John Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18): “Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.”
Three years ago, as Americans debated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran—popularly known as “the Iran deal”—I highlighted a troubling media trend on FAIR.org (8/20/15): “For nearly all commentators, regardless of their position, war is the only alternative to that position.”
In the months since US President Donald Trump tore up the JCPOA agreement, his administration has been trying to make good on corporate media’s collective prediction. Last week, John Bolton (BBC, 9/26/18), Trump’s national security advisor and chief warmonger, told Iran’s leaders and the world that there would be “hell to pay” if they dare to “cross us.”
That Bolton’s bellicose statements do not send shockwaves of pure horror across a debt-strapped and war-weary United States is thanks in large part to incessant priming for war, facilitated by corporate media across the entire political spectrum, with a particular focus on Iran.
Back in 2015, while current “resistance” stalwarts like the Washington Post (4/2/15) and Politico (8/11/15) warned us that war with Iran was the most likely alternative to the JCPOA, conservative standard-bearers such as Fox News (7/14/15) and the Washington Times (8/10/15) foretold that war with Iran was the agreement’s most likely outcome. Three years hence, this dynamic has not changed.
To experience the full menu of US media’s single-mindedness about Iran, one need only buy a subscription to the New York Times. After Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, the Times’ editorial board (5/8/18) wrote that his move would “lay conditions for a possible wider war in the Middle East.” Susan Rice (New York Times, 5/8/18), President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, agreed: “We could face the choice of going to war or acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran,” she warned. Cartoonist Patrick Chappatte (New York Times, 5/10/18) was characteristically more direct, penning an image of Trump alongside Bolton, holding a fictitious new agreement featuring the singular, ultimate word: “WAR.”
On the other hand, calling Trump’s turn against JCPOA a “courageous decision,” Times columnist Bret Stephens (5/8/18) explained that the move was meant to force the Iranian government to make a choice: Either accede to US demands or “pursue their nuclear ambitions at the cost of economic ruin and possible war.” (Hardly courageous, when we all know there is no chance that Trump or Stephens would enlist should war materialize.)
Trump’s latest antics at the United Nations have spurred a wave of similar reaction across corporate media. Describing his threat to “totally destroy North Korea” at the UN General Assembly last year as “pointed and sharp,” Fox News anchor Eric Shawn (9/23/18) asked Bill Richardson, an Obama ally and President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the UN, whether Trump would take the same approach toward Iran. “That aggressive policy we have with Iran is going to continue,” Richardson reassured the audience, “and I don’t think Iran is helping themselves.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Iran’s fault.
Politico (9/23/18), meanwhile, reported that Trump “is risking a potential war with Iran unless he engages the Islamist-led country using diplomacy.” In other words, if the United States starts a war with Iran, it’s totally Trump’s fault. Rice (New York Times, 9/26/18) reiterated her view that Trump’s rhetoric “presages the prospect of war in the Persian Gulf.” Whoever would be the responsible party is up for debate, but that war is in our future is apparently all but certain.
Politico’s article cited a statement signed by such esteemed US experts on war-making as Madeleine Albright, who presided over Clinton’s inhuman sanctions against Iraq in the ’90s, and Ryan Crocker, former ambassador for presidents George W. Bush and Obama to some of America’s favorite killing fields: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Syria. James Clapper, Obama’s National Intelligence Director, who also signed the letter, played an important role in trumping up WMD evidence against Saddam Hussein before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. When it comes to US aggression, they’re the experts.
Vanity Fair (9/26/18) interviewed John Glaser of the Cato Institute, who called Trump’s strategy “pathetic,” and also warned that it forebodes war. In an effort to “one-up Obama,” Glaser explained, Trump’s plan is “to apply extreme economic pressure and explicit threats of war in order to get Iran to capitulate.” Sound familiar? As Glaser implies, this was exactly Obama’s strategy, only then it wasn’t seen as “pathetic,” but rather reasonable, and the sole means for preventing the war that every US pundit and politician saw around the corner (The Hill, 8/9/15).
