Posted by: Karl | Jan 11, 2016 1:39:39 PM | 1
Except it’s not “The NYT Editorial Board”; it’s Ross Douthat, conservative columnist

Ross Gregory Douthat (/ˈdaʊθæt/; born November 28, 1979) is a conservative American author, blogger[1] and New York Times columnist. Douthat is the youngest regular op-ed writer in the New York Times.[2] He joined the Times in April 2009, replacing Bill Kristol as a conservative voice on the Times editorial page.[3]

All sorts of folks are quietly “safely” in oblique fashion pushing a nativist line by attacking Merkel … praying for a bloody crash and burn … if for no other reason than that she and Germany said “Yes We Can” and thus far, warts and all, are making it work, more or less (she makes us look like the cowards we are) There is crowing about her asking for more authority to deport those convicted of crimes (apparently currently successful asylum petitioners are protected from “repatriation” of the country of the past “persecution” and of course, no one else wants them or has any obligation to accept or hold them) … see also, call for more stringent screening is being heralded as another “admission of failure” with the train station attacks “proving” the inadequacy of the current screening methods (all in advance of the findings as to exactly what happened and how/why). Guardian.
Apparently on New Years Eve, there were around thousand North African predominant “foreigner” congregating in the space between the train station and the cathedral in Cologne … be there or be square, apparently a coordinated meet-up rather than a flash-mob …Suggestions of coordination, but no claim of proof
The upwardly revised Cologne numbers are disturbing as are a handful of “mob attacks” on minorities yesterday/last night. report on attacks on foreigners.

The assaults on women in Cologne and other German cities have prompted more than 600 criminal complaints, with the police investigation focusing at least partly on asylum seekers and migrants. Police said on Sunday 516 of the complaints related to incidents in Cologne – a jump of 395 over the weekend – and that about 40% of them were of a sexual nature.
The rest of the women in Cologne said they had phones or wallets stolen or were otherwise physically assaulted.

Sweden is now responding to charges that there was a coverup of mob sexual assault (primarily groping) at a youth music festival last summer — again by foreigners …
The only rationale for these head-scratchingly provocative “crime sprees” is some sort of sharpening the contradictions of the absolutely-most-cynical kind … in which agitators (to be determined) create a meet-up and then turn the crowd (agent provocateur fashion) into a mob… in order to increase repression and throw a spanner in the works of Germany’s immigration processing … god knows ISIS has no concern, much less pity, for those immigrants.
The failure of the Cologne police to respond to complaints and secure the public facility is a secondary, but quite real scandal … the failure to report as new similar patterns of assault in other cities is being ratcheted up as another scandal (cover-up), but it’s hard to tell if the magnitude of those crimes were in fact “newsworthy” — beyond stoking anxiety about immigrants.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Jan 11 2016 19:21 utc | 3

Thanks for the link … and the name … I heard a long interview with him on the BBC which seemed obviously tintended to push him as part of the “After Assad” narrative …
His twitter feed is very Al-Arabiya entwined … https://twitter.com/AzeemIbrahim
Herald Scotland: From a Glasgow council house to dinner at the White House.

Can Azeem Ibrahim be real? I’m having trouble believing it and he’s sitting beside me. He’s a multi-millionaire with his own bank, and scholar with a doctorate from Cambridge University. He advises governments on inward investment, belongs to US and UK think tanks and has an address book to rival a prime minister’s.
With a self-made fortune of £60m, he’s setting up charities all over the world. He is handsome, impeccably dressed and relentlessly courteous. He has a paediatrician wife called Hena and a baby daughter, Sophia, with whom he lives on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Gosh, I think we’ve already seen this movie … He’s the designated ex-pat whose going to save Syria …

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Jan 11 2016 19:43 utc | 5

David Bowie – Blackstar
https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw
This single is released a month ago. He looks quite healthy for someone with liver cancer.

Posted by: Neretva’43 | Jan 11 2016 20:36 utc | 7

For all of those who keep on arguing about the benefits of one US candidate over the other, they could save their energy for more constructive efforts.
Voting Is for Chumps: Veteran Congressional Staffer Says ‘Deep State’ Already Controls America
You still have to pay your taxes, though

