imbalances is very ugly, and easily mistaken for mere politics.

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A Matter of God's Mercy

SUBHEAD: Now that we’ve made Earth uninhabitable we won’t have to remember how it got that way.

By James Kunstler on 21 April 2017 for Kunstler.com -
(http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/a-matter-of-mercy/)


Image above: "Back to the Future's" Biff Tannen in an Adidas warmup suit and looking confused.   From (http://backtothefuture.wikia.com/wiki/Biff_Tannen). Dontal Trump is Biff Tannen - a greedy bully. See also (http://khitschicago.cbslocal.com/2015/10/21/proof-back-to-the-futures-biff-tannen-is-running-for-president/).

Paging Doctor Oz!

A patient calling itself The United States wandered into the emergency room disoriented, wearing a filthy warm-up suit, claiming it was “the greatest” this and that… but was unable to complete the nine-page admission protocol or present valid insurance ID. Patient is growing increasingly violent, threatening staff and other patients….

Nations do develop something like Alzheimers. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that for some time now nothing sticks in the national brain-pan — if that’s what we can call the news media and its analogs on the Web waves.

For months, an obsession about “Russian interference in the election” raged through the left lobe of the national consciousness. Then, about a week ago, it vanished utterly. Grandpa suffered similar delusions about the Russians meddling with “our precious bodily fluids.”

Paging Doctor Strangelove!

Not so far back as last summer, a candidate named Trump un-ironically called for “an end to endless war in the Middle East.”

The oft-applied policy of “regime change,” he said, was not working out in the various US-engineered failed states such as Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Ukraine.

About two weeks ago, I seem to recall, the State Department even declared explicitly that we had no brief for regime change in the case of one Bashar al-Assad over in Syria.

Then there was something in the wifi waves about a poison gas attack. The evidence as to exactly who perpetrated it looked, how-you-say, not altogether convincing.

This evidence amounted to the US Intel services, in their aggregate omniscience, asserting that, “yes, it was so that this weasel Assad bombed his people with Sarin.”

Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow ran so hard with the story that they vanished over the horizon.

The patient had a dream after that: a dream of cruise missiles reigning down hellfire judgment upon a Syrian air base. Quite a few of them went astray and blew up some prickly pears in the desert and a pod of migrating sea turtles out in the Mediterranean. (Thank you Microsoft Windows.)

Then the Secretary of State, Mr. Tillerson declared that “Assad must go.” The patient now was completely confused about who was coming or going. Then the patient forgot about the dream and we’ve heard no more about this fairytale land of Syria since then. Oh well….

It seemed like only yesterday that head honcho over North Korea — a character straight out of the James Bond fantasies with the weirdest haircut in recorded history — was threatening to blow up the United States.

A US aircraft carrier fleet was soon steaming around his half of the Korean peninsula. A rocket lifted off somewhere… and promptly blew up. Well, at least something blew up. I forgot what, exactly….

And now I see on the morning wire that ISIS has gone and pulled off another terror incident in Paris — one cop dead, one injured in a street  shooting.

Weren’t there other incidents before this one, possibly even worse ones? I forget. Anyway, in this case, it was easy to figure out the man’s identity (one Karim Cheurfi) because the fucker had spent 15 years in prison after being convicted of three attempted murders, two against police officers, and was released on parole in 2015.

There was some additional chatter in the wire story about the incident having an effect on an upcoming French election. But I forget who’s running. And when the darn thing is over, I’ll probably forget who won, and why.

That’s how we roll in the national Alzheimers ward. Shit happens and then is promptly forgotten. Sometimes the shit that happens is forgotten so completely that it’s like living in universe where nothing happens.

The auditors who once reported to work in your brain have left their stations — with no duties left after the smart-phone came on the scene. They are among the millions “no longer looking for work” in those BLS reports.

Maybe this is a manifestation of what used to be called “God’s mercy.”

Now that we’ve almost succeeded in making the planet uninhabitable, we don’t have to remember how it got that way, or what will happen to us in the meantime, while we’re still here.

