by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog
On June 26th, U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox Business News that, as the Washington Post immediately headlined it, “War with Iran Would Not Involve Ground Troops and Would Not Last Long”. He said: “I’m not talking boots on the ground. … I’m just saying if something would happen, it wouldn’t last very long.” However, even if his planned surgical missile-strikes against Iran’s non-existent facilities for manufacturing nuclear warheads ‘succeeds’, how is it even possible for anyone to be able to know that none of the blowback from the invasion of Iran by the United States would require placing U.S. boots-on-the-ground in Iran, and that none of the blowback would entail Iranian-and-allied retaliatory missile-strikes against, for example, water-purification facilities in the extremely arid lands of Trump’s friends, Israel and Saudi Arabia — and maybe even against U.S. air bases and other military facilities in the region? Of course, the answer is: There is no way for anyone to know that, and anyone who would trust Trump’s words to the contrary would be taking them on pure faith, just as religious believers believe the Bible, the Quran, or any other allegedly sacred Scripture. Maybe Trump knew that this is so and was merely talking to his base, the people who do still trust him, but a recent event excludes such mere lying, and can be explained only by his being, actually, stupid:
One of the most important and highest quality news-reports to have appeared in the New York Times was by Peter Baker, Maggie Haberman and Thomas Gibbons-Neff on June 21st, and was titled “Urged to Launch an Attack, Trump Listened to the Skeptics Who Said It Would Be a Costly Mistake”. It reported that Trump had called-off the planned June 20th missile-attack against Iran at the last moment because he had asked his advisors how many Iranians would be killed in it and was told that 150 would be, and because he considered that number of Iranian corpses to be too high, and so he called it off. This same day, Trump himself tweeted that those 150 Iranians were the reason why he had called off the invasion. In other words, even according to his own account (which he since has repeated many times), he totally ignored the millions of people that could very possibly be killed from the general conflagration in the Middle East and elsewhere, which would likely result from America’s invasion upon sovereign Iranian territory. It’s stunningly short-sighted, but he is the person who is presenting himself this way. Maybe he’s not even intelligent enough to recognize that he is there confessing himself to be stupid. If he really doesn’t recognize it, then he’s an idiot, because that would be sub-stupid: below merely stupid.
Though Iran has no military assets which could threaten the United States, it does have sufficient military assets to defeat one of America’s two allies who are urging the U.S. to invade Iran: Saudi Arabia. And it also possesses sufficient military assets to wreck another U.S. ally who is urging the U.S. to invade Iran: Israel. Though it does not possess sufficient military assets to defeat Israel, because Israel is nuclear-armed and Iran isn’t, Iranians are fiercely opposed to imperialism and a great many of them would rather die than be conquered — especially if they are being conquered by invaders who aren’t even Muslims. Furthermore, stirring the hatreds that almost all of Israel’s Jews feel toward Muslims, and also the hatreds that almost all of Iran’s Muslims feel toward Israel, would make impossible for any stooge whom either the U.S. or Israel would try to impose upon Iran to rule there; and, consequently, any government that would be imposed by either of them would fail and ultimately become overthrown — and what would follow from that would be vastly worse for the United States than when Iran in 1979 overthrew the U.S.-imposed (in 1953) dictator there.
It is obvious that if Trump hadn’t called-off the attack that all of his advisors except the Obama-appointed General Joseph Dunford were urging upon him, then the Middle East would have become destroyed, and a war between the United States and Russia would likely be resulting.
For Trump to have been concerned only about the 150 Iranians that his military advisors thought would likely be slaughtered in this planned invasion, and for him not to have been concerned at all — and especially — about the likely millions of corpses that would almost certainly have followed from such an attack, is simply amazing stupidity on the part of a nation’s leader. It might not be as stupid as Hillary Clinton’s repeated and constant and never even moderated urgings for a “no-fly zone” to be imposed by the U.S. regime over sovereign Syrian territory, which almost certainly would have resulted quickly in World War III (a U.S.-versus-Russia war) (since Russia wouldn’t accept the U.S. shooting down Russia’s planes over Syria), but it’s close to being as stupid as that.
