Afghanistan – The Harvey Weinstein Strategy

In our post-Weinstein world, men charged with sexual misconduct are guilty until proven innocent, their crimes are capital offenses, there exists no statute of limitations, and “zero tolerance” has become a battle cry. The pain, suffering, and humiliation of the women preyed upon by reprobates should not be minimized but let us consider other victims and their perpetrators.

The American people retain a capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and institutions. However, I am confused why this same level of outrage is absent when it comes to needless war.

Compare the culpability of these sexual scoundrels to those of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country’s various military misadventures of the present century. These wars have resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars. *

The public treats, with respect, the views of pundits and media personalities who persist in promoting war while condemning any innuendo of sexual harassment. If I was more of a conspiracy nut I would conclude that mainstream media is guilty of colluding with the government to distract the public’s attention away from our executions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalis, Syria, Pakistan and soon to be North Korea or Iran.

When it comes to sexual harassment there are no statute of limitations and “zero tolerance” is expected in response to all allegations. So, why when it comes to war the past doesn’t count. The media prefers to sustain the pretense that tomorrow is full of possibilities. Victory lies just around the corner.

The president, who has yet to visit Afghanistan, in his Thanksgiving message to the troops remarked, “We’re not fighting anymore to just walk around,” he continued “We’re fighting to win. And you people [have] turned it around over the last three to four months like nobody has seen.”

The term winning is quite elastic. Trump may think that it implies vanquishing the enemy—white flags and surrender ceremonies on the U.S.S. Missouri. General Nicholson knows better. “Winning,” the field commander says, “means delivering a negotiated settlement that reduces the level of violence and protecting the homeland.”

It took a succession of high-profile scandals before Americans truly woke up to the plague of sexual harassment and assault. What will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that don’t work? Vietnam had a televised war, body bags returning and the My Lai Massacre to awakened our outrage.

The crime that is not being reported is that General “Mad Dog” Mattis, General Nicholson, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster are following the Harvey Weinstein playbook: keep doing it until they make you stop.

Consider a recent article in U.S. News and World Report;

“Armed with a new strategy and renewed support from old allies, the Trump administration now believes it has everything it needs to win the war in Afghanistan. Top military advisers all the way up to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis say they can accomplish what two previous administrations and multiple troop surges could not: the defeat of the Taliban by Western-backed local forces, a negotiated peace and the establishment of a popularly supported government in Kabul capable of keeping the country from once again becoming a haven to any terrorist group.”

Over the past 17 years the US has experimented with just about every approach imaginable: invasion, regime change, occupation, nation-building, pacification, decapitation, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, not to mention various surges, differing in scope and duration.

We have had a big troop presence and a smaller one, more bombing and less, restrictive rules of engagement and permissive ones. And how about that MOAB that made a big boom but no “surrender” materialized. What is next using nuclear weapons?

If you believe that Harvey Weinstein has learned his lesson and can be trusted to interview young actresses while wearing his bathrobe then the “new strategy” in Afghanistan is right up your alley.

* By 2015, the Afghan project, had already absorbed at least $65 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars and more than 300,000 dead. By the way have those costly military efforts have not eliminated “terrorism,” they have fertilized the terrorist community.

 

 Paul Harvey 

The November 19th 60 Minutes program attempted to shed some light on the humanitarian crisis being played out in Yemen. Their broadcast found me nostalgic for Paul Harvey.

Paul Harvey was synonymous with ABC’s radio show called “The Rest of the Story”. The program had its beginning during World War 2 and  premiered on the ABC Radio Network in the 1970’s.

The Rest of the Story consisted of stories presented as little-known or forgotten facts on a variety of subjects with some key element of the story  held back until the end. The broadcasts always concluded with Harvey completing his narrative with: “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Yemen

A year ago, I wrote two blogs about Yemen, #012 Oh Yemen! – Man, It’s Hard Just to Live and #013 Part 2 “America is killing the Yemeni people.” Since those blogs appeared, the crisis in Yemen has gotten worse. On November 19^th, 60 Minutes attempted to expose the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Their effort should be applauded but it failed to provide a complete picture and may have even mislead the public.

60 Minutes

The 60 Minutes report fell short of telling the rest of the story. They refused to call the blockade what it is, a weapon of genocide and they conviently omitted the names of those countries, that David Beasley of the World Food Program, referred to as “all of those involved”. 

The Rest of the Story

Hunger Blockades 

Enforcement of sanctions and blockades, by States on other States is a criminal act against humanity. States throughout history have encumbering and prohibited trade. Seldom, however, can the consequences of such an effort, have been as devastating as in the case of the British naval blockade of Germany in the First World War. This hunger blockade belongs to the category of forgotten state atrocities of the twentieth century. The Saudi blockade on Yemen is this century’s atrocity.

In 1914, at the outset of World War 1, Great Britain under the direction of the First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, implemented a blockade against Germany. Churchill described his aim as, to “starve the whole population—men, women, and children, old and young, wounded and sound—into submission”.

At that time, Americans denounced this action as inhumane.  Yet when the US went to war in 1917, the US supported the British’s effort to “starve the whole population”.  This starvation blockade was responsible for at least 762,106 civilian deaths. One hundred years have pasted and the U.S. is again supporting a “Hunger Blockade”.

War has a “funny” way of changing the perspective of participating nations.  Upon entering World War 1, a U.S. admiral explained our changing position to then British Prime Minister Lloyd George, “you will find that it will take us only two months to become as great criminals as you are.” The only thing that has changed in 100 years is that we no longer need two months of training.

 U.S. Entry into World War 1

In 1915 Germany responded to the British “Hunger Blockade” when it launched a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, would be attacked by the German navy. This retaliatory action culminating in the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-boat.

After the Lusitania incident, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson demanded that the German government end its attacks against unarmed merchant ships. By September 1915, the German government imposed stricter constraints on the operation of its submarines. The German navy would later suspend U-boat warfare altogether. This action had no effect on the British “Hunger Blockade”.

Then on January 31, 1917, the German Reichstag government announced that unrestricted submarine warfare would resume the next day. In April, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean as one of the main reason for his declaration.

 Selective and incomplete reporting appears to be the narrative for the mainstream media, they have become too complicit with the noise being generated in Washington D.C. by our political and military leaders. The media never directs the viewers to the actual role that the United States government plays in global crisis.

 “Hunger Blockade” on Yemen – Famine or Genocide?

The 60 Minutes production focused almost entirely on Yemen’s hunger crisis, David Beasley of the World Food Program told 60 Minutes that if his organization doesn’t get substantially more international assistance in the next few months, 125,000 children could starve to death. The starvation issue in Yemen is only one of the many crisis facing the Yemeni people.

60 Minutes does report that Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies had placed an almost total blockade on Yemen. The fact that 60 Minutes falls short of calling the Yemen’s starvation crisis a genocide caused by Saudi actions is under reporting. The viewer should walk away from the 60 Minute piece clearly understanding that Saudi Arabia is the direct cause and their coalition members are conspirators

This humanitarian crisis is not due to natural occurring conditions such as weather, crop failure, drought or even population shifts. It is caused by a concerted effort by the Saudi coalition to punish and murder the Yemeni population living in the Houthi controlled areas of Yemen. Based upon David Beasley’s input, one would conclude that the humanitarian atrocity taking place in Yemen, the Saudi’s two and one half year bombing campaign and the Saudi led blockade of Yemen ports and airfields are apparently coincidental.

The Houthi vs The Saudi  

Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has been waging a brutal military operation in Yemen in response to the Houthis seizing control of the capital, Saana and ousting the Saudi backed President Abdurabu Mansur Hadi. Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia to beg the royals for support to get his prize back.

The Houthi, native to Yemen, are made up of tribes who have come together to reclaim their role within Yemen’s political society. The name comes from its founder-leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi. His following began as a theological movement preaching peace. The Houthi are a Zaidi predominantly Shia-led religious-political group. Their religious belief puts them on the other side of the new Middle East “Cold War”. (Iran versus Saudi Arabia)

The Saudi’s intolerant Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam and its commercial mercenaries act to overthrow and shatter Arab regimes and societies that have independent modern, nationalist and secular leadership or practice multi-ethnic or multi-religious tolerance. They also target republics with Shia-majority governments opposed to Saudi-Wahhabi domination in the Middle East.

Intervention in Presidential Elections? – US Fingerprints

The Houthi movement turned to violent clashes with government going back to the 1990 and through the 2011 Yemeni Revolution, its version of the Arab Spring. The Houthi’s opposition took a more focused attack on the central government after the staged 2012 elections.

The US backed and recognized the corrupt and violent national election that had only one name on the ballot. The only candidate was the Saudi and US backed, Vice President Abdurabu Mansur Hadi. Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton congratulated the people of Yemen “on today’s successful presidential election,” calling it “another important step forward in their democratic transition process.”

In a speech, one of the Houthi’s current leaders, Abdulmalek al-Houthi proclaimed that, “this government is a puppet in the hands of influential forces, which are indifferent to the rightful and sincere demands of these people,” referring to the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Fast forward: in the fall of 2014 the Houthi attack and takeover Saana; the US agrees, in concept, to a nuclear treaty with Iran; events upset the Saudi royals; the Saudi’s puppet Hadi forced into exile; Saudi ask and receives permission to bomb Yemen; the Obama administration admits that their approval is to placate the very sad Saudi’s.

The Saudi’s military campaign against Yemen began in March of 2015 with significant US funding, logistical support, and arms the bombing has caused enormous suffering in what was the poorest nation in the Arab world. However, over the past two years, the Saudi Arabia-led operations, have enforced restrictions on Yemen’s airspace and blockades of its seaports thus cutting off food and medical supplies to the Yemeni civilians.

The bombings and blockade has accounted for Yemen’s malnutrition crisis of colossal proportions. Close to 80 percent of Yemen’s population lacks reliable access to food, and the United Nations estimates that 7 million of the country’s population of 28 million people are facing a death sentence handed down by the Saudi regime.

Cholera –  The Saudi Weapon of Choice

The U.N. reported that there have been over 2,000 deaths due to cholera since the end of April, most victims being children. 60 Minutes fails to make it clear that, death from cholera, is preventable with the consumption of clean potable water or other hydrating fluid. The 60 Minutes connects the outbreak of cholera with the Saudi and its supporting allies but fails to deliver the knockout blow.

The Saudi’s blockade of fuel to operate sewage and water works facilities and their targeting of these facilities, has created a petri-dish for cholera. The destruction of the Yemeni infrastructure put millions of the Yemeni at risk of contracting and spreading of cholera. Dr Homer Venters, director of programmes for the research group Physicians for Human Rights, says the Saudi coalition hits on clinics and sewage works are a “tactic of war” that amounts to the “weaponisation of disease”. (cholera)

Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Yemen, Alexandra Faite, said “we could reach up to 1 million [cases] the end of the year.” CNN reports that an estimated 5,000 people were becoming infected by cholera daily as of September. Save the Children’s country director for Yemen, Tamer Kirolos, told CNN that cholera is “easily treatable if you have access to basic healthcare.”

Really – Blame It On Iran

On November 4, Saudi Arabia shot down a ballistic missile that the Houthis had fired towards Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Houthi missile caused no casualties but it “shook the Saudi capital”. This attack was the first first-ever missile strike targeting the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The Houthi missile launch is a logical response against a country committing “war crimes” against the Yemeni.

Saudi Arabia reacted quickly, and harshly, on November 6, it declared the attack to be “an act of war” by Iran. This is a strange statement considering that the missiles were manufactured in Yemen. The Houthi missile was a counter-attack to the Saudis’ starvation blockade and daily bombing of Yemeni cities. Iran had no role in the launching of the missile.

“All of Those Involved”

The Saudis tightened its blockade of Yemen, rendering it virtually impossible for humanitarian aid to reach Yemen’s air and seaports. The blockade of Yemen’s ports is not new, with the US approval, Saudi Arabia and its allies have been stopping food and medical supplies, to a country that depends almost entirely upon imported food and medical supplies, for the past two years.

Saudi Arabia’s newer version the “hunger blockade” is intended to exacerbate what the United Nations has deemed the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world.” Under international pressure the Saudis “modified” the blockade to apply only to Houthi held areas.  This area, is where there is a desperate need for humanitarian assistance.

The Saudi decision to “ease” the blockade is meant to make Riyadh seem reasonable. The fact is that it is a meaningless gesture that has done little to really improve the situation in Yemen. Houthi terrain has seen 84 percent of cholera infections – 456,962 out of 542,278 cases. Those infected have more chance of dying in Houthi held areas.

On the 60 Minutes program, David Beasley of the World Food Program made an interesting statement about the usage of food as part of the Saudi’s strategy. “I don’t think there’s any question the Saudi-led coalition, along with the Houthis and all of those involved, are using food as a weapon.”

