Peru
Castillo should be innaugurated this week. My prediction: he’s going to take the fight to the bad guys. He’s starting out by saying he will reject the president salary and live on his 5th grade teacher pay, also will propose a big pay and pension cut for legislators which will rally huge support and expose the opposition. Watch for a Bolivian style transformation and power shift in Peru which will get the current realignment in South America a big boost. Castillo has been quietly weaving a strong support network outside Peru as well with Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Uruguay’s Pepe Mujica. He’s calling for a new constitution which will build a MAS type people’s movement at the grass roots level. At some point soon the U.S. bases will be kicked out.
bottom line– South America is rising
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Peru-Pedro-Castillo-to-Give-Up-His-Salary-as-President–20210726-0008.html

Posted by: migueljose | Jul 26 2021 14:14 utc | 104

Jimmy Flies By @ 33 says..
The Bible .. is another layer of control mechanism. Turn the other cheek? <= religious culture in a collection of propaganda of type "culture propaganda" . There are many classes of propaganda. Understanding the objective of and the target of culture propagandas allows to understand the meaning of being manipulated and differentiated in crucible operated by a collection of nation states. Propaganda is a major element to the supremacy and survival of the nation state, the nation state must maintain its supremacy over humanity to provide for those for whom it was designed to serve; in order to control those who are forced or coerced into serving it. Hate, use of force, social class, language, opinion, comfort levels, and personal ideologies and the like are built by biology from experience into our minds. Media provides much of our experiences. What a human believes is a function of circumstance (context) and experience to the date of the evaluation. Biology engages experiences, it captures and interprets elements from each experience, then it processes those elements, stores the processed result, and uses those stored processed results to form the response to the next encounter with experience. Long term, We call that maturing. When the state or private media or special interest media is produced, distributed and encountered as experience, it controls knowledge, shapes beliefs, which collectively become part of the fabric and make up of the experienced individual. When the family controls those experiences another set, and when the work place controls, yet another.. Education is a but a bureaucracy, learning (not education) is a <=completely personal, biological activity. All knowledge is acquired by or through experience (real, simulated, imaginary or virtual), etc. Language a tool which helps to engage experience, propaganda is the meaningful engineered content meant to provide some with an experience. It is for this reason that I say the problem in the world is that a few persons, in a few places, with a very contained set of experiences and beliefs, should not be allowed to use the nation state system as if they were crucibles. It is in those crucibles that human experience is used to engineer warriors and thieves into well trained regiments who will support one nation state against all other nation states. They Oligarch in charge of the nation states, make warriors of everyone, but different the beliefs of the warriors, depending on which of the 256 different nation states is doing grind the substances in the crucible. What and how the nation states do this mixing and blending is centrally controlled by a very few, often unseen group of Oligarchs and their associates.

Posted by: snake | Jul 26 2021 14:28 utc | 106

I cannot say that I have read all the works of Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates in school, but I did read several works of Aristotle and Plato at university. Socrates I have not read, because he left no written work. (Indeed, according to Plato’s dialogue the Phaedrus, Socrates never wrote anything.)

Posted by: lysias | Jul 26 2021 14:55 utc | 108

@Posted by: vk | Jul 26 2021 14:18 utc | 105
Your link to twitter does not appear to work. Perhaps I need to have a twitter account to open your link?
I found similar information here:
They are hiding in plain sight.
(Thomson Reuters owns the Reuters news service)
https://www.thomsonreuters.com/en-us/posts/authors/dawn-scalici/

Posted by: librul | Jul 26 2021 15:15 utc | 110

Global Times has published its strongest editorial to-date over the “Covid-Tracing War”:
“By forcing the World Health Organization to put the focus of the COVID-19 origins tracing on China again, the US intends to kill two birds with one stone: help the US shift the blame of poor pandemic handling, and build a long-term strategic public opinion and political containment against China by tracing the COVID-19 origins. China’s only choice is to fight back with more intensity….
“The Biden administration’s efforts to mobilize American population to fully get vaccinated have failed to fulfill its promise. And the epidemic is back on the rise. The Biden administration, which faces a growing risk of being punished in the midterm elections for its poor response to the pandemic, now has as much political need to blame China as the Trump administration.
“The Biden administration is fully copying the Trump administration’s line of political hooliganism: using every means to frame China. As the epidemic continues to rage in the US, Washington is finding it hard to directly shift its responsibility to China. Therefore they are playing the ‘COVID-19 origins card’ fiercely, and comprehensively politicized a task that should have been scientifically advanced as nothing mobilizes Americans more than politics. Making Americans mad can make them stupid. Then they will feel that the ridiculous notion that China is responsible for US’ failure to fight the pandemic ‘makes sense….’
“A large part of the American scientific and public opinion community was apparently ‘fooled’ by the Biden administration and became ‘political animals’ to follow the politicians.
“Trump’s strategy was to teach Americans to hate China until they felt that the US government was lovable no matter how stupid it was. New cases in the US now reach 40,000 or 50,000 in a single day under the Biden administration, and it’s going up. This is not a small number, even compared to daily cases during Trump’s administration. The pandemic-response is still poor even with the vaccines. If American voters don’t hate China very much, how can they not find out that they elected people to lead the country who are even more stupid than the last one?…
“The aggressive and arrogant Western ideological bloc assembled by the US is now making the world lose basic moral rule and less open to debate. The coordinates of justice have been destroyed, the standards of good and evil have been tampered with….
“The US leads the world in the epidemic death toll, but it still bosses around the world in the global fight against the pandemic. Washington is invincible because it is impudent. In dealing with the US on controversial issues, China must understand that there is no reasoning with the US at all. We only reason with the world, and we have no choice but to play hardball with the US.
“We should demonstrate our determination and ability to confront the US and resolutely fight the arrogance of the US. The Biden administration’s ability to deal with difficult issues between China and the US is much weaker than the Trump administration’s. They already have far fewer resources than they had four years ago, and Biden himself has less decision-making power than Trump. On issues such as tracing the origins of the virus, we need to be tough with Washington. We need to make sure that whatever Washington says is in vain, and let the world see its rhetoric as a joke. The world will ultimately see Washington paying the price for its wrong China policy.” [Emphasis Mine]
Heck-of-a-way to start a week. That China sees Biden’s troop as worse than Trump’s probably means Russia does as well. And not just the politicians but the general public too–“arrogant” and “stupid.” The mid-terms will be fierce, particularly with the January 6th event being constructed as a political football and McCarthyite device by those pulling Pelosi’s strings. And what of the larger world? Via numerous UNGA votes we can see almost none support the extremism of the Outlaw US Empire. I’m already looking forward to this year’s UNGA Debate/speeches. One thing’s certain: The Interesting Times we’re experiencing will get even more interesting.
‘