When everyone decides that war is the only other possibility, it starts to look like an inevitability. But even when they aren’t overtly stoking war fever against Iran, corporate media prime the militaristic pump in more subtle yet equally disturbing ways.
First among these is the near-complete erasure of Iranian voices from US airwaves (FAIR.org, 7/24/15). Rather than ask Iranians directly, national outlets like CNN (9/29/18) prefer to invite the prime minister of Israel, serial Iran alarmist and regional pariah Benjamin Netanyahu, to speak for them. During a jovial discussion this weekend over whether regime change and/or economic collapse is Iran’s most likely fate, Netanyahu explained to the audience that, either way, “The ones who will be happiest if that happens are the people of Iran.” No people of Iran were on hand to confirm or deny this assessment.
Bloomberg (9/30/18) similarly wanted to know, “What’s not to like about Trump’s Iran oil sanctions?” Julian Lee gleefully reported that “they are crippling exports from the Islamic Republic, at minimal cost to the US.” One might think the toll sanctions take on innocent Iranians would be something not to like, but Bloomberg merely worried that, notwithstanding the windfall for US refineries, “oil at $100 a barrel would be bad news for drivers everywhere—including those in the US.”
Another prized tactic is to whitewash Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief geopolitical rival, whose genocidal destruction of Yemen is made possible by the United States, about which corporate media remain overwhelmingly silent (FAIR.org, 7/23/18). Iran’s involvement in Yemen, which both Trump and the New York Times (9/12/18) describe as “malign behavior,” is a principal justification for US support of Saudi Arabia, including the US-supplied bombs that recently ended the brief lives of over 40 Yemeni schoolchildren. Lockheed Martin’s stock is up 34 percent from Trump’s inauguration day.
Corporate media go beyond a simple coverup of Saudi crimes to evangelize their leadership as the liberal antidote to Iran’s “theocracy.” Who can forget Thomas Friedman’s revolting puff piece for the Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman? Extensively quoting Salman (New York Times, 11/23/17), who refers to Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as “the new Hitler of the Middle East,” Friedman nevertheless remains pessimistic about whether “MBS and his team” can see their stand against Iran through, as “dysfunction and rivalries within the Sunni Arab world generally have prevented forming a unified front.” Oh well, every team needs cheerleaders, and Friedman isn’t just a fair-weather fan.
While Friedman (New York Times, 5/15/18) believes that Trump has drawn “some needed attention to Iran’s bad behavior,” for him pivotal questions remain unanswered, such as “who is going to take over in Tehran if the current Islamic regime collapses?” One immediate fix he proposed was to censure Iran’s metaphorical “occupation” of Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Isn’t this ironic coming from an unapologetic propagandist for Washington’s decades-long, non-metaphorical occupation of the two countries to the east and west of Iran (FAIR.org, 12/9/15)?
In a surprising break from corporate media convention, USA Today (9/26/18) published a column on US/Iran relations written by an actual Iranian. Reflecting on the CIA-orchestrated coup against Iran’s elected government in 1953, Azadeh Shahshahani, who was born four days after the 1979 revolution there, wrote:
I often wonder what would have happened if that coup had not worked, if [Prime Minister] Mosaddeq had been allowed to govern, if democracy had been allowed to flourish.
“It is time for the US government to stop intervening in Iran and let the Iranian people determine their own destiny,” she beseeched readers.
Shahshahani’s call is supported by some who have rejected corporate media’s war propaganda and have gone to extreme lengths to have their perspectives heard. Anti-war activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin was recently forcibly removed after she upstaged Brian Hook, leader of Trump’s Iran Action Group, on live TV, calling his press conference “the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen” (Real News, 9/21/18). Benjamin implored the audience: “Let’s talk about Saudi Arabia. Is that who our allies are?”
“How dare you bring up the issue of Yemen,” admonished Benjamin as she was dragged from the room. “It’s the Saudi bombing that is killing most people in Yemen. So let’s get real. No more war! Peace with Iran!” Code Pink is currently petitioning the New York Times and Washington Post to stop propagandizing war.