“All of those involved” aren’t currently blockading Yemen from the air, land, and sea. “All of those involved” aren’t equally responsible for nearly a million Yemenis suffering from cholera without access to proper medical care. And “all of those involved” aren’t regularly conducting airstrikes that hit civilian targets, weddings, schools and funerals, in Houthi-held northern Yemen.

The ambiguity of Beasley’s statement, “all of those involved”, confuses the audience. His attempt to avoid the appearance of being bias is disgraceful, with an estimated seven million Yemenis in or nearing famine conditions, it’s long past the point of trying to protect Riyadh’s delicate feelings.

Damn It – Connect the Dots

The most egregious part of the 60 Minutes coverage was its total failure to completely identify Who “all of those involved” are, namely the role that the United States and Britain have played in arming and sustaining the Saudi war effort. The United States has been intimately involved in the Saudi intervention in Yemen. The Obama and Trump administrations have provided logistical and intelligence support to the Saudi Arabian-led war effort, and approved billions of dollars in American arms shipments.

Saudi airstrikes have targeted civilian areas like marketplaces, hospitals, rehab centers for the blind, and funeral homes. Human Rights Watch has documented at least 16 attacks in which the coalition has used cluster bombs banned under international law. Destruction of the country’s infrastructure has caused the spread of easily preventable diseases like cholera. The economy has been brought to a nearly complete standstill.

 al-Monitor has reported that: “the US Department of Defense provided about 480,000 gallons of aviation fuel to the mission at a cost of more than $1 million in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, a 140% increase over the previous year. The disclosure comes as Yemen suffers the world’s worst cholera epidemic and the Saudis face international pressure to lift their blockade of the country’s ports.”

This revelation should be a wake-up call to every American that this country is literally fueling the largest humanitarian crisis in the world and the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history,” said Kate Gould, a lobbyist with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker group. “The [United States] is operating these gas stations in the sky to fuel Saudi and UAE bombers as they rain down terror on Yemeni water and other sanitation infrastructure — the last safeguards Yemen has against these disease outbreaks sweeping the country.”

The Saudi operation in Yemen depends on this ongoing logistical support from the U.S. It also depends on arms, like American cluster bombs and British missiles, that U.S. and U.K. arms dealers eagerly sell to the Saudis. Which means that it’s within American and British power to end this atrocity, to end the starvation, to force the Saudis to reopen the entire country to humanitarian aid.

The US and British are very invested in maintaining their toxic but lucrative relationships with the Saudi monarchy. Their cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia has prevented them from stopping their support of the Saudi crimes.

Neither Washington nor London has taken any substantive steps to end or even reduce their involvement in immiserating the Yemeni people. Without a public outcry against this genocide the US and England will continue to promote the Saudi propaganda about Iran level of involvement.

Main-stream Media – You’re not Paul Harvey

60 Minutes, the hard-hitting news magazine, did not utter a single sentence in its Yemen segment to explain how America and Britain are responsible for the many images of starving children that their viewers were seeing on Sunday night.

60 Minutes even went out of their way to muster up a feeble example of how the US attempted to “help” the Yemeni by suppling dock cranes. Their selective reporting, ignoring the US support for the Saudi genocide of the Yemeni people, misleads the audience. The complete American story of the Yemen crisis seems to have escaped the award-winning show.

Stunning omissions of the facts is certainly not a new phenomenon in Western media. It has made a habit of downplaying or outright ignoring American and British involvement in Yemen. The American audience deserves to know that our government has helped to create the atrocities that flashed on the screen. In failing to provide a complete report, 60 Minutes did its viewers, and the people of Yemen, a tremendous disservice.

“Irreversible Harm”

Fifty-four years after President Kennedy’s assassination, the CIA and FBI asked for and received more time to decide what secrets they need to preserve. “I have no choice – today – but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our nation’s security,” Trump wrote. Is President Trump the latest President to bow to the power of our intelligence community?

On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was murdered in the streets of Dallas.  For a quarter century, the CIA and FBI have known the “final” deadline for releasing the JFK files was to be in the year 2017. Some 2800 files were released in full by the National Archives, but another 300 will remain sealed. It is ludicrous that the CIA and FBI would need a six-month extension to decide what secrets that they still must hold back from the citizens of the US.

Journalist Caitlin Johnstone points out that the biggest revelation from last week’s limited release of the JFK files is “the fact that the FBI and CIA still desperately need to keep secrets about something that happened 54 years ago.” The need to prevent these documents from being released to the public does make sense if both agencies were involved with a cover-up and the execution.

The Cold War – 1960 Presidential Election

Cold War rhetoric dominated the 1960 presidential campaign both Senator John F. Kennedy and Vice President Richard M. Nixon pledged to strengthen American military forces and promised a tough stance against the Soviet Union and international communism. Kennedy warned of the Soviet’s growing arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles and pledged to revitalize American nuclear forces.

Kennedy criticized the Eisenhower administration for permitting the establishment of a pro-Soviet government in Cuba. In his inaugural address, Kennedy stressed the contest between the free world and the communist world, and he pledged that the American people would “pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

The fact that Kennedy was a hard core Cold War warrior is suspect. His actions and the information now available indicates that Kennedy began a transformation to a peace advocate upon entering the White House. In 1960, at the height of the Cold War, this was perceived by many as a weakness.

Kennedy came to see the generals who advised him as devoid of the tragic sense of life and as hell-bent on war.  He was aware that his growing resistance to war had put him on a dangerous collision course with those generals, the CIA and the intelligence community.

On numerous occasions, Kennedy spoke of the possibility of a military coup d’état against him.  On the night before his trip to Dallas, he told his wife, “But, Jackie, if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it.”

The Agency

Exactly one month after John Kennedy was killed, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Harry Truman titled “Limit CIA Role to Intelligence.” The first sentence read, “I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our Central Intelligence Agency.”

The op-ed appeared only in the Post’s early edition on Dec. 22, 1963. It was removed from that day’s later editions and, despite being authored by the President who was responsible for setting up the CIA in 1947, the op-ed was ignored in all other major media.

Truman believed that the spy agency had wandered off into troubling directions. He began his op-ed by underscoring “the original reason why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency … and what I expected it to do.” It would be “charged with the collection of all intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as President without Department ‘treatment’ or interpretations.”

Truman was bothered by the CIA’s apparent abuse of its responsibility “the most important thing was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions.”

“Give them hell Harry’s” honesty and common man persona deserves credit for admitting that he had regretted creating the CIA. Speaking to a biographer in the 1960s, less than 20 years after signing the National Security Act of 1947, Truman expressed his thought concerning the agency:

Biographer Merle Miller: “Mr. President, I know that you were responsible as        President for setting up the CIA. How do you feel about it now?”

Truman: “I think it was a mistake. And if I’d know what was going to happen, I never would have done it.”

CIA – Allen Dulles’ Footprint

Eisenhower employed the CIA to tackle the specter of communism in developing countries outside the Soviet Union’s immediate sphere of influence. Newly appointed CIA director Allen Dulles took enormous liberties in conducting a variety of covert operations. Thousands of CIA operatives were assigned to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and attempted to launch coups, assassinate heads of state, arm anti-communist revolutionaries, spread propaganda, and support despotic pro-American regimes.

Eisenhower began to favor using the CIA instead of the military because their covert operations didn’t attract as much attention and cost much less money. The covert operation of the CIA could be conducted so that the President could easily deny any involvement.

Iran

In a CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953, Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers authorized the agency to overthrow a democratically elected Prime Minister. The new Iranian government negotiations for more of a percentage of profits from the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company were unsuccessful. Prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh threatened to nationalize for the control of the British-owned Oil Company. The West, afraid that the popular, nationalist, prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, would then cut off oil exports to the United States, CIA operatives convinced military leaders to overthrow Mossadegh and restore Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, the Shah, as head of state in 1953.

Pahlavi returned control of Anglo-Iranian Oil to the British and then signed agreements to supply the United States with almost half of all the oil drilled in Iran. He installed a repressive regime that was well armed with US made weapons. This is the same guy that in 1979 provoked a radical group of students to seize the American Embassy in Tehran and hold US worker’s hostages for 444 days after the US allowed him into our country.

Guatemala

The following year, in 1954, a similar coup in Guatemala when the CIA helped overthrow the elected government of Guatemala. Eisenhower and his top advisers worried that President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán program of land reform was a step toward Guatemala’s becoming a Marxist state. The land reform produced a strong opposition from the United Fruit Company, the major land owners in Guatemalan. When Arbenz bought weapons from Communist Czechoslovakia after the Eisenhower administration cut off Guatemala’s access to U.S. military supplies the CIA initiated their second successful coup in less than one year.

The CIA helped counterrevolutionaries drive Arbenz from power in June 1954. Guatemala appealed in vain to the United Nations, and administration officials denied that the United States had anything to do with the change in government in Guatemala. The new President, Carlos Castillo Armas, reversed land reform, clamped down on the Communists, restricted voting rights and curtailed civil liberties before an assassin murdered him in 1957.

Bay of Pigs

Guatemala became the base for another CIA covert action that the Eisenhower administration planned but did not carry out before leaving office. Eisenhower decided that Fidel Castro, who came to power in Cuba in 1959, was a “madman” who had to be deposed. In 1960, the CIA began the training in Guatemala of anti-Castro exiles who would invade Cuba. Soon after John F. Kennedy became President, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion began April 1961.

Kennedy vs Dulles

Plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion had been set in motion under President Dwight Eisenhower. When Kennedy became President, he refused to approve the use of U.S. combat forces and air support for the invasion. CIA Director Allen Dulles was offended when young President Kennedy questioned the CIA’s Bay of Pigs plans.

Dulles, a man that was not use to taking no from Presidents, set out to give the President no choice except to send U.S. troops to the rescue. Speaking to his friends Dave Powers and Ken O’Donnell about those who planned the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, JFK said, “They couldn’t believe that a new president like me wouldn’t panic and try to save his own face.  Well, they had me figured all wrong.”

Classified documents uncovered in 2000 revealed that the CIA had discovered that the Soviets had learned of the date of the invasion more than a week in advance and that they had informed Castro so that he could prepare his forces for the invasion. The CIA withheld this information from the President.

CIA Director Allen Dulles, tried to trick President Kennedy into sending U.S. forces to rescue the group of invaders who had landed on the beach at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA knew that there was no chance of success without a speedy commitment of U.S. air and ground support. The planned mouse-trapping of the novice President Kennedy had been underpinned by a rosy “analysis” showing how this pin-prick on the beach would lead to a popular uprising against Fidel Castro.

Dulles had misjudged Kennedy. Notes handwritten by Allen Dulles were discovered after his death and reported by historian Lucien S. Vandenbroucke. In his notes, Dulles explained that, “when the chips were down,” Kennedy would be forced by “the realities of the situation” to give whatever military support was necessary “rather than permit the enterprise to fail.”  The “enterprise” which Dulles said could not fail was the overthrow of Fidel Castro. The CIA, military, and Cuban exiles bitterly blamed Kennedy for its failure.

A few months after the abortive invasion of Cuba, Kennedy was quoted by a friend that he wanted to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the winds.” Clearly, the outrage was mutual. This treachery set the stage for events to come.  For his part, sensing but not knowing the full extent of the set-up, Kennedy fired CIA Director Allen Dulles and his assistant General Charles Cabell.

While Dulles was attempting to get his man in Cuba, he paid little or no attention to how Castro’s patrons in Moscow reacted. Shortly after the Bay of Pigs failure the Soviets began installing nuclear missiles in Cuba as a deterrent to future U.S. aggression. This lead directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

*In the “you cannot make this stuff up category”, in 1963 President Johnson named Dulles to The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, commonly known as the Warren Commission. General Charles Cabell’s brother Earle Cabell was the mayor of Dallas on the day Kennedy was killed.  

JFK – Digging His Grave

Kennedy become the antagonist to nearly all his advisers. His opposition to the use of force in U.S. foreign policy became louder and louder. In 1961, despite the Joint Chief’s demand to put troops into Laos, Kennedy bluntly insisted otherwise as he ordered Averell Harriman, his representative at the Geneva Conference, “Did you understand?  I want a negotiated settlement in Laos.  I don’t want to put troops in.”

Also in 1961, he refused to concede to the insistence of his top generals to give them permission to use nuclear weapons in Berlin and Southeast Asia.  Walking out of a meeting with top military advisors, Kennedy threw his hands in the air and said, “These people are crazy.”

In October of 1962, John F. Kennedy and his advisers learned that the Soviet Union was installing nuclear-armed medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. These offensive weapons represented a new and existential threat to America. Kennedy’s advisers, pushed for air strikes against Cuba and a full-scale invasion as “the last chance we will have to destroy Castro.”

