Syria - Turkey Fails In Idleb, Is Unwilling To Take The Northeast
The neoconservatives in the Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton and the Syria envoy James Jeffery, are scrambling to save their plans for Syria that President Trump disposed of when he ordered a complete retreat.
Those plans were for a permanent U.S. occupation of northeast Syria, the reduction of Iranian influence within the government held parts of Syria and an eventual disposal of the Syrian government under President Assad through negotiations. These were unicorn aims that had no chance to ever be achieved.
Moreover Trump had never signed off on these ideas. Back in April he had announced that he wanted U.S. troops out of Syria. He gave his staff six month to achieve that. But instead of following those orders Pompeo and Bolton tried to implement their own plans:
Late last year, some of the president’s hawkish advisers drafted a memo committing the United States to a longer-term presence in Syria that included goals of an enduring defeat of the Islamic State, a political transition and the expulsion of Iran, officials said. The president has not signed the memo, which was presented to him weeks ago.In fact, Trump had warned his aides for months that he wanted out of Syria in short order.
...
Bolton’s Iran plan never really took effect at the Pentagon, where officials were not officially tasked with any new mission in addition to the operation against the Islamic State. Military officials likewise viewed Iran’s expansion into Syria as problematic, but they were skeptical about the lack of a clear legal justification that would be required for offensive military action against Iranian-backed forces.
Trump recognized that those plans were nonsense and ordered to end them. In that process he came up with a likewise unicorn idea - to hand northeast Syria to Turkey to fight the already defeated Islamic State. Turkey does not want northeast Syria. It does not want to risk a bloody war against the Kurds that would be required to sustain such an occupation.
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The only appropriate solution is to hand control of northeast Syria (yellow) back to the Syrian government (red). Damascus would disarm the Kurds or integrate them within its national army. They would be under control and no longer a threat to Turkey. Everyone could live with such an easy solution.
Everyone but the neocons.
Today National Security Advisor Bolton is on his way to Israel to cook up new plans:
A Trump administration official told reporters traveling with Bolton that Bolton intended to discuss the pace of the drawdown, as well as American troop levels in the region. Bolton was expected to explain that some U.S. troops based in Syria to fight IS will shift to Iraq with the same mission and that some American forces may remain at a key military outpost in al-Tanf, in southern Syria, to counter growing Iranian activity in the region.Bolton’s also was to convey the message that the United States will be “very supportive” of Israeli strikes against Iranian targets in Syria, ...
I bet that neither of those points was signed off by Trump. The publication of these ideas is another attempt by Bolton to push his personal policies to the front.
Erdogan, asked by Trump to take northeast Syria but unwilling to do so, raised demands that the U.S. is unlikely to fulfill:
Turkey is asking the U.S. to provide substantial military support, including airstrikes, transport and logistics, to allow Turkish forces to assume the main responsibility for fighting Islamic State militants in Syria, senior U.S. officials say.The Turkish requests are so extensive that, if fully met, the American military might be deepening its involvement in Syria instead of reducing it, the officials added.
Bolton will later fly to Ankara and discuss the Turkish plans:
Participants will include White House national security adviser John Bolton; Gen. Joe Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and James Jeffrey, the State Department envoy for Syria.One U.S. official said the administration is unlikely to provide all of the military support the Turks are seeking, especially on air support.
Without U.S. air support Erdogan can not attack northeast Syria. The Turkish air force is weak. Many of its experienced pilots were fired for alleged support and involvement in the coup against Erdogan. The airforce is unable to provide the necessary 24/7 support its soldiers would need. There is also strife within the Turkish army command. If he would order an attack, Erdogan would only go for the Kurdish areas along the northern border, not for the Islamic State. That again is something the U.S. does not want at all:
Many experts and officials also fear the Turks may target Kurdish fighters who have long provided the U.S. with solid support in the campaign against Islamic State militants and endured considerable loss of life.To try to mitigate these risks, Mr. Jeffrey, the State Department envoy, is seeking to forge an arrangement with the Turks that would allow them to enter northern Syria while avoiding largely Kurdish areas, say U.S. officials familiar with the plans.
Mr. Jeffrey and his State Department team have created a color-coded map of northeastern Syria in an attempt to negotiate a power-sharing plan that could avert a costly Turkish-Kurdish fight in the area. ... One former U.S. official described the map as “Sykes-Picot on acid,” ...
The idea is delusional. There are no borders between Kurds, Arabs and other ethnicities in northwest Syria. The populations is mixed. Only the ethnic percentages vary from town to town. Implementing the idea would lead to ethic cleansing and an everlasting war.
The Kurds are no longer willing to follow the U.S. lead.
Mr. Jeffrey has asked Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the Kurdish commander of Syrian fighters, to hold off on making any deals with President Bashar al-Assad’s government while the Trump administration tries to develop its strategy.
"F*ck you," said General Abdi, as the Kurds continue to negotiate:
Syrian Kurdish leaders aim to secure a Russian-mediated political deal with President Bashar Assad's government regardless of U.S. plans to withdraw from their region, a senior Kurdish official told Reuters.The Kurdish-led administration that runs much of northern Syria presented a road map for an agreement with Assad during recent meetings in Russia and is awaiting Moscow's response, Badran Jia Kurd, who attended, said.
A deal between the Kurds and the Syrian government "is inevitable" says a senior Kurdish military official. The U.S. proved again to be unreliable and the Kurds have nowhere else to go.
None of the new plans and ideas Bolton presents make any sense. They are unlikely to have Trump's blessing. While the U.S. retreat from northeast Syria may be delayed another month or two, it will likely proceed.
The last week saw new developments in Idleb governorate. Idelb is largely ruled by the al-Qaeda organization Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), the former Jabhat al-Nusra. There are also many other groups under Turkish control. But Turkey had recently transferred many of those fighters to attack the U.S.-Kurdish held Manbij at the Euphrates. That attack was stopped when the Syrian army took control of the area.
While the Turkish supported groups in Idleb were weakened, HTS used the occasion to reinforce its control. On Monday HTS (grey) attack the areas west of Aleppo which were held by Nour al-Din al-Zenki. The once CIA supported Zenki became 'famous' when in 2016 some of its fighters published a video in which they beheaded a sick ten year old boy for no discernible reason.
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During the last five days at least 130 people were killed in the Idleb fighting. Zenki was eliminated from the area it held (stripped grey) and its remaining fighters fled to the northern Afrin canton which is under Turkish army control. HTS took control of Zenki's heavy weapons including four tanks.
HTS now controls all areas next to Turkey and the Turkish controlled Afrin. It sent ultimatums to other groups in Idleb and demanded additional control over the towns Maarat al-Nu’man and Ariha in the south of the governorate. As none of the other groups can withstand HTS it will likely soon control these towns. Taking them gives HTS full control over the M4 and M5 highways. Control of the highways can be used to generate money and as an asset in future negotiations.
The Astana agreement between Russia and Turkey over Idleb stipulated that HTS would be pushed back 15 miles from the government held areas. The M4 and M5 highways would be reopened to traffic for government traffic. Turkey was supposed to implement and guarantee those points. Not one of these points has been achieved. The Turkish soldiers stationed in six observation posts around Idleb governorate are hostages to HTS. As Turkey failed to deliver on its promises Syria and Russia have all rights to ignore the agreement, attack HTS and to liberate Idleb.
That Turkey failed in Idleb makes it more likely that it will refrain from invading northeast Syria. Its army positions in Syria are already in trouble. Why add new ones to the mess?
Posted by b on January 5, 2019 at 19:20 UTC | Permalink
next page »The situation in Syria is coming along nicely. Kurds negotiating with Damascus, Turk proxies all out of Idlib and AQ takeover of Idlib. Much harder now for the US and UK to stand up for the 'people' of Idlib when the offensive goes ahead. Be interesting to see what the color coded map of Syria looks like at this time next year.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 5 2019 19:45 utc | 2
With apologies to b
I know people get a bit touchy about pointing out typos, but there is a certain mordant humour to:
"Implementing the idea would lead to ethic cleansing…"
When as we know the neo-con thinkophobes underwent 'ethic cleansing' a long time ago!
Posted by: Ross | Jan 5 2019 19:53 utc | 3
It looks like Bolton and Pompeo are making last attempts to turn things around, presumably with Netanyahu's involvement in the conspiracy. I wonder whether they, and Trump, even understood what an irreversible decision announcing the pull-out was. Once Trump had told the Kurds to piss off, they were bound to go and make a deal with Asad. I said this on here weeks ago immediately after the announcement; it was obvious. Trump telling them not to is not going to have any effect. I really don't think they understood the political consequences. There you are, the leaders of the most powerful nation on earth, and they don't even bother to consult advisors (mind you, Washington advisors are pretty idiotic too).
Posted by: laguerre | Jan 5 2019 20:05 utc | 4
b, this is a very complete article, thank you for that. It is impressive how some folks are completely against the Syrian Government to make a deal with the Syrian Kurds or Syrian Arabs/Assyrians/etc... from the SDC. This resistance to this concept of peace and unity should raise concern of a hidden agenda to keep Syria off balance for a long time, who would win with this strategy ? None other then the apartheid regime of Israel. Keep that in mind when anyone from MoA hear someone utter negative against the Syrian Gov dealing with the SDC.
Posted by: Canthama | Jan 5 2019 20:25 utc | 5
Its being reported by FARS that the US is still providing the SDF with arms and ammunition. They claim that a long convoy of almost 200 US army trucks, carrying weapons, munitions and logistical equipment, left the US bases in Iraq on Saturday and arrived in coalition bases in Raqqa, Manbij and Ein Issa in Northeastern Syria. The Kurdish militia reported that the trucks with arms and ammunition cargo is to be delivered to the SDF.
True or fake news, who knows? Seeing as Trump is in no hurry to pull out it rings true to me, they need to maintain supplies and relations with the SDF so long as they have troops there
Posted by: Pft | Jan 5 2019 21:03 utc | 7
I am much more skeptical.
Trump claims Mattis' resignation as a 'win' but allows Bolton to continue his neocon machinations?
Numerous MSM articles appear about Trump's standing up to the Generals: Mattis, Kelly, Dunford, etc. Yet Bolton feels free to conspire against the President's agenda?
The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises but allows Bolton and Pompeo to scheme against him is nonsensical.
