A Plague on Both Their Houses

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

by ANDREW LEVINE

Sanders and Clinton: rethoric aside, accomplices in the Democratic party imposture.

Donald Trump is a miscreant, worse than any president in modern times. Nevertheless, he is sometimes more right than Democrats and their media flacks. His express views on the multi-lateral institutions that regulate global trade in capitalism’s current neoliberal phase are an obvious example. Trump thinks, or says that he thinks, that American workers have been getting a raw deal. He is right.

The agreements in place are good for global capital and therefore for American corporate moguls and Wall Street financiers, but not for workers in the United States or anywhere else.

There are a few comparatively progressive Democrats who do want to make existing arrangements less harmful to workers and the environment. But even they don’t want to change anything fundamental. Mainstream Democrats support the neoliberal status quo more or less as is.

The American labor movement has opposed NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, ever since its inception in 1994. The Clinton administration could have cared less. Neither could its successors, both Democratic and Republican. Democrats rely on organized labor for money, campaign workers, and votes, offering only malign neglect in return. The GOP’s hostility is more overt; Republicans don’t even pretend to care.

In 2016, Bernie Sanders opposed both NAFTA and the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership. Challenged from her left, even Hillary Clinton said that she would renegotiate the TPP.

However, there was hardly anyone who did not think that, just as soon as she could, she would weasel out of that commitment. Meanwhile, it was clear to everyone who was paying attention that the nomination process was rigged against Sanders.

It was far from clear, even so, that Sanders’ views placed him outside the neoliberal orbit. More likely, he represented its leftmost wing.

In any case, Trump won the election — and it was he, not a Democrat, who put the kybosh on American participation in the TPP. Now, at least cosmetically but probably also substantively, he is going after NAFTA.

And so, for much the same reason that Democrats learned to stop worrying and love the CIA, they now find themselves defending multi-lateral trade policies that harm American workers. Whatever Trump is against is good enough for them.

Needless to say, Trump could care less about workers’ rights or environmental protections. What he does care about is looking good to the “Make American Great Again” chauvinists in his base. He needs their votes. Also, as a profoundly insecure narcissist, he needs their love.

The man is pathetic, but in this case at least, he is against what any right thinking progressive ought to oppose.

Russophobic war mongering is another example.

Trump is against it, except when he finds it expedient not to be – which lately is most of the time. He is not against it for any of the many reasons that a reasonable person would be, but he is against it – and, in a time rife with newly revived Cold War hysteria, that is not to be despised.

It isn’t yet clear why Trump is, or was, against Clinton-style Cold War revivalism. Is it because Vladimir Putin has something on him? Or is it because he wants or needs something from Russian oligarchs?

The most benign explanation is that it’s all about the Clintons. It was the Clintons and their allies, working with the usual gaggle of neocon and liberal imperialist foreign policy “experts” that got the latest bout of hysteria going, and it was the Clintons who revved up its intensity in order to excuse Hillary’s lamentable performance in the 2016 elections.

The one sure thing is that when Trump is right – or less wrong than the Democratic Party and its propaganda machine — it is always for bad reasons. But then good reasons are in short supply all around. The reasons offered up by “respectable” liberal pundits are so bad that is becoming hard to tell which side to root for less.

* *

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he death of Maverick John McCain has forced consumers of cable news to deal with the situation head on. Compare Trump’s disdain for McCain with the determination of leading Democrats and MSNBC and CNN pundits to fast track his case for sainthood.

This is, of course, a less weighty issue than trade policy or war and peace. But it is perhaps the most revealing of all.

Were it not for Trump and the myriad ways he makes everything worse, McCain’s passing would not be anything like the media event it has become; run-of-the mill rightwing politicians with blemished pasts die all the time. It is only in a Trump-debased political world, his death is a big deal.

It is unseemly to speak ill of the dead. Hypocrisy and false tears are unseemly too.

It is also true that sometimes the best course of action, when you have nothing good to say about somebody, is to say nothing at all.

In this case, however, silence is not an option – not in general, and certainly not for Trump.

Because he is essentially a distraught male adolescent in an old man’s body, Trump lacks the impulse control to keep quiet. Kudos to him for that — for not jumping onto the praise-McCain bandwagon.

That is precisely what he would now be doing but for the fact that, for him, narcissism trumps opportunism.

He would at least have kept the White House flags flying at half-staff for more than a day, and he would have tweeted a magnanimous statement of condolence. That, after all, is what presidents do.

Half a cheer to him, therefore, for being so grossly unpresidential. By acting out, in this case, the way he does in most others, he has effectively countered the surfeit of nauseatingly hagiographical McCain obituaries that are currently cropping up everywhere.

Half a cheer only, however, because when the Donald found that his petulance was drawing criticism even on Fox News (Trump TV), he caved. Could it be that cowardice, even more than narcissism, defines his relation to the world?

Still, even if only for a day, he did disrespect an “icon” of standard issue white bread “conservatism” whom “liberal” Democrats and “liberal” pundits on “liberal” cable channels are falling all over themselves to honor and respect.

And so, for at least a few days, “breaking news” about Trump’s mean-spirited, incoherent, and often inconsistent tweets, and about what law enforcement has in store for him, has given way, to some extent, to praise for an irascible Republican high on the Donald’s enemies list.

This is as good a way as any, at this point, to get Trump’s goat. And although it is hard to take all that praise for McCain without wanting to run amok, it does make for a welcome change of pace for those of us who turn to the liberal cable channels to monitor what the anti-Trump faction of the power structure is up to.

Dumping on Trump in the usual ways can be a useful and worthwhile pastime, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Trump has nothing good to say about McCain, dead or alive, because McCain is an establishment type who refused to pay him obeisance, and because he has several times called the Donald out for what he is. Also, McCain foiled his attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

In truth, McCain cared no more than his Republican Senate colleagues or, for that matter, than Trump himself, about providing health care for the uninsured. Quite to the contrary, by supporting the Trump tax cut for the rich, he effectively let happen much of the harm that would have occurred had the ACA been repealed. McCain voted to keep Obama’s signature legislative achievement afloat for one reason only — because Trump wanted it to go down.

Thus Trump is not the only malevolent character in the story who knows how to hold a grudge.