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 26 2021 15:18 utc | 112

Been watching the Olympics and not hitting the news lately.
The opening ceremony sucks but the events aren’t half bad.

Posted by: Smith | Jul 26 2021 15:44 utc | 114

Hoo woooow, I just catch the news.
The japanese just beat the chinese in table tennis, breaking their winning streak in Olympic since forever:
https://news.yahoo.com/japan-upsets-china-table-tennis-134402105.html

Posted by: Smith | Jul 26 2021 15:47 utc | 116

China’s not afraid to give the Outlaw US Empire “What For” as this report on today’s meeting between Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman reveals:
“The fundamental reason for the deadlock in China-US relations is that some in the US always see China as an ‘imaginary enemy….’
“‘Washington has been trying to contain China, thinking that will solve its problems as if the only way for the US to become great again is to contain China’s development….’
“He went on to say that in order to suppress China, the US will not hesitate to start conflicts. ‘To settle whatever the US wants to settle, and to get whatever the US intends to have, it has been seeking unilateral benefits all along. How can there be such a rule where one does all the bad deeds but takes all the benefits?‘
“The so-called ‘rules-based international order’ put forward by the US is a disguise that packages rules set up by a few Western countries. It is the US version of the ‘law of the jungle’ where it abandons the widely accepted international law and trample on the international system, so that it can profit and bully others, Xie noted….
“The US has no right to claim it’s the representative of democracy and human rights when it has committed genocide against the indigenous people, left a death toll of over 620,000 people from ineffective COVID-19 response, and provoked wars globally using lies and its military forces.” [My Emphasis]
As these three items show very clearly, China is no longer afraid to use its rhetorical muscle to call out the Outlaw US Empire’s crimes and complete lack of civility. And we know many other nations will second China’s objections and condemnations. However, I don’t expect Biden to alter course, but I do expect him to double-down just as Trump and Obama have since it’s that’s the Empire’s way–particularly with the domestic crisis boiling hotter daily.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 26 2021 16:04 utc | 118

When the “oppressed” becomes the oppressor:
Why Lithuania needs a small, invincible war with China

For Lithuania, China is a continuation of the USSR
[…]
Nikolai Mezhevich noted that Lithuania’s anti-Chinese position “was always”, because “not very well versed in the specifics of the red color and the number of gold stars on the Chinese flag, Lithuanians perceive China as a kind of continuation of the Soviet Union.”

It was never about “communist oppression”, wasn’t it?
The reason why East Europe invented the myth of communist oppression (Soviet imperialism) is the same why Putin has unearthed Lev Gumilev: the region is still trying to cope with the dissolution of the USSR and their consequent submission to capitalism from the West. They’re still trying to legitimize to their own peoples the shitty situation they’re still into 30 years after. They’re the farcical version of Homer, writing an epic about a long-gone glorious era – except that in this case the epic sucks, it’s just a bad-taste joke.

Posted by: vk | Jul 26 2021 16:13 utc | 120

some different music for anyone interested…. paco – sounds a bit like metheny, but completely different composer…
track 18 off Novo Brasil Points Of View -Nando Lauria

Posted by: james | Jul 26 2021 16:23 utc | 122

The 1st world does not know how to build hospitals away from flooding impact?
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57965298

Posted by: Mina | Jul 26 2021 16:49 utc | 124

My mistake! I wrote ‘protest’ but according to the French media, these were demonstrations of support for the president.
I’ll look for more.

Posted by: Mina | Jul 26 2021 17:11 utc | 126

@snake #106
There are groups of oligarchs that *want* to control.
Actual control is very different, however.
Call it friction, call it inertia, call it bureaucracy, call it whatever you want – it is difficult to get large groups of people to do anything they don’t already want to do.
This phenomena is an order of magnitude worse for groups of individuals with power and/or money – it is the main reason why these globe-spanning conspiracies are highly unlikely except in the sense of specific shared interests.
Then there are the phenomena of accident, ego, jealousy, etc.
I do find it amusing that so many posters are against religion.
Yes, religion can and has been abused. But it is far from clear to me why it is a net negative, overall. The Catholic church today is not the same as the Catholic church, pre-Reformation, nor is it the same even from 30 years ago. It has changed and continues to change. While I am not religious, I have both been educated in basic Christian theology (went to a Catholic school for a few years) and have studied the practice and theory of Catholic dogma for some time.
I don’t see anything inherently evil or even negative about it – and also know many people who are genuinely good people regardless of their religion. Whether Catholicism helps them be that way or is a symptom is irrelevant.
I don’t see the secular “religions” being any different: Communism has killed a lot of people, yet there are also communists who truly do believe and work for a better life for everyone. The same can be said for any creed: very few of the time tested ones have no redeeming qualities in some way.
Ultimately it is power structures that lead to abuse – and it is inevitable regardless of the credo in question. Tibetans slaughtered tens of thousands, if not more, in the name of Buddhism just as the Crusades and Islamic Jihad have done the same.