Sadly, no matter whom you ask in corporate media, be they spokespeople for “Trump’s America” or “the resistance,” peace remains an elusive choice in the US political imagination. And while the public was focused last week on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s perjurious testimony, the Senate finalized a $674 billion “defense” budget. Every single Democrat in the chamber voted in favor of the bill, explicitly naming Iran as persona non grata in the United States’ world-leading arms supply network, which has seen a 25 percent increase in exports since Obama took office in 2009.
The US government’s imperial ambitions are perhaps its only truly bipartisan project—what the New York Times euphemistically refers to as “globalism.” Nowhere was this on fuller display than at the funeral for Republican Sen. John McCain (FAIR.org, 9/11/18), where politicians of all stripes were tripping over themselves to produce the best accolades for a man who infamously sang “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song.
McCain’s bloodlust was nothing new. Nearly a hundred years ago, after the West’s imperial competition culminated in the most destructive war the world had ever seen, the brilliant American sociologist and anti-colonial author WEB Du Bois wrote, “This is not Europe gone mad; this is not aberration nor insanity; this is Europe.”
Iranian leaders have repeatedly said they do not want war with the US (AP, 9/27/18), but US corporate media, despite frequently characterizing Trump as a “mad king” (FAIR.org, 6/13/18), continue to play an instrumental role in rationalizing a future war with Iran. Should such an intentional catastrophe come to pass, we can hardly say that this would be America gone mad; war is not aberration, it is always presented as the next sane choice. This is America.
Great article!
Something in a similar vein- https://medium.com/@paulrandall_2181/puerto-rico-and-raqqa-dark-reflections-of-a-militarism-sickened-society-6a3478d090a8
Great analysis by John Day. Just follow the money. The same warmongers who own the U.S. government have bought the U.S. mainstream media.
While I totally agree with the gist of your column, there1s an alternative way of looking at all this; as a warning; we all know that the American establishment wants war with Iran or, as they call it, “regime change”.
“We are watching and we will come after you”
And by “we” that chickenhawk deluxe means people other than himself.
Hi John:
I agree with most of what you said about the drums of war against Iran, and I am not a fan of wars at all, but being an American with a Syrian heritage I have followed the horrific events in Syria since 2011and want to make some observations.
First, I am absolutely against waging a war against any peaceful country and innocent people like what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia, but the scenario in Syria is different. I was absolutely perplexed by the inaction of the Obama administration for eight years watching Massacres and an ongoing a genocide in Syria which turned the whole country into a mayhem making life there as a living Hell with no action to stop that.
Unfortunately Iran’s regime (government and administration} have waged an “actual” and” real” sectarian war, against the “people” of Syria for more than seven years. Iran became a de facto occupying power in Syria. They initially intervened to support a dictator that considered the country to be a farm he and his family owns, he wanted to stay in power regardless of the price to the country or the people and the Iranian regime wanted to become an Imperial regional power so they worked together. They both considered any political opponent as their enemy, and were ready to exterminate them at any cost and with any means to stay in power. Unfortunately also, Iran and Assad’s supported /run militias committed innumerable war crimes, crimes against humanity and shameful barbaric actions, including indiscriminate bombing of civilians, mass killing, butchering whole families by knives, using rape as a weapon of war on a large scale, imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators keeping under torture for years and torturing thousands of them to death. I can keep describing the horrors committed by Iran, and Assad militias and air force, including the indiscriminate use of crude barrel bombs on civilian neighborhoods, markets, water and electricity plants. Even schools and hospitals became regular targets for repeated airstrikes. Refugee camps, tents and UN aid convoy did not escape from that as well. Hundreds of massacres took place every year for seven years, they used cluster bombs, napalm bombs, phosphorous bombs and even chemical bombs/ missiles on civilians and civilian neighborhoods, ultimately indiscriminately killing more than a million civilians. The UN stopped counting after more than 150,000, were killed as it became a meaningless exercise in futility .A total of 6-7 millions lost their homes, jobs, and became refugees , millions more who were self sufficient before that, lost every thing as well, and were forcibly displaced out of tier homes to live in dismal conditions in make shift camps, and became dependent on aid to survive. Overall more than half the population were displaced, mostly with destroyed homes, homes destroyed by crude barrel bombs or other destructive weapons. the estimated number of the Iranian supported/ run militias present in Syria now is estimated to be between 100,000-150,000 mercenaries and regular fighters .