The difference is that McCain could act graciously when conditions demanded it or when, for whatever reason, he wanted to. Trump cannot help but stay true to his nature; and there is not a gracious bone in his body.

Still, the fact remains: there really is nothing good to say about McCain – unless you think that being on the wrong side in the Vietnam War, and killing a lot of people in the process, was good.

Had he repented of the position he held, it would be different. But he never has. To his dying day, McCain thought that the Vietnam War was a good thing, and that it was a tragedy that the U.S. didn’t “win.”

Trump is morally and intellectually obtuse, but not wrong, when he says that McCain’s vaunted heroism in that war had less to do with anything he did than with what happened to him – after a plane he was flying was shot down. He was tortured and held prisoner for five years.

“Conspiracy theorists” sympathetic to Trump tell a different story, but it does seem that he behaved honorably, or at least correctly, while he was held as a prisoner of war.

When the Vietnamese found out that McCain was an admiral’s son, they offered to let him go. Instead he chose the militarily valorous path – to stay with his fellow prisoners until all of them were released.

Indications are that he did this because, as a scion of a military family, he felt that he had no choice. Even so, it does mark a difference, say, from Donald Trump who would have sold out his own mother had there been some percentage in it.

The sad fact is, though, that apart from his decision to abide by McCain family values, there is nothing that makes his case stand out from many others, and certainly nothing that countervails the stubborn fact that McCain was on the wrong side in Vietnam, and remained proud of it to his dying day.

As a Senator, he was on the wrong side of many other conflicts too – in Iraq and Syria and throughout the Greater Middle East, in the former Yugoslavia, in Libya, and in sub-Saharan Africa. And he was always on the ready for a war against Iran and North Korea. Remember the hot mike that picked up his singing: “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of the Beachboy’s “Barbara Ann.”

Most of all, he had it in for Russia even before the Clintons and their co-thinkers took a notion to reviving the Cold War. He was, if anything, even more intent than Hillary Clinton to empower anti-Russian forces in Georgia and other former Soviet republics in order to bring NATO right up to Russia’s borders.

McCain was good on campaign finance reform, but not much else. Like his sidekick Lindsay Graham, and his buddy hapless Joe Lieberman, he was basically a dunce of a Senator, eager to support legislation pleasing to his party’s grandees, and indifferent to the interests of everyone else.

McCain’s liberal eulogists cannot help but concede that, by choosing Sarah Palin for a running mate in 2008, McCain accorded legitimacy to her know-nothing political style and therefore, in time, to the Tea Party and ultimately to the most retrograde sectors of the benighted Trump base.

Liberal apologists blame his choice of Palin on impulsiveness. Thus they grudgingly agree that his judgment was often less than spot on. But they claim, at the same time, that his decency was beyond reproach – mainly because he was willing to work with “both sides of the aisle.”

And so, the argument goes, he should be forgiven even for turning over the rock from beneath which, in due course, Trump slithered out.

According to them, McCain was perhaps the last of a vanishing species, a traditional Republican battling the barbarians at the gates.

For that Chuck Schumer wants to name the Senate Office Building after him. Better him than the segregationist Georgia Senator Richard Russell, but even so. Are liberals so morally and intellectually depleted that they cannot do better than venerate a war-mongering reactionary with bad judgment, a “maverick” streak, and an occasional inclination to go “bipartisan”? So it seems.

Those liberals would do well to recall that much publicized Minnesota town hall meeting during the 2008 presidential campaign when a daft elderly lady said to McCain, the candidate: “I can’t trust Obama… I have read about him and he’s uh…he’s an Arab.” In response, McCain shook his head sadly and said: “No, ma’am, Obama is a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

There we have it: McCain vouching for Obama’s decency by calling him a “family man,” while letting that poor lady’s ethnic slur on more than 400 million Arab human beings pass unnoticed. Pathetic and, as the Donald often tweets of anything and everything that displeases him, SAD!

About the Author

ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

[premium_newsticker id=”154171″]

The Russo-Chinese “Alliance” Explained

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

• JULY 9, 2017 / CROSSPOST WITH THE UNZ REVIEW

It is not an easy task for someone without a background in Chinese culture, including the language and the history, to write about this country. However, this becomes necessary when looking at the Chinese view of the outside world and especially when writing about the emerging Russo-Chinese alliance. There is very little doubt anymore about the reality of such an emerging alliance in the combined West, and rightly so. There is no better evidence of such an alliance than President Putin’s numerous meetings with Chairman Xi Jinping and his recently awarding the Chinese Leader an Order of St. Apostle Andrei Pervozvanny i in Moscow on July 4th prior to President Putin’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the G20 summit in Hamburg.

This understanding, however, comes with a caveat–many Western observers and analysts view China as the senior partner in such an alliance due to her sheer size, both demographically and economically. On the surface this is not a unreasonable assumption, but on the surface only. This belief is mostly a product of recent mythologies and false narratives about both China and Russia. It is also a product of misunderstanding the fundamental processes taking place inside the combined West and of the de facto bankruptcy of methods of socio-economic and derivative analyses. Is China an emerging global superpower? Absolutely! But does China know how to be a fully-fledged one? Not yet. China is learning, but unlike Russia, which has been intimately acquainted for centuries with the peculiarities of superpower status, first as a European and then a global one, she is yet to assert herself as a superpower. Those are not easy lessons to learn and they require more than just a huge economy and population.

Yet many in the West continue to base their conclusions on two false narratives:

1. The gross underestimation of Russia’s economy and capability;

2. The gross overestimation of the same for China.

Objectively, the Chinese economy objectively is already the largest in the world and nobody with even a modicum of common sense denies that. But here is the catch: just the size of an economy does not determine everything. Yes, it is very important, but not all that defines the power of a nation. As Correlli Barnett’s astute and empirically proven definition of power of the nation goes:

Power of the nation-state by no means consists only in its armed forces, but also in its economic and technological resources; in the dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; in the efficiency of its social and political organization. It consists most of all in the nation itself, the people, their skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions. And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to one another.