Posted by: c1ue | Jul 26 2021 17:20 utc | 128

Honduras: Former Lawmaker Echeverria Shot to Death (teleSUR, July 26, 2021)

On Sunday, former lawmaker Carolina Echeverria was killed by gunmen who assaulted her residence in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Her husband was seriously wounded.
Echeverria, who was a congresswoman from 2006 to 2010, died of gunshot wounds, according to a preliminary report from security forces. Her husband, retired Colonel Andres Urtecho, who is receiving medical care in a private hospital, was wounded in the alleged robbery.
“Deeply shocked by the death of our colleague Carolina Echeverria. The authorities must investigate, find and punish those responsible. We wish her husband a speedy recovery,” said Liberal Party presidential candidate Yani Rosenthal, who in August 2020 returned from the U.S., where he served a three-year prison sentence for assets associated with drug trafficking.
Before her death, Echeverria aspired to be again lawmaker for the Liberal Party, the second opposition force in the Central American country. On November 28, 2021, Hondurans will elect president, three vice presidents, 298 mayors, 128 national lawmakers, and 20 lawmakers for the Central American Parliament.
…

TeleSUR is the only English-language media outlet to report this assassination. RIA Novosti provides more details:
Bandits disguised as doctors kill famous woman politician in Honduras (RIA Novosti, July 26, 2021 — in Russian)

The bandits, dressed as doctors, under the guise of detecting cases of COVID-19, entered the house of the famous Honduran female politician Carolina Echeverria and killed her, according to the local newspaper El Tiempo.
A group of people, a woman and four men, arrived at Echeverria’s house in the capital Tegucigalpa on Sunday evening, police said. They asked if there were COVID-19 patients in the house. Once inside, they started shooting at the owner and her husband. It is noted that the bandits were dressed in pink uniforms of medical workers. Echeverria was killed and her husband, a retired police colonel, was seriously injured.
The police have already managed to detain one of the suspects. It is assumed that the motive for the attack on the house of the former MP was a robbery attempt.
Carolina Echeverria was one of the prominent leaders of the Liberal Party, and was a member of the National Congress (Parliament) in 2006–2010. In 2016, she attempted to run for the presidency, but was not registered.

Posted by: S | Jul 26 2021 18:02 utc | 130

Also with respect to the ancients, Plutarch observes:

When the enemy tried to cut off his (Julius Caesar’s) fleet, he was forced to repel the danger by using fire, and this spread from the dockyards and destroyed the great library.
(Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 49.6)

Again, what is posterior tends to fail, I am sorry, to convince me differently.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 26 2021 18:36 utc | 132

Nature news report that might be available to everyone titled “DeepMind’s AI predicts structures for a vast trove of proteins”. It is about AlphaFold (from Alphabet ie. “old Google”) creating an openly available database of currently 365000 and soon to be 130 million protein structures including most human proteins.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 26 2021 18:57 utc | 134

@vetinLA | Jul 26 2021 1:49 utc | 71
Norwegian | Jul 26 2021 6:26 utc | 85
“The solution is simple; Make up your own religion, cause’ they did. Why not?
Posted by: Blue Dotterel | Jul 26 2021 7:41 utc | 89
*******
It is clear that you are the only person responsible for yourself and your own religious beliefs. It doesn’t really matter which religion you choose or inherit. The end, your physical ending, must be thought of as the conclusion of what you think and how you live. You cannot “blame” anyone else or any religion, it will simply be too late.
You can only “get to” what you believe in.
If you really don’t believe in anything, then how can you “arrive” anywhere?
But for this to be true, it is necessary to separate religion from personal thought processes. The latter (PTP) seems to be based on “God” or the “VALIS is the Vast Active Living Intelligence System”, (blues | @ | 58), or whatever is Supreme. (Beyond human comprehension by definition). The former (the religions) are constructed by people who tailor-made them to suit their own requirements. Which were then “translated” and otherwise presented to reflect the civilization or lack of, of the day.
Call it priestly self-serving. The Christians of feudal times invented Purgatory so people would look up to them for “salvation” in the NOW, to avoid the “punishment” that was supposed to happen before the “judgement”. God comes off second best after the priestly rectitude had had its say (and tithes had been paid). The Egyptians had a “book of the dead” to wallow through. There are two versions of the “ten commandments” (+ Noahide laws are seven, and since the “first version” presented to the tribes below was destroyed as well, I get the impression that Moses was running up and down the mountainside like a bearded goat, but I digress). The Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists etc. all have their own priestly class to interpret sacred writings. To dictate a “code”, and laws and rules that suits them.
You can see I reject the idea that “belonging” to one group ensures salvation by itself. But I see no problem with anyone having a religion or even which religion. (I might have reservations about the lengths people will go to to force their own version on others)
So how can a single person relate to their own impending “ever-afters”?
i.e. By individually finding a way to relate to the fundamentals that have become apparent over time, possibly after false starts, but are summed up as the –
“To learn”.
of; Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 26 2021 1:28 utc | 67
or the – “Why?”.
of; blues | Jul 26 2021 0:13 utc | 58
or the;
“I walk in forest and hear the bird call and wind sound through treetops and request Gaea for another 400 hundred years to learn and love this world and her heavens”.
by: uncle tungsten | Jul 26 2021 7:24 utc | 88
You may not find all the answer, but sometimes you can progress .
****
Resurrection is implied for those that believe in it. Eternity is reserved for others to contemplate what could have been. The She’ol (Limbo) is a long wait for a messiah.
Paradise or paradise lost? I’ll tell you if I come back.
***
I may be sounding too dogmatic, but I had to be shown what I had been missing for many years.
*******
Quotes from my favourite mystique.
“Accomplissez toutes vos actions sans une raison. La vie se vit pour elle-même et pour aucune autre raison… L’amour n’a pas de pourquoi.”
Another quote of Maitre Eckhart (c. 1260 – c. 1328. Dominican) which about sums up his thoughts on priests and religion .
“D’aucuns veulent voir Dieu avec leurs yeux, comme ils voient une vache, et L’aimer comme ils aiment leur vache –pour le lait, le fromage et le profit qu’elle leur rapporte”.
He reckoned that everyone and everything has a “divine spark” in them, which since this included women, did not go down well with his hierarchy. (He also started the Beguines, a form of religious devotion for women which was not tied to an approved religious order). He had to recant and the women were sent to Convents.
One last quote ; “Si tu remerciais la vie pour toutes les joies qu’elle te donne, il ne te resterait plus de temps pour te plaindre”.