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My view (which I've repeated numerous times at MoA) is that Trump is a faux populist. He is the Republican Obama - pretending to be a populist peacemaker while working for the establishment. The "populist hero" is a gimmick that reinforces people's belief in USA democracy and the righteousness of USA actions. The Trump/Deep-State conflict is a propaganda psy-op.
The Israeli Christmas attack was likely an attempted false flag (trying to get SAA to shoot down a civilian airliner like they did weeks before to a Russian military plane). It was likely coordinated with USA because Trump's "pull out" announcement and Mattis' resignation occurred only days before.
Trump leads the political wing of the US Deep State. They know that they don't have public support for stepped up military operations in the Middle East. But they have an agenda (anti-Iran, pro-Israel) that requires that they re-commit to ME. They need a false flag.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2019 21:14 utc | 8
For the US to withdraw like this will prove to the region and the world that the US has been defeated and is just a paper tiger. Next, Iraq will be wanting the US to get out. Attacking Iran will become a fantasy. And this could just spread and spread.
This could well be the start of an incredible diminishment of US influence in the region (and then the rest of the world). Negotiations with Syria and Russia could mitigate at least the look of what is happening, but no effort is made in this regard.
For these reasons it just feels over-optimistic (to me) that the US will just pull-out like this.
Posted by: ADKC | Jan 5 2019 21:37 utc | 9
Trump is certainly a 'faux populist' all right wing populists are. That is what fascism is, empty promises to the people while promoting the interests of the 1% and violently dismantling the democratic structures that might be used to control the state.
Trump is all about attacking democracy, making voting tough, promoting the Courts over the legislatures, dismantling regulations and silencing critics.
We all knew that.
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each other, is bizarre.
There is collusion alright: all involved want to rip off the taxpayers and cram the people back into their box. But there is a genuine struggle going on within the ruling class over how best to run the scam in a changing world- whether to attack Russia and/or China, whether to settle for cheap gains in Latin America and Africa, for example, and wait until things swing in Uncle Sam's way again, whether to push the Europeans into full Cold War brinkmanship mode, whether to calm down Israel or whip it up into a frenzy...
The world's a complex place and Washington's influence is declining quickly, people are panicking. And it is all real.
Posted by: bevin | Jan 5 2019 21:40 utc | 10
PROTOCOL No. 7
UNIVERSAL WAR
3. We must be in a position to respond to every act of opposition by war with the neighbors of that country which dares to oppose us: but if these neighbors should also venture to stand collectively together against us, then we must offer resistance by a universal war.
4. The principal factor of success in the political is the secrecy of its undertakings: the word should not agree with the deeds of the diplomat.
5. We must compel the governments of the GOYIM to take action in the direction favored by our widely conceived plan, already approaching the desired consummation, by what we shall represent as public opinion, secretly promoted by us through the means of that so-called "Great Power" - THE PRESS, WHICH, WITH A FEW EXCEPTIONS THAT MAY BE DISREGARDED, IS ALREADY ENTIRELY IN OUR HANDS.
6. In a word, to sum up our system of keeping the governments of the goyim in Europe in check, we shall show our strength to one of them by terrorist attempts and to all, if we allow the possibility of a general rising against us, we shall respond with the guns of America or China or Japan. (The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 - Ed.).
Posted by: Albert Pike | Jan 5 2019 22:11 utc | 11
Trump is a businessman, first and foremost. His view of the presidency is essentially being CEO of United States, Inc. His policies are aimed at removing what he sees as bad deals for the employees and shareholders of that corporation. Basically it's about profit and loss. He sees border security (building the wall) as necessary to stop the outflow of money and lives as the result of illegal immigrants. He sees businesses moving operations back to the US as necessary to reduce the US's economic dependence on the rest of the world. He sees maintaining and strengthening US military might as necessary for providing a service to the rest of the world that they will pay a fair price for. The tariffs and trade deals are also about the US being paid fair prices (in his eyes). Thus Trump is essentially mercantilist in his outlook.
Of course, a businessman is not the same thing as an economist, and Trump is no economist. He seems to focus entirely on what Frederic Bastiat called "the seen" and thus to ignore "the unseen" (i.e. the bigger picture). This is entirely in line with being a businessman. Businessmen typically concentrate on their own narrow interests. Under free enterprise, the interplay among their various narrow interests results in the common good being served regardless - but it almost goes without saying that we certainly don't live under free enterprise today.
Trump is a populist in the sense of wanting economic benefits to be enjoyed more broadly by the American people, instead of primarily benefiting an increasingly tiny elite. He doesn't seem to understand that US economic benefits are primarily the result of the US dollar being the world reserve currency (which is, of course, enforced by US military might) - or, at least, he doesn't seem to understand that his policies could well bring an end to that situation. This is why the aforementioned elite is trying to steer him away from his own policies and outright opposing him when it can't.
None of the above is a justification of Trump and his policies, just an observation.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 5 2019 22:12 utc | 12
The real wolves in sheep's clothing were the ascendance of Clinton, Blair, and the like in the early 1990s- as the populations of the West had grown weary of the Cold War establishment and largely favoured, if not a progressive agenda, then certainly a reallocation of resources away from national security towards serious environmental issues etc. Such faux progressive figures never faced anything like the extreme pressure focussed on Trump. I certainly wouldn't endorse Trump, but he has faced the treatment one would expect for any unvetted person who approaches actual position (as with Corbyn).
The neo-cons may hold appointed office under Trump, but little of their policy initiatives gain any traction. A year ago, their plan was to move into a full military confrontation with North Korea. The propaganda trail had been well laid, and a major conference with an "allied coalition" had been set for Vancouver to unveil the strategy - but it was quietly cancelled and effectively dropped for unknown reasons. Now there is utter incoherence in Middle East strategy. The only effective foreign policy for the US right now is the hawkish stance on China, which is being lead by economic wonks not neo-cons. And this plan is running into serious complications regarding the global economy. I think the rise of Clinton and Blair heralded a generation of rather mediocre political figures whose legacy will be the abrupt decline of the Anglo-Euro geo-political position, which is being realized right now and there is indeed a sense of panic.
Posted by: jayc | Jan 5 2019 22:26 utc | 13
Interesting article here on how Trump is a pied piper for the NWO agenda. I have made similar points before. Worth a read regardless of which camp you are in
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/3620-trump-is-a-pied-piper-for-the-new-world-order-agenda
Posted by: Pft | Jan 5 2019 22:44 utc | 14
Bevin @10
I had the same view of Jackrabbit's theory and, to be honest, I found the constant re-statement of the theory a bit annoying but I am beginning to change my mind.
Some reports are just too ludicrous to take at face value, e.g. the reports that Trump visited the troops in Iraq over Christmas to forestall a coup attempt was just impossible to accept as anything but a fairytale.
Today I listened to a review of possible Democratic contenders for President and they were all doomed to lose to Trump. Even Sanders could only claim he was the "best candidate to beat Trump" (the only "acceptable" policy objective?). The rest were vapid or destined to be derided, any true radical was just not included.
As for scripting complex scenarios, Tom Secker has a site/ blog which provides more than enough evidence that this has been happening for a very long time.
Trump supporters, even those that post on MoA, are completely lacking in policy objectives for Trump and have no interest in making any demands/expectations or even taking active measures to support Trump policies. How can this go anywhere, other than another 4 years to give Trump a chance, followed by another desperate vote for some other con-(wo)man promising change if you only trust me?
In short, the whole Trump drama is becoming hard to believe. It seems fake!
Posted by: ADKC | Jan 5 2019 22:44 utc | 15
@b
This is the best. I continue to be astounded at the quality of your journalism. The work required to put this superb analysis together, with its multiple links to sources, is something I can only salute, mutely.
Many, many thanks.
Posted by: Grieved | Jan 5 2019 23:10 utc | 16
bevin @10:
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.
His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the establishment.
Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016 election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).
Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.
Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.
Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get peace in Korea.
Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.
How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO goals.
Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction, provided without charge and in abundance.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2019 23:10 utc | 17
@10 bevin - "the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he [Trump] plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each other, is bizarre...it is all real."
Thank you for putting this into words. Ockham's Razor has worked just fine to parse the situations we have seen arise in the last two years. I completely agree with your scenario of the changing world and the shifting power balances.
It is a rapidly changing world, and the struggle of those who think they own it is to see each day if they can still control it. Some days they can't.
Posted by: Grieved | Jan 5 2019 23:19 utc | 18
If Trump really cared about the USA, he would have called out the fraud that is the USMCA so called Trade deal which will place multinational corporations in total control of the resources of the US Canada and Mexico - usurping the Congresses and checks and balances of all three nations - subverting ALL with appointed committees which answer to no one except other committees within its own body.
Instead, Trump is defrauding all of us by, firstly, signing it quietly, and secondly by proclaiming it to be a good thing for the USA. It is much like the TPP.
Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 5 2019 23:20 utc | 19
Thank you, b. And also, I agree with laguerre @ 4 that the announcement of the pullout set in motion events that now make it inevitable. With the US record of abandoning its adherents to their fate in other regions, the Kurds must have been primed for such a betrayal, so while it has been an effort on their part that has perhaps prolonged the conflict, they can be forgiven for the amount of trust they have had that US goals would coincide with theirs. They at least live there; we do not.
I am hoping that Bolton's trip to Israel will help convince any sane individuals in politics there that perhaps new leadership is needed in that country rather than in Syria
Posted by: juliania | Jan 5 2019 23:32 utc | 20
bevin @10
There is precedence for corrupt organizational cohesion so strong that it lasts for decades. Tammny Hall's political patronage "machine" thrived from 1850's to the 1930's. Under "Boss Tweed", it was described as:
It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization [organized crime].
IMO Tammany Hall was "Deep State"-lite: corrupt and operating behind the scenes but only focused on a local area.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 5 2019 23:36 utc | 21
b,
Excellent SitRep on the US, Turkey, Kurds and Idlib. Spot on presentation.
All the facts on the ground indicate the flow of things is toward Russia and Syria having it their way.
It will be a long withdrawal for all the reasons you delineate.
But what we have seen over the final battles of 2017 is rapid collapse by ISIS and al Nusra when the Russian Aerospace and the Syrian forces engage in earnest.