One of the more encouraging (?) developments in Acceptable American Discourse over the last five years or so has been the gradual acceptance, even among Serious Media Outlets, that American voters no longer have any real control over their own government, and more broadly, their collective destiny.
In April 2014, Princeton University published a study which found that “economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”
Then in October of the same year, a Tufts University professor published a devastating critique of the current state of American democracy, “National Security and Double Government,” which catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.
The Boston Globe’s write-up of the book was accompanied by the brutal headline, “Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.” Imagine a headline like that during the Hope and Change craze of 2008. Yeah, you can’t. Because nobody’s that imaginative.
Yes, people are beginning to smell the rot — even people who watch television in hopes of not having to confront the miserable reality that awaits them once they turn off their 36-inch flatscreens. In September, Jimmy Carter warned Oprah Winfrey:
“We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life,” the 90-year-old former president told Winfrey.
The live audience were probably hoping for free Oprah cars. Instead, an ex-president told them that their democracy is in the gutter. What a bummer.
The latest canary in the coal mine is none other than ex-longtime GOP staffer turned best-selling author Mike Lofgren, whose new book, “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government,” confirms what is already painfully apparent:
The deep state has created so many contradictions in this country. You have this enormous disparity of rich and poor; and you have this perpetual war, even though we’re braying about freedom. We have a surveillance state, and we talk about freedom. We have internal contradictions. Who knows what this will fly into? It may collapse like the Soviet Union; or it might go into fascism with a populist camouflage.
Some excerpts from Salon’s recent interview with Lofgren:
On how the deep state operates:
Well, first of all, it is not a conspiracy. It is something that operates in broad daylight. It is not a conspiratorial cabal. These are simply people who have evolved [into] a kind of position. It is in their best interest to act in this way.
And given the fact that people would rather know about Kim Kardashian than what makes up the budget or what the government is doing in Mali or Sudan or other unknown places, this is what you get: a disconnected, self-serving bureaucracy that is … simply evolving to do what it’s doing now. That is, to maintain and enhance its own power.
On who (and what) is part of the deep state:
The key institutions are exactly what people would think they are. The military-industrial complex; the Pentagon and all their contractors (but also, now, our entire homeland security apparatus); the Department of Treasury; the Justice Department; certain courts, like the southern district of Manhattan, and the eastern district of Virginia; the FISA courts. And you got this kind of rump Congress that consists of certain people in the leadership, defense and intelligence committees who kind of know what’s going on. The rest of Congress doesn’t really know or care; they’re too busy looking about the next election.
Lofgren goes on to explain that the private sector works hand-in-hand with the deep state, regardless of which “party” is in power. According to Lofgren, “There are definable differences between Bush and Obama. However, the differences are so constrained. They’re not between the 40-yard lines; they are between the 48-yard lines.”
Of course, millions of Americans will still enjoy rooting for the candidate whom they would most enjoy drinking Bud Lite Lime with, but probably deep in their hearts they all know they’re doomed.
The End.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 11 2016 20:56 utc | 9

@4 joe6pac.. that guy has no biz wearing a kilt..
@6 Maracatu.. that sounds about right..
@8 mina.. thanks for the link to bhadrakumar’s article.. i don’t agree with his opening statement, or only in so far as saudi arabia continues to throws wackdoodle of money at the msm to make it’s case in this particular example.. well, i agree iran would have been better served insuring that the saudi embassy wasn’t trashed in any way, but our world has become more about optics then reality.. the stampede on the pilgrimages in saudi really needs to remain front and centre for the saudi shieks, not to mention bombing the shit out of yemen – which again is off the msm regularly.. that is another good example of made in the usa cluster bombs used by saudi arabia staying out of the news.. interesting article non the less – thanks..

Posted by: james | Jan 11 2016 21:10 utc | 11

Bhadrakumar piece is more wrong than right.
* He blames Iran and Saudis equally, which is BS, pretty much all (like 95%) of blame lies on Saudis.
* He alleges Iran and Saudis are equally saber rattling and they just “should patch up”. What Bhadrakumar doesnt understand, its the Saudis who dont want to patch up, while Iran was always going out of its way to reduce the tension, even after all the horrors Saudis committed in Syria, Yemen and against Iran. Execution of cleric might have broken the last straw, much like SU-24 broke Turkey’s and Russia’s relationships, in either case its Saudis and Turkey’s fault it came to this, NOT Russia’s or Iran’s. It takes two sides to make peace, Iran cant do it alone since Saudis chooses to continue the escalation.
* “Syrian transition will be well under way, a ceasefire in Syria will have most probably taken hold” – I doubt any of that will happen. Resistance axis will never agree to hand over the power to US puppet, US wont agree on anything less. If nationwide ceasefire would happen – it would be bad news, since it would be used to stop advancing SAA and reinforce and resupply the terrorists, a la Minsk 2.0.

Posted by: Harry | Jan 11 2016 21:39 utc | 13

@10 Blackmail?
Dont know if true but I remember reading something to the effect that after Obama was sworn in, he met with Bush sr. and co who told him that he now worked for them with threats to his family if he wouldnt submit..

Posted by: Lozion | Jan 11 2016 21:58 utc | 15

@lysias@10
What is the mechanism that forces American presidents to go along with what the deep state decides?
It is a complex mechanism, a take-over of key positions within the US power structure, a corporate government mix where the US “government” mission is to advocate, promote, and defend corporate interests worldwide.
US National Security Strategy embodies those corporate interests and unfolds them into specific goals and objectives to be attained by means of foreign and domestic policies that “presidents” and other figureheads sell at home and abroad.
That, in a nutshell, is how the Deep State works.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 11 2016 22:22 utc | 17

Merkel is getting taken out by Deep State, with this “rapefugee” BS. This is about her wavering on Syria.
The only thing “coordinated” about the whole fake affair are the lying MSM headlines.
Two rapes or something occured on NYE…OMFG stop the presses. “1000 Arab rapists coordinate mass rape on Twitter!” etc

Posted by: L Bean | Jan 11 2016 22:29 utc | 19

@4/5/11 The latter (11) spot on, the wanker need a dirk in the ribs for that. 4th para is a dads army TA unit, nothing more. Not elite or for that matter SF.
Seems this fella is being primed…

Posted by: Kevin | Jan 11 2016 22:38 utc | 21

@15 This is excuse making for falling for Obama who openly admired Reagan, claimed the right to bomb anything anywhere without working with local governments, surrounded himself with pigs, and even denounced Moveon for their ad about Petraeus.
People hate being conned more than con men, and they concoct rationalizations for being duped that often defy logic.

Posted by: NotTimothyGeithner | Jan 11 2016 22:45 utc | 23

For everyone on deep state there is this.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/guest-post-obama-team-feared-revolt-if-he-prosecuted-war-crimes.html
#21 yep maybe the next pm for England. The candidate like obomber from the cia/m16.
#11 I Agree

Posted by: jo6pac | Jan 11 2016 23:22 utc | 25

David Bowie – Moon of Alabama 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz1ypTjChcA

Posted by: Klaus | Jan 11 2016 23:28 utc | 27

@24 “an across the board push by the relict aryan purists in Germany to fire up the Grand Old Party line.”
A Prussian revival you think? War guilt? It could just be ordinary German folk getting pissed off.