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Homeland Security goes rogue

SUBHEAD: Federal court order restricting Trump's ban on "Muslim" immigration being ignored by DHS.

By M. Hanrahan & P McCausland  on 29 January 2017 for NBC News -
(http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-immigration-ban-still-place-despite-court-ruling-says-dhs-n713696)


Image above: Protest in Seattle against Trump immigration ban. From original article.

Hours after a federal judge issued a stay on President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily restricting entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a senior White House adviser issued robust responses, emphasizing that the order remains in force.

In a statement issued in the early hours of Sunday, the Department said: "President Trump's Executive Orders remain in place — prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety."

It added that the department will "continue to enforce all of President Trump's Executive Orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people."

In addition, Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, told the Associated Press that nothing in the judge's order "in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president's executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect."

The responses came just hours after federal Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York granted an emergency stay on parts of the order late Saturday. Her ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of two Iraqi refugees who had been detained at New York's John F. Kennedy airport.

The stay will prevent the government from deporting citizens from the affected countries that had already arrived in the U.S.The ACLU estimated that around 200 people would be affected by the ruling.

For travelers outside of the U.S. however, even those with valid visas, the ruling will not change the restrictions imposed on them by the order.

Who is affected by Trump's executive order?

• Citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations - Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and Yemen will be prohibited from entering the U.S. for 90 days.
• Green card holders from any of those countries currently outside of the U.S. will need to report to a local U.S. consulate for "extra vetting," and admitted or rejected on a case-by-case basis, according to administration officials.
• Refugees seeking asylum in the U.S.: All refugees will be banned from entering the country for 120 days. Refugees from Syria will be banned indefinitely.
• Anyone with U.S. citizenship will not be affected.

A DHS spokesperson on Saturday told the Associated Press that foreign-born U.S. residents who could have been barred from re-entering the United States under Trump's immigration order have been allowed back into the country.

The official said all green card holders from the seven countries who sought to enter the U.S. Saturday were granted special permission.

Not all aspiring immigrants have been so lucky, however. Since the order has been in force, stories have been emerging about families and individuals aiming to rejoin their loved ones being refused entry to the U.S.

While a dozen travelers were being held at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday after they arrived, many more across the world were told they would not be able to board connecting flights to their destination in the U.S.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian immigrant who lives in Seattle, told NBC News that his mother — who had become an American citizen — sponsored his sister's family to come to the United States. They had all obtained green cards, a process that can take years.

All but one arrived safely in Seattle. Rashidi's niece, 27-year-old Mahsa Fazmali, was slated to arrive on Friday, but then Trump signed the executive order.

Fazmali flew without a problem from Tehran to Dubai, and she had even found her seat on her flight to the Emerald City.

"She was on the plane sitting on her seat," her uncle said.

But then her name was called over the PA system and she was ordered to deplane with her belongings. According to Rashidi, airport officials could not explain why her green card would not allow her to travel to the United States.

She and the other immigrants who were looking for answers only learned of the travel ban from a nearby television turned to the news. Fazmali then flew back to Tehran.

Related: Officials Say Visas Were Being Revoked Prior to Trump's Executive Order

---

By Tyler Durden on 29 January 2017 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-29/homeland-security-states-it-will-continue-enforce-trumps-travel-ban)

Following a tumultuous night, in which late on Saturday evening a Brooklyn Federal Judge issued a partial ban on Trump's immigration order, on Sunday morning the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement saying it planned on continuing to “enforce all of the president’s executive orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people.”

The DHS said the court order would not affect the overall implementation of the White House order and the court order affected a small number of travelers who were inconvenienced by security procedures upon their return, Fox News first reported.

“The president’s executive orders remain in place—prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety,” the statement said.

However, the DHS also added it would "comply with judicial orders" not to deport detained travelers affected by President Donald Trump's order.