Had the military and the intelligence advisors wishes prevailed a nuclear war would have been a nearly certain outcome. Instead Kennedy delivered the Soviets an ultimatum insisting on their removal and announced an American “quarantine” of Cuba to force compliance with his demands.

Kennedy refused to bomb and invade Cuba as his military advisors wished. Kennedy took another tact and arranged a private negotiation with the Soviet leader Khrushchev. The two engaged in a missile swap. The two superpower leaders agreed that Moscow would remove their missiles in Cuba and Washington would remove its missiles in Turkey.

The Kennedy and Khrushchev triumph of diplomacy was view as a sign of weakness by hardened Cold War advocates on both sides. This backing down from the brink of war had grave consequences on both Kennedy and Khrushchev. Khrushchev was removed from office within a year and many believe that this to be another nail in Kennedy’s coffin.

In June1963, he gave a speech at American University in which he called for the total abolishment of nuclear weapons, the end of the Cold War and the “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war,” and movement toward “general and complete disarmament.”

In October 1963, he signed National Security Action Memorandum 263 calling for the withdrawal of 1,000 U. S. military troops from Vietnam by the end of the year and a total withdrawal by the end of 1965, later over turned by President Johnson

A few months later Kennedy signed a Limited Test Ban Treaty with Nikita Khrushchev. Secret negotiations with Khrushchev were held via the KGB, Norman Cousins, and Pope John XXIII, and with Castro through various intermediaries, one of whom was French Journalist Jean Daniel angered the intelligence and military communities to the point of mistrust.

In an interview with Daniel, JFK made statements about Cuba that were considered treasonous, to the CIA and top generals. On October 24, 1963 Kennedy said, “I approved the proclamation Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption.  I will go even further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of several sins on the part of the United States.  Now we will have to pay for those sins.  In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.”

Every move that Kennedy was making appeared to be anti-war and a reconciliation toward both Cuba and the Soviet Union. JFK, a war hero, who had experienced the horror of war was shaken by how close the world had come to destruction during the Cuban missile crisis.

Kennedy’s actions in 1963 were very different than his 1960 campaign declaration of being a Cold War warrior. JFK had become a major threat to the burgeoning military-industrial complex and the Intelligence Community. They accused President Kennedy by being soft on communism and a threat to national security.

Kennedy’s refusal to go to war in Cuba, his decision to engage in private with Khrushchev, his “treasonous statements” about the Castro’s revolution, his back-channel communications with the Soviets, giving up US missiles in Turkey, pulling back of military personnel in Vietnam, his signing of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, his calling for a complete disarmament, the firing of the Director of the CIA Dulles, and his threat to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces” marked him as an enemy of the national security state. The collision course was set.

Oswald – “I’m just a patsy”

In the Dallas Police station, shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination, a reporter asked Oswald, “Did you kill the President?” Oswald’s response, “No, they’ve taken me in because of the fact, that I lived in the Soviet Union. I’m just a patsy!”

The dictionary defines a patsy as a person who is easily taken advantage of, especially by being cheated or blamed for something. Lee Harvey Oswald was a patsy for the intelligence community, the FBI and the CIA to explain the assassination of JFK. Oswald moved around the globe like a pawn in a game, and when the game was done, Oswald was captured and silenced in the Dallas police headquarters.

Oswald “On the Radar”

Oswald served as a U.S. Marine at the CIA’s top secret U-2 spy plane operating base at Atsurgi Naval Air Station in Japan. Oswald had a Crypto clearance. Oswald’s unit was responsible for tracking the U-2’s and communicating with them while in flight over the Soviet Union collecting information on their ballistic missile program.

Oswald was discharged from the Marines in September 1959 and defected to the Soviet Union in October of 1959.  At the American Embassy in Moscow Oswald renounced his US citizenry and threatened to give the Soviets radar procedures of the US Marines. This act brought him to the attention of both the FBI and the CIA. Providing the Soviets with this information would have been very important to their intelligence and would be considered an act of treason for the American. The CIA opened a defection 201 file on him but it took them over one year to open the file. The Soviets feared that the Oswald defection was arranged.

The Soviets moved Oswald from Moscow to Minsk. While working at a Soviet factory in Minsk, he met and married his Russian wife Marina. During his time in Minsk, Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union. No connection between these two events have ever been linked.

In Minsk, Oswald became disenchanted with the Soviet system. The Soviets apparently never quite trusted him and he was constantly monitored by the authorities. Oswald would ask for a permit to return to the US. Oswald would be granted the permit and the application process, for unknown reasons, took 2 years to complete.

The CIA – An Escort Service

Oswald return to the U.S, by way of a loan from the American Embassy in Moscow, was met at the docks in Hoboken, New Jersey by, Spas T. Raikin, a prominent Bulgarian anti-communist with intelligence connections.  Raikin was apparently recommended by the State Department to escort Oswald through his immigration process and his return to the Dallas area.  Raikin bought Oswald and his family (Marina and their daughter) bus tickets for their trip to Fort Worth.
In Texas, with the help of a Dallas CIA Domestic Contacts Service chief, Oswald was befriended by George de Mohrenschildt, a wealthy anti-communist Russian, with CIA assets, connections to Texas Oil Industry and several prominent US aristocratic families. de Mohrenschildt and Oswald met, in October 1962. The de Mohrenschildts and Oswalds soon became inseparable.

George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt were constantly in and out of the Oswald household, making introductions and offering help in finding housing, child care, marriage counseling and social introductions. De Mohrenschildt got him a job at a graphic arts company where he worked on maps for the U.S. Army Map Service related to U-2 spy missions over Cuba.  Oswald was shepherded around Dallas by de Mohrenschildt.

When Oswald moved to New Orleans, de Mohrenschildt exited the picture, taking a $285,000 contract from the CIA to conduct a geological survey for Haitian dictator “Papa Doc” Duvalier. de Mohrenschildt handed Oswald off to Ruth Paine. Ruth was introduced to Oswald by de Mohrenschildt.

Ruth Paine had both CIA associations and personal relation that lead back to Allen Dulles. Ruth’s sister Sylvia had worked for the CIA and Paine’s mother-in-law was a close friend of Mary Bancroft, who was a former OSS spy and the mistress at varying times with Allen Dulles. In April 1963 Marina and her daughter moved in with Ruth Paine and was living in Ruth Paine’s house in Irving at the time of the Kennedy assassination.

The Making of a Patsy

In New Orleans Oswald became further emerged with CIA connections. Oswald’s first job in New Orleans was with the Reilly Coffee Company. Reilly Coffee was owned by the CIA-affiliated William Reilly.  The Reilly Coffee Company was conveniently located near the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Office of Naval Intelligence offices.

Another connection to the CIA was Guy Bannister, a former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Chicago Bureau, who worked as a covert action coordinator for the intelligence services, a munitions supplier for the Bay of Pigs Invasion and trained anti-Castro paramilitaries. Bannister was a right-wing activist with strong anti-Castro connections.

Oswald would work with Bannister. Bannister’s office was the source for the leftist pro-Castro leaflets, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, that Oswald had handed out, on the streets of New Orleans. Oswald engaged in contradictory activities, one day portraying himself as pro-Castro, the next day as anti-Castro, many of these theatrical performances appear to have been directed from Bannister’s office.

New Orleans’ District Attorney Jim Garrison’s investigations convinced him that a group of right-wing activists, including Banister, were involved in a conspiracy with elements of the Central Intelligence Agency to kill Kennedy. Garrison claimed that the motive for the assassination was anger over Kennedy’s attempts to obtain a peace settlement in both Cuba and Vietnam. DA Garrison believed that Banister and his associates in New Orleans had conspired to set up Oswald as a patsy in the JFK assassination

Oswald’s affiliations and his multiple antithetical roles still confound many students of the Kennedy assignation. His behavior in New Orleans make it difficult for anyone to deciphering the purposes behind his actions. The one thing that is crystal clear is that the Washington Intelligence Agency’s fingerprints are all over Oswald’s stay in New Orleans.

If Oswald’s actions were a ploy to set him up as a future patsy it was very successful.  By the time that Lee Harvey Oswald returned to Dallas he had been turned into a man with multiple personas, all of them capable of killing Kennedy. Oswald hated Kennedy either because he – Oswald – admired Castro or because he was anti-Castro. Perhaps Oswald was angry at Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs fiasco, or else he just liked to take potshots at important people. He was fond of guns, a bit violent, and even sometimes beat up his wife.

The Right Place at the Right Time

In early October, Oswald returned to Dallas. With Marina and their daughter living at Ruth Paine’s house in Irving, Oswald rented a room in a boarding house in the Oak Cliff district of Dallas. Oak Cliff is proximity to the central business district of downtown Dallas and the School Book Depository.

Ruth Paine conveniently got Oswald a job in the Texas Book Depository where he began work on October 16, 1963. The owner of the Book Depository building was D. Harold Byrd, a right-wing oilman, a Kennedy foe and a close friend of George de Mohrenschildt. Byrd had employed de Mohrenschildt at his Three States Oil and Gas Co. during the 1950s and de Mohrenschildt had put D. Harold Byrd’s wife on the board of his charity foundation devoted to the study of cystic fibrosis.

Some theories contend that Oswald – or anyone who might have been directing him – could not have known that the motorcade would pass by the Book Depository at the time he took the job there. But there were only two possible routes through downtown to JFK’s destination, the Dallas Trade Mart, the Book Depository building stood on one of those routes.

Kennedy’s trip to Dallas was announced to the public in September of 1963. One week before the assassination two Secret Service agents rerouted the motorcade from proceeding down Main Street to turning onto Elm. This adjustment put the motorcade’s route in front of the School Book Depository building.

Coincidence – Connection Is Apparent

Texas laws in 1963 allowed untraceable over-the-counter firearms purchases, Oswald went through unnecessary and inconvenient steps to order his guns through the interstate mail, this tied the “murder weapon” to Oswald because it required identification and left a paper trail. Moreover, the two guns he ordered through the mail were both from companies that were being investigated by the ATF and the Senate.

Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker withdrew all police protection for Kennedy on the morning of November 22^nd:  the Secret Service withdrew the police motorcycle escorts from beside the president’s car; they took agents off the back of the car where they were normally stationed to obstruct gunfire; they approved a clear security violation with the final sharp, dogleg turn onto the street that Kennedy was executed on; squelched the testimony of all the doctors and medical personnel who claimed the president had been shot from the front in his neck and head.

Abraham Bolden was the first African-American Secret Service agent personally brought on to the White House detail by JFK. Bolden was prosecuted and imprisoned after he had warned that the president was going to be assassinated. He has also provided evidence of an aborted plot to kill JFK in Chicago, on November 2, 1963.

The list of people who turned up dead, the evidence and events manipulated, the inquiry squelched, distorted, and twisted in an ex post facto cover-up – clearly point to forces within the government, not a lone rogue actor.  This is the only “irreversible harm to our nation’s security” that makes sense.

Allen Dulles, former Director of the CIA, is the trunk of the family tree that killed Kennedy. The branches include General Charles Cabell, his brother Earle Cabell, George de Mohrenschildt, Ruth Paine, William Reilly, Guy Bannister, D. Harold Byrd’s just to name a few.

James W. Douglass author of JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters writes “The extent to which our national security state was systematically marshaled for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy remains incomprehensible.  When we live in a system, we absorb and think in a system.  We lack the independence needed to judge the system around us.  Yet the evidence we have seen points toward our national security state, the systemic bubble in which we all live, as the source of Kennedy’s murder and immediate cover-up.”

A “Scary” After Thought

In Kennedy’s day, the Cold War provided the rationale for outsized expenditures. Today, new and more creative rationales are used to justify the intelligence community growth. Since the Kennedy’s assassination the Soviet Union and communism has, for all practical purposes, disappeared. Yet the national-security state continues to grow in scope and influence. In Kennedy’s day, the CIA dominated the field of intelligence, today the national “intelligence community” consists of some 17 agencies.

The size and payroll of this blotted apparatus grew by leaps and bounds in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Today, intelligence spending exceeds $80 billion per year, more than the budget of the Department of State ($49 billion) and the Department of Homeland Security ($43 billion). The reality is that with every new “crisis” the intelligence community expands.

Expansion of the intelligence community cost US tax payers dearly, more US debt is incurred and more taxes are used to limit freedom and rights of the individual. What worked during the Cold War still works today: if you scare the hell out of the public they will get on board.

Final Conclusion

Recently, Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, the Senate Minority Leader with 36 years of experience in Congress explained the dangers of “taking on the intelligence community.” Schumer, when asked about Trump’s spats with the Intelligence community said: “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

The US national security state, the systemic bubble that the government insist is needed to protect its citizens against; in the 60’s – communism; today – terrorism. In 1963, a faction of the US national security state, executed a domestic coup d’état. This is the only irreversible harm to our nation’s security that is being protected. The result of November 22, 1963 was that the power of the Presidency was curtailed and the intelligence community usurped control of the Executive Branch.