Posted by: dh | Jan 12 2016 0:07 utc | 29

I doubt if anyone in Germany will admit to being an ‘aryan purist’ these days. Perhaps ‘war guilt’ was an afterthought. But it does seem to motivate Merkel to some extent.
I’ll admit to being confused about the German refugee situation. I don’t think I’m a racist but I have lived in the Middle East and I wasn’t too surprised to learn about the groping in Cologne.
It’s interesting that both left and right blame the media for unfair reporting. Not unlike Trump fans.

Posted by: dh | Jan 12 2016 0:34 utc | 31

The system is totally corrupt. If you make it to Congress, you’ve got favors to pay back. If you don’t work for the corporate interests (already aligned with deep state) you won’t get the money to run a second term. Some other craven asshole will take your job whether you want it (by demonstrating total acquiescence) or not (by trying to be Mr.Smith in Washington).
Now, if you want to be President, you’ve got to have “experience” in Congress or in state gubmint.
The very best thing about Donald Trump, is that he is an outsider – particularly when compared with the other contestants whom are machine politicians (corrupted in the system). BTW, Bernie is full of shit (as is Trump).

Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 12 2016 0:46 utc | 33

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 11, 2016 7:39:18 PM | 32
I heard a report about Maydaya on the BBC that accidentally made it clear that there was food, but that the “rebels” who were preventing aid from getting in, weren’t about to share it or do anything about the scalpers … this video suggests they are the scalpers .. and/or if there is a food shortage, there should be an ammo shortage and a “replacement fighter” shortage … none of which have been mentioned. If there were no food, the “rebel fighters” would be among the hungry. It was a rebel compound, so of course Assad was being blamed because ….
On the bright side, I had read months ago that ISIS had studied various Guerrilla warfare manuals (Che, Mao), they apparently skipped the lesson of being one with the peasantry … and/or in usual middle eastern sectarian racist fashion, the hungry are the “wrong kind” or are useless “dependents” (old, sick, children, women — y’know helpless people who can be starved for PR purposes)
I am so weary of the gross deceit being practiced these days …

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Jan 12 2016 0:56 utc | 35

Lone Wolf @ 9
That is a very good explanation of ‘Deep State’. My only caveat is that it doesn’t completely describe the oligarchy because it leaves out the corporate component. When money became speech a huge mountain of power devolved to the rich. They’d always had clout as the graphs describing the separation of the rich from the not-so-well off and the rest of us have made clear – but now the ugly truth is unavoidable and it all goes together to produce what President Carter described.
It’s just plain awful.

Posted by: juliania | Jan 12 2016 1:50 utc | 37

@ 31
Islam is not a race, therefore you cannot be called a racist. It is a totalitarian religion which everyone within its territory is obliged to believe in. You cannot give up Islam and stay in an Islamic country because you become an apostate and can be put to death. Somebody said it has a terrifying brilliance in that it encompasses everything: education, the legal system, the economy, government, the army, marriage, divorce, adultery, life, death; you name it and Islam has it covered – even how to have sex with a donkey (you have to kill it afterwards). It becomes your identity over and above your country. Islam deprives you of your own identity because you are not allowed to challenge anything. You read the barbaric book and shut the fuck up.
As regards Islamaphobia two years living in a hard-core Pakistani Deobandi community in the UK taught me that more accurate would be “Infidelphobia” on their part. I entered a passionate multiculturalist and left realising that they hated, disparaged and cheated me solely because I was a non-Muslim. The hate was slow-burning but palpable, for Islam forbids friendship between believers and non-believers – or “Kuffars” – trash. Much like Stalin consigned to the Gulag Russian soldiers returning from WWII in Germany, Islam fears its flock may become contaminated by contact with the “unclean.”
What an absolutely brilliant system of control. The genius who constructed it had preempted communism by twelve centuries, swept up the religion of Christ and the Jews, and bound them as one with lashings of sex, violence and death.

Posted by: Lochearn | Jan 12 2016 2:38 utc | 39

An excellent site with a deep look at the deep state;
http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/UNWELCOME_GUESTS

Posted by: V. Arnold | Jan 12 2016 2:57 utc | 41

Jimmy Carter seems like a real nice fellow. It should be remembered, however, that Brzezinski was Carter’s National Security Adviser. Now that was probably the deep state hanging that albatross around ol’ Peanut Boy’s neck (as a minder, perhaps). In any case, Carter didn’t do anything to stop that son of a bitch from his evil doings in Afghanistan.
“You are soldiers of god. Your cause is right and god is on your side”. – Brzezinski addressing the Mujahideen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0

Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 12 2016 3:05 utc | 43

Joanne Leon,
You mentioned on another thread that “the poles continue to melt,” and I wanted to tell you of several things always omitted by the media. Certainly there are others who are deceived by the media in this regard.
ANTARCTIC: The media always tell you about melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is mostly underwater & comprises only 8% of the total Antarctic Ice Sheet, or the Antarctic Peninsula (2%) — and fail to tell you that the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (the other 90%) is growing. The Antarctic continent is nearly twice the size of the US & is covered with an ice sheet averaging 1 mile thick– in places 3 miles thick, for a total of 30 million cubic km of ice. You can see from the temperature range that it is not possible for this continental ice to melt:
Avg Winter Antarctic: -70 degrees Celsius; Avg Summer: -35 degrees Celsius (-31 F)
To begin to melt the ice you would have to raise the temperature to 1 degree Celsius.
In Fahrenheit terms to BEGIN to melt the ice you would have to raise the temperature even in summer by 63 degrees Fahrenheit! The idea of this permanent ice melting to flood our coastlines is a fabulous lie.
The amount of SEA ICE which surrounds the continent does vary, from winter to summer, and from year to year. The Antarctic sea ice set an all-time record high in 2012, surpassed it in 2013, and surpassed it again in 2014– at more than 20 million sq km. In 2015 it declined to below the 2012 level. It has been growing from 1.5% to 5% per decade since 1979, depending on the source.
Coastal Antarctic: a small portion of specifically named glaciers can partially melt in summer: Winter -15 to -32 Celsius; Summer -10 to +5 Celsius.
Please understand that any activist or media which presents WEST Antarctic/coastal glaciers as if it were indicative of the Antarctic as a whole is deceiving you.

Posted by: Penelope | Jan 12 2016 3:27 utc | 45

Historic Militia Moment! Heavily Armed Idaho 3 Percenters Roll Up On FBI Compound Burns Oregon
https://youtu.be/K5w99LTKEA0
The White Man and the Body Language. Probably all this is staged. Why? Powerful interest behind this what to, what else, steal the land. So neoliberalism aka fascism, has arrived in its own land, I mean, the White Man has been stealing/raping from day one but now we see within the ruling establishment that process. He, he, he.

Posted by: Neretva’43 | Jan 12 2016 3:49 utc | 47

Neretva’43 @7,
David Bowie was a true vanguard who refused to be typecast or pigeonholed by the mainstream musical conventions of the day. As Ziggy Stardust, he almost transcended space and time. As the crooning “China Girl” Bowie, he caused millions of women to fall in love with him although he professed to be bisexual. Never one to rest on his laurels, he pushed the experimental envelope into realms where few would ever venture. Bowie’s musical career spanned six decades, but he looked ageless in his appearance — a real-life Dorian Gray. And you almost expected that he would live forever.

Posted by: Cynthia | Jan 12 2016 3:56 utc | 49

Posted by: Neretva’43 | Jan 11, 2016 3:36:55 PM | 7 & klaus at #27
Apart from his musical talent, he had a rare genius for reinvention (of himself) and unlimited imagination. Wouldn’t call myself a fan, but I’d be surprised if there’s anyone, at all, who doesn’t have a favourite Bowie song. Mine being Heroes
(We could be heroes, just for one day). I’d bet that’s induced plenty of private optimism over the years.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 12 2016 4:01 utc | 51

One of the results of the Western cultural, among other things, imperialism is Orientalism.
Edward Said: Orientalism as a Tool of Colonialism 3/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBSy5VfXBoQ

Posted by: Neretva’43 | Jan 12 2016 4:35 utc | 53

The Radical New Face of the Jewish Settler Movement

While [Hilltop Social Worker: Avia] Azulay considers the work of settling hilltops heroic, he wants to help the hilltop youth stay out of trouble so that they can join the military and go on to lead productive adult lives. “The hilltop youth say, ‘One should kill all the Arabs.’ And I say I am also in favor. I am in favor of killing the enemies, and if you go to the army you will kill terrorists.”
But [Eliezer] Shekhtman [who moved to Israel from Chicago] believes that Jewish civilian violence has a place in the greater political scheme. Echoing [Rabbi Yitzchak] Ginsburgh [of Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, in Yitzhar, who who was born in St. Louis and spent much of his youth in Philadelphia], who cites the Torah, he said that “Jewish revenge” is a “value,” even though ideally a military should be exacting it instead of Jewish teens.
During Hanukkah, Shekhtman was a guest at a Jewish wedding at which a group of young men danced while waving guns in the air. One thrust a knife through a photograph of Ali Saad Dawabsheh, the infant killed in the Duma fire. Video footage of the wedding was leaked to the press, causing mainstream Israelis to recoil at the radicalism in their midst. Shekhtman said he did not see the man stabbing the photo. But the idea did not scandalize him.
“It doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if the father threw stones or if he didn’t, or if the baby would have thrown stones or wouldn’t have if he lived till the age of 15 or 20. Come on, it’s a picture.”
The prominence of Americans among those detained echoes the historic leadership roles Americans have played in Israel’s contemporary right-wing radicalism, from Kahane, a native New Yorker, to Ginsburgh, who was born in St. Louis and spent much of his youth in Philadelphia, and Baruch Goldstein, the Brooklyn born-and-raised physician who in 1994 murdered 29 Muslims at prayer at the Cave of the Patriarchs, a site in Hebron holy to Muslims and Jews.

Its really not at all mysterious why the Saudis and Israelis get on so well …
  Israelis:Judaeism::Wahabists:Islam.
These USraelis are ‘whooping it up’ in ‘Indian Country‘.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 6:02 utc | 55

Final Madayan puzzle piece of the day:
BBC: Madaya Syria: ‘400 residents need’ urgent evacuation.
My spidey-sense is that the reason for this mad-PR-push lies among those in “need” of urgent evacuation …. Gotta wonder who’s going to be in charge of vetting who is and is not allowed to board one of those “helicopter on the roof of the Embassy” … Madaya has a population of 40,000 … wonder who made the list and why … maybe those “Americans” MSNBC was worrying about.

The situation in Foah and Kefraya is also said to be extremely dire, with an estimated 20,000 people trapped there since March.

