Jeff Carter

In my opinion, the continuity of neoconservative apparatchiks running U.S. foreign policy across both Republican and Democratic administrations points to the existence of a "Deep State".

Kotkin’s “debunking” of Mearshiemer and the “Realists” in general consisted of little more than the assertion that Putin, in particular, and Russians, in general, are ruled by a flawed genetic structure which makes them inherently aggressive and unreasonable. This is the sort of essentialist racialist nonsense which has been rightfullly condemned by all humanist thinkers since at least the end of WW2 as not only absent of any quantifiable measurement but also representative of abhorrent genocidal policies. In the case of Russia / Russians, it is a view identified with the U.S. neoconservatives - who are entirely responsible for America’s Ukraine policy. That this type of thinking would be endorsed on this forum by self-described “progressive Democrats” is appalling and yet oddly just part of the times we live in. The neoconservatives have never been correct in analysis or prediction. Their policies have always led to carnage and disaster. Compare the year 2003 with 2022 and the names “Saddam” and “Putin” could be interchangeable in context of the presumed psychological projections.

As a sovereign nation, Cuba had the “right” to choose its alliances and maintain its national security in a manner of its choosing. The Americans, for their part, argued that the stationing of missiles in Cuba created a uniquely insecure situation for U.S. national security and therefore represented an unacceptable red-line. The Kennedy administration was correct in their reasoning, I believe, but it is interesting how the concept of regional mutual security - the “solution” in 1962 - has been rejected out of hand in Ukraine by NATO. The diplomatic off-ramp has been in place as a UNSC resolution since 2015. Very smart persons warned decades ago that the war which is happening now was inevitable if NATO moved into this area. The reasoning justifying this disastrous policy is actually a repudiation of the concepts espoused by the Kennedy administration in 1962.

U.S. foreign policy advice for Ukraine and Eastern Europe region are clearly separated into a Realist position ( for example: Mearshiemer, Cohen, Burns, Kennan) and a Neoconservative position (most hawkish think tanks), with the neoconservative position mostly ascendant (and responsible for events of 2014). The Realist position - best articulated by the Burns memo from 2008 (published by Wikileaks) - holds that NATO expansion into the eastern regions of Europe was a gross foreign policy error which would eventually be contested kinetically by the Russians. The neoconservative position is that Putin, if not all Russians in general, is genetically disposed to aggression and conflict and therefore must be contained by military strength and eventually entirely defeated. The Biden administration has aligned with the neoconservative position, signalled by the return of Nuland to the State Dept. Following this realignment, the government of Ukraine announced its final rejection of the UNSC-endorsed Minsk Accords, which sought to federalize but keep intact the country, and also announced plans to reclaim all “separatist” territory by use of arms. This was supplemented with a general mobilization of troops near the Donbas region. In the late autumn of last year, the US State Department worked with Yellen’s Treasury Dept to outline a series of financial sanctions and other penalties designed to effectively ruin the Russian Federation in the event it supported the “separatist” regions slated for attack. Those penalties have so far failed to achieve the stated goal, which leaves the neoconservative faction to advocate greater military pressure, which, with news from Russia today, stands a real chance of creating an escalation logic which could get seriously out of hand. Objectively, the Realist position is supported by the documentary record and the unfolding of events exactly as predicted years earlier. The neoconservative position is ideological, has no record of accurate predictions, and ultimately advocates total war. That last week Russia received tacit backing for its referendum plan from both China and India - the two most populous nations on our planet - underlines that the neoconservative positions of the US and EU partners in Ukraine region have little support in the rest of the world.