Our own government is not completely innocent, they were not very mindful of civilians when they were attacking ISIS fighters, but what they did pales in comparison to the shameful acts of Iran and later by Russia, Russia who, for the last two years, have used Syria as a “live” arm show to promote its arms. their arm sales soared to hundreds of billions of dollar . They used the Syrian blood and land to promote their new arms.
So do not tell me about the “innocent” Iranian government. The extent of death and destruction caused by them in Syria is more than genocide, it amounts to a second ongoing Holocaust without exaggeration.
In Bosnia the US intervention stopped the massacres in 3-4 week, and in Syria the massacres are still ongoing for eight years.
I certainly wish Iran has not committed those atrocities in Syria, but whether you agree or disagree with a war against the Iranian regime, I hope you do not consider that Iranian regime an” Innocent victim” anymore.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN SMOKING FELLA?
The White hats must be made out of hemp
Dear Ahmed,
Your comments represent an inversion of reality. I don’t mean to offend or belittle you in any way. Anyone who receives their news through the filter of the Zionist Corporate Media is liable to be similarly deluded as yourself.
Syria was one of 7 Middle Eastern countries targeted for destruction by the Neocons since at least the late 1990s, long before 9/11 or the Arab Spring. You can read the Wikileaks cables for yourself, the authenticity of which has never been disputed. This was primarily to serve Zionist interests. It is significant that all the countries opposed to Israel, Iraq, Libya, Syria, have now been destroyed and turned into failed states, and that Iran is now in the crosshairs. The US and its western satraps have been used as dumb muscle to do Israel’s dirty work.
From around 2005-6, the US was actively seeking to foment sectarian conflict in Syria. Western intelligence agencies, the British SAS and other special forces were busy training jihadi extremists in Jordan and Turkey. Saudi Arabia and Qatar wanted to install a pliant regime in Syria as well to construct an energy pipeline through the country to the Mediterranean coast to supply Europe. When Assad failed to cooperate, Qatar alone did a single arms deal with Croatia worth $5 billion to supply the terrorists. This was just one of many.
When the initial unrest broke out in the south in 2011, Assad adopted a conciliatory approach. He promised reforms, replaced officials with local people, and sent unarmed police equipped only with batons to control demonstrations. Mysterious unidentified snipers immediately appeared on rooftops (CIA, SAS, Mossad, Blackwater type mercenaries, who knows?) who fired into the crowds to incite further violence, deliberately targeting women and children. The same snipers also targeted unarmed police officers, killing a large number. Very similar events occurred at the Ukraine Maidan in 2014. This seems to be a standard page out of the CIA Playbook.
This was an orchestrated invasion of Syria by hundreds of thousands of foreign takfiri mercenaries, from a hundred countries. Only a small minority were Syrians. They were armed, trained, supplied, paid, and manipulated by the US and its NATO satellites, Israel, Turkey, and the Gulf Dictatorships. These were the most vile, barbaric terrorist scum on the planet, who revelled in the freedom to murder, rape, steal, torture, terrorise and enslave at will. They routinely filmed themselves beheading children, enslaving women, eating and mutilating human corpses, and torturing and slaughtering hostages and prisoners. They plumbed new depths of human depravity – and this was funded by US and UK taxpayers.
The Syrian people, armed forces, and Assad himself, fought back against this terrorist invasion with unparalleled heroism and determination. They were fighting against several hundred thousand of the most vile terrorists in human history, supported by a large and powerful US led coalition of countries with resources immeasurably greater than those of Syria. Syrians had to fight back with 50 year old T54s and MIG21s against mercenary terrorists better equipped than themselves. Enemy countries, Israel, the US, Turkey, Britain, France, took advantage of the chaos to invade and bomb the country, using the pretext of chemical weapons provocations staged by the terrorists themselves. If Assad did not have the support of a majority of the Syrian people, given the odds stacked against Syria, he would have been defeated and overthrown years ago – and the black flags of the US/ Israeli created terror groups like ISIS would now be flying over Damascus.