Posted by: Stonebird | Jul 26 2021 19:15 utc | 136

New evidence resolves the controversy surrounding the 2013 Syria sarin attack (Rootclaim, June 18, 2021)

…
Responsibility for the 2013 chemical attack has been a hotly contested, politically divisive issue, with a wide consensus in the West that the Syrian government was to blame, while Syria and its allies claimed that it was a “false flag” opposition attack, intended to bring about US intervention.
Rootclaim’s 2017 analysis went against this Western consensus, calculating an 87% likelihood that the Syrian opposition carried out the attack. Following the discoveries discussed below, this has now been updated to 96%, one of our most certain conclusions.
…

Posted by: S | Jul 26 2021 19:29 utc | 138

Post-Yugoslavian dystopia:
Just Another Routine Humiliation for the ‘Impossible State’ of Bosnia and Herzegovina
–//–
A dark cloud in the American horizon?
Polls Show ‘No Confidence’, ‘Stolen Elections’: Provocations in Post-Republic America

Posted by: vk | Jul 26 2021 19:49 utc | 140

Thank you, karlof1 at 189, I will open your link with interest. That change with respect to the introduction of an Ukranian Orthodox schism came about roughly midway between the coup in Kiev and current deliberations, so for a start I would say Lavrov’s highlighting of this matter has the quality of the Russian charges and their dismissal by the European court — things are being brought to public record in the way of direct charges against US ‘strategic incursions’ dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s. The Orthodox in the US have three main streams – Russian Outside of Russia, Antiochian and Ecumenical (Constantinople)/OCA. Mostly they harmonize, since their original founders have mostly become elderly or left the scene. I would however say that any Orthodox believer is not beholden to any specific channel of belief other than the Creed which all profess. There is not a single authority or spokesperson for the Church as a whole. So while Constantinople is considered senior in terms much similar to those which would be accorded to Rome were it of the same understanding in faith matters, it is not as the Pope is or can be for Catholics, the infallible head of the Church.
Even so, the new ‘arrangement’ must have imposed considerable stress upon Ukrainian Orthodox, who had been used to having the Russian Church as its hierarchical head.

Posted by: juliania | Jul 26 2021 22:35 utc | 142

Again thanks, karlof1 @ 189, I was delighted to see the occasion of the interview was as Metropolitan Hilarion celebrates his 50th birthday. At hilarion.ru/en his biography includes the following:

From 1997 to 1999 he gave lectures in Dogmatic theology at St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary in New York (USA) and in Mystical theology of the Eastern Church at the Department of Theology of the University of Cambridge (UK).
In 1999 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology by the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris for the dissertation “Life and Teaching of St. Gregory the Theologian”.

The now deceased priest of my former little family church in Santa Fe had his own education in conjunction with St. Sergius Institute, his father having been one of the founders of same. The Orthodox world is like a family – thanks for the reminder!

Posted by: juliania | Jul 26 2021 22:59 utc | 144

I posted this link to a very large repository of Soviet-era science texts covering most subjects and translated into English quite awhile ago and decided to do so again. The page says there are 617 uploads/books in the collection, so it’s a small library all by itself. They range from children’s books to serious adult texts on physics, engineering and more. What’s even better, as an Archive member, they’re free to download, and membership’s free!

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 27 2021 0:14 utc | 146

Could this be the beginning of a trend? “Burundi Stands Up to Foreign Mining Firms, Bans Rare Earth Exports Without Better Profit-Sharing”.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 27 2021 1:02 utc | 148

This was from one of the last comments in the previous China thread. “Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the USA, for its pig-headed reliance on customary units, is the very first English-speaking one to adopt decimal currency? ($1 = 10 dimes = 100 cents = 1000 mills)”
The US standard that they US for their imperial length measurement system is the French metre which is now the world standard. Inches to the metre ect. That is what precision US imperial length measurements are based on. Once they go below the inch measurement however, it reverts to the decimal system – tenths, hundreds thousandths ect. 0.1″ 0.001 0.0001 and so on.
Most of the world engineering wise now operates on the metric system. ISO standards, whereas US still operate on US standards.
Even if US was to return its manufacturing to America, it could not compete on world trade unless it uses the metric ISO standards.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 27 2021 9:17 utc | 150