Madaya last received aid, iirc, in July. Foah and Kefraya are miles away in the Northeast and are probably next for humanitarian rescue operation … see map.

Why are civilians under siege?
All parties to the conflict are using siege warfare, encircling populated areas, preventing civilians from leaving and blocking humanitarian access in an attempt to force opponents to surrender. Shortages of food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel have led to malnutrition and deaths among vulnerable groups.
Where are the sieges?
Government forces are besieging various locations in the eastern Ghouta area, outside Damascus, as well as the capital’s western suburb of Darayya and the nearby mountain towns of Zabadani and Madaya.
Rebel forces have encircled the villages of Foah and Kefraya in the northern province of Idlib, while IS militants are besieging government-held areas in the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.

Posted by: Susan Sunflower | Jan 12 2016 6:46 utc | 57

Interesting piece of war/foreign exchange porn …
50 Su-35 costs ≈ 60 billion rubles, 1.2 billion rubles/plane ≈ 1200 million rubles / 78 rubles/dollar ≈ $15.4 million
Chengdu J-10 costs $27.84 million = 1.8 Su-35s/Chengdu J-10
Eurofighter Typhoon costs €90 Million ≈ $98 million = 6.4 Su-35s/Eurofighter Typhoon
F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet costs $150 million = 9.7 Su-35s/F-22 Raptor
… if I were in the market for warplanes, I guess I’d go with the Russians.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 7:01 utc | 59

39
Hmmm…hmmmm!
In the 70’s my best chum took off from UK, or was it GB back then? Anyway, he took off for Shangraila, passing through every Islamic country from the Bosphorous on eastward to the Hindu Kush, back when if you bothered to read history, Iranian and Afghan young women wore mini-skirts, and the young men all dressed like Bruce Lee He had a marvelous time among the ‘savages’ as you call them, you only have to look at the Moors and the Stans classical history and architecture, they survived 3,000 years BCE without oil, and we’ll be lucky to survive to 2030 at the rate we consume it
In the 80s I got my chance and took off the other way, from UK, through Germany to Turkey, then west across Northern Africa to Morocco, and a curious thing happened among the ‘savages’ as you call them. They kept inviting me to dinner! They kept inviting me into their homes! They kept having deep discussions in broken English about where the West was taking the world. And in remote Sidi Ifni, if you can still find that on a map, the local mayor invited me into his Berber compound after I stupidly took the bus south to the edge of the Sahara. He fed me, let me bath and wash my clothes, we drank gallons of green tea and walked outside under a billion stars, then his wife and daughter served the most delicious tajin I will never forget to a, you know, a ‘keffer’ as you call it, some bum from UK.
Since that time I’ve made great friends online in Iran, Afghanistan, and Uzbechistan, working on projects, and they still send me Xmas cards, and I send them Eid Mubarak cards and we all wish ourselves great health and great wealth and the end of Great Shaytan and the Zionazim who plague us with a thousand boils and bleach our bones on their Road to Mammon.
You do realize that traditional Islam looks down on the money lenders, preferring to trade, just as Sovereigntist CLAIM they prefer, and Islam thinks charging jusury is especially a sin, just as Christianity and Christ despised the money lenders at the temples, right up until the King of England had two wives and needed to start his own church.
Read the Koran, read the Torah, then ask yourself: was it Muslims who created the Dot.Bmob? Was it Muslims that created the Mortage.Bmob? Was it Muslims who bled $20 TRILLION out of the American Dream and left USA the most deadbeat debt-ridden country in human history? Ask yourself, do the ‘muzzies’ and you call them, the ‘ragheads’, do they control the vile pron industry that saturates the media and advertising, do ‘muzzies’ control the sex trade, the casinos and the drug trades that prostitutes our wives and daughters OPENLY, BRAZENLY?
Is that a ‘Muzzie’ thing, all this looting and destitution?
The Truth will set you Free, but take it in little gulps, we don’t want you achieving Satori just yet, you might go all Anti-Zion on us, and we’re trying to avoid the Zionist Police State of a 1000 Years they have planned for us.

Posted by: Chipnik | Jan 12 2016 7:59 utc | 61

Great story chipnik … you should continue in that vein more often.
lysias @10 … from guest77s recommended read … @55 in the previous open thread …
The Devil’s Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government, chapter 10

Eisenhower’s innate midwestern sense of decency initially made him recoil from backing Britain’s colonial siege of Iran. He rebuffed the Dulles brothers’ advice, suggesting that it might be a better idea to stabilize Mossadegh’s government with a $100 million loan than to topple it. If Eisenhower had followed through on his original instincts, the bedeviled history of U.S.-Iran relations would undoubtedly have taken a far different course.
Realizing that Eisenhower was not inclined to defend British imperial interests, the Dulles brothers reframed their argument for intervention in Cold War terms. On March 4, 1953, Allen appeared at a National Security Council meeting in the White House armed with seven pages of alarming talking points. Iran was confronted with “a maturing revolutionary set-up,” he warned, and if the country fell into Communist hands, 60 percent of the free world’s oil would be controlled by Moscow. Oil and gasoline would have to be rationed at home, and U.S. military operations would have to be curtailed.
In truth, the global crisis over Iran was not a Cold War conflict but a struggle “between imperialism and nationalism, between First and Third Worlds, between North and South, between developed industrial economies and underdeveloped countries dependent on exporting raw materials,” in the words of Ervand Abrahamian.