You’ve got to be kidding. Kotkin’s “explicit disagreement” amounts to determining: - internal processes within Russia are responsible for historic patterns of autocracy, internal repression, militarism, and xenophobia. These processes and patterns are eternal and endemic to the Russian nation-state. It is therefore NATO’s responsibility to “deal” with Russia - to defeat it through war, followed by the dismemberment of the Russian nation-state and the dissolution of its “internal processes”. That is some seriously unhinged craziness. Why would you repost this? Surely you do not endorse this counter-factual madness? Is it not a historic fact that the Western European countries invaded Russia numerous times? (I.e. Napoleon, England’s Crimean adventure, the Nazis…) I will contrast that war-mongering loopiness with the extremely rational analysis by the US Ambassador to Russia William Burns writing in February 2008, which underscores the basic correctness of Realists in the Mearshimer-Kennan mold: "NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene." https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

Using an anti-communist mind-set, one could suppose the coup and subsequent massacres of suspected leftists in Indonesia 1965 was a success. The ensuing strict codification of laissez-faire “free-market” economics in Indonesia provides a counter-point to Vietnam’s experience of public ownership and regulation. In direct comparison, Vietnam’s metrics in living standards, life expectancy, social development, physical infrastructure, and general quality of life far exceed that found in Indonesia. Ask any traveller who has been to both Hanoi and Jakarta.

It’s almost two years since the last U.S. federal election and Trump remains the number one topic of conversation and public hysterics. How could this be? I would wager that no American public figure has ever faced such vast cascades of flung mud: major accusations of malign foreign influence, major accusations of election chicanery, major accusations of financial impropriety, two impeachments, continual federal and state level investigation… all amplified to level 10 by an endless parade of hostile political, bureaucratic, and especially media mouthpieces. It looks from the outside that a pertinent motivating issue is that Trump, unbelievably, remains a potent political force and all the flung mud only makes his supporters dig in deeper rather than abandon the cause. How could this be? Why do Trump’s political opponents continue to fling mud when it has been an ineffective if not counter-productive strategy? The first inklings of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane file, directed at the Trump campaign beginning August 2016, began to creep into the light in late 2017, notably in several prescient articles by the late Robert Parry. Although the direct mechanics of this program are not yet publicly known, it has been established that the Clinton campaign, and possibly the Obama White House, worked with partisan assets in the FBI and DOJ to disrupt the Trump campaign, including planting stories alleging untoward influence by an adversary government. The brief Sussmann hearing a few months ago effectively confirmed that program. Trump filed a lawsuit last March directed at persons affiliated with Crossfire Hurricane (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157/gov.uscourts.flsd.610157.1.0.pdf). What Trump’s supporters are saying is that the documents stashed at Mar-A-Lago were all relevant to the Crossfire Hurricane file, and were declassified by Trump via legal executive decisions - which is why the affidavit had to rely on the Espionage Act. They are saying that the FBI office responsible for the document raid is the same office that ran the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. If this becomes confirmed, it seems the massive partisan divide will be ever more entrenched and the political warfare ever more intensified. When word started in late 2017 that the Trump campaign had been placed under FISA surveillance via a sketchy predicate during the 2016 campaign, it appeared as potentially one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. It may yet achieve such status. It appears to have occurred in a milieu whereby Clinton was assured the presidency and so these machinations would never come to light. The decision to publish, in early 2017, the Intelligence Community assessment of malign foreign influence appears to have been part of an effort to upend Trump early in his term - as publicly acknowledged by John McCain - also confident of success. It was not successful, and served to ultimately reveal Crossfire Hurricane and the massive mess caused by all of this continues to paralyze U.S. politics present and future. Disclaimer: I do not admire Trump, support his policies, or even really care or fixate on him. One has to follow the facts, wherever they lead. Trump should have been easily handled politically, not through skullduggery. It’s really late Roman Empire stuff going on.

The pan back into the Plaza has always seemed to me as representing a revelation of the black hole which had just been punched open in the 20th Century. Maybe reading too much into it, but it is an astonishing shot in amateur filmmaking. It really does look like the umbrella man and the dark-complected man are conversing.

Abe would be fairly described as a “nationalist”. He will probably be remembered most for the effort to overturn the “pacifist” clauses in Japan’s post-WW2 constitution to allow offensive capability to Japan’s military. While this was done in concert with the Americans - to focus military pressure on China - Abe was not fully committed to the “international rules-based order” to the extent his predecessor has become, as he also sought to arrive at friendly understandings with Russia, and perhaps see through the yet to be negotiated peace treaty left over from WW2. Abe’s military officer grandfather participated in war crimes during WW2, and Abe made a controversial visit to a shrine venerating Japan’s military leadership from that era. This was in line with numerous rehabilitations of far right figures and organizations from WW2, kicked off by Reagan’s visit to Bitburg in the 1980s. The “certain organization” which may have motivated the assassin is the Moonies - the Unification Church.