Russia, Iran and Hezbollah intervened at the request of the lawful Syrian government to assist in the fight against the terrorists. All three did so largely in their own interests. It was a question of fighting the takfiri mercenaries there rather than on their home soil. Shia communities on the Lebanese border, like religious minorities elsewhere in Syria (particularly the Christians) were openly targeted by the western sponsored terrorists for extermination and enslavement.
The Syrian people and their allies have now largely succeeded in defeating the terrorists, at enormous cost. Syria may well prove to be the rock on which US imperialism and western aggression finally broke, like Stalingrad in 1943.
Much of what else you say, Ahmed, is simply untrue. You talk of “Obama’s inaction”, as though the US was an innocent bystander. when the terrorist invasion of Syria was planned and orchestrated by the US from the outset. The US has armed and supported the takfiri groups to the tune of at least $1 billion a year every year since 2011 (and probably a great deal more.) The massacres and the genocides were committed by the takfiris, not by the Syrian government. Syrian civilians have always fled terrorist controlled areas for the safety of government areas whenever they have been able to do so. Life is returning to some semblance of normality after the liberation of Aleppo, Ghouta, and wherever the terrorists have been cleared out and their nightmare rule has come to an end.
To claim that Iran has waged a sectarian war against the Syrian people is a monstrous inversion of reality. Iranian personnel have fought heroically with the Syrian army to protect the Syrian people from terrorist massacres irrespective of their religious affiliation. They have liberated and saved Syrian Moslems, Shia and Sunni, Christians, Druze, and all the myriad sects who have nothing to fear from Assad – only from the terrorists, who have committed countless massacres and atrocities. Most of the Syrian army is made up of Sunni Moslems.
The Syrian regime and its allies behaved with great restraint, trying to avoid unnecessary death and suffering, however much this hampered their own operations. Efforts were made to persuade terror groups to withdraw from areas they controlled without fighting. They were often allowed to leave and given safe passage. The terrorists routinely used civilians as human shields – often these were the families of Syrian soldiers who were trying to liberate these areas. Syrian and Russian behaviour compares very favourably to US operations in urban areas like Raqqa, Mosul, Manbij and Fallujah. The US just carpet bombed those areas, leaving then completely flattened with thousands of bodies unburied beneath the rubble. In Fallujah, babies are still being born with two heads and no faces thanks to US depleted uranium and white phosphorous.
War and atrocity propaganda go together like a horse and carriage. And the western propaganda machine has certainly gone into overdrive in its efforts to destroy Syria. Much of what has been presented in the western media can be dismissed as outright lies. The takfiris would overrun an area, slaughter the inhabitants, and then film the bodies. This footage would then be supplied to the BBC or CNN with claims that the people were murdered by the Syrian army. The BBC showed bodies of dead civilians supposedly murdered by Assad’s forces. These were in fact the bodies of Iraqi civilians killed in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Examples of this kind of thing are legion. Claims of destroyed hospitals have been proven to be propaganda hoaxes. Some of the “hospitals” were in fact former hospitals, but no medical services were taking place there. They had been turned into terrorist headquarters, artillery and sniper positions, torture centres and sharia courts by the takfiris. It is often casually repeated by the Fake Media in the west (the same media that ignores the slaughter in Yemen) that “Assad has murdered 500,000 of his own people.” But well over 100,000 Syrian troops and police officers, and some of its allies, have laid down their lives fighting for Syria. Probably a significantly greater number of the West’s terrorist cannon fodder have been killed. The civilians who have died have mostly lost their lies in terrorist massacres and atrocities.
Many people like yourself, Ahmed, are being played. You are being used to serve Zionist interests and the interests of US imperialism.
This is the same as the above comment after slight editing and correcting some typo’s :
Hi John:
I agree with most of what you said about the drums of war against Iran, and I am not a fan of wars at all, but being an American with a Syrian heritage I have followed the horrific events in Syria since 2011and want to make some observations.
