Contrary To Media Claims U.S. Always Sides With Its Saudi Clients
The "western" public, especially in Europe, now prefers good relations with Iran over relations with Saudi Arabia. It is a natural development when one considers that jihadi terrorism is a real concern and that the people involved in most international terrorist incidents follow variants of the Saudi spread Wahhabi ideology.
This is now developing into a problem for the U.S. administration. Saudi Arabia, as other Gulf statelets, is a U.S. client state. Without U.S. support it would have ceased to exist a long time ago. The Saudis are made to pay for U.S. protection by buying overpriced U.S. weapon systems for tens of billion dollars per year. They also finance joint projects like the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and currently the U.S. regime change war on Syria.
U.S. relation with Iran have become somewhat better due to the nuclear deal. But the Islamic Republic of Iran will never be a U.S. client state. Seen from the perspective of the global strategic competition it is in the same camp as the U.S. foes Russia and China. Unless the U.S. ceases to strive for global dominance it will continue to support its proxies on the western side of the Persian Gulf rather then the Iranians of the eastern side.
The changed public view, very much visible after the recent Saudi execution of Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, necessitates to mask the real U.S. position by claiming that it is opposed to Saudi Arabian policies. The stenographers in U.S. media are always willing to help their government when such a cover up for a shoddy position is needed.
In the Washington Post Karen De Young supports the administration by providing this lie:
The United States has long joined international human rights organizations and other Western governments in criticizing Saudi human rights abuses ..
Her colleague David Sanger at the New York Times is debunks that nonsense point with a rare reference to reality:
The United States has usually looked the other way or issued carefully calibrated warnings in human rights reports as the Saudi royal family cracked down on dissent and free speech and allowed its elite to fund Islamic extremists.
Sanger then replaces the "U.S. supports human-rights in Saudi Arabia" lie with another blatant one:
the administration has [..] been sharply critical of the Saudi intervention in Yemen
The Obama administration has since March provided expedited arms sales, logistics support, targeting intelligence, air refueling and combat search and rescue for the Saudi war on Yemen. Its navy helps with the blockade of the Yemeni coast. How can the Obama administration be "sharply critical" of the Saudi war on Yemen when it provides the critical means for that war?
Since Sunday there have been at least 11 Saudi air attacks on Yemen's capital Sanaa. Last night another wedding hall, the Commerce Chamber and the AlNoor Centre for the Blind were destroyed by U.S. provided Saudi bombs. I doubt that we will hear any "sharply critical" condemnation of that bombing of civilian infrastructure from U.S. officials.
In the Saudi-Iran proxy conflicts the U.S. supports and urges the Saudis on because it is in its geopolitical interest. Saudi financed jihadist have been helpful in achieving U.S. geopolitical goals in the 1980s in Afghanistan against the Soviets, in Yugoslavia, in Chechnya as now in Syria against the Russians and in Xinjiang against the Chinese. There is no room for human rights or other concerns within that framework. There is room though for billions of weapon sales and millions given by the Saudis to U.S. and UK politicians as well as for public relations.
The New York Times editors falsely claim there is no choice for the U.S. other then to do what it does:
The tangled and volatile realities of the Middle East do not give the United States or the European Union the luxury of choosing or rejecting allies on moral criteria. Washington has no choice but to deal with regimes like those in Tehran [..] or in Riyadh to combat the clear and present danger posed by Islamist terrorists or to search for solutions to massively destabilizing conflicts like the Syrian civil war.
That is utter bullshit. The U.S. is working on regime change in Syria at least since 2006. The U.S. is enabling "the clear and present danger posed by Islamist terrorists" through its alliance with al-Qaeda. It always had and has the choice to cease and desist from meddling in the Middle East and elsewhere to the benefit of the average U.S. citizen as well as to the benefit of the people living in the Middle East.
U.S. media lie when they depict the U.S. as a benevolent entity that stumbles through the Middle East and other areas misled in the dark by Saudi Arabia and Israel. It is the U.S. that is the ruthless superpower that solely enables those barbaric entities to exist.