@ 149 paco – thanks… a friend turned me onto him… it sounds very much like metheny.. i wonder who influenced who??
good luck reviving the old mac… i was thinking of how much we have today, looking at the bath tub this morning… i was thinking how kings and queens of the past might not have had what we have today – running water and etc. etc.. we have much to be thankful for, but that trap you refer to is ongoing… it seems no matter how much people have, it is never enough!! enjoy the day!
@ 151 librul… you have probably seen this, but if not – regarding the cia owning journalists and etc – see the picture inside the link..
https://swprs.org/the-propaganda-multiplier/

Posted by: james | Jul 27 2021 14:47 utc | 152

@ Bemildred | Jul 27 2021 16:10 utc | 153
Thank for this link
On US-China… thread, b. ask:

How long then will it take until the U.S. recognizes that and steps down from its illusion of supremacy?

The link provided in your #153 is part of the answer.

Posted by: Rêver | Jul 27 2021 16:33 utc | 154

@ Bemildred
Forgot “thanks for the link”

Posted by: Rêver | Jul 27 2021 16:36 utc | 156

Posted by: Rêver | Jul 27 2021 16:36 utc | 154, 155
Thank you. I think that it is a main reason for the readjustment of forces going on, but of course appearances must be maintained. If you pay attention to that sort of thing, then you know the US military is in the middle of a readjustment too. I think the light has been slowly dawning in Washington DC (parts of it anyway) since the Iranians shot down our drone.
Similar debacles have occurred from time to time in our wargames with Iran too.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 27 2021 16:42 utc | 158

@ Bemildred | Jul 27 2021 16:42 utc | 158
I just read again Thierry Meyssan’s “Sous Nos Yeux”. I think he was really good informed in 2015, living in Damas. [do you read it on ReseauVoltaire?]
The Russians were very impressive in Krimea 2014 and Syria 2015,the real professionals in US Forces have been convinced very quickly.
But managing the down sizing is dangerous time too.

Posted by: Rêver | Jul 27 2021 20:16 utc | 160

Drone Whistleblower Daniel Hale Sentenced to 45 Months in Prison ‘For Exposing US War Crimes’ (Common Dreams, Kenny Stancil, July 27, 2021)

Human rights and press freedom advocates expressed dismay on Tuesday when whistleblower Daniel Hale, who pled guilty earlier this year to violating the Espionage Act, was sentenced to 45 months in prison for sharing with a journalist classified information about the U.S. military’s drone assassination program.
…
“He committed the offense to bring attention to what he believed to be immoral government conduct committed under the cloak of secrecy and contrary to public statements of then-President [Barack] Obama regarding the alleged precision of the United States military’s drone program,” wrote Defense attorneys Todd Richman and Cadence Mertz.
…
U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady said the 45-month prison sentence he gave Hale was necessary to “deter others from disclosing government secrets,” the Associated Press reported.
…
“His crime was telling this truth: 90% of those killed by U.S. drones are bystanders, not the intended targets,” said Snowden. “He should have been given a medal.”
In May 2019, Hale was charged under the Espionage Act for leaking secret documents to a reporter widely believed to be The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill.
“These documents detailed a secret, unaccountable process for targeting and killing people around the world, including U.S. citizens, through drone strikes,” Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept, said after Hale’s indictment. “They are of vital public importance, and activity related to their disclosure is protected by the First Amendment.”
According to journalist Kevin Gosztola, Hale’s whistleblowing enabled The Intercept to reveal that “nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group,” detail how assassination targets ended up on Obama’s “kill list,” and expose new information about Bilal el-Berjawi, a Briton “who was stripped of his citizenship before being killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2012.”
Hale, 33, of Nashville, Tennessee, was an Air Force intelligence analyst between 2009 and 2013. In 2012, he deployed to Afghanistan to support the U.S. Defense Department’s Joint Special Operations Task Force and was responsible for identifying, tracking, and targeting “high-value” terror suspects.
The following year, when he was assigned to the NSA, Hale began communicating with a journalist. In 2014, after Hale had been honorably discharged from the Air Force and started working at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, he shared documents that contradicted the U.S. military’s claims that the drone assassination program could kill “enemy combatants” with precision and minimize civilian casualties.
In a handwritten letter released last week, Hale explained that his decision to disclose top-secret information about the inner workings of U.S. drone warfare was motivated by guilt over his role in carrying out “gruesome” killings of defenseless people “from the cold comfort of a computer chair.”
…

Posted by: S | Jul 27 2021 23:09 utc | 162

@vk 105
Well quite, but again I never suggested that the Church’s motives for the preservation of the Classical tradition was deliberate, humanist or well-meaning. But if we are to track the reception of classical literature and the thought of the ancient world into the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment, and therefore to underpin critical theory and Marx’ own thought, we need to acknowledge the Church as a vector.
I agree that the Graeco-Roman tradition in education is very latent in the contemporary world, more residual than active. I may be untypical but I did read Aristotle and Plato at school (learning Greek and Latin), studied classics at university and did a PhD on Homeric Epic. As long as there are others like-minded around me I could give two shits about the Disney version of the bible that circulates as the basis of politics and ethics today. I am happy to vanish into Greece and leave the rest to their somnambulism (Herodotus book 5 at the moment, the Ionian Revolt…).