 American Exceptionalism

All countries have their own brand of chest-thumping nationalism, but almost none is as patently universal — even messianic — as this belief in America’s special character and role in the world. While the mission may be centuries old, the phrase only recently entered the political lexicon, it was first uttered when Joseph Stalin used it in a derogatory statement to explain the “Great Depression”. Today the term is experiencing a resurgence in an age of anxiety about American decline.

A Walk Down Memory Lane

American exceptionalism can be traced to Colonial American. The Puritans believed God had made a covenant with their people and had chosen them to provide a model for the other nations of the Earth. Puritan leader, John Winthrop, expressed this idea as a “City upon a Hill”— alluding to a phrase from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Winthrop promoted the idea that the Puritan community of New England should serve as a model community for the rest of the world, as the “eyes of all people are upon us.”

In 1776, revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” describes America as a beacon of liberty for the world. “Freedom hath been hunted round the globe,” he explains. “Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart.”

Seymour Martin Lipset a leading theorist of democracy and American exceptionalism believed that American exceptionalism grew out of the American Revolution, becoming “the first new nation” and developing the uniquely American ideology of “Americanism”, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, democracy, and laissez-faire economics. This ideology itself is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”

In his 1835, literary work Democracy in America French writer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the “position of the Americans” is “quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one.”

In the late 19^th century the US used American Exceptionalism as an excuse to enter the Imperialist race for Global hegemony when the Spanish-American War turned into an invasion and conquering of the Philippines.  The Filipinos fight for independence and their resistance to U.S. rule prompted President McKinley to portray the American cause as humanitarian, expressing his sorrow that certain “foolish” Filipinos had failed to recognize the benefits of American generosity.

President McKinley would, in his 1899 speech to congress, exposed his version of American Exceptional when he proclaimed that a reason to occupy the Philippines was to take them and educate them, uplift them, civilize them and Christianize them.

One hundred years ago progressive President Woodrow Wilson, in his declaration of war, on Germany, revealed a US Foreign Policy that remains in place today. Arguing that America has a unique duty to spread liberty and democracy abroad “We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy.”

In June 1927 Jay Lovestone, a leader of the Communist Party in America, described America’s economic and social uniqueness. He noted the increasing strength of American capitalism, and the country’s “tremendous reserve power”; strength and power prevented a Communist revolution in the US. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, would publicly disagree with Lovestone’s assessment calling it “the heresy of American exceptionalism”. In his exchange with Lovestone, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was the first to coin the term “American exceptionalism”.

In 1941 magazine publisher Henry Luce urges the United States to enter World War II and exchange isolationism for an “American century” in which it acts as the “powerhouse” of those ideals that are “especially American.”

The 1950s brought together a group of American historians — including Daniel Boorstin, Louis Hartz, Richard Hofstadter, and David Potter — that argued that if the United States forged a “consensus” of liberal values over time it would enabled it to sidestep movements such as fascism and socialism.

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy suggests that America’s distinctiveness stems from its determination to exemplify and defend freedom all over the world. He invokes Winthrop’s “city upon a hill” and declared: “More than any other people on Earth, we bear burdens and accept risks unprecedented in their size and their duration, not for ourselves alone but for all who wish to be free.”

The 1970’s challenged the concept of American Exceptionalism. In the wake of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal Daniel Bell a sociologist voiced a growing skepticism in his 1975 National Affairs essay, The End of American Exceptionalism, “Today,” he writes, “the belief in American exceptionalism has vanished with the end of empire, the weakening of power, the loss of faith in the nation’s future.” President Jimmy Carter spoke of a national “crisis of confidence” to the paeans of American greatness.

The 1980 presidential election brought Ronald Reagan’s bluster brought American exceptionalism back into vogue. “I’ve always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way,” Describing America as “a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace.”

By 1990 as the final days of the Cold War passed the American model was proclaimed the winner and changed American exceptionalism from an option to a requirement. “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War” but the “end of history as such, that is … the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government,” political scientist Francis Fukuyama proclaimed.

The end of the cold war marked an expansion of US policy based upon American Exceptionalism. In a 1996 speech, to justify NATO’s intervention in Bosnia, President Bill Clinton declares that “America remains the indispensable nation” and that “there are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression.”

The post-Cold War visions of American exceptionalism became a partisan talking point as future George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessan, in a Weekly Standard article, contended that there are two competing visions of internationalism in the 21st century: the “‘global multilateralism’ of the Clinton-Gore Democrats” vs. the “‘American exceptionalism’ of the Reagan-Bush Republicans.”

“You’re either with us, or against us”

George W. Bush proclaimed “Like generations before us, we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom. This is the everlasting dream of America.” His dreams of American freedom culminated with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush’s “Wars Against Terrorism” turned into two failed projects in nation building. His dreams of democracy by force cost the American people over 3 trillion dollars and about 8,000 dead military personnel.

Amid skepticism about America’s global leadership and a disastrous war in Iraq and the global financial crisis, Democrat Barack Obama ran against Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” in the election to succeed him. The term American exceptional was used in his campaign when he stated that. “I believe in American exceptionalism,” Obama says, but not one based on “our military prowess or our economic dominance.”

The Obama rhetoric made him appear to be a peace candidate his, “I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism” made him the first sitting U.S. president to use the phrase “American exceptionalism” publicly. However, his quote was twisted to become an accusation of believing that “America’s just another nation with a flag.”

In response to his critics Obama has invoked Bill Clinton’s “indispensable nation” in his State of the Union address and later declared that, “My entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism.” How has any questioning of American exceptionalism become proof of a disdain for American uniqueness?

Bipartisan Agreement

Recent Polls have indicated that 80 percent of Americans believe the United States “has a unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world.” American exceptionalism has evolved into a litmus test for patriotism.

In the 2016, Presidential election both candidates campaign mottos were connected to the “American exceptionalism” theme. There is no difference between “Make America Great Again” and “America Is Already Great”? Both are premised on the same line of reasoning: America, due to its providential founding, cannot be and is not a normal country: it is exceptional, a “shining city on a hill.”

On the Left, many believe that America should intervene all over the world on a values crusade. Leftist journalist has endeavored to excuse the social justice warriors’ impulse for political violence. The Right neo-conservatism believe that intervention is an American mission to spread democracy throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world.

Nationalism is the real problem and it is troubling. The Nationalist with their American exceptionalism cover claim that the spread of Democracy and the American way, “must be a focus of American policy for decades to come.” The United States must enforce a “global democratic revolution.” But is the answer a crusade to impose as neocon Max Boot expounded, “the rule of law, property rights and other guarantees, at gunpoint if need be?”

The Media

The hubristic nature of American Exceptionalism ideology feeds delusions of innocence, which prevents a more critical analysis of America’s adventures abroad. The mainstream media has a tendency promote U.S. policy makers’ motives as noble and in good faith. Never are reporters allowed to ascribe sinister motives to U.S. officials—this is only permissible when covering America’s enemies.”

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.” The New York Times published article that whitewashed the motives behind the decision by George W. Bush House to invade Iraq. “The Times portrayed the new Iraq as a potential cornerstone of a democratic and Western-facing Middle East.

The illegal American intervention in the Syrian war was portrayed as “self-defense” when U.S. forces shot down a Syrian fighter jet over Raqqa in June. “The Syrian regime and others in the regime need to understand,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer, “that we will retain the right of self-defense, of coalition forces aligned against ISIS.”

Over the past few months we learned that that nearly 1,000 US troops are on the ground in Niger, a massive force for the tiny country but the media reports more on Trumps call to the widow of a victim or the apparently, unpreparedness and under-equipped soldiers and not the fact that Niger is now the “hub” for US military operations in Western Africa and most of the 100 US Senator were unaware of US Special forces deployed in Niger.

Murtaza Hussain, a journalist for The Intercept pointed out that the United States has the largest and most powerful empire in the world. Through a network of nearly 800 military bases located in 70 countries around the globe, and an array of trade deals and alliances, American leaders have by using a mixture of force and suasion to sustain the systems that keep its hegemony intact. (Hussain’s work focuses on national security, foreign policy and human rights. His work has previously been featured in the New York Times, The Guardian and Al Jazeera English.)

In Yemen, U.S. special-operations have been conducting raids on this impoverished, violent, and bitterly divided country. US bombs and operations have kill innocent civilians. Yemen is a country that the United States periodically bombs in accordance with the “War on Terrorism” we support the two-and-a-half-year-old war that Saudi Arabia has been waging against the Yemeni people. Their war efforts, include the bombing of innocent civilians and a blockade of its ports in an attempted to deny food, potable water and medical supplies as Yemeni citizens are dying by the thousands from a cholera epidemic and malnutrition.

Few Americans pay much attention to these events. Africans, Middle Easterners, Arabs and Asians are being killed and maimed by U.S. ordnance falling from the skies. Why does the media not give these stories the airtime that they give to Harvey Weinstein or Civil War statues or those “unpatriotic” NFL players that kneel for the National Anthem? Could it be that they feel that these “primitives” are just not our guys?

I Wasn’t Taught This in School

From the genocide of Native Americans to the US military’s boots on the ground in about 70% of the nation across the world American exceptionalism has served to disguise the US governmental effort for a larger footprint across the World. The problem that persists with believing the myth of American exceptionalism is the presumption that the rest of the world buys into this myth. The American people continually have a willful misunderstanding of the past that blinds us to available alternatives, such as realism.

In the end, the ideology of American Exceptionalism feeds delusions of American Innocence and prepares the ground for military intervention the world over. American exceptionalism is not a valid reason to sanction, intervene, invade, occupy and remake nations into a “democratic” paradise.

“American exceptionalism” is authoritarian and since the Spanish-American War the US’s foreign policy has justified intervention as being on the “humane and moral side”.  The abusive action of intervention is immoral and distorts free choice and sovereignty through threats of power and force. “American exceptionalism” when stripped naked is totalitarian.

The US government, and most of the liberal West, believe that freedom has been granted to us by the highest of authority. In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson explains that the citizen’s rights have been; “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Under closer scrutiny, a logical conclusion would be that Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence was not just intended for Americans, he was writing for all people. Intervention and occupation usurps the powers “endowed by their Creator”. It is immoral to intervene and occupy because the occupier controls the people’s rights, among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. American exceptionalism should not become a surrogate for the Creator. That would-be blasphemy.

Conclusion

The Anti-Imperialists League was formed in the late 1800’s during the Spanish-American War. It would behoove us to revisit the philosophy of the Anti-Imperialists. Republican George F. Hoar, an anti-Imperialist Senator from Massachusetts, called for principles over national self-interests.

Senator Hoar pointed out the difference between a republic and an empire, between liberty and slavery, between the Declaration of Independence and Imperialism. He emphasized that by standing on its traditional principles, the United States had become “the strongest, freest, richest nation on the face of the earth.” He asserted that all people must be treated as people desiring independence, and not treat people as “primitives to be subdued so that their land might be used as a stepping-stone…” 

Our attempts to export American Exceptionalism, democracy, freedom and our “War on Terrorism” have only produced broken countries in our wake. As we continue to repeat “we meant well” the blowback has produced more enemies and more terrorist around the globe. Our crusades to slay monsters abroad must stop before the political and economic burdens of a perpetual War State will destroys us.

 

Where Have You Gone Colin Kaepernick?

Colin Kaepernick’s protest has been silenced by the noise  from the latest media frenzy. Kaepernick is out of football, blackballed from the NFL not because of his ability to quarterback but because of his “unpatriotic” sit/kneel during the National Anthem. The fact that he is not Tom Brady or Cam Newton does not help his cause but two years ago he was a starting NFL quarterback and last year he ranked 17th of 30 in quarterback ratings.

Kaepernick began his protest before the August 26, 2016  preseason game between the San Fransico 49ers  and the Green Bay Packers. The protest was in response to unfair treatment of blacks by the police.  “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” said Kaepernick explaining the basis of his protest to reporters.

The NFL and team owners appears to have concluded that the league is better off without him. Just like the Boxing Associations shunned Mohammad Ali for his protest in the 1960’s. Removing Kaepernick from the NFL did not stop the protest that he had started. Earlier in the season some NFL players continued the protest with little media coverage.

The intensity of media coverage changed drastically after President Trump made some remarks challenging those players’ patriotism, the owners tolerance and their inability to control the player’s actions. Trump, being Trump, created a divisive environment in which both the owners and players believed that their character, actions or motives were attacked by the President.

