The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Matt Allison]

 

Remember that Castro quote from long ago? "Leaders would be in danger if they helped in any attempt to do away with leaders" You have to figure that still applies.

https://www.axios.com/zelensky-assassination-plot-foiled-7bea049b-2308-4801-b75a-93104c17b82b.html

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

The weapons that are turning the Russian hunters into prey - analysis (msn.com)

 

Ron,

     I think Bruce Cockburn wrote If I had a Rocket Launcher while he was touring Guatemala and Nicaragua during the Reagan/Iran-Contra years.  He wrote a number of songs on that album about the Mott regime and the CIA/Contra war against the Sandanistas.

Edited March 2, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

I am puzzled that the Ukrainians appear so ill-equipped. But then Zelensky himself said the Russians were not going invade. 

When I say ill-equipped I do not mean with expensive high-tech weaponry necessarily.

The Afghanies and Iraqis used IEDs, and guys on motorcycles with RPGs to make occupation an expensive proposition. The US Marines have rid themselves of battle tanks as too vulnerable. 

Evidently, everyone knows where the Russian convoy is outside Kyiv. If the front of the convoy is knocked out, and blocks the road...then rest of the convoy become sitting ducks. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

     Highly informative discussion about Putin and the current Ukraine crisis by Russia expert and former Trump advisor, Dr. Fiona Hill.  It's a lengthy interview, but very much worth reading.

     In addition to discussing Western illusions about Putin, Hill explains that Putin told Donald Trump that he would use nukes, if necessary, if the U.S. and NATO interfered with his plans to re-establish the Russian empire.  Trump didn't seem to understand what Putin was saying.

     Among other subjects, Hill discusses the Chechen War, and Putin's history of readily using weapons like plutonium and Novichok to poison people-- as in the attacks on Litvinenko, Skripal, and Navalny.

‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340?utm_source=pocket-newtab

February 28, 2022

Excerpt

Reynolds: So, similar to Hitler, he’s using a sense of massive historical grievance combined with a veneer of protecting Russians and a dismissal of the rights of minorities and other nations to have independent countries in order to fuel territorial ambitions?

Hill: Correct. And he’s blaming others, for why this has happened, and getting us to blame ourselves.

If people look back to the history of World War II, there were an awful lot of people around Europe who became N-a-z-i German sympathizers before the invasion of Poland. In the United Kingdom, there was a whole host of British politicians who admired Hitler’s strength and his power, for doing what Great Powers do, before the horrors of the Blitz and the Holocaust finally penetrated.

Reynolds: And you see this now.

Hill: You totally see it. Unfortunately, we have politicians and public figures in the United States and around Europe who have embraced the idea that Russia was wronged by NATO and that Putin is a strong, powerful man and has the right to do what he’s doing: Because Ukraine is somehow not worthy of independence, because it’s either Russia’s historical lands or Ukrainians are Russians, or the Ukrainian leaders are — this is what Putin says — “drug addled, fascist Nazis” or whatever labels he wants to apply here.

So sadly, we are treading back through old historical patterns that we said that we would never permit to happen again.

Edited March 2, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

I wonder if anyone who uses the "Dr." title, aside from real physicians, is inevitably a quack. 

Hill is definitely part of the globalist-neocon set. 

"Fiona Hill (born October 1965) is a British-American foreign affairs specialist and academic. She is a former official at the U.S. National Security Council specializing in Russian and European affairs. She was a witness in the November 2019 House hearings regarding the impeachment inquiry during the first impeachment of Donald Trump. She was awarded her Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, and currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.[1][2"

---30---

"Beyond the impact of Trump's presidency, Hill also pointed to the Afghanistan withdrawal in terms of why Putin sees now as an opportune moment to challenge the West on Ukraine."----Business Insider

Oh, P.U. on steroids.

There may be good reasons an independent Ukraine. But citing George Bush jr. or Liz Cheney, or a Hill...well, makes me uneasy. 

These people always want war (from their armchairs). 

 

[Kirk Gallaway]

Ben, I actually agree with what Fiona Hill  wrote. Being able to agree with someone about a specific point and not agree with their macro view is sort of akin to me like walking and chewing gum.

Yes she was a witness against Trump in his impeachment trial, if you remember Trump was withholding arms funds to Ukraine in his exchange for Ukraine finding dirt on Joe Biden! ( I don't suppose there would be a conflict there with Putin?)