In a separate report from the NY Post, the ACLU was said to be getting “multiple reports” that federal customs agents are siding with President Trump — and willfully ignoring a Brooklyn federal judge’s demand that travelers from seven Muslim countries not be deported from the nation’s airports.

“The court’s order could not be clearer… they need to comply with the order,” Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights project, told The Post late Saturday. “It’s enough to be a serious concern,” Jadwat said of the reports.

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the White House, said, "Nothing in the Brooklyn judge's order in anyway impedes or prevents the implementation of the president's executive order which remains in full, complete and total effect."

As reported before, just before 9pm on Saturday, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York issued an emergency order temporarily barring the U.S. from deporting people from nations subject to President Donald Trump's travel ban, saying travelers who had been detained had a strong argument that their legal rights had been violated.

The stay was ordered after lawyers for the ACLU filed a court petition on behalf of people from seven predominantly Muslim nations who were detained at airports across the country as the ban took effect.

Homeland Security said the order affects a small amount of people traveling internationally. The DHS said the order was the “first step towards reestablishing control over America's borders and national security.”

Prior to the ruling, Trump’s travel ban sparked protests around the country at several international airports. Demonstrators ranged from a few dozen people to thousands. Protests are scheduled to continue on Sunday at least seven cities: Orlando, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Washington and Chicago, mostly at airports.

Under Trump's order, it had appeared that an unknown number of foreign-born U.S. residents now traveling outside the U.S. could be stuck overseas for at least 90 days even though they held permanent residency "green cards" or other visas.  

However, an official with the DHS said Saturday night that no green-card holders from the seven countries cited in Trump's order had been prevented from entering the U.S. Trump also billed his sweeping executive order as a necessary step to stop "radical Islamic terrorists" from coming to the U.S.

It included a 90-day ban on travel to the U.S. by citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen and a 120-day suspension of the U.S. refugee program.

Early on Sunday, Trump in his first official statement since the Brooklyn Court ruling stayed his ground and tweeted that "our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world - a horrible mess!

The DHS said in the statement that they “will faithfully execute the immigration laws, and we will treat all of those we encounter humanely and with professionalism.” They also added that they plan to ensure the safety of the American people by making sure those entering the U.S. pose no threat.
The full DHS statement is below:

Department Of Homeland Security Response To Recent Litigation

The Department of Homeland Security will continue to enforce all of President Trump’s Executive Orders in a manner that ensures the safety and security of the American people. President Trump’s Executive Orders remain in place—prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety. President Trump’s Executive Order affects a minor portion of international travelers, and is a first step towards reestablishing control over America's borders and national security.

Approximately 80 million international travelers enter the United States every year. Yesterday, less than one percent of the more than 325,000 international air travelers who arrive every day were inconvenienced while enhanced security measures were implemented. These individuals went through enhanced security screenings and are being processed for entry to the United States, consistent with our immigration laws and judicial orders.

The Department of Homeland Security will faithfully execute the immigration laws, and we will treat all of those we encounter humanely and with professionalism. No foreign national in a foreign land, without ties to the United States, has any unfettered right to demand entry into the United States or to demand immigration benefits in the United States. 

The Department of Homeland Security will comply with judicial orders; faithfully enforce our immigration laws, and implement President Trump’s Executive Orders to ensure that those entering the United States do not pose a threat to our country or the American people.

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U.S. empire is essentially over

SUBHEAD: But the American foreign policy elite eagerly await an expansion of overseas wars under Hillary Clinton.

By Michael Krieger on 20 October 2016 for Liberty Blitzkrieg -
(http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2016/10/20/u-s-foreign-policy-elite-eagerly-await-an-expansion-of-overseas-wars-under-hillary-clinton/)


Image above: Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves to take on Japan after beating Germany. From (https://www.hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/63091/JAPYOURE-NEXT-WWII-UNCLE-SAM-POSTER-BY-FLAGG).