It was found that Manafort breached his plea deal on five counts - three concerning the failure to register as lobbyist/tax fraud, one about communication with someone from Trump’s administration, and one concerning “interactions and communications with Kilimnik”. which, on background, appears to relate to the August 2016 meeting cited by Weissman where the men discussed “Ukraine policy”. Reading between the lines, it appears Manafort did not live up to an expected quid pro quo regarding his plea deal and so Mueller threw the book at him - as can be determined by the harsh non-objective language which appears in the subsequent sentencing report. Agents of the US federal government, as the details of the Mueller indictments make clear, had extensive access to the contents of electronic messages and phone communications of all persons swept up in the Russiagate investigations. In light of that, to claim that an individual like Manafort could “stonewall” the investigation by not revealing information is just stupid. It would require a mafia-like level of secrecy and care which clearly Manafort was not capable of, as the evidence of his failure to register as a lobbyist as well as the tax fraud was readily abundant. The 2016 Republican platform’s position on Ukraine was generated by Bannon and others connected to him, and this was not a secret. Their position - stated publicly - was the foreign policy of the U.S. was better served by a rapprochement with Russia so that both countries could join together in directing hostility towards China.

Manafort was a grifter and influence peddler who relocated his political consultancy business to Ukraine in hopes of gaining lucrative contracts in the milieu of the corrupt and extremely wealthy oligarchs who ran the country. The business was in fact very successful. One of the Manafort consultancy’s main clients was Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions. Yanukovych is best known in the west as being the deposed President during the Ukraine 2014 coup. Various lazy journalists label Yanukovych as a “puppet” of Putin or the Russian Federation, based for the most part on his rejection in 2013 of an EU Association deal which sparked the protests which eventually brought him down. The lazy journalists also apply that moniker to Manafort, due to his consultancy work for Yanukovych, without knowing or understanding that Manafort’s advice was consistently in favour of the EU deal - the opposite of Russian preference. Manafort’s indictment in 2018 was based on failure to register as a foreign lobbyist and tax evasion. In February 2019, Special Counsel lawyer Andrew Weissman made a public statement that the investigation was examining suspicions about Manafort and his long-time business partner Kilimnik. Weissman stated that suspicions were generated due to an August 2016 meeting between the two men during which “Ukraine policy” was discussed. Weissman said: “This goes, I think, very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating… There is an in-person meeting at an unusual time for somebody who is the campaign chairman to be spending time, and to be doing it in person." But the decade-old business partnership between Manafort and Kilimnik was based in Ukraine, directly involved “Ukraine policy”, and Manafort was attempting to build a new client base after Yanukovych’s exile. Why then is this meeting unusual? CNN reported: “At one point, the prosecutor acknowledges that Manafort may have been playing for a pardon. He acknowledges that while Manafort was lying, he had multiple motivations…” - i.e. Manafort was a grifter and an influence peddler. The polling data conspiracy theory is entirely speculative and does not survive even cursory analysis. And yet it has become the "last stand" for the true believers. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/politics/paul-manafort-hearing-kilimnik/index.html

Franklin Foer’s Atlantic article essentially concedes that the Kilimnik “theory” is not only an evidence-free speculation, but investigators could not even articulate what they think may have happened. That Manafort and Kilimnik “spoke” during the 2016 campaign is repeatedly dangled as some sort of mysterious unprecedented event, but the rarely noted obvious fact is that the two men were close business partners for a decade and spoke pretty much every single day for all that time. And that Kilimnik was a trusted informant for US State Dept officials attached to the US Embassy in Kiev, and had been for years. And prior to joining Manafort, Kliminik was employed by the NED-financed International Republican Institute in Moscow for a decade as well. Foer describes Kilimnik’s relationship with Manafort as a massive political scandal, but never refers to his ties to US State or intelligence-linked IRI? What kind of journalism is that? Rick Gates, who was a cooperative witness to Mueller and the third leg of the Manafort office, has consistently stated that the alleged Kilimnik-GRU ties are nonsense, and that the “polling data” was nothing more than what was routinely published in US mainstream media. Again, that never figures in the breathless speculation or supposedly "objective" journalism.