But since we're impugning sources. Ben, you've literally  told us 6-7 times that your big 3 journalistic influences were Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Aaron Mate.  Now that Matt Taibbi admits he was completely punk'd by his all consuming "deep state"that he completely was completely blinded to  the threat of Putin. Now I'd like to see Matt admit he was also punk'd by his deep state narrative to be blinded by the threat of Trump. Incidentally, I place you more in the latter category.

I'm wondering, since it was so long ago, were you in favor of GWB's War in Iraq?

Well Glenn Greenwald was. This is his quote. (excerpt)

I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president's performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

 

Fast forward to 2013, and Greenwald apparently didn't actually give the Bush administration the 'benefit of the doubt', 'trust and defer to them', or 'accept their judgement' that  the invasion of Iraq would have 'enhanced' US security. In a piece titled 'Frequently Told Lies', Greenwald penned a lengthy retort to a number of supposed myths told about him by progressives. Amazingly, he stated:

These claim [sic] are absolutely false. They come from a complete distortion of the Preface I wrote to my own 2006 book, How Would a Patriot Act?...

When the Iraq War was debated and then commenced, I was not a writer. I was not a journalist. I was not politically engaged or active. I never played any role in political debates or controversies. Unlike the countless beloved Democrats who actually did support the war - including Obama's Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I had no platform or role in politics of any kind.

I never once wrote in favor of the Iraq War or argued for it in any way, shape or form.Ask anyone who claims that I "supported" the Iraq War to point to a single instance where I ever supported or defended it in any way. There is no such instance. It's a pure fabrication.

So Greenwald didn't technically support the war because he wasn't yelling on MSNBC that America should trust George Bush, and you can't find written record of him saying it either. You see, Greenwald can't be painted with the same brush he paints everyone else who supported the war with, because was apathetic at the time and didn't have a blog.

******

https://thedailybanter.com/2013/04/glenn-greenwalds-hilarious-denial-about-his-support-for-iraq-war/

Greenwald: "I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush Administration?" Good lord!, it makes me want to puke! But what's also more  telling is his lying denial.

Ben Also for someone so down on the tech giant, which I can understand. Did you know of Glenn's staking by Ebay founder , Pierre Omydiyar?  I'm afraid it gets worse.

It is also quite right for journalists to question Greenwald on his ties to the libertarian movement.  Greenwald has taken money from the Koch funded CATO institute (for work related to ending the drugs war), supported the Citizens United ruling (making the incredibly dubious parallel between illegal wiretapping and preventing corporations from  exercising 'freedom of speech') , and has now gone into business with a notorious libertarian billionaire.

 

Guess what else?

"The truth is that Greenwald is, and always has been incredibly comfortable around the enormously wealthy. He began his career as a corporate lawyer defending the likes of Goldman Sachs and other Wall St investment banks, has been a business owner, and has shopped himself around as a journalist to the highest bidder. "

***

Ben: It's important to understand. This is what i mean when I say identifying the government as the source of all problems  (NSS, Deep State") you actually are denigrating the only potential recourse, (however remote it may seem)   we will ever have against the multi national  corporate state, and so you are playing right into the elite's hands, and you end up being a corporate shill. Just like Greenwald, though wittingly in his case.

The most cogent complaint you can have about the Government is that it is run by corporations.  Your area of focus always seems to be the NSS, Defense, which is good, but that's because it's as big of a corporate boondoggle as exists in government.

 

[Benjamin Cole]

45 minutes ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Ben, I actually agree with what Fiona Hill  wrote. Being able to agree with someone about a specific point and not agree with their macro view is sort of akin to me like walking and chewing gum.

Yes she was a witness against Trump in his impeachment trial, if you remember Trump was withholding arms funds to Ukraine in his exchange for Ukraine finding dirt on Joe Biden! ( I don't suppose there would be a conflict there with Putin?)

But since we're impugning sources. Ben, you've literally  told us 6-7 times that your big 3 journalistic influences were Glen Greenwald, Matt Taibbi and Aaron Mate.  Now that Matt Taibbi admits he was completely punk'd by his all consuming "deep state"that he completely was completely blinded to  the threat of Putin. Now I'd like to see Matt admit he was also punk'd by his deep state narrative to be blinded by the threat of Trump. Incidentally, I place you more in the latter category.