A protest that started as a response to police treatment against blacks has morphed into a patriotic litmus test. This controversy has come to fuison over the traditional ritual of playing the National Anthem before sporting events.

Forced “patriotism” and blind “patriotism” are the catalyst for the latest media over exposure. The President’s suggestion to fire SOBs that refuse to stand for the National Anthem has exposed a bigger issue, an increasingly hostile nationalist agenda.

 History – The National Pastime and Patriotism

In Chicago, on September 5, 1918, during Game 1 of the World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs the Star Spangled Banner was introduced to American sports. What began with an active duty soldier saluting the flag grew into a tradition that is common in professional, college, high school and youth sports.

The US had just entered  World War 1 a year and a half before that day. More than 100,000 U.S. soldiers had died fighting in the war overseas. A day before Game 1, a bomb had exploded in Chicago killing four people and injuring dozens more. The U.S. government had recently announced that it would begin drafting major league baseball players to go to war.

During the seventh-inning stretch, the U.S. Navy band began to play the Star Spangled Banner. As the song began, Red Sox infielder Fred Thomas—who was in the Navy and had been granted furlough to play in the World Series turned toward the American flag and gave it a military salute. Other players turned to the flag with hands over hearts, and the already-standing crowd began to sing. At the song’s conclusion, the fans erupted in thunderous applause.

The song would be played at each of the Series’ remaining games, to increasingly rapturous response. It was “patriotism” that started this American tradition., The Red Sox continue the patriotic spirit by honor wounded veterans and giving them free tickets. In Boston, for the decisive Game 6, the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner was moved to the start of the game.Thus, the association of sports, the flag and patriotism was hatched.

In 1931, President Hoover made the Star-Spangled Banner officially the U.S. national anthem. By the end of World War II,  NFL Commissioner Elmer Layden ordered that it be played at every football game. “The National Anthem should be as much a part of every game as the kick-off. We must not drop it simply because the war is over. We should never forget what it stands for.” Influenced by post-war patriotism the tradition quickly spread to other sports

The NFL Goes Over the Top

The NFL discovered that patriotism was good for business, and nothing is more patriotic than supporting our troops—especially when they are overseas at wartime. The league doubled down on the military and support for its mission both home and abroad.

“It was a conscious effort on our part to bring the element of patriotism into the Super Bowl,” Pete Rozelle, former NFL commissioner, said about the past Super Bowls that he reigned over. 

In the 1960s, Pete Rozelle continued to align the NFL with the military even thought there was a political and generational divide caused by the Vietnam War. His loyalty to the military paid off in the 1990s with the rebirth of “patriotism” mustered by the Middle East invasion. The 1990’s also brought a tremendous increase in TV revenues.

In the 1981 Super Bowl, during the Iran hostage crisis, the NFL wrapped the entire Superdome in one giant-sized yellow ribbon. The league handed out smaller ribbons at halftime to facilitate the singing of “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree,” a song about loved ones coming home that has long been synonymous with bringing those loved one’s home during times of crisis.

Tracing the history of all of this, it seems that the fork in the road for the NFL and patriotism began in post 9/11 America. The NFL supersized patriotism. A corporate brand of patriotism found its way into all walks of life and into the NFL’s broadcast and corporate partners.

The NFL became the standard-bearer for what many of us believe to be patriotism. “We’ve become the winter version of the Fourth of July celebration,” said another past commissioner of the NFL, Paul Tagliabue.

Patriotism Becomes Mandate

It’s the kind of patriotism that gets warped into needing to exhibit patriotism not as a choice, but by mandate. An example of this can be found in the actions taken by a CBS’s broadcast crew after 9/11. One of CBS’s broadcasting crews voluntarily wore flag pins on their lapels. The network like that patriotic symbolism so much they made it a requirement for all their NFL broadcasting crews.

In 2009, due to timing concerns for the television networks, the NFL changed the protocol for the National Anthem. The players’ location for the primetime games was moved to the field during the anthem. In all other games the players had already been stationed on the field for the national anthem. This change afforded the NFL, the networks and their sponsors a national audience for “the show.”

At about the same time that the players were told to stand for the National Anthem, the Department of Defense (DOD) was ramping up its recruitment for support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The DOD began paying sports teams millions in U.S. tax dollars for what amounted to “paid patriotism,” for mega-military spectacles on the playing field before the game.

Do I Really Have to Give Credit to Senator McCain?

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a veteran and considered by many as a patriotic man and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) headed a congressional investigation into the DOD funding of professional sports.

Their investigation found that between 2012 and 2015, the DOD shelled out $53 million to professional sports—including $10 million to the NFL—on “marketing and advertising” for military recruitment. The report labeled many of the ceremonies honoring heroes and flyovers as federal funded propaganda.

Their report revealed that the DOD could not accurately account for how many contracts it awarded or how much money was spent. Their official response was that the NFL secured 62 percent of its 122 contracts with major league teams and 70 percent of the more than $10 million. The DOD indicated that the purpose of these contracts was to support recruiting.

The NFL’s is one of the DOD’s top cheerleader and recruiter for the warfare state. The national anthem has been used as a prop in this near-religious convocation from soldier parading, flag-waving and flyovers by Blue Angels fighter jets to jumbo Tron shout-outs to warriors deployed around the world protecting the United States’ Empire.

The NFL became a promotion tool of the DOD. The defense contractors use the media to hawk their billion-dollar war wares as the DOD actively recruits patriotic men and women (not cross genders) to “defend democracy, freedom and justice”.

Il Duce – Italian for the ” Leader of a Movement”

Does the President have the authority to dictate policy and procedures of a “private” corporation? Why not?  After all the governmental expects some sway from Crony Capitalism! (notice the “Crony”)

When a company takes money from the government it become beholden to them. Mussolini called it Fascism or “The marriage of corporation and state.”. Trump calls it “Make America great again.”

When the government subsidizes a “favorable” company, it can exert a strong influence over the company’s internal and external workings. Money encourages a regulatory role and makes private property and private initiative contingent upon their service to the state.

Standing or kneeling for the National Anthem should be the policy of the private corporation and their ownership, not the Federal Government. The line of sovereignty becomes blurred when governmental “contracts” are involved. The NFL created a relationship by shilling for the warfare state and using Americans patriotism to cash in on the gravy train that governmental contracts bring.

Accepting federal funds is an endorsement for the increasingly paternalist role of the Federal Government. From public education to health care “we the people” have become subservient to Washington DC. Taxes, regulations and directives are not only expected of the favorable but have become requirements to maintain a privilaged status.

“Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore” john prine

Standing for the National Anthem might be a symbol of patriotism for many but there are dozens of things that are more patriotic than standing for a song about a flag. Real patriots take a stand, speak out, kneel, protest and challenge the government whenever it steps out of line.

There is nothing less patriotic than a mandate to do so, patriotism has become overexposed. Forced patriotism is a bastardization of the intended purpose. Forced patriotism is alive and well in the NFL. Patriotic displays will continue to be calculated and designed to unite rather than divide.

Kaepernick’s protest was not designed to be unpatriotic but it upset a sterilized version of patriotism.  It was a challenge to the NFL’s homogenized, “one size fits all” patriotism. Colin Kaepernick was a victim of propaganda and the ratings game.

Today’s NFL cannot afford to offend half of its audience to please the other half. Even the current unified stand against Trump’s comments has that collective fuzzy feeling. Standing up to the President for calling NFL players SOBs. Really, as US bombs and drone murder civilians it is name calling that hurt our feelings?

Patriotism in Perspective

The Commander and Chief orders, supports and initiates sanctions and blockages used to starve Yemeni and North Korean civilians of food and medical supplies as US bombs kill civilians in Syria and Afghanistan. It is comforting to know that our perspective of patriotism is well directed.

A United States Patriot should be a person who regards himself or herself as a defender of the Constitution, especially of individual rights against the interference by the government. It is anti-American to be anti-freedom.

A “Nationalist,” is a misguided patriot, with a zealous and aggressive enthusiasm for governmental support over individual rights. It is a blind obedience to what an authority dictates. It is the first step towards creating an authoritarian regime.

There is nothing patriotic about nationalism. When Americans allow the government to dismantle the Constitution we will watch as a democratic republic becomes a police state protected by a standing army.

That was Colin Kaepernick’s original message? “I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed.” The national television audience, the NFL, the flag and patriotism may be overwhelming opponents but the message is crystal clear.

 “You can’t always get what you want”

Wars usually begins in response to an “incident”, in other words, for revenge or restitution. The “incident” typically moves a nation beyond its saturation point of tolerance, or the “incident” becomes a reason for a nation to declare a war that it “wanted”. Whatever the motivation, the scope of the war that follows become unexplainable and is not the war “you want”.

The Spanish-American War started when the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor. The United States’ Civil War began when Confederate forces fired on Union forces at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. World War 1 began when a Serbian assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. World War 2 was declared after Germany invaded Poland. The Korean War was in response to North Korean troops crossing over the 38^th parallel. The Vietnam War began after the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Iraq War was to secure weapons of mass destruction being held by a madman. The Afghanistan War was in response to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

The USS Maine explosion turned out to be a spontaneous combustion of coal that ignited the Maine ‘s ammunition stored below deck. This war led to the slaughter, torture and 50-year occupation of the Philippians. The Fort Sumter’s bombardment had no casualties but the Civil War devastated the South. The assassination in Serbia led to 8 million dead in WW1. The invasion of Poland, began the murdering spree of 3% of the world’s population. In Korea, 2.8 million Koreans, Chinese and Americans lost their lives and the 38^th parallel still divides Korea. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fabrication that became responsible for the death of 1.35 million real people. In Iraq, the search for WMD came up empty at a cost of $1.7 trillion dollars, as many as 1 million dead, the destruction of a country and a group of head choppers.

Ah, but Afghanistan was the good war. US forces would kill bin Laden and destroy the al-Qaeda camps reeking terrorist attacks all over the globe. bid Laden was killed in 2011 and by 2010 al-Qaeda in Afghanistan was being described by the Obama administration and CIA Director Leon Panetta, as “its presence in Afghanistan as minimal”. The Bush War that became the Obama War is now the Trump War.

The Taliban

In the 1980’s the US supported the mujahedeen, (Afghan “freedom fighters”) Osama bin Laden’s and some Arab/Islamic jihadist. In 1980, the jihadists were a little-known group of maybe a few hundred members calling itself al-Qaeda. The mujahedeen were the major resistant force against the Soviets with al-Qaeda providing limited support.

The Soviets had invaded Afghanistan in December of 1979 to prop-up the failing Soviet backed Afghan government. The US supported and supplied the “freedom fighters”.  That makes sense, they were anti-communist and engaged in warfare against our Cold War enemy. The mujahedeen were victorious and by February of 1989, send the Soviets packing back to Moscow to discover that their little war in Afghanistan cost them their empire.

The Soviet backed government in Afghanistan failed and a power vacuum ensued. Tribal Warlords, drug kingpins, corruption, violence and chaos emerged from the ashes. A Pashtun-Islamic fundamentalist group calling themselves the Taliban, a name derived from the Pashtun word for student, emerged as the alternative to the corrupt factions.

The Taliban is an Islamic group mostly made up of Pashtun tribal members from the Kandahar Province in Southern Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan. The Pashtun tribe makes up about 40% of the country’s population. By 1994, the Taliban had become the most powerful opposition group. Their rule would require a strict adherence to a combination of traditional Pashtun culture and Islamic sharia law.

The Taliban expanded their rule from the Kandahar Province toward the governmental capital in Kabul. The Taliban ruthless enforcement of the Pashtun-Sharia Law attracted a lot of negative attention from the Western media. Eventually the Taliban captured Kabul. The seizure of Kabul, combined with the assassination of Ahmad Massoud, an ethnic Tajik from the rival Northern Alliance, the Taliban’s only viable opponent, moved Afghanistan into a fundamentalist Islamic Republic.

The Taliban continued to enforce its brutal rule upon the Afghans. Reports of their extreme and repressive regime, especially towards women, were seen quite often on the US national news. Many of the Taliban laws were considered unjust and in violation of civil and individual rights. The media did a fine job to demonized and expose the Taliban abusive rule while ignoring similar violations in Saudi Arabia.

Osama bin Laden, the terrorist

After the Soviets left Afghanistan, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia to resume working for his family’s construction firm. During the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait a bin Laden offered the king of Saudi Arabia to mobilize his al-Qaeda warriors and to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. The King rejected his offer and turned to the US.

This situation may have launched bin Laden’s radicalization toward world-wide terrorism against the West.  Bin Laden directed his outrage at the Saudis that allow US “infidels” into the holy land and the US government for remaining in the Saudi bases well after the war. Bin Laden’s public criticism against the Royal Family would not be tolerated.