[IB Publisher's note: Both the Left and Right wing of American journalism see the election of Hillary Clinton as an opportunity for War Hawks in America to gain traction on more intense military confrontation on several fronts, particularly Syria and Ukraine. This is about the last moment to dial back on the escalation towards WWIII.] 

Your average American Hillary Clinton supporter will smugly head to the polls on November 8th, entirely self-assured of his or her vital role in the defeat of fascism in these United States.

It won’t take long for such childish delusions to be vanquished by the horror of subsequent reckless and unnecessary imperial conflagrations that will be inevitably unleashed by their savior throughout the world.

The extreme dangers faced by the planet as a result of neocon warmonger Hillary Clinton becoming President have been apparent for a very long time. Oliver Stone and many others have vocally warned about it, and I’ve covered the topic on many occasions; including in the following posts:

Oliver Stone Opines on the Dangerous Extremism of Neocon Clinton
More Troubling Evidence That Hillary Clinton Will Start WW3 – Part 1
More Troubling Evidence That Hillary Clinton Will Start WW3 – Part 2
Lifelong Democrat and Former RFK Speechwriter Supports Trump


Now, courtesy of a newly published article at The Washington Post, we are once again forced to confront this very uncomfortable reality. Here are a few of the more disturbing excerpts from today’s piece:

There is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump’s scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama’s departure from the White House — and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton — is being met with quiet relief.

The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.

It is not unusual for Washington’s establishment to launch major studies in the final months of an administration to correct the perceived mistakes of a president or influence his successor. But the bipartisan nature of the recent recommendations, coming at a time when the country has never been more polarized, reflect a remarkable consensus among the foreign policy elite.

This consensus is driven by broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly stressed the dangers of overreach and the limits of American power, especially in the Middle East. “There’s a widespread perception that not being active enough or recognizing the limits of American power has costs,” said Philip Gordon, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama until 2015. “So the normal swing is to be more interventionist.”

Taken together, the studies and reports call for more-aggressive American action to constrain Iran, rein in the chaos in the Middle East and check Russia in Europe.
The studies, which reflect Clinton’s stated views and the direction she is likely to take if she is elected, break most forcefully with Obama on Syria. Virtually all these efforts, including a report that will be released Wednesday by the liberal Center for American Progress, call for stepped up military action to deter President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and Russian forces in Syria.

This is what passes off as “liberal” these days.

The proposed military measures include calls for safe zones to protect moderate rebels from Syrian and Russian forces. Most of the studies propose limited American airstrikes with cruise missiles to punish Assad if he continues to attack civilians with barrel bombs, as is currently happening in besieged Aleppo. So far, Obama has staunchly resisted any military action against the Assad regime.

Even pinprick cruise missile strikes designed to hobble the Syrian air force or punish Assad would risk a direct confrontation with Russian forces, which are scattered throughout the key Syrian military bases that would be targeted.

“You can’t pretend you can go to war against Assad and not go to war against the Russians,” said a senior administration official who is involved in Middle East policy and was granted anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations.

"Inside the White House, senior administration officials regularly dismissed calls for military force from the foreign policy establishment as the product of “too much college, not enough knowledge,” writes Derek Chollet, a former top Obama administration official, in his new book “The Long Game.”

Other White House officials derisively referred to Washington’s foreign policy experts as “the Blob.”

As much as I’ve criticized Obama for his many costly foreign adventures, he is an absolute peacenik compared to Clinton. Let’s never forget that the biggest foreign policy disaster of his Presidency, the destruction of Libya, was the brainchild of his then Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Everyone has kind of given up on the Middle East. We have been at it for 15 years, and a lot of Americans think it is hopeless,” Hadley said. “We think it is not.”

What would we do without people like Hadley around to screw things up?

“The dynamic is totally different from what I saw a decade ago” when Democratic and Republican elites were feuding over the invasion of Iraq, said Brian Katulis, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for American Progress. Today, the focus among the foreign policy elite is on rebuilding a more muscular and more “centrist internationalism,” he said.