I'm wondering, since it was so long ago, were you in favor of GWB's War in Iraq?

Well Glenn Greenwald was. This is his quote. (excerpt)

I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush administration. Between the president's performance in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the swift removal of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the fact that I wanted the president to succeed, because my loyalty is to my country and he was the leader of my country, I still gave the administration the benefit of the doubt. I believed then that the president was entitled to have his national security judgment deferred to, and to the extent that I was able to develop a definitive view, I accepted his judgment that American security really would be enhanced by the invasion of this sovereign country.

 

Fast forward to 2013, and Greenwald apparently didn't actually give the Bush administration the 'benefit of the doubt', 'trust and defer to them', or 'accept their judgement' that  the invasion of Iraq would have 'enhanced' US security. In a piece titled 'Frequently Told Lies', Greenwald penned a lengthy retort to a number of supposed myths told about him by progressives. Amazingly, he stated:

These claim [sic] are absolutely false. They come from a complete distortion of the Preface I wrote to my own 2006 book, How Would a Patriot Act?...

When the Iraq War was debated and then commenced, I was not a writer. I was not a journalist. I was not politically engaged or active. I never played any role in political debates or controversies. Unlike the countless beloved Democrats who actually did support the war - including Obama's Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - I had no platform or role in politics of any kind.

I never once wrote in favor of the Iraq War or argued for it in any way, shape or form.Ask anyone who claims that I "supported" the Iraq War to point to a single instance where I ever supported or defended it in any way. There is no such instance. It's a pure fabrication.

So Greenwald didn't technically support the war because he wasn't yelling on MSNBC that America should trust George Bush, and you can't find written record of him saying it either. You see, Greenwald can't be painted with the same brush he paints everyone else who supported the war with, because was apathetic at the time and didn't have a blog.

******

https://thedailybanter.com/2013/04/glenn-greenwalds-hilarious-denial-about-his-support-for-iraq-war/

Greenwald: "I had not abandoned my trust in the Bush Administration?" Good lord!, it makes me want to puke! But what's also more  telling is his lying denial.

Ben Also for someone so down on the tech giant, which I can understand. Did you know of Glenn's staking by Ebay founder , Pierre Omydiyar?  I'm afraid it gets worse.

It is also quite right for journalists to question Greenwald on his ties to the libertarian movement.  Greenwald has taken money from the Koch funded CATO institute (for work related to ending the drugs war), supported the Citizens United ruling (making the incredibly dubious parallel between illegal wiretapping and preventing corporations from  exercising 'freedom of speech') , and has now gone into business with a notorious libertarian billionaire.

 

Guess what else?

"The truth is that Greenwald is, and always has been incredibly comfortable around the enormously wealthy. He began his career as a corporate lawyer defending the likes of Goldman Sachs and other Wall St investment banks, has been a business owner, and has shopped himself around as a journalist to the highest bidder. "

***

Ben: It's important to understand. This is what i mean when I say identifying the government as the source of all problems  (NSS, Deep State") you actually are denigrating the only potential recourse, (however remote it may seem)   we will ever have against the multi national  corporate state, and so you are playing right into the elite's hands, and you end up being a corporate shill. Just like Greenwald, though wittingly in his case.

The most cogent complaint you can have about the Government is that it is run by corporations.  Your area of focus always seems to be the NSS, Defense, which is good, but that's because it's as big of a corporate boondoggle as exists in government.

 

Kirk--

My goodness, that is quite a brief you have written.

Yes, some of my heroes have made mistakes.  At least they admit it. 

The only recent lesson (since WWII, or possibly S Korea) seems to be every time DC globalists spell out seemingly good reasons for the US to send troops somewhere, it turns out to be poison. 

So yeah, now when Dr. Hill blahs-blahs...she is a mouthpiece for the corporatist global security state. 

Ukraine looks bad. Putin is a thug.  I hope his troops decide to go home. 

 

[W. Niederhut]

13 hours ago, W. Niederhut said:

     Highly informative discussion about Putin and the current Ukraine crisis by Russia expert and former Trump advisor, Dr. Fiona Hill.  It's a lengthy interview, but very much worth reading.