The author pours it on thick with zero references but, overall …
1. The DS vetted Ike and discovered that he looked up to corporate CEOs and Wall Street financiers and their lawyers, he was sympathetic to those he fantasized as captains of industry and looked upon success as a marker of steady men, those of his imagined deep state.
2. Ike came cheap. He felt it was his duty to help out if the people he looked up to thought he was the right man at the right time.
3. Ike bought the ‘What’s good for GM is good for the country’ line, just as Engine Charley Wilson did. No need to assassinate Ike.
The DS uses the same M.O. … O tempora, o mores … mutatis mutandis.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 8:30 utc | 63

Sorry, missed the links … O tempora, o mores … mutatis mutandis.
The idea being that no matter the cultural temperature, the classic deep state/mob formula is in operation. Just more or less severely, according to the ambient level of depravity. The people who translate the Thai constitutions love that last one, it made me smile to read it, after the twenty-somethingth time, and so I use it myself. I like to smile. It seems appropos in a description of what to me is the timeless loop of deep state operations. So appropriately archaic and self-important. I had to look it up, so I do so again for any/all of you.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 8:50 utc | 65

@67, @62 is still my latest favorite.

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 9:05 utc | 67

Posted by: dh | Jan 11, 2016 7:34:51 PM | 31
German demographics
is the motivation. German exports are booming – they need the workforce for it. National policies don’t rhyme with export business if you do not wish to go to war for it.
The reason is not so much “German guilt” but the political impossibility to tell German women – again – that the goal of their lives is to produce as many Aryans they can.
There is another reason – the “Erasmus generation“. Kids just don’t understand any more why the passports of some of their friends are valid and some are not.

Posted by: somebody | Jan 12 2016 9:37 utc | 69

The Internet Dimensional Intelligence of Things (IDIoT)-

Posted by: Chipnik | Jan 12 2016 11:45 utc | 71

Courtesy of Naked Capitalism, from Unbalanced Evolution. The Troika has a new batter in the on-deck circle, in case Tsipras fails to deliver.

Despite that Tsipras finally surrendered to the EFD [European Financial Dictatorship] after the financial coup against Greece last summer, the EFD executives (Merkel, Schäuble, Juncker, Draghi etc.) are not feeling very comfortable with the current Greek government, especially after the political developments in Portugal and Spain, where the most faithful to the neoliberal agenda bi-partisan establishment, has collapsed after the latest elections.
It is certain that they worry now about the possibility that Tsipras could manage to form a united front with other European forces, which would mean that the plan for the completion of the neoliberal experiment in Greece and its expansion throughout eurozone, might be put in danger.
The new leader of New Democracy, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is probably the ideal alternative solution. The man that could do the job, which is to apply accurately all the cruel neoliberal policies to the slightest detail, according to the Greek experiment.

I’m not sure how realistic the Euro-wide “united front” might be. Tsipras losing his majority as Syriza dissidents get fed up is far more likely.

Posted by: rufus magister | Jan 12 2016 13:11 utc | 73

Is Turkey finally faced with betrayed old friends?
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/01/12/europe/turkey-istanbul-explosion/index.html

Posted by: Virgile | Jan 12 2016 13:31 utc | 75

Once again, to kill all speculation on Russia’s stand next to Syria’s Assad, Putin dispels all rumors once and for all.

Putin: Give Syrian People Opportunity to Have Their Say
Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed on Tuesday that the first step to solve the Syrian crisis is to give the Syrians an opportunity to have their own word.
“First one needs to give the Syrian people an opportunity to have their say,” Putin said in the second half of a two-part interview with German mass circulation daily Bild.Russian President Vladimir Putin
He said it was too early to talk about granting President Bashar al-Assad an asylum.
“You know I believe that it is premature to discuss this,” Putin said according to a Russian-language transcript of the interview published by the Kremlin.
“We gave asylum to Mr Snowden, it was more difficult than giving it to Assad,” he said, referring to fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, granted asylum in Russia in 2013.
“And I assure you that if this is done in a democratic way (if the Syrians say their word), then maybe he won’t have to go anywhere. And it does not matter whether he is president or not.”
“Assad is not seeking to annihilate his own population. He’s fighting those who have come to him with arms,” Putin added.
“And if the peaceful population suffers because of that then I think that it is primarily those who are fighting him with arms in their hands and who are helping the armed groups that are responsible for this.”
“We are talking about hundreds, thousands of armed people who are fighting ISIL,” he said.
“We support both the Assad army and the armed opposition. Some of them have already publicly announced this, some prefer to remain silent but the work is ongoing.”