Posted by: Patroklos | Jul 27 2021 23:54 utc | 164

Bemildred and all: the solutions in the link to the US wargaming are curious. Perhaps so curious as to be deliberate misdirection.
I might not be the right person to raise these issues and maybe there are errors and misunderstandings but here are my opinions.
1. Contested logistics.
Even at a small scale something like this can quickly become very juicy and “fragile” targets both inbound and at landing sites, no matter if it is purely material or if scaled up to include people. The idea has been around for a long time, often at larger sizes than the article intends. I have popular media printed in the 1980ies translated from English originals (likely from the seventies) depicting Earth-to-Earth “dropship” warfare. Not as cartoons or science fiction but as speculative almost “pop science” imaginary realism of a future possibility. The idea seems sure to be older.
Hasn’t the US learnt anything from their endless supplies delivered into (claimed or real) enemy hands?
Still this can be made to work as long as one is either far enough away from the front lines or the enemy doesn’t have (enough) artillery and rockets etc. If my memory is correct I think there was a company named Kepler Space that thought about making and providing containerized quick-launch rockets for military logistics about ten or fifteen years ago.
2. Joint fires.
Requires a quite high level of real-time information sharing to be practical against moving targets and the fluidity of battle (developments, priorities, anything really), something which the wargaming supposedly proved wouldn’t be available or reliable.
The US still hasn’t understood “friendly fire” or blue-on-blue (or blue-on-green or whatever) and wants even more of it!?
3. JADC2
“The cloud” is in itself (and for each instance if there are several independent or overlapping systems) a virtual centralization; so if anyone gets in they’re in and physical centralization or decentralization won’t matter. Without communications the cloud might as well not exist.
Is the article even written in english? Do they hear or read what they’re saying?
4. Information advantage (a sum of the previous three)
It all seems to be saying “we failed at this so we will do this even more, only ‘better'”. …guess they’ve been inspired by the “successes” of their own foreign policy.
Anyway in a real serious fight (an a actual war or sustained physical invasion attempt even if limited) with China, Russia, North Korea, possibly Iran, and maybe even Venezuela to some limited degree: one of the biggest and most important targets will be US satellites and (global) communication networks.
One relatively simple way of doing that might be to load a ton of puny “sounding rockets” with small warheads dispersing clouds of needles or similar. Anything that makes as much space junk as possible, and then (if one can) target the high flying stuff out at 6000 km or so (it might be possible to use sounding rockets for this as well even though they don’t go that far: use them as “shotgun shell” launchers and shoot the debris into the high orbits).
Earth ends up as “the fluffy planet” 🙂 with a vast thick surrounding field (10.000 km or more) of tiny scrap moving at orbital speeds punching holes through or making tiny craters in anything it meets.
Both China and Russia already has more suitable rockets they could use (a large field of debris was made by China some years ago when they tested one, and the US launched a heap of needles into space back in fifties or sixties or so, some of which are also still zipping about) but if they want to they can make a gazillion sounding rockets, it would be dirt cheap. A thousand for less than a single F-35? Ten thousand? Mass production drives down costs.
Perhaps even easier: places like space communications infrastructure (ie. “dishes”) could be turned into scrap metal. It doesn’t have to be nuclear since the dishes and antenna are delicate. If the US military uses the infrastructure for communications it is fair game. Some of the places with such dishes (like Svalbard) wouldn’t even require intercontinental ballistic missiles if one could have a sub pop up with some appropriate shorter range munitions. Countries could even do that as a favor on their own initiative or as meaningful declarations of support. I doubt they wargamed that.
It sucks for all those who were not directly involved in the US warfare but at this point innocent people would already be dying elsewhere. Maybe they could give them (mostly scientists) ten or twenty minutes to run away? If it was my decision and my country was already being attacked I would deem it too much of a risk and far less people would die the faster the US ability was lost.
Conclusion: one way or another the sentiments/opinions/ideas in that article are strange.
Oh and war is dumb 🙂
Anyway that makes the link and article interesting! Thanks for sharing 🙂

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jul 28 2021 0:45 utc | 166

Mina | Jul 26 2021 16:57 utc | 125
Re Tunisia:
Kais Saied decision to sack Tunisia’s government & dismiss the parliament is a blow to Erdogan
22:58
Tunisia’s coup; Another Obama foreign policy failure
12:35

Posted by: pogohere | Jul 28 2021 1:46 utc | 168

Below is a link to the latest posting by Snowden and I think he makes lots of good points about computer security
https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ns-oh-god-how-is-this-legal
To me it continues to be about eliminating the profit incentive that is the religion of the West and then motivations change….hopefully to be more humanistic

Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 28 2021 4:42 utc | 170

Aussie – British Lawyer Geoffrey Robertson & Fake Magnitsky Tale
https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2021/04/aussie-british-lawyer-geoffrey-robertson-and-his-fake-magnitsky-story/
“Doughty Chambers allegedly represents the best interests of Julian Assange.”
After reading this I have my Doughts…

Posted by: John Gilberts | Jul 28 2021 7:34 utc | 172

Once Upon A Time in Wuhan…. (Dr Sam Bailey of the “Virus Mania” Team)
The above video is, I believe, the most sensible and accurate about the “pandemic” that, it is alleged, started in Wuhan. It is also one of the most important videos that many of the readers of MoA (because of their inclinations) could view. Specifically, those who believe that a “virus-based bioweapon” was released (accidentally or on purpose) in Wuhan or Fort Detrick (or anywhere else), those who believe that the “virus” came from bats or bat guano in a cave, and those who believe that China is super advanced and knows what it is doing. It also points the finger at the real (and most obvious) culprit behind the “pandemic”.
Did you know that Wuhan had a pre-existing major problem with pollution and pneumonia? Why is this never mentioned?
“The particle known as “SAR-Cov-2” has NEVER been shown to exist in nature
The “SARS-CoV-2” genome is a theoretical construct from a computer program
“COVID-19” PCR kits detect genetic sequences that have NEVER been shown to be specific to a virus…
They have ZERO established diagnostic specificity for clinical use
There are no specific clinical features or confirmatory investigations for the condition “COVID-19″…
So WHY is there a “vaccine” for “COVID-19″?”