This is an absolute disaster waiting to happen. As I tweeted earlier today:

"We stand at a very dangerous moment. The U.S. empire is essentially over, but the emperors haven’t got the memo."

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America on a War Path

SUBHEAD: Around the world the USA military is challenging Russia, Iran and China as the pot boils.

By Juan Wilson on 13 October 2016 for Island Breath  -
(http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/nuclear-war-is-on-the-horizon-this-is-not-just-talk-action-has-been-taken_10102016)


Image above: American and Russian flags in flames. From www.shtfplan.com.

The United States seems to be unable to handle its any of its substantial problems or even identify them. Looking at the presidential race it would seem the most important issue is who-grabbed-who-where.  It comes down to deciding who is dirtier between Trumps or Clinton.

No debate about finding peaceful solutions in the Middle East, Eastern Europe or South China Sea. No back-and-forth on ways to avoid the climate catastrophe we face. No proposals for getting off dirty fossil fuel dependence. No plans for mitigating the damage from the nearing economic bubble collapse.

Both Trump and Clinton have their bogeymen. For Trump its China, for Clinton its Russia. Both these candidates seemed poised to take a punch at their nemesis.

Both Clinton and Trump agree on vilifying Iran. They see Iran's proxy Hezbollah as the source of many evils in the Middle East beginning in the 1980s with the Lebanese Civil War to today with "tentacles" in Yemen and Syria. But it gets complicated. 

It seems Iran is the nexus between Russia and China. Both Russia and China are Iran's neighbors. Russia and Iran share borders on the Caspian Sea and China and Iran share borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Iran is also a longtime ally of Syria and its current ruling Assad family. And, since the United States dumped Saddam Hussein and the Sunni leaders in Iraq, Iran has had an opening to the Shia leadership in Iraq. And the only thing that separates Syria from Iran is Iraq.

So China and Russia and Iran all have more close vital interests in the area than the United States. 

American resentment for Iran links us to continuing confrontation with both Chinese and Russian activities in the region.

We've been at war there for a very long time. It should be noted how very far away from the United States this part of the world is and how it has proved to create for us quagmires in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Syria.  

Our potential "enemies" have been building up their capabilities as we have spilled blood and treasure in the sand. The sounds of our saber rattling will not strike them as so terrifying the next time it comes down to a fight.

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US joins Saudis in Yemen conflict

SUBHEAD: US actively joins Yemen conflict with cruise missile strikes on anti-Saudi targets.

By Tyler Durden on 13 October 2016 for Zero Hedge -
(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/us-joins-yemen-conflict-cruise-missile-strikes-anti-saudi-targets)


Image above: USS Mason (DDG-87) fires an SM-2  missile during a March 2016 exercise. Photo by US Navy. From (https://news.usni.org/2016/10/11/uss-mason-fired-3-missiles-to-defend-from-yemen-cruise-missiles-attack).

We can now put away any speculation whether the US will limit its support and arming of Saudi Arabia in its ongoing campaign over Yemen over "war crime" concerns.

Overnight, the U.S. military not only did not rebuke the Saudis for a military campaign that has claimed nearly 10,000 innocent civilian lives, but became the latest entrant in the Yemen offensive, when it launched cruise missile strikes on Thursday to knock out three coastal radar sites in areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi forces, in what was supposedly a retaliation after failed missile attacks this week on a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials said.

Cited by Reuters, U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. Navy destroyer USS Nitze launched the Tomahawk cruise missiles around 4 a.m. (0100 GMT). The strikes, authorized by President Barack Obama, represent Washington's first direct military action against suspected Houthi-controlled targets in Yemen's conflict.

As we reported previously, U.S. officials said there growing indications - if no official proof - that Houthi fighters, or forces aligned with them, were responsible for Sunday's attempted strikes, in which two coastal cruise missiles designed to target ships failed to reach the destroyer.