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 12 2016 14:20 utc | 77

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/06/the-deceptive-debate-over-what-causes-terrorism-against-the-we
Greenwald offers a balanced appraisal of the lures of radicalized Islamic fanaticism and violence as components of, but not justification for serial the waves of terror taking root, at least in part, as responses to years of western-launched wars and regional exploitation. No less significant, but perhaps not included in the piece, is the contributory role the vacuum of state systems of governance and power left in the wake of reckless US invasions spurred by an addiction to regime change as an instrument of foreign policy.
“…..They insist that those who posit a causal link between endless Western violence in the Muslim world and return violence aimed at the West are “infantilizing the terrorists and treating them like children” by suggesting that terrorists lack autonomy and the capacity for choice, and are forced by the West to engage in terrorism. They bizarrely claim — as McFadden did before being fired — that to recognize this causal link is to deny that terrorists have agency and to instead believe that their actions are controlled by the West. One hears this claim constantly.
The claim is absurd: a total reversal of reality and a deliberate distortion of the argument. That some Muslims attack the West in retaliation for Western violence (and external imposition of tyranny) aimed at Muslims is so well-established that it’s barely debatable. Even the 2004 task force report commissioned by the Rumsfeld Pentagon on the causes of terrorism decisively concluded this was the case:
Beyond such studies, those who have sought to bring violence to Western cities have made explicitly clear that they were doing so out of fury and a sense of helplessness over Western violence that continuously kills innocent Muslims. “The drone hits in Afghanistan and Iraq, they don’t see children, they don’t see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody,” Faisal Shahzad, the attempted Times Square bomber, told his sentencing judge when she expressed bafflement over how he could try to kill innocent people. And then there’s just common sense about human nature: If you spend years bombing, invading, occupying, and imposing tyranny on other people, some of them will want to bring violence back to you.
There’s a reason the U.S. and NATO countries are the targets of this type of violence but South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico are not. Terrorists don’t place pieces of paper with the names of the world’s countries in a hat and then randomly pick one out and attack that one. Only pure self-delusion could lead one to assert that Spain’s and the U.K.’s participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq played no causal role in the 2004 train bombing in Madrid and 2005 bombing in London. Even British intelligence officialsacknowledge that link. Gen. David Petraeus frequently described how U.S. policies — such as Guantanamo and torture — were key factors in how Muslims become radicalized against the U.S. In June, Tony Blair’s former deputy prime minister, John Prescott, made this as clear as it can be madewhen he admitted the Iraq War was “wrong”:
When I hear people talking about how people are radicalized, young Muslims. I’ll tell you how they are radicalized. Every time they watch the television where their families are worried, their kids are being killed or murdered and rockets, you know, firing on all these people, that’s what radicalizes them.
Can that be any clearer?
Obviously, none of this is to say that Western interference in that part of the world is the only cause of anti-Western “terrorism,” nor is it to say that it’s the principal cause in every case, nor is to deny that religious extremism plays some role. Most people need some type of fervor to be willing to risk their lives and kill other people: It can be nationalism, xenophobia, societal pressures, hatred of religion, or religious convictions. But typically, such dogmatic fervor is necessary but not sufficient to commit such violence; one still needs a cause for the targets one selects.
In its statement claiming responsibility for the attack on Paris, ISIS invoked multiple ostensibly religious justifications for the violence but also said the targeting of the French was due to “their war against Islam in France and their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets” (France had been bombing ISIS in Iraq since January 2015 and in Syria since September). In the same month, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a Russian jet as retaliation for Russian airstrikes in Syria, as well as an attack on Lebanon as a response to Hezbollah’s violence. Here’s beloved-by-the-D.C.-establishment Will McCants of the Brookings Institution telling Voxwhy ISIS attacked Paris:
Even in those cases where religious extremism rather than anger over Western violence seems to be the primary cause — such as the Charlie Hebdomurders, done to avenge what the attackers regarded as blasphemous cartoons — the evidence is clear that the attackers were radicalized by indignation over U.S. atrocities in Iraq, including at Abu Ghraib. Pointing out that Western violence is a key causal factor in anti-Western terrorism is not to say it is the only cause.
But whatever one’s views are on that causal question, it’s a total mischaracterization to claim that those who recognize a causal connection are denying that terrorists have autonomy or choice. To the contrary, the argument is that they are engaged in a decision-making process — a very expected and predictable one — whereby they conclude that violence against the West is justified as a result of Western violence against predominantly Muslim countries. To believe that is not to deny that terrorists possess agency; it’s to attribute agency to them.
The whole point of the argument is that they are not forced or compelled or acting out of reflex; the point is that they have decided that the only valid and effective response to Western attacks on and interference in Muslim societies is to attack back. When asked by a friend about the prospect of “peaceful protest” against U.S. violence and interference in Muslim countries, Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, replied: “Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?”
One can, needless to say, object to the validity of that reasoning. But one cannot deny that the decision to engage in this violence is the reasoning process in action.
By pointing out the causal connection between U.S. violence and the decision to bring violence to the West, one is not denying that the attackers lack agency, nor is one claiming they are “forced” by the West to do this, nor is one “infantilizing” them. To recognize this causation is to do exactly the opposite: to point out that some human beings will decide — using their rational and reasoning faculties and adult decision-making capabilities — that violence is justified and even necessary against those who continually impose violence and aggression on others (and, for the logically impaired, see the update here on explaining — yet again — that causation is not the same as justification).
It’s understandable that self-loving tribalistic Westerners want to completely absolve themselves and their own violent societies of having any role in the terrorist violence they love to denounce. That’s the nature of the tribalistic instinct in humans: My tribe is not at fault; it’s the other tribe to which we’re superior that is to blame. But blatantly distorting the debate this way — by ludicrously depicting recognition of this decision-making process and causal chain as a denial of agency or autonomy — is not an acceptable (or effective) way to achieve that.”

Posted by: metni | Jan 12 2016 14:42 utc | 79

What is the mechanism that forces American presidents to go along with what the deep state decides?
The USA is not a democracy (on paper it is a representative republic, but never mind for now though it is relevant), and does not have ‘independence of powers’ to put it short.
The nexus that rules (20% not 1%) is composed of ‘Elites’ from various drawers: aristocracy, security, defense, finance and banking, corporations, various cartels (> globalisation), energy-related, media conglomerates, etc. as well as the judiciary, other regulatory organisms, these last often not analysed.
The public Gvmt. figures – those put forward, deemed acceptable, and thus ‘elected’ as in ‘selected’ – are part of it.
They are a lowly, rather subservient part, as they have to maintain some ‘respectability’ and ‘common touch’, and suffer the stricture of massive public and media exposure. So in a way, there is no specific mechanism that forces Presidents into anything. (Like a top manager in a ginormous horrific meat-packing plant, whose salary and bonuses depend on profits and the approval of the owners and shareholders.)
The mechanisms of control may be personally directed, some are outlined in other posts (blackmail, etc. but those measures are extreme and dangerous), yet, they may simply be ordinary, low-level, coercion and convincing.
All is dependent on sort of crossed-over tribal belongings, wheeling and dealing between different ideologies, interests, sectarian long-term goals, *profits*, plots and plans and anticipatory alarm at loss (of money, of power, of favorable media exposure, etc.), manipulations, personal relations and support, etc.
See Lone Wolf above, this is a counter-point, another facet.