First, I am absolutely against waging a war against any peaceful country and innocent people like what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and Cambodia, but the scenario in Syria is different. I was absolutely perplexed by the inaction of the Obama administration for eight years watching Massacres and an ongoing a genocide in Syria which turned the whole country into a mayhem making life there as a living Hell with no action to stop that.
Unfortunately Iran’s regime (government and administration} have waged an “actual” and” real” sectarian war, against the “people” of Syria for more than seven years. Iran became a de facto occupying power in Syria. They initially intervened to support a dictator that considered the country to be a farm he and his family owns, he wanted to stay in power regardless of the price to the country or the people and the Iranian regime wanted to become an Imperial regional power so they worked together. They both considered any political opponent as their enemy, and were ready to exterminate them at any cost and with any means to stay in power. Unfortunately also, Iran and Assad’s supported /run militias committed innumerable war crimes, crimes against humanity and shameful barbaric actions, including indiscriminate bombing of civilians, mass killing, butchering whole families by knives, using rape as a weapon of war on a large scale, imprisonment of hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators keeping them under torture for years and torturing thousands of them to death. I can keep describing the horrors committed by Iran, and Assad militias and air force, including the indiscriminate use of crude barrel bombs on civilian neighborhoods, markets, water and electricity plants. Even schools and hospitals became regular targets for repeated airstrikes. Refugee camps, tents and UN aid convoy did not escape from that as well. Hundreds of massacres took place every year for seven years almost on a daily basis; they used cluster bombs, napalm bombs, phosphorous bombs and even chemical bombs/ missiles on civilians and civilian neighborhoods, ultimately indiscriminately killing more than a million civilians. The UN stopped counting after more than 150,000 were killed, as it became a meaningless exercise in futility. A total of 6-7 millions lost their homes, jobs, and became refugees, millions more who were self sufficient before that, lost every thing as well, and were forcibly displaced out of tier homes to live in dismal conditions in make shift camps, they became dependent on aid to survive. Overall more than half the population (total population 22-23 millions) were displaced, mostly with their homes destroyed by crude barrel bombs or other destructive weapons. The estimated number of the Iranian supported/ run militias present in Syria now is estimated to be between 100,000-150,000 mercenaries and regular fighters.
Our own government is not completely innocent, they were not very mindful of civilians when they were attacking ISIS fighters, such as in Raqqa, but what they did pales in comparison to the shameful acts of Iran and later by Russia, Russia who used the Syrian blood and land to promote their new arms, and for the last two years, have used Syria as a “live” arm’s show to promote their arms. Their arm sales soared to hundreds of billions of dollar right after that.
So do not tell me about the “innocent” Iranian government anymore. The extent of death and destruction caused by them in Syria is more than a genocide; it amounts to a second ongoing Holocaust without exaggeration.
In Bosnia the US intervention stopped the massacres in 3-4 week, and in Syria the massacres are still ongoing for eight years.
I certainly wish Iran has not committed those atrocities in Syria, but whether you agree or disagree with a war against the Iranian regime, I hope you do not consider that Iranian regime an” Innocent victim” anymore.
They , Russia and Assad are war criminals and need to be brought to justice .
If there is a war against Iran, it’s been a long time coming. In the 2005 film “Syriana,” we are introduced to the “CLI,” a fictional group whose initials stand for “Committee for the Liberation of Iran.” As in the case of China and other countries, the ruling class in the US has never gotten over the “loss” of Iran in 1980. All countries are deemed inevitably subservient to the US deep state and Wall street, and if it takes a war to destroy the country because of its refusal to kowtow to the US it can only blame itself. I’m not criticizing the article, it’s fine and well-written and timely.
i LIKE TO THANK John O’Day–for a well done article of his. hopefully he keeps up the go reporting and becomes a successful media writer.
What is never mentioned:
Back in 1996, Bill Clinton received and approved a demand that 7 middle east countries be destroyed for security of Israel interests.