If al Nusra is not extricated from Idlib, they will be eradicated. As for the sleeper cells of ISIS being reorganized as an insurgency by the US, it will be hunted down and liquidated by elite units of Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
General Gerasimov and US JCS Chairman Dunford met in Moscow to discuss Syria. Al Tanf is where the US wants to hold. Reports say the Russians want no more for the US in the short term for Russian and US troops to co-occupy that base and zone. If the US refuses, it could become a Khe Sahn for the US and its proxies. It can be defended by the US only by air and missiles. If they use either, the base will be flattened by Iranian and Syrian missiles.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Jan 6 2019 0:03 utc | 22
Implementing the idea would lead to ethic cleansing and an everlasting war.Precisely what the MIC would want.
Posted by: anti_republocrat | Jan 6 2019 0:20 utc | 23
Hopefully this latest pie in the sky plan will fail and Bolton will be circling the drain.
Posted by: CD Waller | Jan 6 2019 0:20 utc | 24
I continue to be astonished that through the waves of corporate BS; the truth continues to shine through here. If Donald Trump has done one thing it is forcing the Kurds to see reality; they are on their own in the middle of nowhere. Survival lies in rejoining Syria with Russian protection. I am convinced that a group of oligarchs runs the global economy. They are doing the damnedst to destroy nation states to get rid of taxes and negate national environmental and labor regulations. Syria is the first case of a developing state resisting this attack and reconstituting itself. If Syrians succeed, it gives hope that the people of the rest of the world can regain their sovereignty.
Posted by: VietnamVet | Jan 6 2019 0:22 utc | 25
Grieved @18
The "Occam's Razor" test, which I consider simplistic and would not use to defend a position of mine, actually works out in favour of Jackrabbit's theory.
For any of the implausible circumstances that you have to accept if you wish to "believe" in almost anything surrounding Trump, Jackrabbit just has the easier, more sensible explanation of it's "fake".
Posted by: ADKC | Jan 6 2019 0:29 utc | 26
thanks b... very insightful as usual... i am amazed how you put these dispatches together as well.. thank you...
i am kinda torn on the jackrabbit / bevin take... i kind of see it that there is a lot of cross way traffic going on and although i do believe trump represents the 1%, it doesn't seem to be playing out exactly as planned... trumps suggestion of pulling out seems off script.. sure, another ff is coming down the pike with an even bigger usa and friends attempt to overthrow assad... i could see that, but i think it is also possible things aren't going exactly according to plan.. so, i guess i am seeing it a bit more like bevin here if i understand bevin and jackrabbit properly...
my friend in turkey is telling me the M4 and M5 are open.. i have asked for a media link.. his son is in syria at present as part of the turkish army...
as for dual citizenship bolton and this freak jefferies - they seem to be pushing the same tired agenda that is going nowhere.. they want to deal with anyone but syria/assad and are aghast at the thought the kurd leadership would work out a deal with syria... i am really hoping that happens sooner then later... these usa leadership, or are they israel sychophants? need to give up the ghost on destroying syria... they need to consider the mess they made in libya and shut the fuck up.. i know that is not likely to happen, but i can dream... i am happy we have temporarily held off being in ww3 so far... it could change, but russia has played the long game and have been successful to date... turkey even seems to have given up its crazy erdo-ottman dream for the time being..
Posted by: james | Jan 6 2019 0:32 utc | 27
Whatever Trump is up to and whomever is supporting him is not easily found. I view him more as a personally driven anomaly to the order. Why would he destroy something he spent a lifetime building which is his brand? He must have been self deluded and naive about what the press was going to do to him.
As far as who he draws on to help him in his administration he has not much a a choice of who to work with as they are all educated along the same lines and in the same institutions. The deep state has a very deep bench.
Some things he does is refreshing and some beyond absurd. Most is portrayed in the worst light possible in the press which requires some deep research and time to think through. He has almost no chance of winning a second term and everything he has done will unravel like a cheap sweater after he has gone. His only hope of winning is complete chaos in the opposition which is possible.
I truly believe he is personally driven to get out of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan along with Korea if a peace deal can be reached. He has been saying it and the state has been hysterically fighting back. If he could make peace with Russia he would do that as well. Given the anti Russia hysteria he is extremely constrained.
He stands alone, a short term anomaly in a system based on war. For good or ill, it is happening.
Posted by: dltravers | Jan 6 2019 1:02 utc | 28
Could it be that the French troops are in Syria to defend French economic interests and future rebuilding contracts?
The French troops are primarily situated North and South of the former LaFarge cement plant. LaFarge has merged with the Swiss firm Holcim to create the world’s largest cement maker LafargeHolcim. http://www.voltairenet.org/article204585.html
The cement plant is ideally situated to provide building materials to meet reconstruction contracts in the burnt out city of Al-Raqqah. link
Posted by: Krollchem | Jan 6 2019 1:07 utc | 29
Jrabbit @ 8 said;"The narrative that Trump is fighting for his campaign promises but allows Bolton and Pompeo to scheme against him is nonsensical."
And @ 17 said;"How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO goals."
Bingo rabbit!!! Well said, and IMO true..
bevin @ 10; Another relevant post..
Pft @ 14; Thanks for the link..
Posted by: ben | Jan 6 2019 1:17 utc | 30
WOW! The link Pft provided @ 14 IMO is a must read. Thanks mucho Pft!!!
Posted by: ben | Jan 6 2019 1:34 utc | 31
@Cynica #12
I agree with most of your description of Trump, except for one thing.
Sure Trump is a businessman, but in real estate and that is a different type of business then just running things. He is not a contractor for another paint job. He tears things down, likes to demolish, then rebuild from scratch. The man is a human wrecking ball and I am pretty sure he knows exactly what he is doing to the reserve currency and why. Like Gorbachev demolished the Soviet Union and Putin rebuilt Russia from scratch, Trump wants to do the same for the US. If one wants to beat the corrupt deep state elite, one has to demolish their empire, there simply is no other way.
Posted by: Joost | Jan 6 2019 1:35 utc | 32
I'm with jackrabbit. Trump is mainly a distraction while the "Deep State" continues its globalization project. already the withdrawal is being stretched out. That said, the "Deep State" is not a monolithic entity. When threatened it will all work together but in the mean time they fight among themselves for the spoils. The part behind Hillary was really upset that Trump won. Occasionally we'll be able to find out things as they fight among themselves.
Posted by: gepay | Jan 6 2019 1:45 utc | 33
@ Krollchen who broke the formatting with their google link
Hey folks
We have two threads running now that have had their formatting broke by people that don't respect the rest of us enough to format their links properly
Please respect the many readers that are affected negatively by your lack of respect.
Anyone needing help creating links correctly and easily please ping me at my web site and I will send suggested instructions that I have sent to other MoA folks that have needed and asked for help.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 6 2019 2:18 utc | 34
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha
Install Stylebot in Chrome.
Reload the current story page.
Click on the Stylebot icon at the top of Chrome.
Click on Edit CSS button at the bottom of the Styebot pane.
Paste the following CSS into the big white edit box.
Click save.
Close Stylebot.
#content div {
max-width: 1024px;
}
Pick any number for the width - as long as it has the 'px' suffix.
The rule will remain for as long as Stylebot is installed and the rule hasn't been changed/deleted.
Not the only way to fix the broken CSS on the site. Unbelievable the site owner is this lazy to not add a single simple CSS rule fix.
Posted by: Daeslin | Jan 6 2019 2:35 utc | 35
Jackrabbit et al miss an absolutely critical fact: a "populist" President was not needed and would only complicate the deep state agenda. A Paul Ryan would have been a much better option if a Republican were to win. Trump gave voice to the deplorables and, again, something that was entirely unneeded and unwanted by the deep state. Put otherwise, Trump lit the fuse toward creating a true axis of resistance within the US general population. The resistance may fade or it may grow but Trump has given it a chance.
Regarding the cruise missile attacks, I think everyone would agree that the military significance was mil beyond allowing Russian and Syrian forces to hone their skills. The Israeli stunt resulting in the shootdown of the Russian aircraft was epicly stupid and it immensely strengthened Russian resolve. Idiots all - neocon and the Israelis.
Posted by: Patient Observer | Jan 6 2019 3:06 utc | 36
@ Pft | Jan 5, 2019 5:44:02 PM | 14
link: After two years of witnessing Trump in action, it is clear to me that he is an active participant in the new world order agenda, and not just an unwitting patsy for the economic crisis.
No. Trump has brought world disorder, in terms of destroying malicious alliances, which is a good thing. Currently he's working on forever war.
And what does that have to do with Syria anyhow?
Stay on topic, please.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 6 2019 3:10 utc | 37
The Washington Post article that b links to ("never signed off") has the headline
" 'They can do what they want' Trump's Iran comments defy his top aids"
The "They" in the quote in the headline is a reference to Iran in Syria.
"President Trump stuck a dagger in a major initiative advanced by his foreign policy team:
Iran’s leaders, the president said, “can do what they want” in Syria.
With a stray remark, Trump snuffed out a plan from his national security adviser, John Bolton,
who this fall vowed that the United States would not leave Syria
“as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders.” Pompeo has of course also obsessed over Iran.
Now the next paragraph in the WP piece is I think quite remarkable:
"The president’s statement offered the latest illustration of the dramatic gyrations
that have characterized his foreign policy and fueled questions about
whether his senior advisers are implementing his policies or pursuing their own agendas."
Here we have the question asked, in effect: Are Trump's senior people going rogue?
Does the master of spin Washington Post, by putting the question in a manner sympathetic to Trump
and unsympathetic to Bolton and Pompeo, and by extension
the hordes denouncing Trump's decision to reduce US involvement in Syria
suggest a new orientation in the Mockingbird media?
Also note that acting Defense Sec Patrick Shanahan, who was injected immediately
into his position when Trump gave Mattis the boot, is becoming part of the strategic scene.
From the NYT: “He is the brightest and smartest guy I worked with at Boeing,” said Carolyn Corvi,
a former executive at the company. “He has the ability to see over the horizon
and {implement needed change].”
"Ana Mari Cauce, the president of University of Washington, worked with Mr. Shanahan ....
She said his outsider perspective was helpful in questioning old practices,
forcing people to look at problems in different ways."
Posted by: Robert Snefjella | Jan 6 2019 3:21 utc | 38
@ 10 17
Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face.
Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same underlying trends. But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
Posted by: Glenn Brown | Jan 6 2019 3:27 utc | 39
@ Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM | 39
Who cares what you have no reason to doubt about US elites?