Posted by b on January 5, 2016 at 15:49 UTC | Permalink
On the other hand, the US has a factionalised government that does stumble about in the ME. Some are looking after oil interests, some weapons, and some occult agendas. The self destructive forces of capitalism are rampant here. There is no single cohesive policy. Only selfishness.
Makes things difficult to predict...
Posted by: Dan | Jan 5 2016 16:25 utc | 2
Its not just Saudi Arabia. Duplicity is rampant. Another example is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Oh, yeah they are "sharply critical" of Israeli settlements and harsh crack-downs that kill children - but those are empty words. The dance is, by now, very familiar: pay lip service to the 'two-state solution' while giving Israel cart-blanc via an absolute and unmitigated "right to defend themselves".
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2016 16:30 utc | 3
Pat Buchanan article questioning current USA alliances....http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/saudi-recklessness-exposes-our-own/
Posted by: Bluemot5 | Jan 5 2016 16:31 utc | 4
Dan @2: There is no single cohesive policy.
Really? Policy seems to have been remarkably consistent from Bush to Obama.
Beware political kabuki that is designed to blunt protest and dissuade dissent. How deep are the policy differences and what has changed as a result? Publicly there is a constant push for hard-line action. That call is met opportunistically (releasing built-up pressure as necessary), while behind the scenes/covertly we fully support our theocratic/dictatorial allies.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2016 16:49 utc | 5
thanks b for speaking much truth to this ongoing madness...
i think the disconnect between the stenographers for the empire and ordinary people, whether in europe or more broadly in the west is becoming more pronounced... it isn't going to sway those folks who want to label others economic determinists, but hey - things that time.. to think usa is goody two shoes in any of this, while it's 'special' relationship with saudi arabia continues, it to believe in hollywood and any other manufactured fairy tale that has sufficient gloss and shine to it..
Posted by: james | Jan 5 2016 17:13 utc | 6
The US caring for "Human rights" ?? You got to be kidding !!!
Remember that saudi official that was appointed to be the UN chairman of the Human rights comittee ??
Posted by: Willy2 | Jan 5 2016 17:15 utc | 7
Jackrabbit @5
It's an efficient wildcard policy that can be shifted to further any hairbrained scheme the idiots can cook up on a whim. A policy of non-policy, or more likely a non-policy of policy.
Posted by: TrueNorth | Jan 5 2016 17:35 utc | 8
Pleased that you included that excellent link from the Intercept, this from 'rrheard' in the comments section, it was so good I do hope he does not mind me posting part of it here. "America’s foreign policy relationship with Saudi Arabia is based on exactly two things historically–Saudi’s willingness to be a US proxy against communism in the region and the oil and weapons trade.
And that says all you need to know about America’s moral compass as well. I love the idea of my country, and absolutely detest what its leaders have done since WWII in service if its elites perceived “interests”. Because I can guaranfuckingtee you that America’s foreign policy over the last 60 years has nothing to do with the “best interests” of the American people, humanitarianism, human rights or the “interests” of any other people on the planet despite the cradle to grave propaganda apparatus in America that has a significant majority of American’s believing such transparent twaddle as “American exceptionalism” or “we are always well intentioned, we just make mistakes” when it comes to the mass slaughter of non-Americans all over the globe.
There hardly a fucking dictator on the planet that hasn’t been backed by the American government and its business elites, politically and/or economically, so long as they are pliant when it comes to towing the line on America’s “interests”."
Posted by: harry law | Jan 5 2016 18:18 utc | 9
Agree with B, except with popular opinion. Most of the Western public so politically unprincipled and cowardly that they can be swayed quite easily to western imperial propaganda. It's just a matter of when the media turned on the hate/fear switch up to 2/10.
Just look at the reminder in Congo genocide, with the people couldn't give a fuck, and is one of the worst genocides since World War II. Or the Rwandan genocide, with the propaganda that turned most of the victims into the guilty party and then lead genocidedal maniac - Paul Kagame, as the "sympathetic" president -now for life - thanks to the evil US empires evil media.
Blaming the Russians for the plane crash over Ukraine, gas attacks blamed on Assad. And then you can count thousands of examples where people in the west vote or support policies that are against their own health, social and political interests.
No, most Western people are willing to place the jackboot gladly under their neck, till they realise it's too late.