Posted by: ADKC | Jul 28 2021 9:05 utc | 174

Thanks to karlof1 @ 147 for Alistair Crooke’s essay on ancient dualism, focussing on the Egyptian understanding of same. As I age I more and more have the feeling that chance enlightenments (few and far between I must admit) don’t really pass the test of being completely random. This was lovely! Yesterday I became immersed in a compilation by a well-meaning church organ online of a multitude of quotes from Christian speakers and writers on the subject of heaven and hell – specifically on the question first answered by Origen as to whether those condemned to dwell in the latter place were ‘eternally damned’.
Excluding Origen, (who would have it that all, even devils and the chief devil himself, were in his opinion salvageable, and would in the fullness of eternity so be) every church-spokesperson (scrolling down through bits and bites) said that eternal damnation is . . . eternal damnation. Even the saintly Fathers I so much admire say this. Or did at one time or another.
I will say the following — in my little Orthodox church, the one I was chrismated into and followed with my own little family for twenty years, the word ‘heretic’ was never spoken. I do say with Origen that I think as God desires all men to be saved, which is how our liturgy begins and ends, He is God, and so all men will be saved (which includes women, by the way). In other words, the dualism pointed to so eloquently in Alistair’s essay will, in the fullness of eternity, be overcome. That’s not etched in stone; it is just my opinion, and that of some others, even, in my opinion again, including the above mentioned Fathers, if perhaps only in their hearts.
I’m not ready to say definitively what happens to demons in my scenario, but as created beings they surely must have a ‘back door’ at some point.
My point being that all of this is speculative – it is not a dogmatic situation. Aristotle is for dogmatism, logic, mind alone, and it’s hard to be otherwise on the internet when either/or is at its very foundation. All that the Nicene Creed says, after all, is:

“…I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen”

It doesn’t say word one about hell or heretics.
So, that’s my thought on the subject. I think it was Goethe’s as well. But additionally, this would be a colorless world devoid of richness, did we not have such examples of dualism as provided in the essay. So again, many thanks!

Posted by: juliania | Jul 28 2021 21:41 utc | 176

@ juliania | Jul 28 2021 21:41 utc | 176:
How then do you explain, say, Matthew 25: 41 and 46? To say nothing of Revelations. New Testament teaching seems very much to be that damnation is eternal, and anyone maintaining otherwise would seem to be ipso facto guilty of heresy.
Not that I have a dog in the fight — I’m very much a nonbeliever — but I’m curious to know what I’m missing here.

Posted by: corvo | Jul 29 2021 0:31 utc | 178

Reading through it again, I should have quoited all the listed findings from the piece.
“The Claimants commenced proceedings in London against Orbis in May 2018 to seek findings that the allegations were false and request modest damages by way of vindication3.
In a carefully considered judgment handed down today, Mr Justice Warby has (1) found that all of the allegations were inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact; (2) found that Orbis failed to take reasonable steps to verify the allegation that two of the Claimants, Mr Fridman and Mr Aven, used an intermediary to deliver illicit cash to Mr Putin in the 1990s; (3) awarded damages to Mr Fridman and Mr Aven by way of vindication.
In his judgment, Mr Justice Warby outlined the Claimants’ case and primary objective to have a court declare the contents of Memorandum 112 to be inaccurate, and that is what he has unequivocally and clearly done today, in spite of a number of technical DPA-related defences presented by Orbis.
Most notably, Mr Justice Warby found that:
Orbis “adduced no evidence from any witness or document which is capable of establishing the truth of any of [the challenged] statements.” (para 157).
Messrs Fridman, Aven and Khan had discharged their “burden of proof” with respect to the inaccuracy or falsity of the challenged statements. (para 160).
Mr Justice Warby also rejected the claims of Orbis, and accepted the Claimants’ unchallenged evidence that:
the Claimants do not do favours for or receive favours from Mr Putin. (paras 161-164);
Mr Fridman and Mr Aven do not provide informal foreign policy advice to Mr Putin (para 165);
Mr Fridman did not meet with Mr Putin in September 2016 (para 166);
the Claimants did not bribe Mr Putin when he was Deputy Mayor of St Petersburg (paras 167 – 168); and
Mr Fridman and Mr Aven do not do Mr Putin’s political bidding (paras 169 – 174).
Mr Justice Warby concluded that the challenged statements in the Steele Dossier “are inaccurate or misleading as a matter of fact.” (para 204, sub-para (5)).”

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 29 2021 7:32 utc | 180

Slowly more countries ignoring US unilateral sanctions and embargos
Mexico Sends the Second Ship With Humanitarian Aid for Cuba
Russia sends COVID-19 aid to Cuba – defence ministry

Posted by: arby | Jul 29 2021 15:05 utc | 182

further to my 182–
“Max Blumenthal
@MaxBlumenthal
·
23h
Nicaragua, Mexico and Bolivia are sending food and medicine to Cuba.”