And like on all previous occasions when the US got involved in a nation's sovereign affairs, the Pentagon stressed the limited nature of the strikes, aimed at radar that enabled the launch of at least three missiles against the U.S. Navy ship USS Mason on Sunday and Wednesday.

What it did, however, was make Saudi incursions into Yemen even easier, providing the Saudi airforce a corridor deep into the country which making sure Yemen was unable to retaliate against its invaders.

Of course, the official line is different. "These limited self-defense strikes were conducted to protect our personnel, our ships and our freedom of navigation," Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook adding that "these radars were active during previous attacks and attempted attacks on ships in the Red Sea," including the USS Mason, one of the officials said, adding the targeted radar sites were in remote areas where the risk of civilian casualties was low.

In retrospect one now wonders if the "cruise missiles" that fell close to the US ships were merely the latest false flag providing the US cover to launch another foreign intervention.To be sure, the Houthis, who are battling the internationally-recognized government of Yemen President Abd Rabbu Mansour al-Hadi, denied any involvement in Sunday's attempt to strike the USS Mason.

On Thursday, the Houthis reiterated a denial that they carried out the strikes and said they did not come from areas under their control, a news agency controlled by the group reported a military source as saying.  The allegations were false pretexts to "escalate aggression and cover up crimes committed against the Yemeni people", the source said.

it wouldn't be the first time that the US has done just that to launch an offensive war (without Congressional approval). Sure enough, the US from immediately launching a strategic attack.
According to Reuters, the US military official identified the areas in Yemen where the US strikes took place as near Ras Isa, north of Mukha and near Khoka.

There may have been another reason for the strikes: shipping sources told Reuters sites were hit in the Dhubab district of Taiz province. As the map shows, the area impacted by US air strikes overlooks the Bab al-Mandab Straight known for fishing and smuggling; also known for being one of the world's busiest transit spots.

The missile incidents, along with an Oct. 1 strike on a vessel from the United Arab Emirates, add to questions about safety of passage for military ships around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world's busiest shipping routes.

This latest US attack appears to be just the beginning: Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook warned against any future attacks, adding that "The United States will respond to any further threat to our ships and commercial traffic, as appropriate."

Others chimed in:

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), a leading member of a Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting to end Houthi control, denounced the attacks on the Mason as an attempt to target the freedom of navigation and to inflame the regional situation. 

Although Thursday's strikes against the radar aim to undercut the ability to track and target U.S. ships, the Houthis are still believed to possess missiles that could pose a threat.

Reuters has reported that the coastal defense cruise missiles used against the USS Mason had considerable range, fuelling concern about the kind of weaponry the Houthis appear willing to employ and some of which, U.S. officials believe, is supplied by Iran.  One of the missiles fired on Sunday traveled more than two dozen nautical miles before splashing into the Red Sea off Yemen's southern coast, one U.S. official said.

And suggesting that Yemen is about to become the next major geopolitical hotzone, earlier today Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that Iran sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, establishing a military presence in waters off Yemen where the U.S. military launched cruise missile strikes on areas controlled by Iran-backed Houthi forces.

"Iran's Alvand and Bushehr warships have been dispatched to the Gulf of Aden to protect trade vessels," Tasnim reported.
As a result, we expect many more "false flag" events in the coming days.

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British has Green Light in Syria
SUBHEAD: Royal Air Force pilots can shoot down Russian jets over Syria if they feel threatened.

By Tyler Durden on 13 October 2016 for Zero Hedge -

(http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-13/royal-air-force-pilots-ordered-shoot-down-hostile-russian-jets-over-syria)


Image above: A British Tornado is one of a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft manufactured by Panavia  for Britain, Italy and Germany. From (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panavia_Tornado).

As the US officially enters the Yemen military campaign, the UK appears ready and willing to precipitate a catalytic event from which there is no going back.

With relations between Russia and the West at post-Cold War lows and deteriorating fast, Royal Air Force (RAF) pilots have been given the go-ahead to shoot down Russian military jets when flying missions over Syria and Iraq, if they are endangered by them.