The Saudi’s expelled Bin Laden. He relocated to Sudan taking with him as much as $20 million. The Sudan Government hired him to build several infrastructure projects. While in Sudan, he began a web of terrorist plots. Bin Laden’s terrorist network became associated with the training of the Somalian rebels that killed U.S. troops (Black Hawk Down in Mogadishu); the 1993 first bombing of the World Trade Center: an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and suicide bombings at the Egyptian Embassy in Pakistan.

The Sudanese officials expelled bin Laden from their country and in 1996 he moved back to Afghanistan. His terrorist activities continued with the bombing of the Khobar military complex: the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; truck bombs at U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Tanzania and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, in Yemen.

During his “terrorist years” Bin Laden’s declared a holy war against U.S.; endorse a fatwa calling for Muslims to kill Americans anywhere in the world. These activities placed him on the FBI’s top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive List.

Bi Laden and the Taliban

In Afghanistan, Bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda presence was not fully embraced by the Taliban. Well before the 9/11 attack, the Taliban had thought seriously about expelling al-Qaeda from their country. Many of the Taliban leaders viewed bin Laden’s and his jihadists as a rival foreign force distracting from their political influence and objectives. They were barely tolerated but the Taliban refused the US access to him.

Bin Laden and the al-Qaeda organization continued their terrorist plots and train terrorist in the camps along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. Then in 2001, after 9/11, a trail of evidence indicated that bin Laden was not the architect of the plan but he approved it and that he added financial support for the hijacking terrorist. (the plot was planned in Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany and the United States)

Bush’s Wars on Terror, bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Taliban, Iraq, Freedom etc.

The trail of the financial aid, directed to the terrorist, also led to Saudi Arabian royal family members and Saudi government associates. The Bush administration choose to fly the Saudi royal family members out of the United States while declaring a war on terrorism and bin Laden.

President Bush demanded that Afghanistan’s Taliban government capture and extradite bin Laden to the United States. The Taliban did not refuse this request but instead asked the United States for proof of bin Laden’s involvement. Bush declined to address the Taliban’s request and issued an ultimatum demanding that they either turn him over or the US forces would take care of it.

Again, the Taliban responded with a “no” but offered to turn bin Laden over to a third county. This counter proposal was unprecedented for a Pashtun group to make. According to Pashtunwali, the ethical code and lifestyle of the indigenous Pashtun people, expelling bin-Laden could be interpreted as a violation of Nanawatai.

Nanawata (asylum) is the code to protect a person against his enemies, protection is required at all costs; even those running from the law must be given refuge until the situation can be clarified (this tradition saved the life of US Navy Seal, Lone Survivor, Marcus Luttrell) The counter proposal was rejected by the Bush administration. Bush ordered an invasion to capture bin Laden and destroy the al-Qaeda training camps.

“But if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need”

Why was this counter proposal not approved? Would accepting the Taliban’s proposal have prevented this 17-year old war?  We will never know and besides the fury of 9/11 and the thrust for revenge would not have been satisfied.

In 2001, the US invaded Afghanistan and allied with the Northern Alliance to swiftly overthrow the Taliban government. The Bonn Conference replaced the Taliban government with Hamid Karzai. Karzai, a Pashtun rival of the Taliban, was selected to head the Afghan Interim Administration and most key positions in the government were given to Tajik members of the Northern Alliance

Karzai’s is rule ushered in a new of government under a new constitution called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Karzai would later be elected president in 2004 and then re-elected in the 2009 elections. In 2014, Karzai was replaced with the newly elected Ghani, an ex-World Bank economic hitman.

After the Taliban’s 2001 ousting, the Taliban vowed to continue an armed resistance against a “foreign occupation”. Their claim is that the Bonn Conference’s constitution is illegitimate and un-Islamic. They will continue their campaign is against the “puppet government” of the West. Some Taliban remained active in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many crossed the border into the safe zones along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. There they receive support and supplies from the ISI.

In 2002, the US focused their efforts on al-Qaeda and bin Laden and by the end of 2003 the US forces had moved bin-Laden and the al-Qaeda operatives out of Afghanistan into hideaways in Pakistan. This could have been a good time to withdraw from Afghanistan.  Washington passed on this opportunity to and choose to continue with its war and occupation of Afghanistan.

“Ch-ch-changes”

 The US’s war strategies have changed over the years; from the invasion to the support of an insurgent force, to a counterinsurgency surge (Obama’s 2009 100,000 troop invasion) to “clear and hold” villages to “nation building” projects to “winning hearts and minds”, to policing and to “training” of Afghans. All initiatives have proven to be fruitless. Could it be the mission?

To answer this question “the mission” must be clearly defined. What is the mission? When the war you get is not the war you “wanted” change the mission. Senator Rand Paul describes this process; “there was significant mission creep in Afghanistan. We went from striking back against those who attacked us, to regime change, to nation-building, to policing their country for them.”

So, by 2001, the US had overthrown the Talban regime, the government was replaced with a democratically elected president (2004), bin Laden was dead and the al-Qaeda terrorist camps were removed. Mission accomplished! Time to go home. No, mission creep, time to “Nation Build”.

When a foreign military force hangs around to tell, ask, direct, suggest or coerces the citizens it is not a humanitarian effort it becomes an occupying force. The military and economic, infrastructural and humanitarian efforts and personnel become targets. Occupation promotes dissent, dissent metastasizes into violence and the violence of an underdog is terrorism because that is their most powerful weapons.

Afghanistan is an impoverished nation with over half the population illiterate. Rural Afghanistan depends upon its local economy. Most villages are isolated by its mountainous terrain and harsh climate. At the time of the US invasion only 3% of the roads were paved.

Kabul and other major cities were worlds away. Most Afghans had no connection to the international economy nor to the central government, in Kabul. It is landlocked nation mostly comprised of Islamic fundamentalist and members of regional ethnic tribes with very basic needs. The Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Uzbek, tribes’ have their list of priorities and territories to rule. Being left alone to provide and protect their family is high on the tribal list.

After the Taliban’s regime was removal from Kabul they returned to their power base, the villages of rural Afghanistan and into Pashtun Pakistan. The Taliban in these environments they grew in strength and recruitments. Many Afghans began to prefer the Taliban’s strict requirements over the coercive and corrupt central government that was supported by a foreign super power.

The Taliban lived among the villagers, became active in tribal disputes while carrying out a hit and run type war against the abusive local police, government forces and US occupying forces. The growth in the Taliban’s support and their intimidation of those villages that did not comply, allowed the Taliban to gain control over much of rural Afghanistan.

Obama’s War – The Surge

By 2009, Afghanistan was spiraling out of control. President Obama agreed to a surge in US reinforcements. The “Peace President” believed that a surge was needed to provide security for the Afghan government, military, police and the in country foreign forces. The surge would be a counterinsurgency against the Taliban. This counterinsurgency would be a clear-hold-build strategy.

The clear, hold and build strategy evolved into cycles of, what the Israeli refer to as “mowing the lawn” in which commanders continuously conquered territory only to have their adversaries return. Another problem with the hold and build phase was the who. Who would be doing the hold. The inability to recruit qualified Afghans became problematic. The new security was prone to shakedowns and corruption inflicted upon the locals.

In 2010, the Afghan Local Police formed a Village Stability Organization (VSO) program to provide the stability at the local level. The recruits would be from the village they would later secure. This group was trained by US special forces and provided limited success that allowed the local Afghans to avoid Taliban intimidation.

The US military leaders deceptively reported that the new stabilization effort stemmed the tide of support for the Taliban. Over time, the Taliban benefited by the fact that the people would see the police force as an extension of the predatory Afghan central government. The Taliban promoted this notion and continued their community involvement and random act of violence against the police force.

The escalating battles became a struggle for authority, the Taliban’s versus Kabul’s, local versus international and Islamic idealist warriors versus Western “infidels”.

Beginning in 2011, with the counterinsurgency and the “success” of the surge began a drawdown of troops. The transition of power was scheduled to be completed in 2014. The hold and build phases proved to be a false hope.

The Taliban patiently waited for the completion of the 2014 withdrawal They continued to be successful in their portrayal of the security forces as governmental extortionist sent to bribe the villagers with gifts and promises in return for support, cooperation and loyalty to its illegitimate government.

The withdrawal of combat troops was competed by December of 2014. Since the withdrawal, violence has continued and the Taliban’s rule has expanded. Today, in 2017, the Talban control 40% of the country.

This Taliban is not the same rag tag fighters the US fought against in 2000’s. The Taliban is more veteran, better trained, better supplied and more capable military force. They have learned from the US; they have read the US military books on war strategies; they have the night vision goggle left behind, they know how to use the armament left and they drive around in the Humvees that were once driven by the US and NATO forces.

The Afghan War has some new and some old combatants. Presently include, ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the government forces with Pakistan, ISI and India watching closely. It is a hornet’s nest and is does not make sense to “mow the lawn” when angry hornets are swarming.

Trump’s War (officially entering its 3^rd Presidential Regime)

There are a few statements in the Trumps’ War speech that I found most infuriating.

One: The newest deployment of troops will not be number based but it will be condition based.      

This is an open check book with no accountability and no limit to lives and spending. Do we the people deserve answers? What are the conditions? What are the numbers? Trump will be sending more troops to Afghanistan but won’t tell the public how many. Just trust me?

Two: The same old false flag waving reason is being used to create a quilt upon our “American   Exceptionalism” public and a military mentality. We owe it to those that sacrificed their lives for such a noble cause.

This lie is both deceptive and immoral. The reality is that our sons’ and daughters’ lives are payment for the Generals to have another chance in getting their war “right”; another star; more fruit salad, more scrambled eggs and more notoriety.

It is immoral that Americans lives are spent to perpetuate war crimes; to hone the art of deception so that they will be better qualified for a job in the US government upon retirement. The fact that our taxes will be payment to government cronies that supply and manufacturer the weapons of war. Just Trust me?

The last time I fell for “just trust me” I woke up with my head in the toilet covered in puke. This time it could be the Constitution of the United States.

Conclusion – Let’s declare a “War on Peace”

Sovereignty is the authority of a state to govern itself. A sovereign nation gets to make choices for itself. The Taliban reflect the Pashtun culture. I vehemently disagree with many of their traditions and culture. As citizens of the liberal West, we have the right to speak, assemble, boycott and protest traditions and cultures of an illiberal non-Western country. The Taliban’s actions, customs and control are local to Afghanistan, not to the United States.

Afghanistan has been fractured by internal conflict and foreign intervention for centuries, However, as a sovereign and neutral nation, in the 1950s and 1960s, the biggest strides toward a more liberal and westernized lifestyle occurred. The era was a brief and relatively peaceful.  The Afghans traded with the Soviet for machinery and weapons, and with U.S. financial aid the Afghans constructed modern buildings in Kabul. Afghanistan appeared to be on a path toward a more open, prosperous society, while maintaining, a respect for the more conservative factions and traditional cultures of its multi-tribal population.

The U.S. must admit that the “Good War” turned into an attempt to reshape the structures of Afghan societies, politics, and economies has failed and it is time to leave. Let the people of Afghanistan take ownership of their future, Let the Afghans prepare their defense against the next invading force. (ISIS, AL-Qaeda, ISI, Pakistan, India …)

Hewaad (Pashtun for country) is another Pashtun culture obligation. It is to protect the land of the Pashtuns. To them defense of the nation means the defense of Pashtun culture. ISIS, al-Qaeda, Pakistan, India, will become another victim to add to the pile of previous empires that have expired in Afghanistan. Hopefully, the US will not be in that pile.

The US lost 58,228 lives in Vietnam for entering a civil war against the illiberal Vietcong. Shortly after the last US troops withdrew the civil war ended, Vietnam united and won its sovereignty. Vietnam rebuilt and modernized at a pace that they decided upon.

The US now has a strong diplomatic relation with Vietnam. Vietnam has the 47^th highest Gross Domestic Product. (GDP out of 211) It is one of the most attractive retail markets in the world and has become a prime US trading partner that prospers from an increasing US tourist industry. The French and US intervention delayed the ultimate result of Vietnam by 25 years and millions of lives.

Vietnam was for a “War on Communism”, Afghanistan a “War of Terrorism” and the opioid crisis a “War on Drugs.” Declaring war strengthen the “enemy”.  I am declaring a “WAR on Peace!”

 

A Centennial Celebration of a Warfare State

On April 6, 2017, President Trump kicked off the festivities for a Centennial Celebration. The President dropped over $50 million worth of bombs on a sovereign nation. On April 6, 1917, exactly one hundred years to the day, the United States Congress declared war upon the German Empire. President Woodrow Wilson, a peace promising progressive, lead us into World War 1. The consequences from what the world has not recovered.