Posted by: arby | Jul 29 2021 17:06 utc | 184

Bemildred 181
I was a bit surprised a British court was declaring it or parts of it at least, but I guess Trump is no longer considered a threat by the five-eyes deep state so they can make out their impartial. Assange on the other hand looked too far into the abyss and made too much public. His only hope is the total collapse of the five-eyes system.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 30 2021 1:50 utc | 186

“Assange on the other hand looked too far into the abyss and made too much public. His only hope is the total collapse of the five-eyes system.”
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jul 30 2021 1:50 utc | 186
Well, I have a lot of respect for Assange, he set out to take on the Spooks and the tyrants, and he had a good way to do it too, smart guy, with nerve. But then he let his gonads do his thinking for him and they caught him. Far to nonchalant about it.
I’d say you are right about his chances now, too many people in too deep. Like all these stupid unbelievable stories about Russia & Putin. I mean Putin! You’d think he was Ghaddaffi or something. That is the problem with all of this now, far too many mediocrities have bet their farm on keeping things as they are going just a little longer, until they are out of the picture. Too many people vested in the present system. What we should have is a government of stone introverts, they are not going to be swayed by money and a few bimbos…
Sorry, I got carried away.
Always appreciate your comments.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 30 2021 3:22 utc | 188

Human Rights Watch Watcher @queeralamode – 17:25 UTC · Jul 27, 2021
Omar Deghayes, who was held captive at Guantanamo Bay for five years, describes the torture he endured:
“When they held me down they chained me and one guard was holding my head. The other guard sat down and he pushed two of his fingers inside both of my eyes…I lost sight…”
[video]

Posted by: S | Jul 30 2021 4:43 utc | 190

uncle tungsten @191–
Yes, it certainly has as this article roasting Bloomberg attests:
“Bloomberg’s latest COVID-19 resilience ranking, in which Norway topped the list, the US was 5th and China 9th, turns black into white, and is nothing but a laughing stock, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press conference on Friday.
“Bloomberg released its latest ranking under the title of ‘The best and worst places to be as reopening, variants collide’ on Wednesday. Norway replaced the US to be the new No 1 with ‘enough shots administered,’ ‘few new fatalities and its borders unsealed,’ according to Bloomberg.
“‘A few days ago, Bloomberg placed the US at the top of its COVID-19 resilience ranking and I said that people around the world can take it as a joke in tea break conversation. Today, I was asked by people that with the largest number of infections and death toll, the US ranked as 5th on Bloomberg’s latest ranking and what is the logic? Did Bloomberg wrongly print the ranking?’ Zhao said.”
China is now playing hardball with the Outlaw US Empire over its attempt to weaponize the virus as this item notes:
“The US should publish its data on early COVID-19 cases, invite the World Health Organization to probe Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina, and publish data on sick soldiers who attended the Wuhan Military World Games, if it truly wants to be transparent on COVID-19 origins, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Friday.
“Zhao Lijian, spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said at Friday’s media briefing that in order to shift responsibility from its failed COVID-19 response and achieve its political goal of smearing other countries, the US has politicized the pandemic, stigmatized the virus, and turned the COVID-19 origins tracing into a tool, and it has taken lying, discrediting and coercion as its means while showing no respect to science and justice.
“The ugly page of the US behavior will surely be recorded in the annals of the global fight against COVID-19, Zhao said.
“‘You cannot whitewash yourself by smearing others. If the US truly wants to be transparent and responsible, please start with the following four things,’ Zhao said.” [My Emphasis]
That demand will be ignored as the Outlaw US Empire has no sense of shame and certainly doesn’t listen to international opinion. Instead as the Bloomberg propaganda shows, the Empire prefers lying to its own people and the world–continuity in behavior over many decades now.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 30 2021 16:18 utc | 192

Posted by: corvo | Jul 30 2021 16:19 utc | 193
Probably.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 30 2021 16:50 utc | 194

In this article we’re told a case history of one financial parasite’s destructive actions as an introduction to the existence of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, whose truthful title echoes the Stop Funding Terrorism Act that failed to gain traction because the Outlaw US Empire is the #1 Terrorist Nation. Given the stranglehold financial parasites–euphemized as private equity firms–have on government, I expect the same fate for this bill. Such an outcome confirms Dr. Hudson’s assessment that for any productive change in the overall system of governance a Revolution’s required.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 30 2021 17:13 utc | 196

Iran and Saudi Arabia are inching towards a rapprochement that, if achieved, would profoundly shift the region’s dynamics, diplomacy and stability. Officials from both sides have recently hailed backchannel talks held first in Iraq and now in Oman as “constructive.”
In May, Iraqi President Barham Salih confirmed his country had been hosting quiet talks between the two often bitter rivals. The talks, which started in April, have recently been attended by high-profile delegates, including Saudi chief of General Intelligence Directorate Khalid al-Humaidan and Iranian Deputy Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Saeed Iravani.
The first symbolic breakthrough could be seen as early as next week. Iranian media have reported that Saudi Arabia has signaled it could send an envoy to attend President-elect Ebrahim Raisi’s inauguration scheduled for August 5. If so, the diplomatic overture would mark a significant departure since the two sides broke off diplomatic relations in 2016.
Raisi, in his first press conference as president-elect on June 21, said there were no barriers to the reopening of Iranian and Saudi Arabian embassies, and Iran was prepared to embrace normalized ties with its predominantly Sunni neighbor. Burying the past, of course, won’t be easy

Posted by: karlof1 | Jul 30 2021 19:07 utc | 198

For those who haven’t seen them, let me park these three links:
https://archive.fo/doK4j#selection-1109.0-1109.39
https://archive.fo/OVdHF
https://archive.fo/kTGXc
Hopefully they will put to bed any more argument about whether Queen Elizabeth has power or is just a figurehead.

Posted by: John Cleary | Jul 31 2021 18:21 utc | 200