Posted by: tom | Jan 5 2016 19:12 utc | 10
"the administration has [..] been sharply critical of the Saudi intervention in Yemen"... Wow that's a heckuva wopper, even by msm standards. It's hard to be critical when you pretend it doesn't exist, not to mention their enabling of that very thing in the first place as b points out. I'm site they are critical, but only of the military ineptness of ksa & co, and privately at that.
Posted by: Colinjames | Jan 5 2016 19:13 utc | 11
Good one, b ...
Washington has no choice but to deal with regimes like those in [..] Riyadh to combat the clear and present danger posed by Islamist terrorists ... That is utter bullshit ... It is the U.S. that is the ruthless superpower that solely enables those barbaric entities to exist.
... and I also agree that no one pays any attention to the spew from the Western msm any longer.
Posted by: jfl | Jan 5 2016 19:14 utc | 12
Off topic.
Since now the Russian Federation has now openly declared the US and NATO strategic threats to Russia, will Russia and Putin now quit with the always BS plan of partnership with the West against terrorism in Syria ?
Putin did try hard to retain a status quo friendly position with the current leadership of the West, but that is a genocidal, racist, class war, maniacle capitilist, earth polluting, and generally evil west, that deserves to die ASAP. If small Cuba right on the evil US empires door was able to resist, why not far larger Russia ?
Posted by: tom | Jan 5 2016 19:29 utc | 14
To Dan @2 and Jackrabbit @5:
In an odd way, you are both right. The US government is beholden to lobby groups interested in feathering their nests and getting their way. US foreign policy has also been consistent from one presidential administration to the next.
Think of the US government as several psychopaths working together. Psychopaths basically only care about looking out for No 1. If two or more psychopaths discover that working together allows them to fulfill their individual goals quicker than if they worked separately, then they'll co-operate.
The fact that US foreign policy has been consistent from George W Bush to Barack Obama could say a great deal about the style of Obama's presidency. What has Obama been able to achieve in the 8 years he has been POTUS that has been positive and which has given his presidency a particular distinction and flavour that represent the man's character and personality? I submit not much at all. The impression I get (btw, I live on the other side of the Pacific Ocean from the US)is that Obama is a weak leader who has never been able to control and rein in particular members of his cabinet like his previous Secretary of State, much less the ideologue she brought with her who planned and carried out the coup that deposed President Yanukovych in Ukraine in February 2014, and who handpicked the fellow who is currently that nation's prime minister. I might also suggest that George W Bush was a weak leader who did as he was told.
In short, if the oil lobby, the pro-Israeli lobby, other industry and country lobbies in the US government find that their interests coincide, they'll work as one through Congress and the various federal government departments.
Posted by: Jen | Jan 5 2016 19:49 utc | 15
If small Cuba right on the evil US empires door was able to resist, why not far larger Russia ?
Why not everyone on the planet? Perhaps it's time to grow some ovaries (or testicles as the case may be).
Posted by: Wazzadoodness | Jan 5 2016 20:17 utc | 16
Thanks b for further debunking those liars.
@james@6
i think the disconnect between the stenographers for the empire and ordinary people, whether in europe or more broadly in the west is becoming more pronounced...
The "disconnect" is in a "pronounced" six figures salary. De Young and Sanger adjust their stenography according to the daily needs of consumption by the brainwashed masses, jumping across words in order to build a tapestry of lies that furthers the establishment's narrative.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 5 2016 20:27 utc | 17
Lysias@18 Trump: 'I would want to protect Saudi Arabia' he goes on, "That’s phase one — to go into Saudi Arabia and, frankly, the Saudis don’t survive without us. And the question is, at what point do we get involved and how much will Saudi Arabia pay us to save them?"
This is exactly what the Mafia say to their victims.
Posted by: harry law | Jan 5 2016 20:42 utc | 19
@ lysias | 18
Trump was surprisingly overt over racketeering Saudis, "pay us for protection". Usually politicians do it behind the scenes.
What was not surprising however, Trump also blames Iran for violating the nuclear agreement, even though the claim is bogus. IMHO its only the matter of time till sanctions are reapplied on Iran, too bad for US the rest of the World will do their best not to comply.