Barnett’s concise and brilliant definition received a further (more quantifiable) expansion when Samuel Huntington recited Jeffery R. Barnett’s 14 points criteria of West’s global dominance by the mid-1990s in his seminal The Clash Of Civilizations. Those criteria are sound and present a good framework within which assessments and comparisons could be made. Most of those 14 points are one way or another related to technological development, moreover–they are related to what can be defined as enclosed technological cycles. The larger the number of such enclosed technological cycles, the better. For many protagonists of monetarist economy and free trade orthodoxy, the whole idea that a nation can make something from scratch may sound as anathema. Yet, only nations that can extract resources, refine them and then manufacture a finished, sometimes extremely complex, product are the ones who are real power players globally. Despite some spectacular progress China has made in the last two decades, China, for all her technological advancements still lags behind in some of the most crucial areas that define national power and this cannot be ignored. It becomes especially important when assessing the roles and weights of the parties in this fledgling Russo-Chinese alliance. Take a look at several points by Huntington-Barnett (in the order they are presented by Huntington):

9. Conducts most advanced technical research and development;

10. Controls leading edge technical education;

11. Dominates access to space;

12. Dominates aerospace industry;

13. Dominates international communications;

14. Dominates the high-tech weapons industry.

This is roughly 43% of those criteria, yet in all those fields China is either a relative newcomer or doesn’t fare that well at all. One of the fields which defines national competitiveness and power is aerospace and high-tech weapons industries. China’s achievements here are not as impressive as many believe and problems with the development of those industries persist to this day.

While much has been made of the first indigenous Chinese airliner, the COMAC C919, with some pundits going as far as declaring this commercial aircraft a competitor to Boeing and Airbus aircraft, this is mistaken. As a competitor, it is not even close. After her maiden flight on 5 May this year, the whole hoopla surrounding one and only flight of this plane fizzled out as was expected. This Chinese aircraft, which had huge problems from the onset, far from being a modern competitor to Western commercial aircraft is a well painted outdated design built entirely with aluminum and it has no indigenous power plant, being powered by Franco-American LEAP engines.

Enter the Russian-produced MS-21. Since her maiden flight on 28 May, this state-of-the-art aircraft hasn’t spent much time on the ground and continues to fly non-stop. It has already completed its first phase of tests and flies for the second phase (in Russian). The MS-21 features a very high percentage of composite materials in its fuselage and has the only “black wing” in its class –a wing made out of carbon fiber with vacuum infusion. Moreover, the new state-of-the-art Russian engine PD-14 is undergoing certification after confirming its high parameters on the tests. Here, the technological gap between China and Russia cannot be starker. Unlike the COMAC C919, the MS-21 is real competitor for Western aircraft. Hence China accepted Russia’s United Aircraft Company (UAC) as a lead in designing the perspective Russo-Chinese wide body aircraft COMAC C929.

The situation is even more unequal between Russia and China in combat aviation, where Russia is simply on a different plane when producing state-of-the-art combat aircraft such as SU-35, whose engine and avionics are a very hot item for the Chinese (and not them only). As with commercial aviation, here China also doesn’t have a world-class jet engine. Recently China took delivery of the first SU-35s in a Russian-version. More are coming, and the same goes for S-400 air defense complexes and other weapon systems. At this stage China is simply unable, unlike Russia, to develop a truly modern competitive combat aircraft. In layman’s lingo, China needs Russia to take her “for a ride” before getting even close to the parameters of modern Russian combat or commercial aircraft, or tanks or, for that matter, nuclear submarines and other weapon systems and sensors. The disparity between Russia and China is there. Yes, PLAN is building its second aircraft carrier and nobody argues with China’s massive shipbuilding capacity, yet, this fact cannot eclipse a serious Chinese deficiency with their own nuclear submarines, which are notoriously noisy and are nowhere near even the third generation of American or Russian nuclear submarines. This is a dramatic weakness which makes Chinese large surface fleet’s even venturing beyond the First Island Chain an extremely risky business when facing the US Navy’s world-class submarine force.

Are the Chinese improving? Yes, they are–they are very smart and capable people with a great history and culture. Their progress is undeniable and commands much genuine respect. Yet, despite the colossal size of her economy China remains dependent, when it comes to a world-class quality, on others and one of the first among them is Russia. It is not a secret to anyone that the Chinese space program is a virtual clone of the Soviet one. The fact that many Chinese combat aircraft look like Russian SU-27s or SU-33s is also not accidental; they are Chinese knock-offs, sometimes with very shoddy quality and capability, of Russian aircraft.

Once one considers these disparities and the actual sizes of the Russian and China economies are compared within the proper context, the whole myth of China as the senior partner in this alliance evaporates completely. In the end, the Chinese themselves admit that: China’s conversion of economic power into military is a relatively slow process [经济实力向军事实力转化的速度相对更慢] resulting in a lag, even as its economic ascendance is more obvious.

But that is what matters in the modern and highly unstable world. Apart from competitiveness, the ability to reorient resources and achieve a breakthrough in the fields that matter is one of the most important qualities a superpower has to possess. What Russia has achieved both economically and militarily since 2008 hasn’t been lost on the Chinese. China must understand, and there are reasons to think that she does, that in this Moscow-Beijing Axis she could neither be senior nor junior but only equal partner if she chooses to be part of this emerging Axis. But she also has a lot to learn if she wants to be able to convert economic power into military power without any lag. So far, China has not performed well here and quantity hasn’t yet converted into quality. It hasn’t convert in the field that matters most–power. Yes, the world probably will continue to go to Walmarts to buy Chinese assembled iPhones, furniture or toys. But until the world sees world-class Chinese commercial aircraft powered by world-class Chinese-designed and built jet engines, until China can demonstrate her ability to build state-of-the-art combat aircraft or any other weapon systems, until China can claim her equal place in space, among many other fields, any talk about China being a “senior” partner in any possible alliance with Russia is just that–talk. Both Russians and Chinese are keenly aware of that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrei Martyanov is a military analyst with a Soviet background that enables deep insight into the fundamental issues of warfare and military power as a function of national power―assessed correctly, not through the lens of Wall Street “economic” indices but through the numbers of enclosed technological cycles and culture, much of which has been shaped in Russia by continental warfare and which is practically absent in the US.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

Comment here or on our Facebook Group page.

[premium_newsticker id=”154171″]

Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

Is the next US aggression on Syria already scheduled?

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE SAKER

[This article was written for the Unz Review]

The things that please are those that are asked for again and again
Horace

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran
John McCain

President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price…
Donald Trump

It is difficult to have a dialogue with people who confuse Austria and Australia
Vladimir Putin

Victim of a supposed Syrian government gas attack, photo distributed by "rebels".