I don't.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 6 2019 3:31 utc | 40
@ 40 Don Bacon
Well, I'm not surprised you don't care about me, Don, but I think your comment rather misses the point I was trying to make.
http://www.pewglobal.org/2018/10/01/trumps-international-ratings-remain-low-especially-among-key-allies/
Do you care that Trump is damaging the US's global image? Do you think the US's deep state cares about the effect Trump is having on how the rest of the planet sees the US? If you don't think the US deep state cares about this, why don't you think they don't?
Posted by: Glenn Brown | Jan 6 2019 3:48 utc | 41
Bonkers Bolton proves once again that he is a hopeless NSA because he demands that the world must conform to his own desires, rather than vice versa.
b is perfectly correct: once the USA signalled its intention to leave then the Kurds had no choice but to kiss up to Assad. That is so obvious that a competent National Security Adviser would accept that the USA has no more cards to play precisely because nobody can trust anything the USA places on the table from this point on.
Yet there he is, continuing to shuffle the deck as-if he doesn't even know that he is no longer in the game.
The man is certifiable. But worse than that - he is incompetent.
Posted by: Yeah Right | Jan 6 2019 3:59 utc | 42
@ pft 14
That theory was speculated and posited on all throughout his campaign by many and then still after he won.
I hear whispers from coworkers and family all the time about how they wish Trump would just shut up as they notice their phony-baloney 401K hasn't followed suit with the market that up until recently was crushing it.
I do follow the author's point that it was stupid of Trump to take credit for the bubble in our fake economy but during the campaign was tweeting warnings about being in an ominous bubble.
Stock buybacks and FANG BS do not good market fundamentals make. He should never have hitched his wagon to that dumpster fire. But what was he sposed to do? DOW goes up to 25k...clearly Wall Street loves The Don. Or maybe "They" propped it up as bait and and are now getting ready to pull the rug.
...
Ps...Learn HTML and how to embed links, thread-breakers. @Krollchem
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 4:33 utc | 43
Daeslin @35 watch your mouth, rude boy; B is far from lazy, he knows what's really important - content. Great that you know how to nerd out, but the world is full of that right now, and unlike MoA's stellar content, it doesn't really matter.
Posted by: Roy G | Jan 6 2019 4:37 utc | 44
Thank you ADKC, ben, gepay. It is heartening that you 'get it'.
I think it's important to reply to those that don't.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <>
juliana @20:I agree with laguerre @ 4 that the announcement of the pullout set in motion events that now make it inevitable.
Trump could leave Syria immediately. He made a big deal about the generals not doing what he wanted. Now he delays. It's clear that he doesn't want to hand over US occupied Syria to ... Syria. This makes Mattis' resignation into a farce (or, more likely, a PR stunt!)? And hy did Trump disrespect Mattis for doing so (slamming his Generals on twitter and naming an interim replacement immediately)? Sorry, it's all kayfabe.
Please, please think carefully about Israel's Christmas attack and the possibility that they could've been trying to trick SAA into downing a civilian airliner. What do you think Trump's reaction to THAT would've been? (hint: Trump bombed Syria the first time "for the babies")
=
dltravers @28: Whatever Trump is up to and whomever is supporting him is not easily found.
I disagree. Just ask the classic question: qui bono?
Why would he destroy ... his brand?Obama made $70 million in his first year after office. The Clinton's have made billions (they have full control of Clinton Foundation assets). Trump separated his brand from his Presidency but could make a great deal of money from his Presidential service.
... he has not much a choice of who to work with as they are all educated along the same lines and in the same institutions.This is just an excuse. And a poor one at that. Didn't Trump promise to drain the swamp? Yet Trump has brought neocons and oligarchs into his administration! He didn't have to nominate Bolton or Pompeo or Gina Haspel (who is closely associated with his supposed nemisis Brennan!), but he did.
I truly believe he is personally driven to get out of Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan ... If he could make peace with Russia he would do that as well. Given the anti Russia hysteria he is extremely constrained.You give no reason for your trust in Trump. Your hero has already failed to deliver on several campaign promises. And his unethical business record speaks for itself.
=
Patient Observer @36:a "populist" President was not needed and would only complicate the deep state agenda.
Well Obama and Trump HAVE furthered the Deep State agenda so you're clearly wrong. Obamabot and Trumptards claimed that their hero was playing 11-dimensional chess.
The value of a "populist" to the Deep State is the implied legitimacy of a "populist". Do you really think a true populist can be elected President in USA?
=
Robert Snefjella @38:" 'They can do what they want' Trump's Iran comments defy his top aids"
The "They" in the quote in the headline is a reference to Iran in Syria.
"President Trump stuck a dagger in a major initiative advanced by his foreign policy team:
Iran’s leaders, the president said, “can do what they want” in Syria.
With a stray remark, Trump snuffed out a plan from his national security adviser, John Bolton,I think you are exaggerating (again). "They can do whatever they want" is a lament, not an invitation.
=
Glenn Brown @39:I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
Hillary has a lot of baggage. She is not a populist nor is she a nationalist. She was the logical choice to follow Obama until started acting to protect its interests by denying the Empire victory in Syria and Ukraine.
Covert ops are no match for forces of a peer adversary. The Jihadi proxy army had to be replaced with US troops. And that's what happened.
AZ Empire is smart about what they do. Electing Trump was a smart move. They are FAR from being defeated despite what the pro-Russian/anti-US voices at MoA say.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 6 2019 4:53 utc | 45
Nemesis Calling@43
Was it really? Funny that after 2 years validating the theory hardly anyone is talking about it. Instead most of the alt media is following in line with the faction of MSM that blames it all on the Deep State sabatoging his patriotic antiglobalist efforts.
Even your comment “what should he do?” falls in the same mind set
As for the market. There is no free market. Completely manipulated by the Global Elite with the help of the Plunge Protection Team. They make money going up and down （shorts） since they know in advance and have the cash to buy up depressed assets after the crash. Paper losses mean nothing except tax write offs. No way to predict what its going to do since fundamentals dont matter.
Posted by: Pft | Jan 6 2019 4:56 utc | 46
The prophecy about the mountain of gold under the euphrates is about to come true, the Genie Oil concession in the occupied Golan through which the euphrates continues is that mountain.The Directors are a dead giveaway of the vast amount of oil there, and the khazi are not allowing Syria anywhere near to prevent sideways drilling.
Posted by: Anon | Jan 6 2019 5:08 utc | 47
@46 pft
You don't remember the endless speculation of what "they" would do if a guy like Trump took the presidency?
Yes, I do remember hearing and even thinking myself that they would crash the economy and the dullards would blame Trump. People brought this up to innoculate themselves and hopefully others for all potential nefarious outcomes that the globalists could level at Trump. The same innoculation is again resurfacing because of the current market scare. The only thing here is your guy foolishly thinks that the head of a guy like Trump would suffice the common man to dissuade the coming violence that awaits the chaos of a true market correction.
Sure...Trump is the bow on their neat little package.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 5:15 utc | 48
It may be trump was telling the MSM jew ratpack after his ass of maher,tapper,kimmel,madcow,blitzer,SNL and their bosses, "lay off me" or I will stop supporting israel plans in the ME. And the tribesmen seem to have had a pow mitzvah, Trump is assured of 2020 now. Brilliant.u
Posted by: Anon110 | Jan 6 2019 5:20 utc | 49
bevin
"Conspiracy theories" engender thoughts of puppets and evil geniuses. I am not proposing such nonsense. Alignment of interests and coordination is quite sufficient.
Until 2013-14, MIC-IC-neocons didn't have arguments that could overcome the imperatives (GREED) of industry groups that wanted to trade with China. But when Russia took steps to protect her interests, it was clear that the SCO alliance between China and a resurgent Russia was a threat that took precedence over any commercial interests.
Russia and China are not very threatening by themselves. Russia is a small country with an outsized (and expensive) nuclear deterrent. China is an energy-starved with an export economy (dependent on exports to the West). But together, they are formidable. And can bring other countries into their orbit.
If neocons didn't control USA foreign policy they might've avoided pushing Russia into Chinese arms. They might've heeded the warnings of people like Steve Cohen, who warned of the looming disaster by 2009 if not before (Obama’s Russia ‘Reset’: Another Lost Opportunity?"; emphasis mine):
... when President Obama took office in January 2009, relations between Washington and Moscow were so bad that some close observers, myself included, characterized them as a new cold war. Almost all cooperation, even decades-long agreements regulating nuclear weapons, had been displaced by increasingly acrimonious conflicts. Indeed, the relationship had led to a military confrontation potentially as dangerous as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Georgian-Russian War of August 2008 was also a proxy American-Russian war, the Georgian forces having been supplied and trained by Washington.What happened to the “strategic partnership and friendship” between post-Soviet Moscow and Washington promised by leaders on both sides after 1991? For more than a decade, the American political and media establishments have maintained that such a relationship was achieved by President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s but destroyed by the “antidemocratic and neo-imperialist agenda” of Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin in 2000.
In reality, the historic opportunity for a post–cold war partnership was lost in Washington, not Moscow, when the Clinton administration, in the early 1990s, adopted an approach based on the false premise that Russia, having “lost” the cold war, could be treated as a defeated nation. (The cold war actually ended through negotiations sometime between 1988 and 1990, well before the end of Soviet Russia in December 1991, as all the leading participants—Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush—agreed.)
The result was the Clinton administration’s triumphalist, winner-take-all approach, including an intrusive crusade to dictate Russia’s internal political and economic development; broken strategic promises, most importantly Bush’s assurance to Gorbachev in 1990 that NATO would not expand eastward beyond a reunited Germany; and double-standard policies impinging on Russia (along with sermons) that presumed Moscow no longer had any legitimate security concerns abroad apart from those of the United States, even in its own neighborhood. The backlash came with Putin, but it would have come with any Kremlin leader more self-confident, more sober and less reliant on Washington than was Yeltsin.
Nor did Washington’s triumphalism end with Clinton or Yeltsin. Following the events of September 11, 2001, to take the most ramifying example, Putin’s Kremlin gave the George W. Bush administration more assistance in its anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan, including in intelligence and combat, than did any NATO ally. In return, Putin expected the long-denied US-Russian partnership. Instead, the Bush White House soon expanded NATO all the way to Russia’s borders and withdrew unilaterally from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow regarded as the bedrock of its nuclear security. Those “deceptions” have not been forgotten in Moscow.