If America’s political Parties again choose two such incompetents as Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton, as being the final contenders for occupying the most powerful post on this planet, then what chance is there that civilization won’t be destroyed in fairly short order? The only U.S. Presidential candidate who is campaigning upon the theme of “no more regime-change wars” is the Democrat Tulsi Gabbard, and her polling-numbers from registered Democratic Party voters are below 1%; so, anyone who in such a world as this, is willingly bringing new children into the world, has to be either uninformed or else unconcerned about the world in which that child will be living. The likelihood of global catastrophe during the next few years is vastly higher than most people are aware. This issue is virtually ignored in American politics. An uninformed and misinformed electorate is impossible in an authentic democracy, and the future of the world is now dependent upon precisely such an electorate, in the most powerful nation on this planet.
According to the Times report, what finally swayed Trump against invading Iran was “one of his favorite Fox News hosts: Tucker Carlson. While national security advisers were urging a military strike against Iran, Mr. Carlson in recent days had told Mr. Trump that responding to Tehran’s provocations with force was crazy. The hawks did not have the president’s best interests at heart, he said. And if Mr. Trump got into a war with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye.”
Though that might have been, for Trump, an even bigger factor to consider than the number of only-Iranian corpses that would result immediately from the attack, it still is not denying that what Trump had asked from his advisors was only for them to estimate the likely number of deaths that would result directly from the proposed invasion. To say that Trump’s main concern is instead his re-election (such as one might infer from that passage) is to say that he’s a psychopath; and, yet, what is even scarier than his being such, is his being so stupid as to have tasked his advisors to consider, as the possible down-sides of the planned attack, only its direct and immediate negative consequences, and not the negative consequences from those negative consequences. Apparently, Trump’s stupidity poses, to the world, an even more enormous threat than his psychopathy does.
This impression is also supported from a different angle: that Trump is so stupid that he allows his staff to control his decisions. This argument was well put in an anonymous blog-post on June 19th titled “How John Bolton Controls The Administration And Donald Trump”. It presents evidence to the effect that Trump’s National Security Advisor, John Bolton, stovepipes (filters) the information that gets to Mr. Trump — Trump doesn’t get to see or hear anything that doesn’t fit Bolton’s agendas. That analysis would also explain why Tucker Carlson, who isn’t part of the U.S. Government and certainly has no power to “stovepipe” the information that Trump receives from his advisors, might have been the only way that dissenting information or analysis was able to get through to Trump regarding this issue. Bolton wasn’t able to prevent Trump from talking to Carlson or other people outside the White House. According to that blogpost, not only does Bolton control Trump, but the Secretary of State, the equally neoconservative Mike Pompeo, now controls not only the State Department but the Defense Department. If this is the case, then probably the team of Bolton and Pompeo is what actually will decide U.S. foreign policies and invasions (unless Trump will increasingly rely upon outsiders such as Carlson). The only possible hope for Trump, and for the world, would be if he fires very soon both Bolton and Pompeo, and replaces them with non-neocons. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not only stupid, he’s evil, because he’s virtually inviting such catastrophes as he luckily avoided in the present instance. That seems to be the path he is on: stupidity, psychopathy, and evil.
This is an exceedingly perilous situation, all-around. It is intolerable. If Trump actually did care more about an estimated 150 Iranians who might have been killed from his planned invasion than he cared about the follow-on millions-or-more corpses that could result from it, then he is not merely a psychopath, but an idiot — totally incompetent to serve as the U.S. President.
Consequently, also, one can reasonably assume that when Trump said on June 26th that, after his missile attacks against Iran, there would be no lengthy war between the U.S. and Iran, and no American troops in Iran, he really believed it. And that’s how intolerable the current situation is. We really do have a deluded President. His V.P., Mike Pence, who would replace him if there is to be a forced removal of Trump from office, would be no better.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
is it not shocking to learn the fact, that a woman campaigning on ,”no war” platform in the ”u.s.a” has only one percent approval rating !,than would it not also be argued ,that 99 percent of eligible voters are crazier than trump?Cause a population of a sane nation would naturally want ”no war”.Could it not be argued that trump is actually’ smart’ cause he knows what sells in a fearful nation.So could it not be correct to say ,”UNITED STATES of FEAR”?…what is that they actually fear?,that there would be peace ,freedom and prosperity in the world without them?….recently i read a pundits saying ”americans are basically good cause they have to be persuaded very hard to get them to agree to a war”…or something along the line ….crazy…right?or right crazy?