Bis repetita

It appears that we are coming back full circle: the AngloZionists are again, apparently, preparing to use the very same White Helmets (aka “good terrorists”) to execute yet another chemical false flag attack in Syria and againblame the government forces for it. The Russians are, again, warning the world in advance and, just as last time, (almost) nobody gives a damn. And there are even reports that the US is, yet again, considering imposing a (totally illegal) no-fly zone over Syria (I have not heard this once since Hillary’s presidential campaign). And just like last time, it appears that the goal of the US is to save the “good terrorists” from a major governmental victory.

It appears that my prediction that each “click” brings us one step closer to the “bang!” is, unfortunately, coming true and while the Empire seems to have given up on the notion of a full-scale reconquest of Syria, the Neocons are clearly pushing for what might turn out to be a major missile strike on Syria. The fact that firing a large number of missiles near/over/at Russian forces might result in Russian counter-attack which, in turn, could lead to an major, possibly nuclear, war does not seem to factor at all in the calculations of the Neocons. True, the Neocons are mostly rather stupid (as in “short-term focused”) people, with a strong sense of superiority and a messianic outlook on our world. However, it baffles me that so few people in the USA and the EU are worried about this. Somehow, a nuclear war has become so unthinkable that many have concluded that it can never happen.

The other thing which the Neocons seem to be oblivious to is that the situation on the ground in Syria cannot be changed by means of missile strikes or bombs. For one thing, the last US attack has conclusively shown that US Tomahawks are an easy target for the Syrian (mostly antiquated) air defenses. Of course, the US could rely on more AGM-158 JASSM which are much harder to intercept, but no matter what missiles are used, they will not effectively degrade the Syrian military capabilities simply because there are so few lucrative targets for cruise missile strikes in Syria to begin with. Considering that the US knows full well that no chemical attack will take place (or even could take place, for that matter, since even the USA have declared Syria chemical weapons free in 2013) the White House might decide to blow up a few empty buildings and declare that “the animal Assad” has been punished I suppose. But even if completely unopposed a US missile attack will make no military sense whatsoever. So this begs the question of what would be the point of any attack on Syria? Sadly, the rather evident answer to that is that the upcoming missile strike has less to do with the war in Syria and much more to do with internal US politics.

Russian and Syrian options

There are a few differences too. The biggest difference is that this time around the Russian naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean is much bigger than last time: 15 ships including two advanced frigates, the Admiral Grigorovich and the Admiral Essen (see a detailed report here: https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russia-sends-largest-naval-fleet-ever-to-syrian-waters/) and two 636.3-class advanced diesel-attack submarines. That is a lot of anti-ship, anti-air and anti-submarine firepower and, even more crucially, a lot of advanced early warning capabilities. Since the Russian and Syria air defense networks have been integrated by single automated fire system this means that the Syrians will very accurately “see” what is taking place in and around the Syrian airspace (this is especially true with the Russians keeping their A-50U AWACs on 24/7 patrol).

What has me most worried are the various reports (such as this one) which says that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week that “Moscow would be held responsible” if any chemical attack occurs. If by “Moscow will be responsible” the crazies in Washington DC mean “morally responsible”, then this is just the usual nonsense. But I am afraid that with certified nutcases like Bolton and Pompeo in charge, the US might be considering attacking Russian personnel in Syria (not necessarily at the well defended Khmeimin or Tartus bases). These guys could easily target various installations or Syrian military units where Russian personnel are known to be deployed and declare that they were not deliberately targeting Russians and that the Russians hit were “clearly involved” with the Syrian chemical weapon forces. The US has already targeted Russian nationals for kidnapping and detention, they might start killing Russian nationals next and then place the responsibility for these deaths on the Kremlin. You don’t think so? Just think “Skripal” and you will see that this notion is no so far fetched.

The Russians do have options, by the way. One thing they could do is place 6 (modernized) MiG-31s on quick alert in southern Russia (or, even better, in Iran) and keep a pair of them on combat air patrol over Syria (or over Iran). Combined with the “eyes” of the A-50U, these MiG-31s could provide the Russians with a formidable capability, especially against the US B-1B deployed in Qatar or Diego Garcia. So far, the MiG-31s have not seen action in Syria, but if intercepting a large number of cruise missiles becomes the mission then they would offer a much more flexible and capable force than the very small amount of Su-35 and Su-30 currently based in Khmeimim.

But the key to protecting Syria is to beef-up the Syrian air defenses and early warning capabilities, especially with advanced mobile air defense systems, especially many short-to-medium range systems like the Tor-M2 and the Pantsir-S2. Until this goal is achieved, the USA and Russia will remain in a most dangerous “Mexican standoff” in which both parties are engaged in what I call a “nuclear game of chicken” with each party threatening the other side while counting on its own nuclear capability to deter a meaningful counter-attack or retaliation. This is extremely dangerous but there is very little Russia can do to stop the US leaders from coming back to that same strategy over and over again. So far the Russians have shown a truly remarkable level of restraint, but if pushed too far, they next step for them will be to retaliate against the US in a manner which would provide them with what the CIA calls “plausible deniability” (I discussed this option over a year ago in this article). If attacked directly and openly the Russians will, of course, have no other option left than to hit back. And while it is true that the Russian forces in and near Syria are vastly outnumbered by US/NATO/CENTOM forces, the Russians have a massive advantage over the USA in terms of long range cruise missiles (see Andrei Martyanov’s analysis “Russia’s Stand-Off Capability: The 800 Pound Gorilla in Syria” for a detailed discussion of this topic).

None of the above is new, the world has been been stuck in this situation for well over a year now and there still appears to be no end in sight. Unfortunately, I can only agree with Ruslan Ostashko: only a massive military defeat or a no less massive economic collapse will stop the folks who “who confuse Austria and Australia” to give up their insane quest for world hegemony by violence.

—The Saker

ADDENDUM

Published on Aug 29, 2018

The last stronghold of rebel and terror groups in Syria - the northern province of Idlib - is surrounded by the Syrian Army. With a decisive battle looming, civilians are fleeing the area through humanitarian corridors set up by the Syrian government and Russia.