Posted by: Harry | Jan 5 2016 20:47 utc | 20
Trump speaks the lingo of the House of Saud, well at least of Prince Bandar, now deposed of his key role to influence the West. Wasn't it Bandar who offered a terror free Sochi games for Assad's head on a platter. Putin must have calmly replied if any harm comes to Russia in the period of the Olympic Winter games, Saudi Arabia may just lose one of it's cities.
Blair and now Cameron deal with Saudi Arabia to exchange modern weapons for protection from AQ terror in the UK. It's the British (and French) who were willing to join Obama in bombing Assad's Syria in September 2013. Now it's the British and Americans who offer intelligence and logistic support to KSA and the GCC allies in bombing Yemen back to deeper medieval times. AQAP will use this to their advantage.
@9 harry law.. thanks for sharing that..
@10 tom.. that is all true too..
@14 tom - i think russia is/was just playing for more time..i am quite certain they are not fooled..
@15 jen.. i agree with you and like your last line..
@17 lw... yes - money is a factor, even if pl at ssr doesn't agree!
Posted by: james | Jan 5 2016 21:15 utc | 22
How Saudi executions followed giant US arms deal
https://www.rt.com/news/328019-saudi-executions-us-contract/
As a historian and librarian I have spent the past 40 or so years looking at American (US-ian) foreign policy. I have come reluctantly to the conclusion that our current foreign policy began with the 'settlers' in Virginia and the Bay colonies as they defined the 'other' as heathen and 'red' or brown. Land was taken and hundreds were murdered for their land. Nothing has really changed ... the US has consistently and mercilessly destroyed cultures, peoples and own soul(s) whether the 'enemy' was the Pohattan, Pequots, or any others. By definition the native peoples were unchristian/heathens and deserved to die. Wars of extermination continued until the whole US land base was taken over. That mindset was established very early ... and if we look at our behavior and the reference to peoples we've invaded in the 21st century we still refer to those we invade and kill as 'Indian Country.'
So, the idea that something was different after what appears to be the 'black flag' attack of 9/11 is palpably nonsense. We are NOT a good people ... we have always taken what we want ... we have always used proxies in our fights, and woe be to anyone who resists us ... whether they be native Americans, Philippinos, Nicaraguans, Iraqi's, or Syrians. Oppose us ... we'll kill you.
It has been that way forever ... and we are all culpable. It is in our genetic material: to turn neighbors against each other, then allow them to fight each other until they are unable tom resist having had their cultures, and their land bases destroyed.
You want proof ... read and think!
Posted by: Rg an LG | Jan 5 2016 21:30 utc | 24
I think the only thing people in the west are worried about is how to make their mortage payments lol. The rest is just beer talk something to talk about while trying to kill time with your friends.
Truth is most of the public in the west are far too busy to care about the ME. Its the way the system is set up, its how the US has run its "empire" since WW2 with no real opposition at home.
I personally dont think people care, i mean lets be real here, everyone knew how many hijackers were saudi, they knew bin laden was saudi, and basically every single terrorist has Saudi fingerprints on it, yet its still the very exact same.
I dont know. Maybe im just blabbering here
Posted by: Deebo | Jan 5 2016 21:39 utc | 25
The DC rag WP is really craving for a good, big sectarian regional war in ME, I am afraid they are not going to get it, Iranian have been acting responsibly not letting US, Israel, and their Arab insecure clientele wishes come
Through. Never the less WP editors would want their readers believe
Iranian protestors meant to attack a SUNNI embassy, and not the Embassy of Saudi Arabia who was responsible for executed an innocent Shia high clergy.
"The execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Baqr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia has sparked a furor in the Middle East along sectarian lines. In Iran, the regional Shiite superpower, the Sunni embassy was ransacked and burned."
Posted by: Kooshy | Jan 5 2016 21:44 utc | 26
Kooshy @ 25 (4:44PM) -- Great find. Simple stunning that this got by proofreaders. And amy thinking persons on the WaPo editorial board!
Posted by: jawbone | Jan 5 2016 22:23 utc | 27
@Oui@21
Obama 'Connived' with Neocons for a Bashar Replacement
Very good points, Oui. The neo-cons are the establishment's political death-squads, the sinister arm of the executive who resorts to them whenever the establishment/Deep State need to eliminate anyone considered an "enemy" of the empire, followed by an installation of puppets.