. . .
When President Obama made “resetting” relations with Moscow a foreign-policy priority, he seemed to understand that a chance for a necessary partnership with post-Soviet Russia had been lost and might still be retrieved. The meaning of “reset” was, of course, what used to be called détente. And since détente had always meant replacing cold war conflicts with cooperation, the president’s initiative also suggested an understanding that he had inherited something akin to a new cold war.
. . .
The political failings of the reset may be transitory, but the fundamental fallacies of Obama’s Russia policy derive from the winner-take-all triumphalism of the 1990s. One is the enduring conceit of “selective cooperation,” or seeking Moscow’s support for America’s vital interests while disregarding Russia’s. Even though this approach had been pursued repeatedly since the 1990s, by Presidents Clinton and Bush, resulting only in failure and mounting Russian resentments, the Obama White House sought one-way concessions as the basis of the reset. As the National Security Council adviser on Russia, and reportedly the next US Ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul explained, “We’re going to see if there are ways we can have Russia cooperate on those things that we define as our national interests, but we don’t want to trade with them.”
. . .
The twenty-year-long notion that Moscow will make unreciprocated concessions for the sake of partnership with the United States derives from the same illusion: that post-Soviet Russia, diminished and enfeebled by having “lost the cold war,” can play the role of a great power only on American terms. In the real world, when Obama took office, everything Russia supposedly needed from the United States, including in order to modernize, it could obtain from other partners. Today, two of its bilateral relationships—with Beijing and Berlin, and increasingly with Paris—are already much more important to Moscow, politically, economically and even militarily, than its barren relations with a Washington that for two decades has seemed chronically unreliable, even duplicitous.
Behind that perception lies a more fundamental weakness of the reset: conflicting American and Russian understandings of why it was needed. Each side continues to blame the other for the deterioration of relations after 1991. Neither Obama nor the Clinton-era officials advising him have conceded there were any mistakes in US policy toward post-Soviet Russia. Instead, virtually the entire US political class persists in blaming Russia and in particular Putin, even though he came to power only in 2000. In effect, this exculpatory history deletes the historic opportunities lost in Washington in the 1990s and later. It also means that the success or failure of the reset is “up to the Russians” and that “Moscow’s thinking must change,” not Washington’s.
. . .
... in addition to triumphalist fallacies about the end of the cold war, three new tenets of neo–cold war US policy have become axiomatic. First, that present-day Russia is as brutally antidemocratic as its Soviet predecessor. Evidence cited usually includes the Kremlin’s alleged radioactive poisoning of a KGB defector, Alexander Litvinenko, in London, in 2006, and its ongoing persecution of the imprisoned oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on whom the New York Times and Washington Post have bestowed the mantle of the great Soviet-era dissenters Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. Second, that Russia’s nature makes it a growing threat abroad, especially to former Soviet republics, as demonstrated by its “invasion and occupation of Georgia” in August 2008. And third, that more NATO expansion is therefore necessary to protect both Georgia and Ukraine.
. . .
The Obama administration has done nothing to discourage such anti-Russian axioms and too much to encourage them. [In addition, Obama has revised] ... the reset to include so-called democracy-promotion policies—intrusions into Russia’s domestic politics ...
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 6 2019 5:37 utc | 50
Nemesis@48
We are talking about different theories
Your theory and most of the MSM and alt media is Trump is an anti globalist against the Deep State and establishment, and one sub- theory is the take down of the economy is punitive.
The theory in the article I linked to is that Trump is a stooge and supported by the above as a cover for those responsible for the takedown that had to come. The ultimate con/fake wrestling/whatever
Might want to reread that when you have time
Posted by: Pft | Jan 6 2019 5:39 utc | 51
"Russia is a small country"
Note: By this, I mean it's economy in relation to USA+allies.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 6 2019 5:46 utc | 52
Here's where you lose all credibility:
I bet that neither of those points was signed off by Trump. The publication of these ideas is another attempt by Bolton to push his personal policies to the front.
You either don't get Trump is a compulsive LIAR and con artist, and totally Zionist compromised or there's another reason why you keep protecting him knowing full well what he is; corrupt to the bone. I know it's the latter, but why you persist while half of us or more don't buy it is beyond me.
Ask me if I'm surprised Trump wanted NATO Turkey hanging around NE Syria as a substitute? Oh and Bolton goes off half-cocked to Israel to discuss Syria and Iran and the boss isn't clued in and signing off on the plan? Are you aware that Trump doesn't like ANYONE upstaging him? Are you aware that's his number one peeve? Of course you are, so then you also know Bolton got his blessing. So why are we being sold this bill of goods? Beats me. Even Putin doesn't trust Trump as much as you do, or do you really?
************
Hope a false flag isn't in the works.
Hmmm...Bolton and Netanyahoo cooking up a plan. 9/11 wasn't good enough?
Posted by: Circe | Jan 6 2019 5:48 utc | 53
@51 pft
No, you misunderstood me.
The crux of the guy's theory was Trump as fall guy. It is a dumb theory, because Trump will not suffice as offering. Or perhaps the author is correct and it is the architects have shit for brains. That would track.
Irrespective of Trump's knowledge of his role in this plan, it's a dumb plan.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 6:06 utc | 54
@51 pft
It occurs to me pft when going over this with you that there are scores of people, even some here at MoA, who feel that after Trump has sparked a reinterest in the effects of globalism and centralization, that, once the coming shitstorm can be affixed with blame for the Trump phenom, that somehow these terms (i.e. Nationalism, globalism, trade deals, bubbles, FBI/CIA malfeasence, fake news) will just somehow fit themselves back in the bottle. To many, as well with the author, it's all Wrestlemania.
Au contraire, Trump deserves an incredible amount of praise for breathing life into this spectre, whether wittingly or unwittingly, that is going to spell the end of this globalist epoch, even though it is just in its infancy.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 6:24 utc | 55
Of course, the media cover it up as a mission to "allay" the sionist entity. Allay my foot. The National Security Advisor Bolton is on his way to Israel to get his marching orders., pure and simple
Posted by: Hem Lock | Jan 6 2019 6:56 utc | 56
@53 Circe, your Reuters link adds nothing that wasn’t already in b’s AP article.
It is clear that both reporters were present at that background meeting and are simply acting as stenographers for that “official”.
But, really, what’s so astonishing in the idea that Bolton would try to salvage something even after having the rug pulled out from under him by Trump?
After all, he’s not one to resign on a principle, unlike Mattis. Bolton has an ideology but is completely lacking in integrity.
I see no reason why such a person WOULDN’T “try it on” when the boss makes a sudden decision and then shows signs of prevarication.
Not much. Not outright rebellion, not overt defiance.
No, all much too dangerous.
But nibbling around the edges?
Sure, why not...... it’s not as if Trump obsesses over the policy details.
Posted by: Yeah, Right | Jan 6 2019 7:02 utc | 57
@ 32 "Like Gorbachev demolished the Soviet Union and Putin rebuilt Russia from scratch, Trump wants to do the same for the US."
I think there is no comparison. Trump is Trying to move the US from the crumbling petro dollar hegemony to a new mafia style standover scheme to replace it.
Energy dominance. Though energy dominance plans have taken a good kick in the balls of late with the Iraq elections and fallout from the Khashoggi killing.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 6 2019 7:40 utc | 58
Gepay@33, Glenn Brown@39
Hillary seemed to be running to lose. Totally listless campaign. The powers that be knew she had too much baggage. Heck she couldnt beat Obama and that was without the emails. It was like the Republicans running McCain against Obama. He had no chance, running to lose. Obama was the chosen one groomed form his days at Columbia much like Trump was chosen and groomed when the Rothschilds bailed out his casinos in the late 80’s.
While the PTB can live with either candidate winning, otherwise they would not be on the ballot, the link I provided makes a good case for why Trump was preferred. They need a scapegoat for the global reset, and need someone to further discredit the US , nationalism , democracy , climate denial and populism more than it already was after 12 years of Bush and Obama.
Remember, these elite think in global terms, not nationalist terms. The US has been a handy tool to accomplish their goals, like the British once were. When its time to leave the 99% behind like they did in the UK (except for the City of London) they will do so. The US based Global elite will be fine no matter what.
In order for there to be a New NWO, the Perceived leader of the ONOW (US and its leader) must be taken down to get the rest of the world on board and there must be a celebrated “hanging” to symbolize the end of the Western Centric ONWO and make way for the Green Global Technocracy with the Carbon Credit replacing USD as the reserve currency.
While the illusion may be that of a multipolar NWO, perhaps a Republic with 10-13 regions with a capital located near boundaries between East and West , the same Global Elite who rule today will still rule in the shadows.
Climate scientists will serve as Priests of the new religion and decide on the amount of carbon credits each region gets and collects the carbon tax , while the privately owned central banks and international finance serve to manage the lucrative carbon trading , and although their banks will be limited in their loan making in local currency to a percentage of carbon dollars they hold, interest rates will be much higher. Local currency may be redeemed in carbon dollars so basically the carbon standard replaces the gold standard.
A shortage in currency such resource based standards entail will mean permanent depression and lower living standards, that will lead to depopulation, which is one of the objectives.
The form of Technocracy in each region will be modeled after China, which was the testing ground of the Global Elite from the days of Mao when the Soviet Communist project was deemed a failure. Once they moved on from Mao and Communism as an ideal, about the same time the Soviets gave up on Communism , they chose Technocratic Fascism based on neoliberalism.
The last 30 years has been wildly successful for the 1 percent but they need to move on to the next phase and deal with the feeble minded and surplus resource consuming workers who are inhibiting the ability to achieve the elites Transhumanism goals to evolve and become Gods.
This all may happen very quickly as we enter the 100th year of the Versailles Treaty when the Global Elites 100 year old NWO began. Crash and burn, repair and transcend. NWO 5.0 coming soon. Greener and Badder than ever.