The development comes with warnings that the UK and Russia are now "one step closer" to being at war, according to the Sunday Times.

While the RAF's Tornado pilots have been instructed to avoid contact with Russian aircraft while engaged in missions for Operation Shader, the codename for the RAF's anti-Isis work in Iraq and Syria, their aircraft have been armed with air-to-air missiles and the pilots have been given the green light to defend themselves if they are threatened by Russian pilots.

"The first thing a British pilot will do is to try to avoid a situation where an air-to-air attack is likely to occur — you avoid an area if there is Russian activity," an unidentified source from the UK's Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) told the Sunday Times.

"But if a pilot is fired on or believes he is about to be fired on, he can defend himself.

We now have a situation where a single pilot, irrespective of nationality, can have a strategic impact on future events."

Where things get tricky is the qualifier "if he believes he is about to be fired on" - since this makes open engagement a function of threat evaluation in real time during stressed conditions, the likelihood of an escalation that could result in two warplanes shooting at each other, just jumped significantly. 

The RAF Tornados aircraft will be armed with heat-seeking Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles (Asraams, also called AIM-132 missiles), the IBT adds. These weapons, which cost £200,000 each, have a longer range than other air-to-air missiles, allowing RAF pilots to shoot down enemy aircraft without being targeted themselves.

Providing cover to the largely underreported, if substantial escalation, according to the Sunday Times report an appraisal carried out by UK defence officials said: "It took six days for Russia to strike any Isis targets at all. Their air strikes have included moderate opposition groups who have been fighting to defend their areas from Isis.

Among the targets hit were three field hospitals." In the past 24 hours Russia's Defence Ministry said that it has continued its air strikes on IS positions in Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Raqqa. It reported that the attacks resulted in the "complete destruction" of "53 fortified areas and strong points with armament and military hardware", seven ammunition depots, four field camps of "terrorists", one command centre, and artillery and mortar batteries.

Russia has countered that US airstrikes have failed to make much of an impact on ISIS targets, and as reported last month, a "mistaken" strike by the US coalition forces killed over 60 Syrian soldiers in a move Russia accused of being a provocation to war.

The Sunday Times' report quoted a defence source as saying: "Up till now RAF Tornados have been equipped with 500lb satellite-guided bombs — there has been no or little air-to-air threat. But in the last week the situation has changed. We need to respond accordingly."

But another source of the original story summarized the severity of the situation best when he said that "we need to protect our pilots but at the same time we're taking a step closer to war.

It will only take one plane to be shot down in an air-to-air battle and the whole landscape will change."

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Russia warns of shooting down US jets 10/6/16
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US War Crime in Yemen

SUBHEAD: US bombs as well as targeting and aircraft used in destroying Yemen market.

By Staff on 6 April 2016 in Hawaiian News Now -
(http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/31664035/report-saudi-coalition-used-us-bomb-in-yemen-market-strike)


Image above: Crater from Saudi bombing on 3/15/16 of public market in Yemen using US ordenensce, aircraft and ground support. Still frame from video below by Human Rights Watch.).

A Saudi-led coalition battling Shiite rebels and their allies in Yemen used U.S.-supplied bombs in an airstrike last month on a market that killed at least 119 people, a human rights group said Thursday, further highlighting American involvement in the conflict.

The March 15 bombing targeting the northwestern town of Mastaba marked the second-deadliest airstrike of the year-long Saudi-helmed campaign - and the results were horrific. Survivors said the outdoor market, next to a shantytown inhabited largely by people who fled there from other battle zones, was obliterated by double strikes that came about 10 minutes apart, with mangled bodies thrown hundreds of yards away.

"I saw the sky raining ball of black fire," recalled a 30-year-old gas worker Omar Mallah, whose brother and several other relatives were killed.

Human Rights Watch said its investigators traveled to the town in Yemen's northwestern Hajja province, controlled by the Shiite rebels known as Houthis. There, the group said it found fragments of a 900-kilogram (2,000-pound) MK-84 bomb and a kind of satellite-guidance hardware known as a JDAM, which together are known as a GBU-31 bomb.