Fletcher Prouty’s informed opinion holds the Establishment position as: Kennedy must not win a second term in 1964. And that the process of Kennedy’s demise was similar to the 12th century murder of Thomas Beckett after Henry II surmised - “who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”

Meanwhile, with the extradition now approved, Garland's Justice Department is preparing to lock Julian Assange away in a SuperMax prison for 175 years for the crime of publishing investigative journalism exposing the perpetration of war crimes. Garland's Justice Department lawyers were successful last year reversing an appeal based on downplaying Assange's suicide risk. Upon the extradition announcement, Assange was apparently stripped naked and placed in an entirely empty cell because of his suicide risk. This continues to be one of the ugliest chapters in the history of U.S./UK "justice".

This post is almost entirely conjecture. An assumption that Walthers was simply mistaken faces three hurdles: 1) Walthers was a trained police officer. 2) The report was written within hours of being at the Paine home. 3) The “Cuban sympathizers” description expresses specific detail. Liebeler failed to ask the most pertinent question: Why did you (Walthers) write that sentence in your report? Assumptions or speculations are not enough to fill that gap. The Warren Commission failed to resolve the issue. Liebeler instead creates an inference, without ever referring to the relevant report or even acknowledging its existence. That is a “red flag”.

The only “report” is the Supplementary Investigation Report, written by Walthers and dated November 22, 1963. The other so-called “evidence”, in context of Walthers’ description of “names and activities of Cuban sympathizers”, is, at best, an inference made by Warren Commission attorney Liebeler. The Commission had clearly noted Walthers’ description, as seen in the Rumours and Speculation section of the WR, but Liebeler notably failed to directly address this issue when he had Walthers before him. In fact, neither Liebeler or the Rumours and Speculation segment of the WR identify or refer to Walthers’ Report, despite it being the primary document on this matter. This failure, combined with the Commission’s careful language identifying “seven” boxes, indicates a deliberate process of making an inconvenient data point disappear. Pleadings that Walthers’ original Report had been superseded by other “evidence” appears as little more than partisan spin.

Warren Report p 666 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=690 Speculation - After Oswald’s arrest, the police found in his room seven metal files boxes filled with the names of Castro sympathizers. Commission finding - The Dallas police inventories of Oswald’s property taken from his room at 1026 North Beckley Avenue do not include any file boxes. A number of small file boxes listed in the inventory as having been taken from the Paine residence in Irving contained letters, pictures, books and literature, most of which belonged to Ruth Paine, not to Oswald. No lists of names of Castro sympathizers were found among these effects (f.124) The footnote references an inventory list and Walthers’ testimony to Liebeler. What does not appear in the footnote, or Liebeler’s questioning, is the actual Supplementary Police Report dated 11/22/63, written by Walthers, which is the precise source of the so-called “speculation”. The omission of a reference to the actual police report is a red flag, as is the incorrect attribution to the rooming house, as is the inclusion of the number “seven” in the Warren Report’s description of the supposed “speculation” as that number nowhere appears in Walthers’ Supplementary Report.

Walthers’ testimony is notably imprecise on this matter. It was Liebeler’s job to ensure precision, especially as this matter would later appear as a numbered item in the Rumours and Speculation segment of the Warren Report. Liebeler does not refer to the relevant police report, which is the primary document of concern. He instead refers to a vague “story” which he received second-hand from an unnamed source. Further, if one is to rely on Liebeler’s imprecision, it appears the unknown source of Liebeler’s referred story is also the source of the claim that Walthers in fact can’t “remember seeing any of them” - a suggestion to which Walthers in turn offers an equally vague “that could have been one” (one what?) “but I didn’t see it” (see what?). This is second-hand hearsay. On top of this, the Warren Report’s brief discussion falsely attributes the file cabinet to Oswald’s rooming house. The police report - an official document in the record, written by Walthers - refers to items found at the house jointly owned by Ruth and Michael Paine, which justifies the wording of the inquiries which have you so inflamed.