Whether a NWO 6.0 will be required depends on China being on board, and Russia as well. I have suggested in the past they were. Some of these conflicts are simply fake WWE wrestling, and both China and Russias reputations are improved as a result of Trump , and also US actions going back to 2001 . However, its possible a big war that terrorizes the world without ending it may be required to reach the final stage , as Albert Pike predicted long ago
Posted by: Pft | Jan 6 2019 7:55 utc | 59
Comments do not go off the side of the screen. For the wingers, quit winging and look at what Krollchem posted. See what the frogs are up to. Toy boy Macron still has illusions of French empire. Sometimes it coincides with US empires aims, but France also has so called 'interests' that are separate from US interests. An independent policy when it comes to showing the shitkickers of MENA who is boss, or so the clowns at the top of the French food chain think.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 6 2019 10:04 utc | 60
@ 59 Pft
I agree that Clinton ran a bad campaign in many ways. And yet, despite that, she nearly won, perhaps because Trump also had some serious baggage. Would you agree that if a few thousand voters in the right states had voted the other way, then what you think was Clinton's "cunning plan" to lose would have failed? Surely you don't think Clinton is a political genius, who precisely calculated the exact degree of ineptitude she could afford to display, and still let Trump win? So if she really wanted Trump to win, why didn't she make a few last minute "blunders" like announcing she planned to cut Medicare or start WW3, just to make sure he won?
Also, about global climate change. Would you agree that part of the reason why people believe in global climate change is because of things like the melting of the Northern icecap, which is allowing ships to travel through the arctic in a way they couldn't do in the past? Or changes in the places where tropical species can survive? Or the way the US southwest is drying out, leading to more frequent droughts and fires? Do you think these apparent signs of global climate change are actually due to some natural cycle? And if so, do you think these apparent signs of global warming are going to reverse themselves soon, in a way that will foil this "climate change" conspiracy's evil plan?
Posted by: Glenn Brown | Jan 6 2019 10:23 utc | 61
Awhile back. TTG at Sic Semper Tyrannis (SST) was making a few posts on Soviet reflexive control https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/12/the-russian-concept-of-reflexive-control-ttg.html. There were several. Being of Lithuanian decent, at the time, he linked it to Russiagate and Trump (There were several posts on this subject).
Putin's Russia went into Syria with the announced intention bringing about the circumstances for a political solution. That is occurring now.
'Bringing about' - bringing about the circumstances.... TTG was too rapt up in his Lithuania forrest brothers to see the forrest for the trees.
Putin knows how to tap the US knees.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 6 2019 10:48 utc | 62
Glenn Brown 61
Add in high tides washing over pacific islands which have not done so in the past. A few of these islands will have to be abandoned in the not too distant future.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 6 2019 10:56 utc | 63
The discussion gets boring when it's only about what the US "Deep State" might or might not want, as Jackrabbit would have us think. Particularly at a moment when they've got it so spectacularly wrong, and things have escaped them, not only the permanent warmongers, but also Trump, whether or not he is secretly in cahoots with them.
Posted by: laguerre | Jan 6 2019 10:58 utc | 64
This from the Russian Foreign Ministry:
MOSCOW, January 5. /TASS/. Moscow harbors no illusions regarding US troops’ withdrawal from Syria, which is going to take a long time, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told TASS on Saturday.
The diplomat considers the issue to be one of most relevant as of today. "Controversial signals are coming, the schedule and overall the consequence of respective steps in the area," he said, noting that the ministry is "monitoring the process assuming that the US contingent's staying on the Syrian territory is illegal in any case."
"We harbor no illusions regarding the rates of implementation of that line. We expect the process to be long, rather uncertain and controversial, but we’ll see," Ryabkov stressed. According to the diplomat, the sooner the American troops leave Syria, the "safer and calmer it will become in the region."
http://tass.com/politics/1039016
Posted by: William Bowles | Jan 6 2019 11:35 utc | 65
@Joost #32
Trump's career has been mainly in real estate and construction. In those fields, sometimes buildings are torn down in order to build new buildings. Whether a building is torn down and what is put up in its place (if anything) are matters of costs vs. benefits. This is how Trump seems to see the world.
Gorbachev never had any intention of demolishing the Soviet Union. He actually had every intention to save it. The Soviet Union disbanded after the RSFSR no longer wanted to be a part of it. That clearly happened against Gorbachev's wishes, but events developed beyond his control. Maybe Trump sees himself as trying to save the US, and maybe events will similarly develop beyond his control.
If Trump wanted to deliberately destroy the world-reserve-currency status of the US dollar, he'd be working to dismantle the military-industrial complex. Doing so would remove the US's ability to enforce the US dollar being the world's reserve currency. But pulling US troops out of Syria or even Afghanistan isn't even indicative of an intention to do so. They're tactical moves, not strategic. Many people want to believe otherwise, but they're cherry-picking evidence. The whole of the evidence clearly indicates that Trump is neither motivated to dismantle the military-industrial complex nor motivated to pursue a policy of non-intervention with the rest of the world. In other words, Trump has no ideological opposition to (or support of) US military intervention. He simply supports intervention when he sees the benefits outweighing the costs, and opposes it otherwise.
What Trump doesn't seem to understand is how a "bad deal" at the tactical level can result in a "good/better deal" at the strategic level. The costs of US military presence in other countries has been disproportionately shouldered by the US itself since the end of World War II. The increasingly tiny "elite" who are the primary beneficiaries of this have had no problem with it, because they're not the ones who really pay for it - US taxpayers do. In demanding that other countries pay more for US military presence, Trump runs the risk of alienating them, which would lead to the existing US military presence going away, which would then lead to the US-dollar hegemony becoming much more strained, at best. This is what the "elite" is worried about, and what they're trying to forestall.
So in conclusion, Trump isn't playing even 2D chess, let alone 4D or 4000D. What he's doing is more akin to disrupting an ongoing 2D chess game by treating it like a checkers game. In pursuing his own short-sighted cost-benefit analysis, he's threatening to blunder his way into ending the gravy train that's been going on since the end of World War II. But maybe that's enough. Sometimes things turn out for the better on the stage of history, in spite of the actors' intentions.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 12:12 utc | 66
Jackrabbit 50, i do appreciate your posts, however small you can't class Russia's economy.
https://globaledge.msu.edu/countries/russia/economy
Posted by: col | Jan 6 2019 12:16 utc | 67
Glenn Brown @61
Hillary is a seasoned politician and campaigner. She knew what it took to win. At one time she had very much wanted to be the first women president. If she had still wanted that, she would've pulled out all the stops to win. She didn't. Instead, she:
- alienated Sanders supporters by colluding with DNC and then bringing DWS into her campaign;These ARE "blunders" for a politician that yearns to make history. The blunders that you cite would've been too obvious and would've drawn much criticism and scrutiny.- ignored blacks;
- disrespected working people when she was paid $750,000 for a speech to Goldman Sachs but wouldn't support a living wage;
- insulted whites with her "deplorables" smear.
Also: you seem to think vote counts in US races can't be manipulated. Wasn't Cambridge Analytica hired to do just that sort of thing? And why hire a British firm? We have since learned that Facebook gave special access to many firms. Was it because CIA farmed out US election manipulation to MI6?
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 6 2019 12:19 utc | 68
Cynica | Jan 6, 2019 7:12:31 AM | 66
The costs of US military presence in other countries has been disproportionately shouldered by the US itself since the end of World War II.
Disproportionately shouldered? How did you work that one out? So, these occupied countries should pay the cost of being occupied, themselves?
Posted by: William Bowles | Jan 6 2019 12:21 utc | 69
The Russian-Syrian strategy is obvious.
i) After allowing civilians to leave Idlib, encourage the terrorists in Idlib to decimate each other.
ii) Use Turkey and US to make the rock-stupid Kurds see sense and align with their home country.
iii) Once the terrorists in Idlib have weakened themselves through stage i) use the united SAA/Kurds to rapidly eliminate all intruders in Idlib.
iv) Intra-Syrian political negotiations over Syria's future (Arab states are already bringing Syria back into Arab state organisations).
US-style tactician keyboard warriors will be outraged at the lack of kinetic involvement.
Posted by: Yonatan | Jan 6 2019 12:26 utc | 70
@ 68 Jackrabbit
I agree that Clinton could have had a more left wing campaign, and that if she had made a greater effort to appeal to traditional Democratic voters, she probably would have won. So here are two possible explanations for why she didn't:
A) Your idea, that she really, really didn't want to be the first Woman President, despite the fact that she at least seemed to have wanted that throughout her entire life.
OR
B) She didn't think she needed to make any promises to traditional Democratic voters, because she was sure she could beat Donald Trump, of all people. And she didn't want to make such promises, because she fully intended to be a very neoliberal and neoconservative President, and didn't want people complaining about how she broke her promises to everyone but the 1%, the MIC,and the Israeli lobby.
Neither of us can read Clinton's mind, but personally, I think B is more likely than A. If you disagree, could you explain why?
Posted by: Glenn Brown | Jan 6 2019 12:46 utc | 71
@William Bowles #69
The point was actually being made in the context of alliances like NATO, where the US has apparently shouldered a disproportionately high amount of the costs. It wasn't referring to invading another country against its will and then forcing it to pay for that invasion.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 13:18 utc | 72
Glenn Brown @71
Sorry, but IMO seasoned politicians don't make the mistakes that Clinton made. She didn't need to make promises? But what lost the election for her wasn't promises she didn't make, it was angering, disrespecting, ignoring, and taking for granted voters.
I only gave you a few examples. There are more. Bill Clinton was discovered meeting with the Attorney General Loretta Lynch because he - one of the most recognizable people in America - was casually walking around the tarmac of an airport? His wife, Hillary, was under investigation AND running for President but Bill just thought he'd have a little chat with the Attorney General?!?! WTF!?
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Jan 6 2019 13:24 utc | 73
@Pft #59
It's certainly possible that Hillary Clinton ran to lose. However, if she had intended to lose, there was a sure-fire way for her to do so - fall on her sword with respect to the email scandal, at least until the election was over. She certainly did not do that. Thus it seems (much) more likely that her listless campaign was due to believing that her victory was assured.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 13:36 utc | 74
@Peter AU 1 #62
This notion of "reflexive control" is actually nothing new. In other circles, it's known by a different name - the Batman Gambit.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 13:41 utc | 75
I saw all this about "US withdrawal" as a distractor to confuse the opponents and catch them unaware. This can well happen by achieving the Syrian Arab Army moves effectives from one place to another, i. e., go full into Idlib once confident the US is going to vacate NE Syria, to then the US coalition attacking in a blitzkrieg....