Neo-cons are in close coordination with CIA's "clandestine/black operations" branch, working together all aspects of any operation at hand, the CIA with the operative/military goons, the neo-cons with the political crooks. A typical example was in Banderastan, where the CIA had been actively recruiting/training the nazi bastards for years, ready for the Maidan, ehem, "revolution," with the neo-cons putting together the political puppets ("I think Yats is the guy") who would become the facade of the nazi takeover.
Syria, on the other hand, was a hard nut to crack, the neo-cons and the CIA made severe mistakes underestimating Assad and the resistance of the Syrian people. US/UK/NATO were announcing the fall of Assad every other day, and while many of those Western "leaders" are gone, Assad has survived all their ill-predictions. Neo-cons/CIA are fuming at the mouth constantly looking for a way to reverse their losses, and starting a little war between KSA-Iran is not such a bad idea, neo-cons swim like fish in chaos.
They are getting set for another defeat by old Persian wisdom.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 5 2016 22:25 utc | 28
Rg an LG: It is in our genetic material
No. There are Americans that are opposed.
One might say that it is "cultural" or "cultural dna" but that is also a broad generalization.
The fact is, the few - with much to gain - bamboozle and intimidate the many. And that continues to this day.
It will only stop when people clearly see that the lunatics are running the asylum via major setback/reversals in the economy, on the battlefield, in public opinion (effects of global warming?), etc.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2016 22:26 utc | 29
All
Dc rag WP just changed the wording as I had copied and pasted on my earlier comment @25 here how it’s changed now
“The execution of Shiite cleric Nimr Baqr al-Nimr by Saudi Arabia has sparked a furor in the Middle East along sectarian lines. In Iran, the regional Shiite superpower, the Saudi Embassy was ransacked and burned.”
Same link new wording
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/05/5-facts-about-sunnis-and-shiites-that-help-makes-sense-of-the-saudi-iran-crisis/
Posted by: kooshy | Jan 5 2016 22:53 utc | 30
Meanwhile, Fidel Castro has survived 9 or 10 U.S. presidencies since he was put on the U.S. hit list.
Posted by: lysias | Jan 5 2016 22:55 utc | 31
Sweden’s feminist foreign minister has dared to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia. What happens now concerns us all (ht ZeroHedge)
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2016 23:39 utc | 32
@kooshy@29
Dc rag WP just changed the wording as I had copied and pasted on my earlier comment @25 here how it’s changed now
That was a bit more than an hour between your posts. Either you scored, or the WaPo bastards were made aware of their grotesqueness.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 6 2016 0:25 utc | 33
@kooshy@29
Dc rag WP just changed the wording as I had copied and pasted on my earlier comment @25 here how it’s changed now
A bit more than an hour between your posts. Either you scored, or the WaPo bastards were made aware of their grotesqueness. Good scoop, thanks.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 6 2016 0:51 utc | 34
Pfft. Saudi Arabia. Now there would be a sanction I'd believe in. An embarrassing country... awesome armoury lads, and for what...? Too many dollars not enough sense.
You'd have to think by the way the 'minnow' houthi warriors are able kick chickenshit Saudi skull up and down the borderlands, and by the need to import Columbian mercenary's to do their dirty laundry that the Saudi men are just not up for the fight...really...it leads me to feel that there must be a fair deal of anti-establishment sentiment inside the country.
I mean, the mainstream cop on has been pretty slow...disappointing really...all the giveaway signs of what is going on in the region are in the signature execution styles of those vying for power. Connect the dots people...its not hard.
That Aussie and Brit flag flying at half mast last year when 'his majesty' kicked the bucket was really hard to stomach...sickening. Hopefully Europe collectively loses its head over both Saudi and Isreal and finally calls a spade a spade.
Would love to be living in the age of free energy...should already be here...but I guess in any age of extremist consumerism it would not really matter...some poor fucker would be still be heaping shit some other poor f**ker to get ahead...in the name of progress.
Great post by the way b.