I suspect that most Americans barely know that Tulsi exists or is running.
A site owned by Disney under ABC News (in other words, an official Mickey Mouse News Site) tracks the mentions of each candidate on video stories and online news stories on the major cable news networks. They track CNN, MSNBC and FOX.
Joe Biden has been mentioned 55.6% of the “TV Clips”, and 56.8% of the “online news stories” in the week of June 16.
Tulsi Gabbord has been mentioned in 0.3% of the TV Clips and 3.2% of the online news stories in the same week. And of course, it is likely that many of those mentions were negative and sneering. Or at best in articles, like the one on cable news coverage, that do at least mention all of the candidates.
But, she’s not even the lowest of the “anti-war” voices on that list. Former Sen. Mike Gravel (Alaska), the Senator who read the Vietnam era Pentagon Papers leaks into the official record of the Senate to get them published, was mentioned in exactly 0.0% of the TV clips and 1.2% of the online news stories. The Democratic Party blocked him from appearing in their TV debates, because he didn’t get high enough poll numbers. But only 6 polls had even bothered to list his name as a choice in the list of candidates, and the DNC decided to throw out the “open-ended” polls that simply asked the question of who didn’t the datapoint’s support without giving them a pre-defined list of choices. To be allowed onto the debate stage so that people can hear his voice and opinions, the DNC decreed that he needed more than 1% in those 6 polls. Which would have been quite a feat when the corporate news doesn’t ever even mention that he is running.
These are in the primary debates. Of course, in the past, the Green Party candidates who are also anti-war, get arrested and led away in handcuffs for even appearing at the site of the official, two-party, Presidential debates.
Democracy in the country which kills many people in the name of Democracy.
FiveThirtyEight dot com is a news site by ABC News which is owned by Disney.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-democratic-presidential-candidate-was-mentioned-most-in-the-news-last-week/
well if NARRATIVE makes reality than we are still animals.One might even say ALL NARRATIVES like nationalism,religion,class,race,culture divides man and keep him animalist.Any human beleiving in any of this conditiong narrative should be certified as a psychopaths so goes for everyone now.Society is sick as is the one human.From plato to pope west has lost its way.The east may not be any better seeing how the ordinary man suffers in china and india.Be careful which narrative you believe in ,choose your poison carefully.
I saw a report that a poll highly favourable to Biden had no input from anyone under 39. That was, naturally, not reported in the enthusiasm for Creepy Joe. Nominate Biden, and the DNC guarantees four more years for Trump-but perhaps they, or their Masters, want that.
Dear me-Biden looked senile in the debate. It looks like the DNC elders are turning to Harris as a replacement. Williamson is the cleverest, most morally aware, candidate-unless it is a clever act, always possible in the US political charade.
Polls are run by the Main Stream Media with the aim of controlling the narrative and leading the sheep. They had Clinton ahead in the last election – but Trump won.
Polls should be viewed with a sack of salt.
“One of the most important and highest quality news-reports to have appeared in the New York Times…”
That’s setting the bar extremely low. So low, indeed, that a chipmunk would be hard pressed to squeeze under it.
Almost like a reference to “the most honest financier on Wall Street”. Or “the most peace-loving member of the US government”.
I agree. I wasn’t saying anything to the contrary.
“If he really doesn’t recognize it, then he’s an idiot, because that would be sub-stupid: below merely stupid”.
A classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
The entire US elite in politics, business and the media suffer from a moral version of Dunning-Krugerism. They are so Evil, and everyone around them is so similarly wicked, that they have no idea what true humanity and morality are, and think themselves moral exemplars, and constantly screech about ‘Our Moral Values’ as they slaughter another million or more untermenschen and destroy another ‘shitty little country’.
“An uninformed and misinformed electorate is impossible in an authentic democracy…”
Damn straight. But the USA has NEVER had a well-informed, well-educated, or even reasonably intelligent electorate. Several of the Founding Fathers were nervously aware of this – although others (notoriously Alexander Hamilton) considered it a very good thing for their plans.
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe”.
– Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey (6 January 1816)
“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives”.
– James Madison (Letter to W.T. Barry, 4 Aug 1822)
TW,
Could not agree more with your comment, which is why M5M media MUST be government controlled, and censorship MUST be in place. Trump on the campaign trail in 2016 – ‘l love stupid people…’, please contrast with JFK…
“I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.“ JFK
When it comes to any news, especially in World Geopolitics where can you actually get the whole story or the facts ?