Walthers’ testimony never directly addresses the claim in his 11/22/63 Report, and most relevant he never says he was “mistaken”. The inference is created by Liebeler. There are corresponding data points to the idea of surveillance activity: 1) Michael Paine at Luby’s 2) Ruth Paine later in Nicaragua. This is simply investigative journalism or reporting. The types of questions you have reacted to are asked on programs like 60 Minutes all the time. Ruth Paine is given a platform to respond, and she does and her response appears in the film. You are the one who started the thread with terms such as: “irresponsible”, “shameful smear”, “utterly baseless”, and “malicious”.

Your argument relies on stripping Michael Paine's name from the quotes you use, which creates a stricter allegation , at least in your formulation, than what is in fact being inferred.

There is a difference between saying “Ruth Paine surveilled Cuban sympathizers” versus “Ruth Paine surveilled the American left”. Your complaint alleges the film proposes the former construct, but this is not supported by the pertinent excerpts provided. That is, an “allegation that Ruth Paine did surveillance on Castro sympathizers” is your wording and your construct. According to the excerpts, the film states that file boxes with information on ‘Cuban sympathizers” was found in the Paine garage in the immediate aftermath of the assassination. There is a document in the official record which says that. The film states that Ruth Paine was observed “taking notes” while interacting years later with “Nicaraguan sympathizers”. That seems to be the case, and this information was published back in the 1990s. According to the excerpts, in the film Ruth Paine is given the space to dismiss this information and she does so. A “smear” is an attempt to “damage the reputation of (someone) by false accusations.” The presumed accusations here have long been in the record, and might be considered disputed or controversial - but they are not “false”.

But the indictment and political controversy are not about the corrupt nature of the Alfa Bank, it concerns the efforts orchestrated by representatives of the Clinton campaign to suggest direct clandestine communications - “a secret communications channel” - between the Trump organization and this particular bank. “In particular, and among other things, the FBI’s investigation revealed that the email server at issue was not owned or operated by the Trump Organization but, rather, had been administered by a mass marketing email company that sent advertisements for Trump hotels and hundreds of other clients.” The indictment reveals the Clinton campaign representatives were aware at all times of the flimsy if not entirely absent factual basis of their claim, and disregarded warnings by the very researchers they were relying on that even a cursory investigation into the allegation would expose the fundamentally weak foundations on which it rested. This information is being assiduously spun by partisan “journalists” in an effort to continue to bamboozle a targeted audience which includes, it appears, Matt and W Niederhut. I would suggest that dishonest communication strategies is one area where the GOP and Democrats are in fact the same.

The Kevin Drum piece is also extremely poor journalism, on top of the weak partisan talking points recycled endlessly by certain frequent contributors on this thread. The “debunking” of the Sussman case has never referred to the actual Indictment - which is easily available. The Indictment contains the primary information, including the timeline of events and the stated intentions of the various players. It is clear this was an operation by the Clinton campaign to deliberately “stovepipe” incorrect and misleading information into the news cycle. To say the Clinton campaign “merely passed along some information they hoped was worth checking out” is a ridiculous parsing of the available information. And this goes for the work of Mueller’s deputy Weissman as well - who on several occasions publicly promoted obviously false interpretations of the documented record, and is continuing to do so apparently. https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/politics/read-sussmann-indictment/index.html As Ben observes, the persons located in the Russiagate geography were largely grifters and influence peddlers, yet their words and activities were nearly always portrayed literally by the investigators and MSM - certain to produce a false consciousness and confuse the ability of the general public to stay informed.

Historically, political reform in the United States has occurred only through the pressure and agency of mass political movements outside the two-Party structure (i.e. 8 hr workday, women’s right to vote, New Deal, etc). Otherwise, the logic and tendency runs to versions of lesser-evilism - which both major Parties are invested in.

It is a curious anomaly. The media persons are reading from wire service printouts. So this has been fed into the reporting cycle from an official source. The dead agent is said to be some distance away from the motorcade. The story appears very early in the afternoon, then is dropped. It could be said the dead agent then morphs into the dead police officer. Vince - did this story originate with the Secret Service or did the Service have any involvement with the dissemination of this story?