ABOUT THE SAKER

Like The Greanville Post, with which it is now allied in his war against official disinformation, the Saker's site, VINEYARD OF THE SAKER, is the hub of an international network of sites devoted to fighting the "billion-dollar deception machinery" supporting the empire's wars against Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and any other independent nation opposing or standing in the way of Washington's drive for global hegemony. The Saker is published in more than half a dozen languages. A Saker is a very large falcon, native to Europe and Asia.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Aleksandr Zakharchenko has been murdered today

THE SAKER

1976 ~ 2018

On the Greanville Post we publish many articles that are terrible and depressing. That’s because we focus on the most urgent problems afflicting humanity, from the capitalogenic climate implosion to barbaric wars, invasions, and the constant threat of a final nuclear war. Since the US empire—the instrument of the ruling clique representing 0.00001 of the American population— is the main source of this global suffering and mayhem, many articles document their crimes, and the reading can never be as easy as perusing a sports column or swallowing some ephemeral celebrity gossip. Reading about tragedies—especially those man-made—is always hard (and infuriating) for those who still maintan a measure of empathy in their hearts. I say this because the death of this man —Aleksandr Zakharchenko—has hit me very hard and I am heartbroken. Aleksandr Zakharchenko was the president of the young republic of Donetsk. He embodied all the traits by which we distinguish a real hero, an inspiring, exceptional human being. In his relatively short life he set examples of unusual courage, intelligence and compassion. Now he’s gone, the victim of a sordid, treacherous ambush by those who make the wounds everywhere, from Syria, to Africa, Latin America, and Russia itself. I don’t believe they will prevail, but before they go down to their well deserved hell, they will take many good people like Zakharchenko, plus countless innocent victims regarded as dispensable in the secret rooms where they plan these miserable acts. By birth, Aleksandr Zakharchenko was technically an Ukrainian living in the Eastern part of that nation, the Donbass, but he was, like many of his compatriots a Russian by blood and deed. He will be terribly missed, but he will not be forgotten. My friend and colleague The Saker has penned an insightful, sensitive account of his passing and he’s sharing that with us. —PG

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t has now been confirmed that Aleksandr Zakharchenko has been murdered today. You can read some of the details in this RT article here: https://www.rt.com/news/437357-head-donbass-republic-killed/

This murder really breaks my heart, but also worries and sickens me. Just like the murders of Morotola or Givi, this murder proves that there is a major, massive, problem with the DNR/LNR security services. Whether this is pure incompetence or treason I don’t know, but what is sure is that while murders of charismatic leaders happen in all conflicts this is the exception, not the rule (how many leaders were killed during, say, the Bosnian civil war?). It *is* possible to protect commanders and officials (there are special forces and services which can do that very well). When it is the rule, then most certainly something is very wrong.

Two years ago I wrote an article entitled “The Murder of Motorola – questions which must be answered” for which I was hysterically criticized by some ignorant amateurs, but the questions which I asked then remain unanswered today. Frankly, I very much doubt that they will be answered this time around either.

In my 2016 I asked the question cui bono in reference to the murders of so many DNR/LNR leaders.

Now I ask the same cui bono about the systematic denial that there is a major problem with the DNR/LRN security services.

Two years after the murder of Motorola the Novorussians have clearly not solved their security problem. This is why I can only offer the same conclusion as I did two years ago:

Ideally, the Russians should send some smart and ruthless patriot, like General Shamanov, to go to Lugansk and Donesk and read the locals the riot act (Russians generals are very good at that kind of stuff) and if they offer any resistance, just toss them out of their office (Russian generals are also good at that kind of stuff).

By now pretty much all the key Novorussian leaders and heroes have been murdered and it is too late to do anything about this. But somebody will have to take their place and it is them that the Russians need to protect now.

Living in deep denial, cheerleading and flag waving are all very good, but not when people get murdered as a result.

“With the Saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Your servant Aleksandr where there is no pain, nor sorrow, nor suffering, but life everlasting.”

—The Saker

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The Saker is the nom de guerre of a geopolitical and strategic analyst who created the Vineyard of the Saker network of sites, focusing on the global tensions and struggle between Russia and her allies and the US and its vassal states. The Saker covers a wide variety of cultural, political and military topics of pressing interest to people concerned with the prospects of peace and war in today's world.

Aleksandr Zakharchenko has been murdered today

Does the U.S. Government Lie to the Public to Justify War?

special commentary

By Geoffrey O'Neill

It seems so.

Vietnam—

LBJ lying to the American people.

On August 4, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and said this.

“My fellow Americans, as Commander in Chief it is my duty to the American people to report that renewed hostile actions against United States ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin have today required me to order the military forces of the United States to take action in reply.”

On August 7, after a debate lasting all of forty minutes the U.S. Congress in a unanimous vote, and the Senate with two dissenting votes passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution granting Johnson the authority to respond to the “act of war” against America in the Gulf of Tonkin.

What followed, not just in North and South Vietnam, but in Cambodia and Laos, was unimaginable.

Troop levels rose continually, from 16,300 in 1963 to 536,000 in 1968, the highest level during the war.
The US, over a ten year period, 1961 to 1971, sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange, a toxic chemical defoliant, over Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam causing cancer and birth defects to millions of Asians and American GIs operating in the area. Medical problems and birth defects of children born in these areas still plague the people to this day.
The My Lai massacre (and countless others we never heard of, at least officially)
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger orchestrated a covert bombing in Cambodia code namedOperation Menu, lasting14 months from March 1969 until May 1970. The Strategic Air Command flew over 3630 missions dropping 110,000 tons of bombs. The bombings, that killed tens of thousands and turned the capitol, Phnom Penh, into a ghost town, was kept secret from Congress and the American public. Why? Because Cambodia was neutral.
And then there is Laos. The United States Air Force dropped 270 million cluster bombs, about 25 million tons of bombs in that small country, about the size of Utah. This is equal to a planeload of bombs, every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 9 years. Laos has the distinction of being the most bombed country in the history of air warfare. Like Cambodia, the United Staes was not at war with Laos. Few people are aware of this barbarity. A phantom torpedo allegedly fired from a rubber raft at a U.S. naval vessel causing zero damage lead to this?When the war finally ended, April 30, 1975, an estimated 2 million Asians civilians were slaughtered, 5.3 million injured and 11 million became refugees in their own country. There were 58,220 Americans killed and 304,000 plus wounded, most of them teenagers from middle income to low income families.The United States government is responsible for this carnage. Remember Johnson’s claim? “Renewed hostile action on the high sea.”The hostile action was the mighty North Vietnamese navy, who, in rubber rafts, fired a torpedo at the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin in international waters, a clear act of aggression and justification for war under international law.