In their classic book, “Manufacturing Consent”, Prof Noam Chomsky and Edward Herrman make this point. They say that while yes, the American system does not feature an official state media with official government censors like others have done, this is not an argument to prove that the American system is free and uncensored. They prove this point precisely by pointing out that the output of the two systems can be shown to be identical. In example after example they show that the output of the American media is the same as one would expect from a state controlled system.
BTW, that book was I believe written in the mid to late 1980’s, and therefore only used examples from prior to that. That was long before only 6 giant corporations controlled almost everything that Americans see or hear. It has also been a long time since I read that book, but I think I remember this bit of it and have it basically right …. I hope.
I love the story that Chomsky recounted, during his Massey Lectures I think, (where he eviscerated Frum trying to be a smart-arse regarding the Palestinians). It concerned a visit to the USA in the 60s by a group of Soviet journalists.
After visiting a number of US newspapers and talking with the journalists, one Soviet journo had a question for his hosts. How do you get these journalists, in all these different places, to say exactly the same thing about every important political question? In the Soviet, under Stalin, they had coercive methods to achieve this Groupthink, so how was it managed in the USA? And in the 50 years since the oligopolisation has proceeded apace, the entire sewer has been shifted Right and dissent utterly purged. And they call this sordid propaganda cess-pool ‘The Free Press’.
Trump basically acknowledges Bolton as warmonger on NBC, that he had hawks and doves in his administration ‘likes to hear both sides’. So are we to take it as he is ‘stupid’, or playing politics by trying to appease two camps, the AngloZionists, as well as middle America that bought into his ‘Middle East’ wars were a mistake. Trump has become pure politician… dancing on both sides when he needs to…like now in a re-election mode.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/trump-if-it-was-up-to-john-bolton-he-d-take-on-the-whole-world-62521413517
Tulsi Gabbard sees through this in her recent TV ad.. telling Trump to swallow his pride…carefully crafted script here.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O2JahCIEiV0
EU beginning to wake up. I hope especially
all those Baltic etc countries and EU foreign and defence ministers so supportive of american military….Nato defence ministers meeting today too wonder what they are beginning to th8nk…. …”Urging G20 participants “to wake up before it is too late”, Tusk stressed that the international stage should not “become an arena where the stronger will dictate their conditions to the weaker without any reservations” and “where nationalistic emotions will dominate over common sense”.
“You should understand: you take responsibility not only for your own interests, but above all, for peace and a safe, fair world order”, Tusk pointed out.
He singled out unstable situations in “dozens of places on all continents” which Tusk claimed indicates “how close to the brink the world has come”.
“We continue to pretend that we are in full control of the dynamics of events and changes, but this is an illusion. The awareness of those risks should guide discussions in Osaka.
“It is you, the leaders of world superpowers, who are responsible for the fact that the lesson of Nagasaki will not be in vain”, he concluded…”
Yes we will see a different attitude from EU , this parliament. The Right-Wing, pro USA block in the parliament no longer has majority. Greens, Socialists and Nationalists have taken their power. The ability of USA to make EU continue to sanction Russia, Venezuela and Iran is greatly reduced.
USA is the first Enemy of Europe and has interfered in our elections via Bannon etc, to try and break up the EU. With Greens making up more of the parliament, the USA must be sanctioned for its environmental destruction and the Dollar isolated from our trade. Russia must be welcomed as the main energy supplier and export market for European products.
One of the narratives that has been told to Americans and ‘the west’ is that appeasement allowed the rise of Germany. The story is of course that if the Allies had acted sooner and been willing to fight a war with Germany earlier then Germany could have easily been defeated before it grew. Because of course, war is always the answer.
Yet, there was another sort of appeasement that allowed the rise of Hitler. It is the appeasement of a capitalist system for radical right-wing movements and figures. Adolf Hitler participated in a coup against the government of the province of Bavaria in the early 1920’s. Participated in that he was the one who climbed on stage and pulled a pistol on the Governor and kidnapped him as a part of an attempt to seize power and put Gen. Ludendorf into power.