In 1916 Wilson was narrowly re-elected on the bogus campaign slogan, “He kept us out of war.” But Wilson was deceitful man, his actions were contrary to his campaign slogan. The truth was that he had been violating neutrality throughout his first term by providing armaments and money to the Allied powers fighting against Germany since 1914.

Wilson’s push for an official entry into the war began in February of 1917.  Germany announced that they intended to resume a policy to torpedo all supply ship moving war goods to England, making American carriers in the line of fire. After this decree, Wilson introduced bill after bill that aimed at increased military expenditures for war preparedness, measures for war security, wartime repression, spying, and information control.

When England released the Zimmermann’s Note it became a done deal. The Note contained instructions from the Foreign Office in Berlin to their Ambassador in Mexico to approach the Mexican government about entering the war in alliance with Germany and in return it would agree to Mexico’s re-conquest of “the lost territory in Texas”.  Wilson finally got his reason, off to war we go!

“Over There” – The Yanks are Coming

In his war speech to Congress, Wilson hailed the U.S. government as “one of the champions of the rights of mankind” and proclaimed that “the world must be made safe for democracy.”

Wilson immediately demonstrated his contempt of both democracy and the constitution by unleashing ruthless censorship of any criticism. The first battle that Wilson fought was against the US citizens’ civil liberties.

He urged Congress to set up detention camps to quarantine “alien enemies.” Anyone who spoke publicly against military conscription was likely to get slammed with federal espionage or sedition charges. Possessing a pamphlet entitled, “Long Live the Constitution of the United States,” earned six months in jail for a Pennsylvania malcontent.

Censorship was buttressed by a fanatic propaganda campaigns led by the Committee on Public Information, a federal agency whose motto was “faith in democracy… faith in fact.” The creation of a posters campaign of “Uncle Sam – I Wants You” and patriotic songs like “Over There” promoted the Wilson’s war.

The US involvement in World War 1 shifted all momentum away from Germany in favor of the Allied Forces. Until the US entry into the Great War it appeared that the outcome would be a stalemate. The US’s alliance with England and France would prove to be the impetus for victory in Europe.

 Treaty of Versailles – The Gift That Keeps on Giving

The US and its European allied victors: France, England and Italy were empowered with the responsibility to fix the world. The US suddenly became a player at the politics table, a position it was unfamiliar with. Due to the US’s impact on WW1, Wilson would help to create and manage entangling alliance, draw arbitrary lines on maps to create country borders and hand out punishment to the guilty.

Wilson and his 14 Points for Peace were front in center in dictating what Europe, the Middle East and the World would become. Wilson, of the US; Clemenceau of France; Lloyd George of England and Orlando of Italy, authored the Treaty of Versailles (Paris Treaty of 1919). The results of which set in motion a flawed plan that we have continually been fixing for 100 years.

Sowing the Seeds of WW2

Many historians point out that World War 2 began in 1919 at the Paris negotiating conferences held during the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty prepared the soils for dictatorships that the World War 2 participants would eventually declare as enemies.

Wilson and his gang unleashed an environment that allowed for tyrannical regimes to grow; Communism in Russia under Stalin, fascism in Italy under Mussolini, hysteria in Germany under Hitler. The treaty also became the root cause of much of the instability we have in the Middle East.

The Treaty nullified the 1915-1916 McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, (promise for Arab rule) in favor of the 1916 Sykes-Picot Secretive Agreement. (re-established colonialism in the Middle East) It divided up the lands in the Middle East between England and France like one would slice a pie. The treaty installed British mandating in Palestine, making good on the Balfour Declaration for a Zionist Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs.

Then in 1947, the United States and the United Nations would push even harder for the Jewish state. Using UN Resolution 181, it turned Palestine into two states, establishing Israel as a nation. This imposition forced at least 700,000 Palestinian refugees from their homes. eight recognized wars, two Palestinian intifadas, and a series of armed conflicts between Arab–Israeli combatants. The Israeli – Palestinian conflict continues today.

The Paris Treaty attempted to establish a hierarchy of superpowers, through the League of Nations. (forerunner to the United Nations) The gang punished Germany for being responsible for World War 1. The treaty forced Germany to take the brunt of blame for World War 1. It required Germany to make unreasonable restitutions for their involvement that would bring economic chaos that the Germans could not tolerate.

The people of Germany responded by supporting a madman, Hitler and his nationalistic promises. He was just what the desperate Germans were looking for, a road back to dignity. Hitler, at the expense of many, filled that need. His expansive invasions and atrocities to man created World War 2.

Déjà vu – all over again

The US’s entry into World War 2 played out much like World War 1. The US stayed on the sidelines until the Japanese provided the US with a good reason to engage. Roosevelt, another peace loving progressive, after years of strategic economic sanctions applied to obstruct Japan’s economy, finally squeezed them tight enough to goad Japan into bombing Pearl Harbor.

On December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, the US Congress declared War on Japan. Germany, with an alliance with Japan, wasted no time to reciprocate. On December 11, 1941 Germany declared war on the US. Roosevelt’s immediately followed Woodrow Wilson’s lead by attacking civil liberties. Like a true Wilson disciple, he rounded up 120,000 Japanese-Americans and put them into internment camps, prisons.

Waxing – not much waning

Preparations for war required a build-up of personal, military armaments and supplies. After World War 1, the Spanish American War, the Civil War and all other wars dating back to the Revolutionary War the US disassemble its military. At the end of WW2, the US briefly began to disassemble its war machine. However, Truman transitioned from fighting Nazism and Fascism to a War on Communism.

In 1947, the President issued his Truman Doctrine. He declared that the US would contain all communist expansion around the world, the Cold War begins. Military escalation grew with every containment; 1948 the communist take-over of Czechoslovakia; 1948 the Berlin Crisis, the communist conquest of China, the Soviet nuclear test, the formation of NATO; the Korean War; the Vietnam War, the list goes on. These events provided the US with a sizable military presence in Europe and Far Eastern Asia.

Bases – What Bases?

The events, listed above, acted to camouflage US’s military expansion around the world. Seventy years after World War II and 62 years after the Korean War, there are 174 US “base sites” in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. Hundreds of more bases can be found in 80 countries. The best estimate is that 800 US bases exist outside the 50 states.

The Pentagon’s overseas military personal presence has also increased. There are US troops or other military personnel in about 160 foreign countries and territories with nearly 250,000 troops deployed on these installations costing an estimated $85 billion.

While bases are costly for taxpayers, they are profitable for the country’s privateers of twenty-first-century war corporations. Scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson wrote, “Our installations abroad bring profits to civilian industries,” which win billions in contracts annually to “build and maintain our far-flung outposts.”

This global collection of bases enabled the launching of military interventions, drone strikes, and any other war of choice. By making it easier to wage foreign wars, bases overseas have ensured that military action is an attractive option. Anthropologist Catherine Lutz once said, “when all you have in your foreign policy toolbox is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”

Middle East

Oil reserves in the Middle East created a rush to secure influence and power in the Arab States. World War 2 diminished Britain’s and France’s capabilities to re-establish their presence in the Middle East. The elimination of both created a “vacuum of power”. The US felt a need and saw the opportunity to fill the void.

To become a power broker, the US would need to have Western friendly regimes. The United States began to orchestrate regime change in the Middle East. The newly formed CIA found success in Iran when it helped to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister Mosaddeq and delivered the Shah into power.

The US initiated a series of moves to secure influence in the Middle East. The US propped up dictators, removed dictators, crushed democracies and installed democracies creating less and less stability at the expense of the people. The follows sequence of coups culminated into what we have today:

1949, 1954, 1966 coups in Syria led to the 1970 start of the Assad regime;

1958, 1963 and 1968 coups in Iraq paved the way for Saddam Hussein;

1953 the CIA coup in democratic Iran, led to the 1979 Hostages Crisis

 Use it or lose it

The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War. During the Cold War years, an estimated $8 trillion was spent, with about 100,000 Americans losing their lives. Reagan ensured the Soviet failure by built up the US military muscle to unprecedented levels. The collapse of the Soviet Union made the muscle of the US military available.

“Use it or lose it” is a concept to keep muscles strong. This same concept applies to military muscle. Atrophy of the Defense Department, the Armed Forces, the State Department and the Industrial Military Complex would have an adverse effect on the Warfare State. Too many jobs, too many politicians, too many bureaucrats, too many US dollars budgeted, too many Industrial Military Corporation profits would be lost. Peace was not an option.

The US quickly changed from fighting a Cold War against Communism to hot war in Iraq. In 1990, George W Bush launched Operation Desert Storm. This invasion helped to create the retaliatory terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. *See below

 War on Terror

On 9/1/2001 the terrorist invasion at the World Trade center terrorist murdered 3,000 civilians. This event prompted the other Bush to declare the “War on Terrorism.”  Just what the Gods of War ordered, a free reign to invade anywhere in the world to battle terrorism.  By 2001 the US was the only surviving superpower, there was not a country to stop it.

In 2002, an operation in Afghanistan to search and destroy terrorist training sites and to get Osama bin Laden turned into a war that continues today. (15 years and running) In 2003, a full-scale invasion of Iraq to search and destroy the weapons of Mass Destruction “ended” in 2011 but we are still there –go figure. The newest adult generation, in their lifetime, has not experienced one day of peace. This is tragic!

Since 9/11 and the subsequent “War on Terror” we have allowed the Military, the Defense Department, the State Department and the Intelligence Community to metastasize into a cancer that is directly or indirectly responsible for:

• 4,491 U.S. service members killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2014
• 2,386 U.S. military deaths from the War in Afghanistan.
• 165,000 civilians in the Iraq war caused by the US and its allies
• 173,000 total deaths in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001

Today the US citizens need to be asking. “Should the US contribute to the 17,411 children and 10,847 women already killed in Syria?”

Journalist or Salesmen?

The media encourages the Warfare State while keeping the public shielded from the reality that war is murder. Mainstream media, the “real news”, is today’s version of Wilson’s Committee on Public Information. They formulate a narrative and edit the news to support it.

Their most recent project is the war in Syrian. Their narrative is that Assad “must go”. The justification is the same that Wilson proclaimed 100 years ago. The US is “one of the champions of the rights of mankind” and it is our obligation to ensure that “the world must be made safe for democracy.”

War is immoral and killing innocent people is the product of this immoral act. The media selectively covers the atrocities of war. Their professionals abuse video of gassed children to support their narrative while under reporting civilian being murdered by US led coalitions. The story line that supports the narrative get top billing and those that don’t get buried.

Example abound, On April 7^th, at two locations in northern Syria a US led coalition bombed and killed at least 21 people, including a woman and her six children. Killing is killing! It is immoral to determine that one type of killing is either less or more moral than another. The media has an obligation to discourage all murder. A moral media would promote peace and not solicited retaliation.

A cabal of governmental departments have allied to create an unofficial Warfare State. Permanent government bureaucrats, elected politicians, the industrial military complex with its lobbyists conspire with most mainstream media to sell war. War has become the drug of choice, it is the heroin that the keeps the bureaucracy alive. The US has murdered, lied, cheated and stolen for it. This drug will destroy a nation that is too young to die.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions”

Wilson’s intervention into World War 1 was an outright rejection of our founders’ wisdom. It not only ignored President Washington’s warning, “to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world” it violated Thomas Jefferson’s pledge of “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

World War 1 was billed as the War to end all Wars, it proved otherwise. We need to look at the geography of the world. The US is surrounded by oceans and allies, Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. America is the border for our defense, not Europe, not Africa, not the Middle East and not the Far East.

Let us Celebration a Bi-centennial Event

Two hundred years ago, John Quincy Adams became Secretary of State under President James Monroe. In 1817, as Secretary of State, Adams delivered a speech on U.S. Foreign policy.

“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

Peace and prosperity are linked together for a reason. Our forefathers’ voices are being silenced by the drum beats of war. We must return to the days of moral actions and benevolent purpose. It is time to exorcise the dictatress that has captured our spirit.

 

*Bin Laden’s 3 reason for the 9/11 attack on that World Trade Center and the Pentagon:

            One: US troops in the Islamic holy lands of Saudi Arabia;

            Two: US bombing and killing of Muslim Arabs:

            Three: US’s support for Israeli apartheid government’s treatment of the Palestinians

 Please note: President Bill Clinton’s almost continuous bombings of Iraq throughout the late 1990’s contributed to the response.

 

The “White Towel”?

I do not like General Flynn, in my opinion he is an Iran hater, anti-Islamic and a “shoot first ask questions later” type guy. That said, he became the first casualty in the intelligence community’s (IC) soft coup against Trump. Leaking SIGINT 1 information of Flynn’s conversation with a Russian diplomat was a vindictive targeting of a political foe. This whistleblowing was a political assassination and not an action of noble intent.