There was a small problem with this however, the attack never happened. There was not a mark on the ship nor a scratch on an American sailor. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a fraud.

It should be noted that, to this day, thanks to our psychopathic war planners at the time, children are still being born with birth defects and lung disorders in the areas that were heavily sprayed with agent orange.

It should also be noted that the bombs dropped in Laos were cluster bombs. Here are a few facts relevant today due to cluster bombs in Laos.

Cluster munitions are small bomblets that explode when released from cluster bombs.
About 80% of the cluster munitions explode, the other 20% bury themselves in the ground forming little land mines, referred as “unexploded ordinance” or UXO.
UXOs have killed or wounded over 20,000 Laotians since the Vietnam war ended.
About one third of the land in Laos is contaminated by UXOs.
Many farmers in Laos know their land is contaminated but have no choice but to farm it since they cannot afford to buy other land.
The most common injuries UXO victims experience is loss of life, limb, blindness, loss of hearing, shrapnel wounds and internal shock wave injuries.

Since the war ended of the estimated 80 million cluster munitions that failed to explode fewer than one million have been cleared. Laotians are still experiencing cluster munitions injuries to this day.

What did the Laotian people do to America to deserve this? What did the Cambodians, North or South Vietnamese do to the United States to deserve what happened to them then, and is continuing to this day?

The simple answer is nothing,

The USS Liberty - The Betrayal and Coverup

Unlike the non incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, the attack on the USS Liberty by Israel, was a clear act of war by any definition of that term. It could be argued that the cover up of the attack on the Liberty was a betrayal to all service personnel past and present, and remains to this day, one of the biggest cowardly acts in American political history.

On June 8, 1967, the USS Liberty, a naval technical research ship, sailing in international waters off the coast of Gaza on a bright clear day was savagely attacked by the Israeli Defense Force {IDF]. After surveilling the Liberty numerous times, the IDF bombed then strafed the deck with rockets and napalm. Torpedo boats followed the planes. They shot the life boats out of the water then fired 6 torpedoes in an obvious attempt to sink the vessel and leave no evidence of the assault. Five of the torpedoes missed, one struck midships killing 25 Americans instantly.

In all, 34 American sailors were killed, 172 others wounded, many seriously. No other ship in U.S. naval history suffered as many casualties from a single attack [from a supposedly ally].

An SOS reached the Sixth Fleet during the attack. Rear Admiral Lawrence Geis, in command of the fleet, scrambled jets to assist the Liberty but the planes were immediately called back by Washington. Geis protested that the Liberty was under attack and needed help. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s response was predictable but chilling. “President Johnson is not going to go to war or embarrass an American ally over a few sailors.”

A massive response was delivered to millions in Southeast Asia over a non event. Compare that to a non response and betrayal of U.S. dead and wounded navy personnel following a naked aggressive act of war by Israel.

There never was an investigation of the attack. There was an inquiry that lasted but a week. The survivors were sworn to secrecy to never speak of the incident, even to loved ones. Violations would result in court -martials, jail time and or dishonorable discharges. The media cover up, ordered by Johnson, was so effective that, to this day, relatively few Americans are aware of what happened that day.

AIPAC arguably, is the most powerful lobby in Washington. They literally control our foreign policy in the Middle East. Criticism of Israel, even if it is minor in nature, by a member of our political class is suicidal. Just ask former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

It is easily explained with this perspective, why Israel got away with murdering Americans on the Liberty and continue to murder Palestinians without fear of reprisal from the media, the president, any senator or congressperson in America.

The Gulf War

Amb. Glaspie before the Senate.

On July 25, 1990 U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met with Saddam Hussein. The meeting was primarily about Kuwait.

Glaspie - “We see that you have deployed massive amounts of troops in the south. Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s border?”

After Saddam explained there was an ongoing border dispute and that Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraq”s oil fields, and he hoped to resolve the dispute peacefully. If not he said.”Iraq would not accept death. What is your opinion on this?”

Glaspie - “We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker {James Baker] has directed me to emphasize the instruction in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.”

On August 2, just 8 days after getting the “green light” from Ambassador Glaspie, Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait. The Royal family and the Emir of Kuwait were able to escape to Saudi Arabia then began to call on the international community to respond. They also hired 25 public relations firms in the U.S. to drum up public support for what was to become Operation Desert Shield, aka the Gulf war.

One of the public relations firms hired by the Royal family of Kuwait was Hill & Knowlton, at the time, the biggest PR firm in the world. On October 10, 1990, the Royal family of Kuwait got what they paid for and then some.

The Congressional Human rights caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill that day. A 15 year old girl known only by her first name, Nayirah, [to allegedly protect her identity from a reprisal],

tearfully testified that she witnessed “Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, go into the room where babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die.” Her testimony went viral. This was the emotional war trigger that George H.W. Bush used to browbeat legislators that preferred sanctions to war.

What followed next was best described by Dr. Francis Boyle, a professor of international law at Illinois University. In a paper sent to a symposium held at the Albany Law School, Dr. Boyle documented war crimes that were committed during the Gulf War by numerous individuals. Below is a short list of the crimes attributed to George H.W. Bush, who he referred to in the paper as defendant Bush.