So, what sort of penalty would you expect for someone who pulls a gun and kidnaps a powerful figure like a Governor in an attempt to overthrow the government. Adolf Hitler served 9 months in prison. He used that time to begin writing his book Mein Kampf. He emerged from this short prison term as politically powerful as he was before he attempted to overthrow the government. The person who kidnapped a governor and tried to overthrow the government would be named Chancellor approximately a decade later.
That is the sort of appeasement that led to the rise of Hitler. Not the appeasement of people who having fought one terrible war and were reluctant to risk fighting another so soon after. No, it was the appeasement of the ruling classes towards a rightwing thug and politician. They may not like such a person, but they recognize that they are on their side and fighting those awful people who want everyone to have food and peace.
And of course, we see the same sort of appeasement today. When rightwingers violate the laws and the Constitutions of various nations, they are given a slap on the wrist. The next Adolf Hitler was not named Saddam nor Ghaddafi, nor is he named Assad nor Maduro. The next Adolf Hitler has probably already been pardoned, or perhaps he wasn’t even prosecuted nor arrested. The first Adolf Hitler should have been sitting in a jail cell when he instead rose to power. It is highly likely that this will be true of the next Adolf Hitler as well.
Generally a good article although the role of Bolton is somewhat overstated, in my opinion. President’s have always been manipulated by controlling the flow of information presented to them. For example, L. Fletcher Prouty’s piece on “How the CIA controls President Ford”. It’s also true that Bolton is an imperialist, a unilateralist, a militarist, and a neocon Israel-firster. Actually pretty much like Trump himself. He was when he worked for Dick Cheney. He was when he drew Trump’s attention and admiration and he was when Trump hired him. He’s a thug for hire, but he’s not some Svengali or mastermind. He reports to other masters. If the process is consistent with Prouty’s piece, most likely and directly to the Intelligence agencies. But ultimately, to quote Prouty:
in a majority of cases, the power behind it all is big business, big banks, big law firms and big money. The agency (CIA) exists to be used by them.
I generally would agree that the role of bolton “might” be a tad overstated if one looks at bolton’s role singularly as just as what he is, nat sec advisor. However, he is one with a fairly crucial position advising one who, to put it mildly, is not one known for his deep thinking tendencies.
Moreover he, with his characteristics of bullying, is singing in a zionist halleluja chorus with a large number of sychophant backers, the MSM being what it is, and large money. Bolton’s well funded PAC undoubtedly figures into the mix of his bombast.
Finally, his being on the payroll of MEK strikes me as simply astonishing but prob fits as just part of an admin with conflicts of interest in every aspect:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/boltons-relationship-with-the-mek-is-a-scandal/
———————————
Conclusion of the article:
It is unacceptable for a top government official responsible for shaping U.S. foreign policy to have been the paid shill of this awful organization that previously killed Americans. It is wrong for an official with ties to the MEK to be influencing decisions on Iran policy. There are many reasons why Bolton should be fired, and this is right at the top of the list.
I don’t necessarily disagree but to be replaced with whom exactly? Elliott Abrams? Given Trump’s history of hawkish appointments I’m not sure there would be too much point. There are dozens of names one can read off the PNAC signatories list, for example, as bad if not worse than Bolton. I doubt very much that Trump will nominate Tulsi Gabbard.
Plus the new guy Esper head of Pentagon
“Moscow’s military activities in the Middle East, in Venezuela, and elsewhere, prolong human suffering and provide cover to autocrats,” Esper continued.”
As well as Russian influence agression influence name what you will permini perhaps in Europe…..sighs
“It is obvious that if Trump hadn’t called-off the attack that all of his advisors except the Obama-appointed General Joseph Dunford were urging upon him, then the Middle East would have become destroyed, and a war between the United States and Russia would likely be resulting.”
By default, I assume that the NYT is either inaccurate or lying. The part of this story that I don’t believe is that it was President Trump who called off the attack. I instead believe that Trump sided with the troika of tyranny (Pompeo, Bolton and Hastert) and wanted a strike.
But, to use Dubya’s phrase, the real Decider is USMC Gen Joseph F. Dunford,Jr, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since he is likely one of the most powerful people on earth, I thought I should go and look up his full name and title.