     In addition to discussing Western illusions about Putin, Hill explains that Putin told Donald Trump that he would use nukes, if necessary, if the U.S. and NATO interfered with his plans to re-establish the Russian empire.  Trump didn't seem to understand what Putin was saying.

     Among other subjects, Hill discusses the Chechen War, and Putin's history of readily using weapons like plutonium and Novichok to poison people-- as in the attacks on Litvinenko, Skripal, and Navalny.

‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/02/28/world-war-iii-already-there-00012340?utm_source=pocket-newtab

February 28, 2022

 

It can't be said any more clearly and precisely than Dr. Fiona Hill says it here.

But, as usual on this thread, the important signal is obscured by noisy non-sequiturs.

Part of Ben's problem is that he never seems to discern the difference between informed scholars and noisy, marginally-educated pundits.

Edited March 2, 2022 by W. Niederhut

[Kirk Gallaway]

8 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Kirk--

My goodness, that is quite a brief you have written.

Yes, some of my heroes have made mistakes.  At least they admit it. 

The only recent lesson (since WWII, or possibly S Korea) seems to be every time DC globalists spell out seemingly good reasons for the US to send troops somewhere, it turns out to be poison. 

So yeah, now when Dr. Hill blahs-blahs...she is a mouthpiece for the corporatist global security state. 

Ukraine looks bad. Putin is a thug.  I hope his troops decide to go home. 

 

Ben: that is quite a brief you have written.

No, most of it is excerpts from the article.

Ben:Yes, some of my heroes have made mistakes.  At least they admit it. 

Your only hero we're talking about is Glenn Greenwald. That's the central point, unlike Taibbi,  he didn't admit it! I can't imagine a more bs excuse for endorsing the Iraq War, he wasn't into politics at the time?  But moreover, he's not particularly tolerant for a guy with such dirty affiliations.

Ben: DC globalists spell out seemingly good reasons for the US to send troops somewhere, it turns out to be poison. 

I agree, she didn't advocate removing our 5000 troops from Afghanistan, but neither did Obama or Trump. But technically I would say she will probably not be an advocate for sending  boots on the ground in Ukraine.We'll see.

Ben: She is a mouthpiece for the corporatist global security state. 

I would say she's for the global security state and Glenn, corporate lawyer, defending Goldman-Sachs, who takes  money from the Koch's and Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar, and is an advocate for Citizens United, is a corporate shill. He does do good things for open government, but is deceptive about his own affiliations.

Ben: Ukraine looks bad. Putin is a thug.  I hope his troops decide to go home. 

That's the one sentence I completely agree with. I've been vainly hoping this doesn't get to the point of no return. But it looks like we're going to CWll !

Edited March 2, 2022 by Kirk Gallaway

[Steve Thomas]

Former President Trump is blowing the launch of his new social media company, via a series of unforced errors.

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-pro-rata-5596a60d-ff76-4e2b-910a-d872ac69c0eb.html

 

- Quoted from the article -

 

“The big pictue: Truth Social spent much of February in private beta with invited users, saying its public unveil would be Feb. 21 (President's Day, natch).

But the vast majority of people downloading the app, me included, were given a waitlist number. Nine days later, most of us remain on that waitlist, with our number unchanged and without a word of communication from the company. A waitlist "refresh" icon doesn't work.

Trump's role: The former president is Truth Social's founder and chairman, so he obviously bears some responsibility for putting together the team that's so far fallen on its face. But, most importantly, he's not using the app.

• Trump hasn't posted a single time since the launch, despite an international crisis that has captivated the country. Instead, he's given his comments to radio and TV hosts — including one this morning with Dominion conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo — plus via his CPAC speech.

Why it matters: The SPAC that agreed to take Truth Social public is valued at over $3.5 billion. At some point, investors will begin paying attention.

The bottom line: The SPAC's investment thesis seems to be that a large percentage of Trump's 88 million Twitter followers will migrate over to Truth Social. But nearly two weeks after launch, his dormant account has fewer than 80,000 followers. And Trump himself is largely to blame.”

Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

The 141 countries that voted to condemn Russia at the U.N. General Assembly:

 

Steve Thomas

Edited December 26, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Jeff Carter]

Fiona Hill is a careerist shill. Her experience with Russia is limited to a student exchange trip in the late 1980s. She is a product of the academic/think tank treadmill, and is rewarded with flattery for her mediocre and ill-informed opinions. The people who actually know what they are talking about have all been marginalized and weaned from the system long ago.