Posted by: Noirette | Jan 12 2016 15:47 utc | 81

@81
Thank you for channeling George Bush Jr. Sorry for not recognizing the degree to which “freedoms” causes invidiousness.

Posted by: metni | Jan 12 2016 18:11 utc | 83

10,15;Yes their own corruption makes them captive of the Zionist media,to whom mossad has the goods to give to keep those corrupt in line.Imagine the real damage they could do to shillary,and haven’t?And her Bent dick husband,and the Bush family legacy,which was only fodder on the net.
Last night a first!Northrup Grumman drone commercials on the college football champ.My god.

Posted by: dahoit | Jan 12 2016 22:09 utc | 85

Israel receives fifth German nuclear-capable submarine

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday welcomed the delivery of the advanced Dolphin-class submarine at the Haifa port north of the occupied Palestinian territories.
The submarine, said to be capable of remaining submerged for up to seven days, can be equipped with missiles armed with nuclear warheads.

The German government covered one third the cost … admitted to covering one third the cost. The German-Israel relationship seems to be inverting. It started out as recompense for NAZI genocide of Jews, but as the Israeli genocide of Palestinians becomes ever more undeniable … just what is it that the Germans are arming and funding?

Posted by: jfl | Jan 12 2016 23:59 utc | 87

Bowie;Anything from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was awesome.Moonage Daydream and Starman come to mind.Rock and Roll suicide.Five Years.Suffragette City.
Yes,he seemed eternally not old at least.
All the money in the world can’t beat the reaper.

Posted by: dahoit | Jan 13 2016 0:11 utc | 89

@Noirette@82
See Lone Wolf above, this is a counter-point, another facet.
A very good counterpoint and approximation to the complex maze of politics,economics, and power that makes up the Deep State. To be realistic, the best but more difficult approach to mapping the Deep State would be to follow their money, a huge and demanding undertaking given the size of the US economy and its symbiotic intertwining with the world economies.
The politics and foreign/domestic policies of the Deep State vis-a-vis the US government constitute the superstructure, to use Marx’s terminology, all rooted in the economy and the power different interest groups derive from the size of the share they control.

Posted by: Lone Wolf | Jan 13 2016 1:45 utc | 91

@93 source?

Posted by: Lozion | Jan 13 2016 5:13 utc | 93

Lozion 94, rm 95
yes its obama explaining why murkkan economy is aok…cuz *We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. *
hehehehe

Posted by: denk | Jan 13 2016 6:18 utc | 95

Lil’Kim Go BooBoo
So apparently a PRNK submarine missile launch went bad, but rather than not say anything, some OhWhatAGoodGirlAmI at Deep State issued this breaking analysis, just to remind everyone we are only 5 minutes away from Death by Undersea Kim:
“Analysts at the California-based James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies said the missile almost certainly blew up after a successful pop-up.
“Although (it) appears to eject successfully… we think that a catastrophic failure occurred at ignition,” said Catherine Dill, a research associate at the centre.
North Korea “manipulated the footage in an attempt to obscure this result, but one clip plays for two frames too long. The rocket appears to explode,” Dill said.
—
And for that turgid “let’s all clap hands now” final paragraph, identifying a tiny frame clip error by some junior techie in PyongYang, now they and their entire family will be suffocated then fed to the sharks, while the Pentagon will have lost their best inside ‘two frames’ whistle-blower in future nuke tests.
Good job, men!!! $10B up in smoke every.single.day at Mil.Gov.
That’s a $50 out of every taxpayers’ pocket, every.single.day.

Posted by: Chipnik | Jan 13 2016 8:06 utc | 97

Denk
Read between the lines, this is Obama’s final code talk:
“I you all talk America’s decline political.
Well is the rhetoric hear enemies stronger America weaker.
USA ‘powerful nation’ Period not close. (e.g. is fading)
We more military than eight nations. (the 8 civilizations)
Troops fighting history world. (Hegemony ends in Dust)
Nation dares attack allies know path to ruin. (refugees)
Standing around world higher international issue. (question)
People of world look to Beijing or Moscow to lead.”
In other words, he’s telling us our decline is *political*, our troops are fighting history, nations dare attack now because our standing has become an issue (question), so look to Beijing or Moscow to lead, as America is dead-busted broke SNAFUBAR.
And that’s the real state of the union: SNAFUBAR.
Hillary will fade and clot out, Biden will jump back in and triumph over Bernie, and then all the Marcos and Rafaels in the world won’t save the RNC after Deep State and the ZioGodfathers take Trump out as an RNC martyr, to launch Patriot Act Uber, and reversion of banking rules back to GLB.
President Biden will make Prince Bandar his VP, and together, they’ll get Obama elevated to Premiere of the UN, then make Netanyahu his new Secretary of State. Hank Paulson will come out of retirement as Secretary of Treasury, and the Ghost of Caspar Weinberger as the new head of the CIA.
Then the sh’t is gonna go sideways.

Posted by: Chipnik | Jan 13 2016 8:48 utc | 99