The attacks done on Sept 11 were 100% US/Israel operations to destroy the 7 middle east countries.
Existing JUSA media sucks!
I agree with Marine General Smedley Darlington Butler—“War is a Racket.” America, France, England, Israel and now Saudi Arabia attack nations the have never attacked them. Whoever invented the idea of ” Preemptive strike,” should be in prison forever.
We have no real and verifiable news of anything , and why America has a “Defense Dept. is odd, as we appear to have only a WAR Dept. Homo sapiens have apparently morphed into Dodos and are actively willing themselves into extinction—— falling empires make a sad sucking sound as they whirl down the drain of history. United Nations—are there any nations UNITED in anything? Just Wondering
The current problems in the Middle East, the violence, the ongoing wars and wars to come can be traced back to the treatment of the Palestinians by the government in Israel. The only question is why are we in a situation that could easily end up in a world war? Out of Netanyahu’s own mouth words as to the effect that the reason Israel will not fully integrate with Arabs is because Israel is in the minority and would loose their Jewish identity through potential intermarriage and such as that. In other words the world could end up in the mother of all wars because one man Netanyahu, is afraid his Jewish people will be absorbed by the Arab majority if a peaceful solution were to become a reality. MAke Israel behave, solve the problem.
This pending war with Iran is due to one and only one factor – Israel’s annoyance that Iran is allowed to live. When we get into this war with Iran and it gets very sloppy and unsatisfying, I will blame one group and one group only – those Americans who always put Israel first.
It is extremely unlikely war can now be avoided. Western leadership is the worst in its history, venal, arrogant, corrupt, deluded, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven, with a very tenuous grip on reality. At the same time, it is so hubristic and narcissistic that objective reality is taken to be whatever it finds convenient or desirable at any given time. Whatever reality is desired is created in its own imagination, Rove style, in our post truth, evidence free, fact free world. Hence all outcomes and events it finds unpalatable, from Trump’s victory to Brexit, to election outcomes in a dozen countries, to the flop of the latest Star Wars film, are inevitably further examples of Putin’s villainous meddling, as in times past everything could be explained as a conspiracy by Jews, or witches, or pixies.
War with Iran may well be imminent, but in the past few days, a US Interior Minister has threatened Russia with a naval blockade. A US Ambassador has threatened to attack Russia to destroy its nuclear weapons. Given US economic warfare against Russia, with new sanctions every few days (is there anything left to sanction?), a virulent and hysterical propaganda campaign that has now lasted for several years, with attacks on its sport, diplomats and businessmen, and the aggressive military encirclement of Russia, its General Staff came to the conclusion some time ago that the US had decided to attack Russia and war was all but inevitable.
Many people find this difficult to accept, as this war would be unwinnable and inconceivably catastrophic, very likely leading to an extinction event both for humankind and all large animals. But this underestimates the capacity of our elites (political, military, diplomatic and media) for self delusion, who have now come to believe their own lies. The Russian armed forces are a joke, little better than a street gang. The Russian economy and military budget are a fraction of the US. Putin is just a cartoon villain, a murderous kleptocratic thug leading a Mafia state, who has people killed purely for the fun of it. The Russian people are yearning to overthrow him and hand over their natural resources to Wall Street. And much else in a similar vein.
A comparison could be made with 1941. At that time, the leadership of Nazi Germany probably compared very favourably with western leadership today. Hermann Goering argued against the invasion of Russia on practical grounds. The operation was too difficult and Germany’s resources were too limited. Many leading military and political figures echoed these concerns. These doubts were swept aside by ideology. The Russian armed forces would collapse like a house of cards. The Russians were racially inferior. Moscow would fall in six weeks. The rest is history. Things didn’t quite work out in line with the Power Point presentation.
Trump’s brinkmanship may well enjoy some success for a limited period, like Hitler’s gambles in 1938-9. But they will end the same way. Only this time, it won’t be 60 million dead, it will be 7,060 million.
Sep 11, 2011 General Wesley Clark: Wars Were Planned – Seven Countries In Five Years
“This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
https://youtu.be/9RC1Mepk_Sw