The group said the bomb, as well as its guidance equipment, was supplied by the U.S. Their finding matched an earlier report by British television channel ITV, which said its journalists found remnants of what likely was another MK-84 bomb and a different kind of satellite guiding system supplied by the United States.

"One of the deadliest strikes against civilians in Yemen's yearlong war involved U.S.-supplied weapons, illustrating tragically why countries should stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia," Priyanka Motaparthy, emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "The U.S. and other coalition allies should send a clear message to Saudi Arabia that they want no part in unlawful killings of civilians."

Rights groups have repeatedly warned that U.S. and European weapons sold to Saudi Arabia could be used in strikes violating international law. Saudi Arabia and its allies launched their air campaign in March 2015 aiming to stop advances by the rebels, known as Houthis, who had driven the government out of the capital.

Since then, fighting between the rebels and Saudi-backed factions and airstrikes have killed at least 9,000 people, an estimated 3,000 of them civilians, according to the U.N., which says at least 60 percent of the civilian deaths come from strikes, which have often hit crowded areas including markets, hospitals, factories, schools and residential districts. Coalition officials dispute those figures.
The war has displaced 2.4 million people and caused widespread malnutrition.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military action in the Mideast, declined to comment on specifics about the Mastaba bombing, saying that the "selection and final vetting of targets in the campaign are made by the members of the Saudi-led coalition, not the United States."

"The U.S. is confident that the information that we relay and noncombat support we provide to Saudi Arabia and other coalition members is sound and provides them the best options for military success consistent with international norms and specifically mitigating the potential for civilian casualties," U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a Central Command spokesman, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The U.S. is believed to offer the Saudi-led coalition satellite images and other intelligence about Yemen to guide its campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, asked about the report during a visit to Bahrain, said, "I don't have any solid information, any documentation with respect to what weapon might have been used."
"Whatever weapons are being used, our preference is that all shooting stops," he said.

Saudi officials have said they were investigating the strike, though they previously insisted most of the casualties were Houthi combatants.

Coalition spokesman Brig. Gen. Ahmed al-Asiri sent the AP a map via Whatsapp showing three red circles: One identified as a Houthi gathering position, a second as a small market adjacent to the Houthi position and a third as the large market. He said the airstrikes hit the small market next to Houthi gathering because this is where the militants were buying qat, a leaf chewed by Yemenis.

The Human Rights Watch report said there was a Houthi checkpoint about 250 yards (meters) from the market. It cited witnesses saying 10 Houthi fighters were among the dead in the market.

At Mastaba, relatives of several victims recounted to the AP a horrific scene, searching for days for body parts strewn over a wide area, over trees and rooftops, some as far as a sports center about a quarter-mile (half kilometer) away. Many were eventually buried in a nearby mass grave.

Mastaba was considered a safe haven for those fleeing towns closer to the Saudi border that were heavily pounded in airstrikes. Impoverished residents of a nearby slum of mud-brick houses often sent their children to work in the qat market. UNICEF said 22 children were among the dead in the strikes.

The timing of the airstrikes, at a time when people stock up on qat before lunchtime, contributed to the high death toll. Witnesses said that as rescuers came in to help victims of the first strike, the second strike hit.

Hassan Mafafi said it took him a whole day to locate one piece of remains from his 18-year-old son, Abdel-Rahman. He found his right leg, which he recognized from a scar marking an old axe wound. Choking back tears, he said he still couldn't bring himself to look at his son's picture tucked in his wallet.


Video above: Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes using United States-supplied bombs killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children, in northwestern Yemen on March 15, 2016. From (https://youtu.be/aQS7sxaXVw4).

• Mansour al-Bakili said he collected 18 pieces he believed were body parts of his son, Mohammed. "We put them all in cloth and buried them," he said.
 Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writer Bradley Klapper in Manama, Bahrain, contributed to this report.

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