Posted by: MadMax2 | Jan 6 2016 1:15 utc | 35
b said:
"It is the U.S. that is the ruthless superpower that solely enables those barbaric entities to exist."
Case closed! This can't be stated enough, thanks b.
And to buttress b's case, there is this:
http://www.alternet.org/world/35-countries-where-us-has-supported-fascists-druglords-and-terrorists
Posted by: ben | Jan 6 2016 2:40 utc | 36
@Jackrabbit@31
Sweden’s feminist foreign minister has dared to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia. What happens now concerns us all (ht ZeroHedge)
The West is going backwards at full speed in a regression towards the Dark Ages that is leaving behind human rights, civil rights, women rights, workers rights, any gains humanity has made since the Age of Enlightenment through the French Revolution, to now. The global capitalist ruling elite is deeply scared of another revolutionary period, and has made a conscious decision to throw away all pretense of "civilization" that could hinder their power to accumulate, concentrate and centralize capital and planetary resources.
The "social-democratic" Swedish ruling elite kissing the pestilent, medieval, reactionary, beastly Saudi asses is but a small example of a backward historical trend that is taking us all off to the deep end.
Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 6 2016 3:00 utc | 37
And why nobody here appreciates the progress in the kingdom, like allowing women to vote, and run for elected positions? (For totally meaningless municipal councils that cannot decide anything, but you cannot rush those things. And what kind of clever idea is this:
Pfft. Saudi Arabia. Now there would be a sanction I'd believe in. An embarrassing country... awesome armoury lads, and for what...? Too many dollars not enough sense.
Posted by: MadMax2 | Jan 5, 2016 8:15:34 PM | 33
Back in the savage times folks could only make useful stuff, with an occasional adornment. Then they started to "accumulate surplus" and voila! Useless stuff appeared. Think about Stonehenge as a very early example. If everything is useful, there is no mark of having a surplus. Fast forward to modern Capitalism. Some schmucks eke paper thin profit margins by producing inexpensive useful stuff, but as a rule of thumb, the profit margins grow when the product represents "dreams", prestige, etc. The proudest phrase is "no expense will be spared", as opposed to "we will make sure that everything is needed and in working order" -- no pride there. On the seller side, the most beloved customers are those who do not need our products, and if unexpectedly they need them, they have no idea how to use them. And yet! they come back to buy more! In that sense, what MadMax2 described, far from being an embarrassment, is actually the chief redeeming quality of our friends at the shores of an unnamed Gulf.
By the way of contrast, Israel is OUR unnecessary tchotchke that we can proudly display how we can afford to spend so much money and aggravation on something so useless.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 6 2016 3:27 utc | 39
Off topic.
Since now the Russian Federation has now openly declared the US and NATO strategic threats to Russia, will Russia and Putin now quit with the always BS plan of partnership with the West against terrorism in Syria?
Putin did try hard to retain a status quo friendly position with the current leadership of the West, but that is a genocidal, racist, class war, maniacle capitilist, earth polluting, and generally evil west, that deserves to die ASAP. If small Cuba right on the evil US empires door was able to resist, why not far larger Russia?
Posted by: tom | Jan 5, 2016 2:29:04 PM | 14
No, definitely not off topic (of b's punchline/ final sentence).
Russia (& China) will continue to promote the "BS plan of partnership with the West..." because it maintains and reinforces their record of promoting global unity and cooperation. Their (almost) joint military announcements on the same forum, on the same day (January 2, 2016) was intended as a final(?) warning that there's an iron fist in China's velvet glove of friendship, and that Russia isn't buying US-NATO's bs.
Russia's Syria intervention was, imo, more of an experiment than an exercise in resuscitating a broken Syria. Putin needed to know whether thwarting ISIS was REALLY as hard as US-NATO was making it look, and gave himself 4 months to find out. But he'd be the first, one imagines, to admit that swatting head-chopping mosquitoes whilst doing NOTHING about the swamps in which they breed, could easily become an exercise in Perpetual Pointlessness.