But, after the new visit by Bolton to Israel, and seeing how many times he has repeated the words "chemical attack", I am sure that, after the failing of the previous false flag op intended ( accidental taking down of an airliner in response to the Christmas Israeli attack ), what is in the making is another chemical false flag op so as to have an alibi to go into the offensive once the victory over IS has been declared.
At the same time, in the prospects of the next meeting of the Arab League where it is going to be seriously reconsidered the expulsion of Syria, you notice that terrorists attacks against tourist places on Egyptian soil have resumed, of which there have already been two since the last week....Thus, the terrain, as well as the public opinion, is being prepared to the pursued end...
These two fronts, that of a false flag chemical attack into Syrian territory and terrorist attacks in Cairo to scare the shit out the currently u-turning Arab leaders on the Syrian issue, are being left in charge of the US SFs which were claimed will be left in Syria, along with our well known Mossad and its long arm....Since this has all the way the tints of the Suez Crisis, I do not discard even a magnicide against an Arab leader to try to incline the course of events to the losing side, which I fear will be, not only useless, but also counterprouctive to their machiavelic calculations...
As an illustration ( and also related to the "II" issue ), I leave an interesting lecture by former MI5 which someone linked at Saker´s cafe, with interesting recommendations on books at the end....Especially "No End Of A Lesson", by Anthony Nutting and "Assasination of Robert Maxwell", by Gordon Thomas and Martin Dillon come to mind....
Posted by: Sasha | Jan 6 2019 14:10 utc | 76
On the articles by Brandon Smith about the true nature of Trump:
The alleged specter of "globalism" is something of a psy-op. Economically, there's been "globalism" (i.e. global trade) for a long time now. People aren't really afraid of that. Some people are afraid of political globalism (i.e. one-world government), as they see that as leading to a loss of borders, and thereby to a loss of their culture. (Clearly this ties in with overall xenophobia and fears of conquest and enslavement.) But there's been something of a one-world government since the end of World War II - the UN. Many people are opposed to the UN, but they don't see that the UN is a front for an empire.
At the end of World War II, a "new world order" was supposed to be set up, based on the US dollar being the world's reserve currency by general international agreement. Things didn't go exactly according to plan, however. First, the Soviet Union balked at the agreement, setting up a confrontation that has never really ended. Second, the US itself reneged on the agreement in 1971. As a result, the world-reserve-currency status of the US dollar is not backed by formal agreement (i.e. a treaty), but simply by force.
The point is that we've been living under something of a "one-world system" for a while now. It's just that it happens to be the US empire. Those making up the "elite" today clearly benefit from the status quo - otherwise they wouldn't be the "elite" and other people would be (if there'd be an "elite" at all). Why in the world (no pun intended) would they want to ruin a good thing? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
This is why the notion that the current "elite" want to bring about a collapse of the US is ludicrous. Doing so would necessarily also bring about a collapse of the US empire, which they massively benefit from. It would be like killing the goose that lays golden eggs because you think you'd be better off by just eating the goose. In other words, it would be a monumentally stupid move.
Brandon Smith seems to ignore the massive bail-out of the US (and thereby the world) financial system in 2008-9. If the "elite" had the motives he imputes to them, they would've opposed such a bail-out. If the financial system had not been bailed out back then, there was a very good chance that the financial system would've collapsed. That would've been the perfect opportunity for the "elite" to build up their one-world-everything. The fact that they didn't try to do this clearly indicates that they greatly preferred a continuation of the status quo. And if they had that preference then, when the financial system was teetering on the brink, they most certainly have it now.
On the other hand, wouldn't a truly international order most likely be a great blessing? Think about it. It would mean that disputes between nations would be handled more by courts than by fighting. It would mean a world reserve currency that isn't a domestic currency at the same time (contrary to the US dollar). It would mean no more empire. It would thus mean a massive "peace dividend". The reason it hasn't come about yet is because every supposed international order was in fact a front for an empire - the UK with the League of Nations, and the US with the United Nations. A truly international order would bring all nations together on the basis of equality and mutual respect.
Treating "globalism" (i.e. a truly international order) as a bogeyman to be feared is apparently quite useful to those who wish to maintain the status quo. The people who are working to prevent "globalism" are not working to establish it instead. Thus they neutralize themselves as threats to the current "elite", making it easier for the gravy train to keep rolling along.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 14:23 utc | 77
@ Posted by: Glenn Brown | Jan 6, 2019 7:46:28 AM | 71
It was most probably option B.
In her 2016 book Dark Money (published just a few months before the November election), Jane Meyer investigates the Republican propaganda machine and its many innovations after Obama's first victory (2008), in order to explain how they successfully stifled him and made him a lame duck after just two years.
But, in the same book, there are some passages which make clear that the Democrats, albeit late, caught up with the Republican's innovative electoral tactics (astroturf, advanced computer software to redraw the maps, NGOs, big donors etc. etc.). She never states in the book the Democrats didn't use the same dirty tricks -- only that they didn't use them until some point after 2012. That would explain why the Democrats jumped so eagerly to the minorities narrative in detriment to class struggle: many of the Republican 2012 success in its "State strategy" came thanks to the new maps softwares, which estimated likely votes by race.
Trump is only mentioned twice in this book -- the first, when menitioning Romney used his private jet (so, not about him the person) and, the second time, ironically, as an outsider, in the end of the book:
Donald Trump, the New York real estate and casino magnate whose unorthodox bid for the Republican nomination flummoxed party regulars, was also left off the Kochs’ invitation list. In August 2015, as his rivals flocked to meet the Koch donors, he tweeted, “I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets?” Trump’s popularity suggested that voters were hungry for independent candidates who wouldn’t spout the donors’ lines. His call to close the carried-interest tax loophole, and talk of the ultrarich not paying its share, as well as his anti-immigrant rants, made his opponents appear robotically subservient, and out of touch. But few other Republican candidates could afford to ignore the Kochs.
Jane Meyer would latter fall for the Russophobe trap, by publishing a lamentable article about Russia and the "election manipulation", but her pre-Trump book is legit, very well documented.
Also, Hillary Clinton was senator for NY when she disputed in 2016. Senators for NY are historically in the pockets (i.e. they can only be in the race to begin with) of Wall Street. During the campaign, many people asked Hillary to make the speeches the made for Goldman Sachs in exchange for money public. She still didn't do it and it's probable she never will. But we all know the contents: it's in the air, and the post-2008 atmosphere is heavy.
During the campaign, she also painted herself as a "proud Goldwater girl". Her husband and future POTUS, Willian "Bill" Clinton, is also what they called a "Southern Democrat" (from Arkansas), i.e. a neoliberal and, most importantly, anti-unionist in the Democratic Party.
In other words, there's nothing in Hillary's biography that indicates she's some kind of leftwing or even a feminist hero.
NemesisCalling @ 48
""Yes, I do remember hearing and even thinking myself that they would crash the economy and the dullards would blame Trump. People brought this up to innoculate themselves and hopefully others for all potential nefarious outcomes that the globalists could level at Trump. The same innoculation is again resurfacing because of the current market scare. ""
This is a tricky one. It's unfortunate that many people see the stock market as a measure of the economy when this benefits mainly the top 20% and especially the top 1%.
Even Trump plays into this. The trick is to get people to realize that a correct measure of the economy would be levels of employment at a living wage as well as affordable housing, medical care and education.
Trump, in a nice political move, stated that now that the Democrats have control of the House that this could tank the economy. Let the DOW tank with a scapegoat but build up the basic economy.
It took Clinton to walk back welfare programs, maybe Trump can marshall the 80% that want such things as Medicare for All.
Posted by: financial matters | Jan 6 2019 14:35 utc | 80
The USMCA Trade Bill which Trump quietly signed, is not Nationalist. It does not strengthen America or MAGA.
It is a NWO tool which will allow multinational corps carte blanche in stealing everything they can. It is to be governed by committees appointed by who knows? It is to be checked by committees within its own body. It features a complete range of controls over every category including telecommunications, internet, extends copyright protections from 50 to 70 years.
The Governments of USA, Mex, and CA, - elected bodies of citizens representatives will have no control over the USMCA.
Why would a Nationalist like Trump, sign a NWO Globalist (Multinational Corps) Agreement which usurps the power of the US government unless he were a fraud?
Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 6 2019 14:40 utc | 81
Of course, contemplation of ridiculous conspiracy theories is a fun weekend timewaster and nobody does it better than Jackrabbit. But here is one throught I can never quite get out of my head whenever anyone whips up yet another of these sweet, sticky, frothy CCCs (conspiracy cotton candies).
Let's assume there was indeed such a conspiracy to put Trump in power and the voting machines in PA, WI, FL, NC and MI were set just so Trump would win by a razor thin margin (let's skip and gloss over the amount of intelligence needed to know these particular states were "the ones". Maybe all states were rigged, eh? Think of the number of people, time, energy and money this would involve. This wasn't a simple hack of the DNC or one guyrl named Chelsea downloading files.
How many people do you suppose would need to be in on the game at a national level enough to understand the magnitude of their roles in throwing an election? Even in the most artfully concocted plan whereby most of the participants would not understand the conspiracy in which they toiled or its intended result, like one say rendered in a John Le Carre spy novel, there still would be at least a handful who had to know all or most all in order for the plan to be successfully executed on a national level. Let's say 8 (to pick a number out my ass). I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe a more likely number is 38.
Those 8 would have ample financial reason, if not moral reason, to expose their story sooner rather than later. The GOP or the Deep State, or wtf you want to term the man behind the curtain, The Koch Bros, or whatever, would probably want those 8 dead asap before they could sing like canaries and reap both eternal fame and massive fortune. Thus, another conspiracy would need be set in motion, secondary to the original conspiracy. And involve more people who "needed to know." And then another secondary to the secondary conspiracy and so on. And on and on ad abusrdum.
Pretty soon you would have hundreds maybe thousands of people in the know.
To say nothing of the media and tens of thousands of bloggers all itching for such a yuge scoop in the information age. They would be dig dig digging away 24/7. In fact, surely there are entire online communities dedicated to uncovering ballot fraud in the US.
This would become the greatest story ever told (apologies to all my Christian/Hollywood Spectacle friends) when discovered. Maybe someone who has actually participated in a grand conspiracy can (anonymously of course) show me the error of my thinking about this.
As a side note and slightly OT, it always cracks me up to hear people discussing the 9/11 conspiracy theories in terms of the "science."