NATO expansion is the root of this crisis, and a looming conflict over it has been known and discussed at high levels for three decades. It is clear that policy makers and narrative shapers in the west prefer a “madman” storyline rather than deal with material reality. Russia’s position was clearly articulated back in 2007-2008. US ambassador to Russia at the time, William Burns, spelled it out in a memorandum prepared for the highest levels of the national security bureaucracy in February 2008:

https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html

Six years later, the U.S. facilitated a coup in Ukraine designed to deliberately cross all of Russia’s red lines. This coup was shepherded by Victoria Nuland, a neo-conservative apparatchik. Nuland was the principal deputy foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney through the first three years of the Iraq War (2003-2005), then served as US ambassador to NATO (2005-2008), and then entered the State Department concentrating on European affairs. Nuland’s avowed positions on Russian “aggression” and “expansionism” rely entirely on pretending that high level discussions and concerns regarding NATO either never happened or were not important.

The way out of the crisis that Nuland and the neoconservatives created in 2014 was to walk back the coup. Instead, the Obama administration endorsed it. The way out of the crisis in 2015 was to follow through with the UNSC approved Minsk Accords, but nothing was done.

Now there is a major and very serious international crisis, and the response of the western leadership has been to crash the global economy, apparently in the interest of recreating a bifurcated Cold War system and a return to a “with us or against us” global posture. This will eventually serve only to isolate precisely us - the west. We are in for major financial shocks amidst escalating restrictions in the flow of information and international travel / trade.

[Kirk Gallaway]

27 minutes ago, Steve Thomas said:

Former President Trump is blowing the launch of his new social media company, via a series of unforced errors.

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-pro-rata-5596a60d-ff76-4e2b-910a-d872ac69c0eb.html

 

- Quoted from the article -

 

“The big pictue: Truth Social spent much of February in private beta with invited users, saying its public unveil would be Feb. 21 (President's Day, natch).

But the vast majority of people downloading the app, me included, were given a waitlist number. Nine days later, most of us remain on that waitlist, with our number unchanged and without a word of communication from the company. A waitlist "refresh" icon doesn't work.

Trump's role: The former president is Truth Social's founder and chairman, so he obviously bears some responsibility for putting together the team that's so far fallen on its face. But, most importantly, he's not using the app.

• Trump hasn't posted a single time since the launch, despite an international crisis that has captivated the country. Instead, he's given his comments to radio and TV hosts — including one this morning with Dominion conspiracy theorist Maria Bartiromo — plus via his CPAC speech.

Why it matters: The SPAC that agreed to take Truth Social public is valued at over $3.5 billion. At some point, investors will begin paying attention.

The bottom line: The SPAC's investment thesis seems to be that a large percentage of Trump's 88 million Twitter followers will migrate over to Truth Social. But nearly two weeks after launch, his dormant account has fewer than 80,000 followers. And Trump himself is largely to blame.”

Steve Thomas

Steve concerning Trump's new social media company. It's being funded by a Fugitive Chinese billionaire Geng Wengui, associate of Steve Banon. I wonder if it was his yacht they busted Banon on. But i suppose Banon may have many Chinese billionaire friends.

Trump world app is bankrolled by fugitive Chinese Billionaire

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumpworld-app-is-bankrolled-by-fugitive-chinese-billionaire

 

[W. Niederhut]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

Fiona Hill is a careerist shill. Her experience with Russia is limited to a student exchange trip in the late 1980s. She is a product of the academic/think tank treadmill, and is rewarded with flattery for her mediocre and ill-informed opinions.

Jeff,

     You have posted a lot of absurd bunk on this forum during the past five years, but this utterly erroneous comment about Dr. Fiona Hill really takes the proverbial cake.

      Is RT paying you with Bitcoin this month?

     I urge people interested in understanding Putin and the Ukraine crisis to read Dr. Fiona Hill's erudite, informed analysis (above) to judge its merits for themselves.

[Matt Allison]

Aren't you glad Jeff is here to shill for a guy that indiscriminately bombs apartment buildings, hospitals, and schools?

WTF man. Fix yourself.