We have just witnessed the first round of a heavy weight boxing match. The two heavy weight contestants throwing punches to feel each other out. The IC began with a few jabs connecting Trump’s Presidency to Russian influence. Trump counters with a flurry of threats to cut $80 billion per annum intelligence budget, (larger than Russia’s defense budget) talks of rooting waste out of the Pentagon’s almost trillion-dollar budget, spending less on NATO, and ending some of America’s imperial wars and the Cold War. Trump has even made a comparison between the CIA and the NAZI’s.

The IC, reeling from this exchange, delivered a low blow. The leaking of highly classified SIGINT intercepts is devious but affective. It heightens our awareness and fear of Russian spying while curtailing Trump’s initiatives towards Russia. It also conceals the hypocrisy in Washington over alleged Russian espionage and manipulation. This is all accomplished while portraying our intelligence community as a protectorate of the American people.

The US intelligence community has been “protecting” the American people buying and manipulating foreign governments since 1945. They were recently caught tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone and just this past week WikiLeaks issued an actual intercept, not hearsay, on CIA spying and manipulation of France’s 2012 election. Silence!

The Russian skeptics continues to do whatever they can to disrupt any attempt to improve the relationships between Washington and Moscow. The anti-Russian hysteria has demonization Vladimir Putin, as other bullies like Netanyahu get a pass. These skeptics are obsessed with associating Trump and his administration to a diabolical plot with Russia.

Rules do not matter when you hold the perspective that Moscow’s hacking determined the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and guilt is determined by association. The “Russians did it” threat is on par with Sen. Joe McCarthy’s Cold War pursuit of “communists” that infiltrated the U.S. government and those that encourage a better working relationship with Putin are “Russian apologist” or “Moscow stooges.”

Flynn’s firing/resignation may have been a defensive move by Trump Administrations to survive the first round. Flynn took one for the team, he fell on his sword like all loyal general are expected to do. What surprises me is Trump’s strategy. Why did he choose not to appeal the low blow? Has he given in to the powers of the intelligence community? Or will he come out swinging in round 2?

The IC has not released the tapes so we are relying on hearsay. Besides, it is not clear that Flynn lied. In his resignation letter, he stated that when talking to Vice President Pence, he did not deliberately leave out elements of his conversations with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And besides the future National Security Advisor talking to diplomats from foreign counties just might be in Flynn’s job description.

Reports indicate that the conversations with the the Russian ambassador raised the Obama’s sanctions to Flynn. Flynn responded that the Trump administration would be taking office in a few weeks and would review Russia policy and sanctions. That does not sound to be neither illegal nor improper. Attempting to temper Russia’s response to new seems to be diplomatic and not treasonous.

Senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham salivate at any opportunities to threaten military action or economic sanctions against Russia. The media has been making on an anti-Putin binge ever since his actions aimed at Georgia’s in 2008. Since then the rhetoric has increased with every new event that finds the US and Russia on opposite sides. Whether it’s in Ukraine, Syria or the annexation of Crimea the media constantly encourages a re-escalation of the Cold War.

The Intelligence Community has an incurable case of Russophobia. They believe that we should return to the way it was in the old days with the Soviet Union. Washington views Russia as our enemy. Obama played along with this belief, right up until his final days in office, by imposing more sanctions and expelling Russian diplomats. Akin to planting an IED in the White House for the Trump Presidency as a welcoming present.

The exploitation of the Flynn was an opportunity to disruptive Trump’s attempt to get on better terms with a nation that has nuclear weapons pointed us and our allies. Avoiding squabbles and preventing misunderstandings over mundane issues should be a national objective.

Is it wrong to have a working relationship with Russia? A reset with Moscow should be the No. 1 national security objective. The Russophobes will continue to look for reasons to beat up Russia and Putin. The media will cooperate with their reports on Russian spy ships off the coast of Connecticut, Delaware and Virginia, Russian jets buzzing a U.S. warship in the Black Sea and Russian violations of the INF treaty.

The IC and the President should be in the same corner. They are not, they have begun to slug it out while shirking their responsibility to the US citizens. Who wins and who loses from the Cold War paradigm? Ramping up tensions with Russia divert taxpayer’s money into the Military-Industrial Complex to build a nuclear arsenal capable of an Armageddon that could eliminate life on the planet.

Stay tuned for Round 2: Will Trump answer the bell? or was Flynn’s firing the “white towel”?

*information taken from articles written by Philip Giraldi, a former CIA office of 18 years: Eric Margolis, and Eli Lake, Bloomberg; Robert Parry, Consortiumn News

 

1. (intelligence derived from electronic signals and systems used by foreign targets, such as communications systems, radars, and weapons systems)

Dysfunction of the Washington D.C. Brain

NATIONAL security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, resign on Monday night. He was caught lying about whether he discussed sanctions in a December telephone call with a Russian diplomat.

We learned about Flynn’s lie because of a whistleblower(s). Someone inside the U.S. government committed a criminal act. They leaked the contents of Flynn’s “intercepted communications”, classified SIGINT information, “captured by routine U.S. eavesdropping targeting the Russian diplomats.” This is a crime.

Who will demand that the leaker(s) step forward to “face the music”, criminal prosecution? It will not be the Democrats. They will claim that officials leaking this information acted justifiably, despite the fact they violated the law. Their version will probably be supported by the network news, the mainstream media and Hollywood.

It will be the Republicans. Those that are promising investigations to find the leakers. Their noise will be amplified by Fox News and right-wing radio hosts, like Laura Ingraham, who are demanding to know why the leakers weren’t being hunted.

The truth is that the leaks revealed that a high government official, Gen. Flynn, blatantly lied to the public about his conversations with a Russian diplomat. The public has the right to know this.

Is it justified? The fact that the whistleblowing is illegal should not be used a reason to conceal information from the public. Many laws prohibit just acts. The revealing of this information is a just act. The only way to educate the public of powerful officials wrongful or deceitful actions is through information.

Lying to the public is a common practice in Washington. In D.C. lying is not viewed as a sin but it’s seen more as a job requirement. So, we should celebrate an illegal leak such as this. Whistleblowers should be protected so that we will be informed about “the work” of those who wield the greatest power.

Trump-supporting Republicans are insisting that the only thing that matters is rooting out the criminal leakers. Trump himself has echoed the Obama-era Democrats. He claims that “the real story” isn’t the lies told by his national security adviser but rather the fact that someone leaked information exposing them.

In the past month, with Trump as president, leaks have achieved some good. Leaks are illegal and hated by those in power because they want to hide evidence of their own wrongdoing. The ability to lie to the public with impunity and without detection is not something new.

Where have you been for the past eight years when President Obama was very vindictive and aggressive on prosecuting whistleblowers. As Leonard Downie, the Washington Post claimed that, “The [Obama] administration’s war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration.”

Those that choose whistleblowing put themselves at great risk. Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Tom Drake, were all Obama-era leakers. They were put in jail or forced to live in exile for leaking sensitive, classified information.

A similar case involving a government official happened during the Obama administration. President Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, lied to the public and to Congress about a domestic surveillance program that courts ruled was illegal. Lying to Congress is a felony, but Clapper kept his job until the very last day of the Obama presidency.

The motive here, with General Flynn, is probably vindictive rather than noble but any leak that results in the exposure of high-level wrongdoing should be praised and not scorned or punished. It appears that this action is the intelligence community’s “shot across the bow” of the Trumps Presidency.

Some Washington politicians understand the powers and politics of the “deep state” more than they understand their own jobs. This was clearly demonstrated when Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer warned Trump that he was being “really dumb” to criticize the intelligence community because “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” Ah, yes JFK lost that battle.

Those in power regard leaks as a crime, while those out of power regard them as righteous. Democrats have suddenly re-discovered the virtues of illegal leaking, while Trump’s people believe them to be criminal.

People often take opposite views based exclusively on whether it helps or hurts their party or their leaders. Thus, the very same Democrats who three months ago viewed illegal leaking as a sin today view it as an act of merit. Morals and principles should not change based upon which political party controls the White House.

• Much of this is taken from Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

Happy Birthday George!

To celebrate Presidents Day, I decided to re-read George Washington’s Farewell Address. Our country’s first President, warned of the “continual mischiefs of the spirit of party” making it the “interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.” In 1796, President Washington cautioned against the dangers of political parties. We did not see what he knew.

Goethe said: “We See Only What We Know,” in other words, perception depends upon your knowledge.

When I look at a page of sheet music, I see a bunch of lines, dots, dashes, and other symbols that have no real meaning to me. When a musician looks at the same sheet music they see notes, chords, tempos, melodies, harmonies, etc. Why do I perceive nothing more than markings on a page while a musician perceives music? Because I lack the knowledge concerning sheet music.

The playing card paradigm

At Harvard in 1949, subjects were shown playing cards and asked to call out what they saw. They identified the cards correctly. After a while, the experimenters slipped in “incongruous cards” in which the colors red and black were switched, such as black hearts or diamonds and red clubs or spades.

The subjects did not perceive the incongruous cards, they saw normal playing cards, the cards they were expecting to see, they did not notice the incongruity. For example, when shown a black six of hearts, they called out, “six of hearts” or “six of spades,” neither of which was correct.

They misperceived something per the paradigm in which they were operating, “the playing card paradigm.” Their responses were based upon something that they already knew about playing cards. They called out the cards that they were looking for not what they were.

Only when subjects were forced to look at the incongruous cards for very long times did they “get” what was going on and saw what they were looking at. Suddenly, they realized that “the playing card paradigm” did not apply. They finally knew that reality included non-traditional cards. They thus became open to a new paradigm (that included black hearts etc.), and thereafter saw what was in front of their eyes.

The false paradigm

How does this apply to politics? Our paradigms cause us to see the world in ways that reinforce our beliefs. Some of our beliefs are reality based but many of our beliefs are perception. Most people’s perceptions are established by a combination of nature and nurture.

Liberty is not hard to sell or even difficult to understand: What is difficult is how to get people to unlearn their prevailing paradigm, that is a two-party paradigm, in which Republicans and Democrats together cover the full range of political space, while broadly opposing each other.

This paradigm is false: the two main parties are philosophically aligned on most issues. The rhetoric may differ but their actions do not. Both parties: grow government in the interest of their favored groups or worldview, promote security at the expense of liberty, militaristic interventionism, massive political gifting to interests with lobbyists and money, neglect of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and abuse the force of the State to impose its worldview, repress individual sovereignty and have no conscience when it comes to harming others.

Political paradigms, like all paradigms are utterly pervasive because it’s impossible to see anything except through one. When an old paradigm fails, as in the playing card experiment, people have no choice but to see the world in a whole new way. When paradigms do become unstuck, people become extraordinarily open and things become possible that at normal times can barely even be conceived of.

 The Donald and Bernie Experiment

The election of Trump can be the beginning of an awakening to the fact that the old paradigm has failed. His election exposed the cracks in the D-R liberal-conservative partisan paradigm. An authoritarian shook the partisan paradigm of the American electorate. Many voted for a party that they had not previously identified with.

This same phenomenon was also happening in the Democratic Party. However, the Democrats “took out” Bernie and choose to back a corrupt, connected and deplorable candidate, thus losing many of the Bernie voters that they could not afford to lose.

The voters had turned away from the political circus tents of elephants and donkeys but were still stuck with the choices that the duopolistic party paradigm offered. The two-party system, is weaker than it has been for generations. The two-party system has failed millions of Americans but will the American people listen to George Washington?

People mistakenly believe that their political allegiances follow their values. The reality is that people identify with politicians that they have an affinity of personality, appearance, culture or social. When they connect, the people are inclined to adopt the values of those leaders, groups or parties.

Judgment and justification are entirely different processes the former should precedes the latter, yet we experience the exact opposite. The processes are closely intertwined and the latter precedes the former.

Political allegiance means an allegiance to the Republican or Democratic Party and the political paradigm that goes with the territory. Neither party is committed to the freedom and rights of the individual. These alliances may be hard to break but are necessary to save our nation.

A paradigm of values

Question your political allegiance. Now is the time to look at a paradigm of values.  Do not follow a blind allegiance, open your minds to assessing arguments and options based on core principles and human experiences without bias toward a political tribe or mediation by a felt political identity.

The election of 2016 exemplifies the failure of our two-party system. Now is the time to “open up” to a new way of seeing. It is up to us to unlearn what we have been “taught”, reject partisanship and learn the paradigm of values.

The “perception of incongruity” was only correctly amended when the students examined and studied the incongruous cards. Maybe our perception of the political party will be amended when we examine and study their incongruence in liberty.

A birthday present for George

George Washington is our nations first National Hero. It stands to reason that we listen to the wisdom he imparted to his “Friends and Citizens” in his Farewell Address, of 1796.

President Washington warned that the party will become “potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” Happy Birthday!

*much of this blog is from an article written by Robin Koerner