Here is the problem. There is no science. The near simultaneous crashing of two large jetliners into a 100+ story glass/steel skyscraper at high speed has been accomplished exactly *once* in human history. There are no controlled experiments, the plane crashes have not been replicated, there is no falsifiability. This reminds me so much of "forensic science" which police and prosectors used religiously for decades to convict perps, using "expert arson witnesses" for instance. The problem with forensic science is that none of it, or very little, is actually based on scientific experiments, as has been exposed in recent years.
Finally, as a side note related to my comment in the other Syria thread regarding the tendency of posters to automatically discredit the information presented by others from "tainted" mainstream media sources: b fashioned this essay by linking almost or maybe entirely to MSM sources. WP, WSJ, AP, Al-Monitor, etc.
Why isn't anyone in the commen threads debunking him for using these impeccably conventional MSM sources as you quickly would debunk a mere commenter using an MSM link to support her contention?
Posted by: donkeytale | Jan 6 2019 14:42 utc | 82
https://www.rt.com/news/448180-us-military-wont-leave-syria/
You're a bit behind. Bolton et al have already won. There's no way the "condition" will ever be met, so the troops aren't leaving.
This is entirely intentional.
Posted by: Sid Finster | Jan 6 2019 14:42 utc | 83
@donkeytale #82
People involved in a conspiracy do not expose it or their involvement in it if 1) they feel that they'd be in grave danger if they did so, and/or 2) they believe wholeheartedly in the conspiracy's goals.
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6 2019 14:53 utc | 84
Glenn Brown 61
Add in high tides washing over pacific islands which have not done so in the past. A few of these islands will have to be abandoned in the not too distant future.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 6, 2019 5:56:41 AM | 63
And let's not forget high tides sloshing over St Mark's Square in Venice.
In the past the authorities used to advise tourists to postpone their trip to St Mark's for a day. Now tidal flooding is so frequent that they advise them to leave their good shoes at home and bring galoshes.
The locals just remove their footwear and roll up their trousers/ skirts/ dresses.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 6 2019 15:10 utc | 85
@83 Looks like Bolton got a copy of the new script in Jerusalem. It's all about the Kurds and especially the brave girls of the YPJ.
The Turks see Rojava somewhat differently.....
"Bolton’s statements provoked a critical response from Ankara. It is “irrational” to claim that Turkey targets Kurds in its operations, the Turkish president’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said, adding that the Turkish military campaign is aimed against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) as well as against the Kurdish YPG and PKK groups, which Ankara sees as terrorists."
Posted by: dh | Jan 6 2019 15:12 utc | 86
Cynica @ 84
Thanks. For your statements to be true we would need to make the following assumptions: 1) 100% of the people involved would have to be 100% rational actors and 2) none of them would ever change their minds or politics.
I hope we can both agree that humans are neither 100% rational nor consistent, especially when it comes to politics.
For instance, what if at least one of the people involved had done so only because they were very well-paid and pretended they were "true believers" simply to get the gig? Is this farfetched? And this person was temperamentally suited to risk taking for immense financial gain and underestimated the dangers of exposing the fraud?
It seems to me one could quickly come to the conclusion regarding the threat of death that the best defense is an offense. Go public, go loud, dare the Koch Bros (or whomever) to off you publicly with all the attendant media exposure. My roue would be: find a media champion anonymously at first, hire an agent, sign a massive book contract, make a movie deal. Hollywood would eat this stuff up. Boffo box office.
My thought (actually attributable to social theorist C. Wright Mills in the 1950s) that the conspiracy is not among individuals rather it's built into the fabric of the institutions. As example, "Global financial capitalism" is a class conspiracy against those who don't possess capital.
We here much about the "duopoly." This is another rendering of an institutional (US government) conspiracy derived initally from the separation of powers and its practical immplementation during the course of history. "Political compromise" is the key element of this conspiracy.
Posted by: donkeytale | Jan 6 2019 15:38 utc | 87
Excellent blog B. Congratulations.
Posted by: jayc | Jan 5, 2019 5:26:59 PM | 13
Jayc, I fully agree with your analysis. You can add José Maria Aznar of Spain to Clinton and Blair as part of the first group of 'wolves in sheep's clothing', followed by W, Obama, Cameron, Merkel, Hollande, Macron, etc.
Posted by: dh-mtl | Jan 6 2019 15:49 utc | 88
Is the British government putting its soldiers in danger to change Trump's withdrawal plan for Syria?
Two British special forces soldiers have been seriously injured in a missile attack by the Islamic State (Isis) in Syria. The incident is thought to have happened on Saturday morning and the soldiers were airlifted by US forces for medical treatment.
A few years ago I would have said no but with Skripal and the Integrity Initiative, it's possible.
BTW, the Guardian makes one of it's usual "factual errors":
Rudaw, a Kurdish news outlet, reported that the British soldiers were hurt in an attack on a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) base in the town of Deir ez-Zor, in the east of the country.
Last time I checked, Deir ez-Zor was controlled by the SAA.
Posted by: Ghost Ship | Jan 6 2019 15:57 utc | 90
Posted by: Cynica | Jan 6, 2019 9:23:14 AM | 77
Cynica, what your analysis fails to appreciate is that by the beginning of the 1990s the Global Elites came to the conclusion that they no longer needed host countries, but, with the advances in communications and transportation, could now effectively operate as 'Global' citizens. With 'Global Governance' through international institutions under their control, and 'Global' supply chains set up wherever labor is cheap and resources abundant, they were now in a position to both control the world and isolate themselves from the demands of citizens. By destroying national sovereignty, as they have been hard at work doing with the Euro, Climate Change, mass migration, etc., they also put themselves beyond the reach of any pretensions of democracy, which cannot go beyond national borders.
The destruction of the American, British and European economies by the Globalists is not intentional. It is a natural by-product of dictatorship. Dictatorships are simply not capable, (for reasons to do with the nature of complex systems) to achieve a high economic performance. These countries are thus regressing economically to a state conducive to dictatorship.
'On the other hand, wouldn't a truly international order most likely be a great blessing?' you say. Hardly! The 'Globalist' project is fascism in its purest form. The destruction of humanity is its natural outcome.
Posted by: dh-mtl | Jan 6 2019 16:11 utc | 91
@cynica 91 - Agreed and well said. That is their objective, a takeover of humanity of sorts. But, remember the "end of history" meme? Their declaration of victory was a bit premature.
Russia and China are leading the sovereign level resistance and there are likely hundreds of millions of us ordinary folks who are on to their game as well. The globalists will fail, the only questions are when and how much damage they will do as they collapse.
Posted by: Patient Observer | Jan 6 2019 16:27 utc | 92
Cynica | Jan 6, 2019 8:18:38 AM | 72
It's NOT disproportionate! NATO is a US creation, created to advance US interests, period. The US's 'allies' are, in reality, no more than satrapies, backward enough to pay for their dependence on the US empire. So disproportionate is entirely wrong word to use.
Posted by: William Bowles | Jan 6 2019 16:38 utc | 93
Nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.
- Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: The Technetronic Era, 1971.
Translation - Bankers, Corporate Raiders, Looters, Resource Extractors, Plagues and Plunderers don't give a flying fookall about any nation in particular. They can and do operate anywhere they like and if they wreck a place, well, they just go somewhere else.
Posted by: fast freddy | Jan 6 2019 16:39 utc | 94
@61 glenn brown, pft
This is nonsense. There is a deep seated irrational hate of DJT along the elite coastal fortresses and even the standard bearer, middle-brow the country over does not like DJT and his braggart moxy.
There was no conspiracy to throw it to DJT. Simply put, TPTB are so tone deaf and don't care to be clued in to the uncouth that make the fast food.
It is getting rather annoying that many here are propogating the absurd notion that the 2016 was the ultimate in wrestlemania/opera and that DJT didn't run the ol' bitch down through hardwork and charisma.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 16:48 utc | 95
@68 jr
That is nonsense that she ignored blacks.
Half of her campaign was dedicated to inciting hate towards the racist DJT and utilizing identity politics.
Shit, she went on a black radio touting her hot sauce that she always carries in her purse. She pandered without shame.
Your claim is FALSE.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Jan 6 2019 17:06 utc | 96
Anon @ 47
Can I respectfully suggest that you check out a map before making a comment like that.
The Euphrates rises in Turkey and flows across the centre of Syria. The Golan is on the west of Syria. They are hundreds of miles apart.
Posted by: JohninMK | Jan 6 2019 18:32 utc | 97
Some people on here seem to think Hillary will be the Democratic nominee. Not sure where they would get that little nugget of an idea. There's only a couple of candidates that have thrown their hat in and she ain't one 'em.
The field of possible candidates is quite large and there's no really bright lights..Warren and Sanders have announced and that's it. Warren is dead in the water because of that stupid fucking DNA move and Sanders age sure doesn't help.
As far as the thing about Trump outwitting the deep staters that were forced upon him I totally agree with Jackrabbit and Circe.
Besides, there's more to American life than relations with Russia and their Syrian policy. The Wall is mostly what's soaking up the oxygen. Hard to make an argument for Trump's populism when he's willing to put 800,000 people out of work and really inconvenience the American people because he can never be seen to back up an inch.
Posted by: peter | Jan 6 2019 18:41 utc | 98
@98 whether she's running or not, she still wants to control who gets nominated. people get the idea she is probably running because she has the last 2 times, and the party has funded a 2 year campaign to promote the idea she was robbed, and her allies still control the party.
Posted by: pretzelattack | Jan 6 2019 18:54 utc | 99
NemesisCalling says:
It is getting rather annoying that many here are propogating the absurd notion that the 2016 was the ultimate in wrestlemania/opera and that DJT didn't run the ol' bitch down through hardwork and charisma
yeah, and since this what-iffery's corollary is that we're never gonna know one way or the other anyway, even kind of pointless and inconsequential.
Posted by: john | Jan 6 2019 18:56 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
It looks like the US advisors like Bolton are really circling around looking for another way to get into the fight. Air support for the Turks in an ongoing massacre might suit them. Will the Russian allow it though?
You mentioned Sykes-Picot. The whole situation reminds me of the late great Yugoslavia and the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about) and set them at each other's throats.
Time for the Russians to remind the Americans they said they were leaving and if they don't leave now, the door will hit them on the way out. The clock is ticking.
Posted by: Uncoy | Jan 5 2019 19:38 utc | 1