As the end of Russia's 4-month 'fact-finding mission' in Syria draws to a close, it's highly likely that Russia knows a lot more about swamps and head-choppers than it did on September 30, 2015 and what, and how, to implement a more effective course of therapy. Preferably non-violent but if n-v proves to be impractical, then with as much (Russian & Chinese) violence as necessary to produce a cure.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 6 2016 6:20 utc | 40
Great posting b
Your description of the Orwellian nature of current media output is sickeningly accurate. During recent annual phone conversations with old friends that were hip to the BS in the 60-70's, a few are now ranting about Muslims and those conversations were short. The effectiveness of TV as a brainwashing tool is under 'appreciated". That said, it is encouraging to read b and commenters here cutting through the BS.
Just keep remembering the role that private financing and the global plutocrats play at the top of our real-life SimWorld
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 6 2016 6:40 utc | 41
This thing about Russia, and Putin especially, calling everybody colleagues and partners, tends to make us think that Russia believes that these nations can be trusted, but I don't think for one moment that this is the case. The language Russia uses is simply the courtesy of reason, used equally by friend and hangman. Russia likes to give people a chance to change because it knows how frequently this happens. We can see ourselves that this is so.
If you haven't watched the World Order documentary yet, I highly recommend it. It's a powerful dose of realpolitik and recent history, with English subtitles by Vox Populi. Putin describes in very plain terms much of the substance of Russia's foreign policy. There will be no nuclear war, he believes, and I trust his judgment on this.
He is consciously changing the world, nudging it to return to a fundamental recognition of the global balance of power, as it once relied on that recognition. I believe he will live to see this effort succeed in his own time: World Order. Documentary. Eng. Subs.
Posted by: Grieved | Jan 6 2016 7:09 utc | 42
@39 Piotr Berman
Haha, I like the notion of Israel and Saudi Arabia's inverse relationship in our wonderful capitalist ideal...Israel being the western capitalist 'welfare state' if you will. A tumour...a useless growth displaying all the nasty excesses of the ideal... the type of sick rich child that repeatedly tortures animals because there is no negative recourse for doing so. Saudi Arabia, the other sick rich kid sitting on an inheritance it does not have the wisdom to know what to do with - its plaything called oil.
Its surplus, foolishly, reinvested in the US financial sector...creating this monster called the petrodollar...the major denomination of our age...our reality.
Posted by: MadMax2 | Jan 6 2016 15:49 utc | 43
Might I respond to a comment made earlier.?
"@17 lw... yes - money is a factor, even if pl at ssr doesn't agree!"
Could we say that money is an indispensable but secondary factor? The corporations and lobbyists do buy the politicians, as President Carter explained to us recently, but that's to get immediate benefits such as contracts or other favours in return. They do of course need a foreign policy framework that allows for such a return but I don't think they are too bothered by what that framework is.
The present framework, if that's not too kind a term for it, is partly set by the ideologues - Wolfowitz and Brzezinski et al are first and foremost ideologues rather than pork barrel practitioners - and partly by the random workings of the American political and administrative machinery. Random because there is little control of that machinery from underneath - government by the people scarcely exists in the US since it costs so much to get a politician elected - and little control from above: as explained, as long as the corporations get their immediate return they have no interest in setting long term and coherent foreign policy objectives.
So the crazies are out of the basement and running the front office. Why not? - it was empty anyway so it was open to whoever chanced along.
They won't be there for ever. Either the American people will discover how to regain control of their politics - unlikely, given that no other Western democracy can pull off that trick - or President Carter's 'oligarchs' will get their act together. As in Franco's Spain or as in Russia in the late 1990's they will discover that there's more to running a country than looting it. Someone has to set long term policy objectives and hold it all together just so there's something to loot.
Which will happen,and how, is anyone's guess but I doubt we'll see current American foreign policy perpetuated. Unless the US is destined simply to self-destruct - and take the rest of us down with it - someone, voter or oligarch, will be obliged to take its government in hand and do some thinking about the long term.
When that happens the crazies will have to return to the basement and, if only out of the need for survival, someone is going to have to work at devising policies that aren't so obviously suicidal for the US. With any luck, they won't be so murderous for the rest of us either.