After giving the “green light’ to Saddam Hussein, defendant Bush caused the United Nations to bypass Chapter VI of the UN Charter that mandates specific settlements of international disputes
Defendant Bush rejected all attempts by Iraq for a negotiated settlement.
Defendant Bush ordered the destruction of facilities essential to human life
Defendant Bush targeted civilian facilities including business districts, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and bridges
The systematic bombing was ordered to begin on January 16, 1991 at 6:30 pm eastern time to be seen on prime time TV by the American public.
The bombing lasted for 42 days with no resistance from Iraq.
According to the Red Crescent Society as a direct result of the bombing, 113,000 civilians were killed, 60% of those being children.As for the Kuwaiti girl, Nayirah? Her testimony was a fraud. She took acting classes from Hill & Knowlton before delivering her tearful speech. She was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States.As for George H.W. Bush? After giving Saddam the “green light” to invade Kuwait, after using the false testimony of Nayirah to galvanize support for the war, after killing 113,000 Iraqis, after destroying much of Iraq’s infrastructure in violation of international law, was lauded in the press for using “restraint” for not sending troops into Baghdad.To put this into context, Bush Sr. on December 20, 1989, ordered an invasion of Panama to depose Manuel Noriega who wasn’t in Panama at the time. More property was destroyed and many more civilians were killed in Panama than in the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. For Bush’s obvious war crime, Washington was not bombed. In fact, after killing thousands of Panamanians and destroying an entire block of property in Panama City, George H.W. Bush was given a standing ovation by a joint session of Congress for announcing that Noriega was no longer the leader of Panama.Seems fair.

9/11 - Multiple Wars Afghanistan

We were told on day one, September 11, 2001, that Osama bin Laden was the mastermind and 19, mostly Saudi civilians, carried out the “attacks” at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville Pa. These claims were used to justify Operation Enduring Freedom, the invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001.

One might ask how do you justify an invasion of a sovereign country on baseless claims? There is no evidence in the public domain that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with 9/11. There is no evidence in the public domain that the accused “hijackers” ever boarded the planes.

Maybe someone with a higher pay grade than this author could explain to Americans and the world the real reason we invaded Afghanistan and why we are still there going on 17 years. Could it be to keep the opium trade flourishing? In 2000, the Taliban prohibited farmers from growing poppy for religious reasons. That ban is no longer in effect and hasn’t been for some time. Today Afghanistan is a major supplier of the world’s opium supply produced from the poppy fields and guarded by American soldiers. Then there is the oil and gas rich Caspian Basin and the pipeline through Afghanistan that has recently started construction. If this is why American soldiers are exposed to injury and death it would be nice for the parents of teenagers that join the military who want to serve their country, be informed by the recruiters why their son or daughter might come home in a flag draped coffin.

Iraq

This is a war that the Bush administration created out of thin air.

On Feb 24, 2001, then Secretary of State, Colin Powell said this about Saddam Hussein. “He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.”On May 15, 2001, Powell went further and said that “Saddam has not been able to build his military back up or develop weapons of mass destruction for the last 10 years. America has been successful in keeping him in a box.”

Two years later on Feb.5, 2003, Powell, in a speech to the UN to gain support from the Security Council for an invasion of Iraq, lied for an hour and a half and said the exact opposite.

National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice seconded Powell’s claim of a weak and defenseless Iraq telling e reporter from CNN on July 29, 2001 that, “Saddam Hussein does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.”

In September 2002, Rice was assigned to be a member of the White House Iraq Group [WHIG] whose sole purpose was to invent ways to gain support for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. From telling the world that Saddam was no threat in July 2001, she was quoted as saying in public appearances many times, speaking of Iraq, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be in the form of a mushroom cloud.” This was an obvious reference that Saddam from being defenseless, now had access to nuclear weapons.

On January 2008, Charles Lewis, the founder of the Center of Public Integrity, published a book titled 935 Lies: The future of Truth and the Decline of America’s Moral Integrity. The 935

lies, listed in the book, were the total lies told to the public to justify the Iraq war by members of the Bush administration.

The invasion of Iraq was a fraud on Iraq, the American public and the world. The loss of life, the destruction of families, homes turned to rubble, the refugee crisis, the dead and wounded American soldiers in a war created out of nothing, is unspeakable. It would never would have been supported by the American public but for the events of 9/11.

Syria

All one needs to know about the lies we have been told about the “civil’ war in Syria is to do a simple Google Search of a CIA operation code named Timber Sycamore. The goal was to fund and train radical jihadist groups including ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and anyone willing to fight in Syria to overturn the government of Bashar Al-Assad. Then in an email from Hillary Clinton to John Podesta dated 9/27/2014, exposed by Wikileaks, revealed that the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar were funding radical groups in the region including ISIS.

In other words the entire humanitarian crisis in Syria, the deaths, destroyed homes and families, the millions of displaced Syrians, lays at the feet of the United States and our close allies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Once again, this never would have been remotely acceptable to the American public but for the events of 9/11/2001.

Libya

The U.S. led NATO bombing and destruction of Libya is another unspeakable fraud resulting in a failed state currently overrun by radical jihadist groups. Responsibility for this can be laid at the feet of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Clinton bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, went straight to Obama and convinced him to intervene. NATO planes bombed Libya for 7 months, including the man made sub Saharan irrigation system that supplied Libya and other small countries with water in violation of international law.

Clinton’s motivation for intervention was revealed in an email titled “Libya Tick Tock.” This was essentially a brag sheet compiled by her staff listing all that she did to oust Gaddafi so she could claim credit for her toughness in the presidential debates. When it went wrong, and Libya became a failed state, she told reporters it was Obama’s decision.

It isn’t surprising that a report from the British government released on 9/14/2017 determined that the justification for bombing Libya was baseless.

As an aside, our good friends in Saudi Arabia are using American made bombs to blow up school buses in Yemen. And our good friends in Israel recently completed target practice murdering civilians trapped behind in an outdoor prison called Gaza. Where is the outrage?

September 11, 2001 - War, War and More War.

That the government lies America into war is not controversial. It happens as we have seen, time and time again.

So why aren’t we allowed to question, even mention the events of 9/11 which gave the government carte blanche to wage multiple phony wars? 9/11 is a topic that is off off limits to the establishment, the media and to most Americans. Why? It makes no sense.

We have a report, the 9/11 Commission report that was more of an inquiry, certainly not a criminal investigation of the events. In fact, one of the commissioners, a former Senator and decorated Vietnam veteran, Max Cleland, quit the Commission in protest calling the whole process “a scam” claiming that the “White House has played coverup.”

Even more astounding were the lead commissioners, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton who both publicly stated that “we were set up to fail.” Hamilton went further. “People should continue to ask questions about 9/11, the debate should continue.”

Is Max Cleland a conspiracy nut? Are the lead Commissioners who sat through the entire process and basically called the whole thing a farce, unpatriotic crazies?

For me personally, what follows is the main reason I got off the kool - aid express.

It takes a Marine private months of intense training to be fit enough and toughened to a point of being able to perform skillfully under duress in the most adverse conditions. The “hijackers” did not have any reported formal military training.

It takes almost two years of flight training and ground school instruction for an Air Force Academy cadet to earn wings to become a jet fighter pilot. The hijackers did not attend an “Air Force Academy.”

The minimum amount of flight time required to become a airline pilot is 1500 hours, AFTER, you have earned a private pilot’s license and gained enough experience to become a flight instructor. The only “hijacker” in possession of a private pilot’s license was Hani Hanjour who tried to rent a single engine Cessna in New Jersey and Maryland but was turned down in both places demonstrating “poor flying skills.” Yet we were told he flew Flight #77 in the Pentagon with the precision of a 30 year seasoned expert pilot without leaving a debris field? An action movie producer wouldn’t think any audience would buy into a scenario this absurd.

The government told us the following. Nineteen slightly built Arab males, with no known military training, almost no flight instruction apparently armed only with cardboard cutters, managed to board 4 jet liners without tickets or boarding passes and without being detected. They somehow forced 8 highly trained American pilots to give up their cockpit seats without a struggle, then flew jumbo jets expertly to their targets without assistance from the FAA. They managed to fly unchallenged for an hour and a half in the most heavily controlled and protected air space in the world. They outwitted, outsmarted and out maneuvered the entire military establishment of the most powerful country in the world, the United States of America. Are we supposed to believe that? Are all of the men and women in the service that pathetic? The government want us to believe that? I don’t.

Try to imagine this. You wake up one morning and hear on your radio that a jumbo jet has crashed into the side of the Kremlin on purpose. You turn on the TV and a reporter from Tass is standing with his back to the scene and tells the world that it doesn’t look like a crash site of a jumbo jet. The whole in the building doesn’t look big enough to accommodate a 757 and there are only small pieces of wreckage at the scene, small enough to pick up by hand. You see and hear all of this, it is obvious what the reporter is telling you.The very next day the Russian government says it was a Boeing 757 jumbo jet liner and that 5 slightly built average Americans, with little formal education, no military training, hardly any flight training hijacked the plane, flew it expertly for over an hour in Russian air space, unchallenged and crashed it into the side of the Kremlin. Even though the “debris field” that you witnessed yourself and heard described by the Tass reporter was non existent , they found a passport in pristine condition of one of the hijackers, an American, at the site as solid evidence to solidify their claim. This scenario of course is preposterous. No American would believe a word of it. Yet, if you substitute Arabs for Americans and leave out the passport evidence [which miraculously “survived” in one of the Twin Tower explosions, not at the Pentagon,] it is almost identical to what we were told. Below is a video to prove the point

An American reporter, Jamie McIntyre, from CNN with his back to the Pentagon minutes after the crash, live at the scene, faced the camera and said this. ”From my close up inspection there is no evidence of a plane crashing anywhere near the Pentagon. The only pieces left are small enough that you can pick them up in your hand. There are no large tail sections wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that.” As you watch the video you see what he sees, no evidence of a jet airliner crash. Yet the government said it was a jumbo jet so we are to disregard what we saw and heard?

The Pentagon is one of the most heavily protected buildings in the world. There is no existing video ever released to the public of a 757 crashing into the building on 9/11. Why?

The FBI confiscated all the security camera tapes of the businesses near the Pentagon after the crash. None have been released for the public to see. Why?

One month after 9/11 George Bush, in an address at the UN, felt compelled to say this. “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories, malicious lies that shift the blame from the terrorists themselves.” Is asking to see a tape of a jumbo jet crashing into the Pentagon a malicious request of a conspiracy theorist?

By questioning the government’s hypothesis of the events of 9/11 that ranges from highly improbable to a more likely impossible scenario gets you summarily dismissed and labeled with the weaponized conspiracy theorist pejorative?

I think the infamous Nazi of the Third Reich, Herman Goring, got it right when he said this at the Nuremberg Trials:

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country that determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Are the majority of Americans who accept the official story as gospel the very common people that Goring believes are so easily manipulated?

If so, I much prefer to be labeled a conspiracy nut.

Other Government Lies

The government lies constantly to support an agenda, to avoid embarrassment, to save face, whatever. Below are a few that were serious at the time but did not lead directly to war.

- Martin Luther Kings assassination.
- Pat Tillman’s heroic death
- Jessica Lynch’s heroism
- George Bush before the release of the Abu Ghraib pictures, “We don’t Torture.” - Anthrax letters - Bruce Ivins complicity

The murder of JFK, RFK and Malcom X could be added here but there is no smoking gun evidence of proof in the public domain of their murders, yet. As for JFK, there never has been a “magic bullet” fired from any weapon, anytime, used to murder anyone anywhere before or after JFK. The Warren Commission Report many believe, is as fraudulent as the 9/11 Commission Report.

The point here is that the government lies about most everything. So why is 9/11 sacrosanct, especially when there are so many holes in the official story?

9/11 NOT an Act of War

A criminal act was committed on 9/11. A democracy depends on the rule of law to protect its citizens. A seriously flawed “Commission” that places the entire blame on an old man with kidney failure and 19 amateurs with no evidence to support the claim does not pass the smell test. That every person in a position of authority was exonerated in the report is equally preposterous. I have no idea who is guilty of this crime. None of us do.

Independent criminal investigators need to do their job just as it happens every day in the U.S. after any crime is committed. If evidence is presented to a grand jury followed by arrests, jury trials and convictions, no matter who it is, so be it. Anyone found guilty needs to be punished so that a barbaric act like this never happens again. We deserve to know the truth. More importantly, so do our children, grandchildren and future generations. Americans should be given the opportunity to live in peace with their families. That luxury needs to extend to everyone everywhere. Our leaders need to focus on the myriad of problems here in America, stop lying us into illegal wars and leave the rest of the world alone.

NB - It is important to note that it is not the responsibility of those of us in the 9/11 Truth Movement to prove what happened on 9/11. That is the responsibility of the government. So far they have not done that. They haven’t come close. have they come close.

About the author

Geoffrey O'Neill, former Marine Officer, presently a humanist and proud member of AE 9/11 Truth. email address - goneill460@gmail.com.