Peter J A Wright
Posted by: Peter J A Wright | Jan 6 2016 16:12 utc | 44
@44 peter... thanks.. those are reasonable viewpoints to hold on the complicated dynamics that define how the usa operates.. i think they are more idealistic then how i see it.. i am not sure money is a 2ndary consideration so much as it is the most important ingredient in the capitalist ideology, devoid of more social considerations.. it seems to me that democracy is only a good idea if it can't be bought out by (special interests groups) - money.. as it stands the usa is a good example of what happens when it is bought out by money.. meanwhile there are a lot of good people that wish the best for the country and hopefully the world by extension, but i don't see them as having the influence and control that the more self interested moneyed group has.. so, i would flip the way you see it whereby money is the primary consideration, especially in an atmosphere where the folks on the bottom end will do whatever they have to do, to continue to live, eat and have a roof over their heads..
the case of the 2008 meltdown where the little people where penalized and the banks were let off with a bailout is a good example of how i see things unfolding.. the banks are considered more central and in need of being bailed out then the little people.. that seems like money is the main driver, as opposed to looking after the society more generally..
Posted by: james | Jan 6 2016 17:28 utc | 45
24;comparing 17th,18th and 19th century attitudes with 20th and 21st century ones are very problematic.Yes,the white settlers,who to a man(and woman)believed themselves superior to the red black and brown man.Many still do,but the internal domestic expansion violence was nationalistic,while our current escapades world wide are internationalist Zionism and imperialism,and are not really comparable other than victim counts.
Obomba;A lot of words while the roof falls in;Hamlet.
Posted by: dahoit | Jan 6 2016 18:32 utc | 46
Dan at 2. There is no single cohesive policy. Only selfishness
The USA attacks militarily directly, or by overt other means (economic), or behind the curtain:
1) those that challenge it even in the imagination, provided small and pretty powerless
2) countries, groups, that have a ‘socialistic’ bent, try to do well for their citizens, and/or espouse some ideology that appears, *on the face of it*, anti-capitalistic, nationalistic, or pan-national (e.g. Communism in the past, Baath party, Arab nationalism, Cuba.)
3) those who try to annul or wash away ethnic, racist, religious, and so on differences in favor of some kind of ‘universality’, a citizen status, mandate - this goes against the colonialist model, abroad and at home, in which ppl are sand niggers, blacks, etc. The US support for equality thus turns to trivia, gay marriage, quarrels about abortion, etc.
4) Energy rich countries who won’t open up to US corps, domination. (ex. Venezuela), or won’t permit US type banking system in their country, or aren't subservient enough on a host of points (ex. Syria, Lybia) or somehow manage to cozy and then resist for a long while (ex. Iraq)
5) Those who are involved massively with illegal and dubious trade - human trafficking, organ sales, child forced prostitution, drugs, illegal arms, condoned murder of rivals, vicious internal repression, heavy torture, prisons, etc. are generally supported, but on occasion they rebel or try for other, which is not to be allowed (ex. Afghanistan)
6) Anyone that can be attacked on any grounds, opportunistically, to racketeer fines, big sums of money, such as in the banking sector.
7) Countries it pretends to admire who are secretely dominated by them and only escape ostracim, sanctions or bombs or more by subservience, and a ‘belonging to a controlled block’ (EU.) Sweden and the Netherlands come to mind.
8) Other.
That is a lot countries, people, all together. The foreign policy is not cohesive, I agree, it is simply all over the board, adjusted all the time, based on ad hoc criteria, racist supremacy, capitalistic short term profiteering, snobby disaproval, empty rage, power plays, sectorial interests, corporate meddling, personal arm-twisting and blackmail, deals with foreign potentates, arms production and selling which needs war, and on and on.
Posted by: Noirette | Jan 6 2016 19:35 utc | 47
@47 noirette.. good summation.. thank you for this and your many other posts..
Posted by: james | Jan 6 2016 21:07 utc | 48
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"The Western public now prefers good relations w/ Iran over relations w/ Saudi Arabia" I can't speak for everyone in the West but that is my sentiments exactly. Iran has been the center of deep state propaganda for so long that we have failed to realize - the Saudi's are more in need of a regime change then anyone in that region. Ultimately, screw them all, except for Syria - i'll never forget what Saudi Arabia and Turkey / western cohorts did to Syria - I hope it comes back to nest in Saudi Arabia..
Posted by: Au | Jan 5 2016 16:03 utc | 1