The lies in the NYT piece are that Trump decided to call off the attack. With the colorful flavoring thrown in on top of how he called off the attack just with 10 minutes to go. That is the military allowing Trump to save face. All in all, Trump has been good for the military and has helped flow more and more of the taxpayer’s money to them. Having someone from the Gabbert/Sanders wing of the Democratic party get elected scares the Pentagon a lot more than the Russians. That means few golden eggs and they might even have to cut the budget for the golf courses the Generals and Admirals play on around the world. The military doesn’t want to sabotage Trump’s re-election effort and thus kill off the goose that is laying golden eggs for them. Thus, they only call him a silly old goose in private.
The US military has not been under civilian control for quite some time.
Since I like Mr. Hollander’s comment that appeared while I was writing mine, I should amend that final sentence to add the word elected. It should read “under elected civilian control”.
Mr. Hollander is correct about where the real power lies in a capitalist oligarchy. The American military exists to serve them. This has been true since before Gen. Smedley Butler wrote “War is a Racket” about his experiences serving these masters. As further confirmation, I recent read William Pepper’s book “The Plot to Kill King”, where in the introduction he makes a very similar point. The combination of Martin’s growing, vocal opposition to the Vietnam war and the potential of him running as a third party Presidential candidate meant that he was now beginning to threaten the very large profits of the American war machine.
Yes, civilians do exercise some control over the American military. But its not the elected ones, not any more, probably not for a long time. But I suppose bankers and other corporate leaders can be called civilians, even if it does seem to be questionable if they are human. They certainly are missing their hearts.
I would add that they are also missing their brain and missing some courage. Strange characters indeed.
It is almost impossible to grasp the level of stupidity of this man’s mind-and then to add to that level of stupidity, we have bolton, paid foreign agent on the payroll of mek and prob Israeli benefactors, stovepiping misinformation into his head. Pompeo, pence, and hook cheerleading bolton on. Prob impossible to make this up:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/trumps-dangerous-iran-delusions/
__________________
Bahman Kalbasi
✔
@BahmanKalbasi
#Trump to FOX: “Had I not been elected president #Iran would have taken — over #SaudiArabia, they would have taken over the entire Middle East.”
149
9:23 AM – Jun 26, 2019
Trump has said some version of this several times, but I think this is the most explicit claim he has made that an Iranian “takeover” of the entire region was going to happen. It’s obvious nonsense, and I assume Trump believes it mainly because it flatters his sense of self-importance, but because he readily accepts this lie it is bound to distort his view of how powerful Iran is and how much of a threat their government poses. During Obama’s second term, Iran hawks were constantly exaggerating Iranian influence and power to justify more aggressive policies and to bash Obama for his supposed “appeasement” of the Iranian “empire.” Trump appears to have internalized some of that propaganda, and the absurdity of the propaganda actually makes it easier for Trump to take “credit” for preventing something that was never going to happen.
What those Trump quotes tell me is that Trump is the hand puppet of MBS and Netanyahu.
There was foreign interference in the last American elections. But it was Trump’s representatives meeting in Beirut with representatives of MBS and Netanyahu. Much of Trump’s election money came from a casino owner who is also a prime backer of Netanyahu.
There are two foreign governments that make Trump dance like a puppet on a string. They are Israel and Saudi Arabia. But mentioning this would hurt instead of help the profits of the war machine, so this isn’t mentioned on CNN between all the Russia stories.
The Zionazis will either destroy the entire Middle East, killing millions more, in pursuit of ‘Eretz Yisrael’, or get themselves and their slave state, the USA, destroyed, and almost certainly the rest of us as well. They have a death wish, in my opinion part Masada Complex, part Samson Option and part survivor guilt at not being consumed in the Nazi Judeocide. I am, of course, speaking of the lunatic Zionazi elites, and certain groups and individuals in the Diaspora, while many other Jews are, thankfully, not suicidally insane. They had better get organised to bring the nutters under control, or we are all for the high jump.
As Hilary Clinton’s call for a no-fly zone over Syria would have risked world war three, the developing crisis between the US and Iran has even potential to result in Armageddon: America presents a challenge to Russia and China, who have legitimate and vital interests in the region. All the evidence points to another world war. It is important to ask the reason why. It is not solely due to religion, as Eric Zuesse seems to believe. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every conflict of the past – no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war. Other cultural factors might change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power, not any of the above concepts, that is the cause of war. That is what has us destined for nuclear Apocalypse – based on the pattern of history.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
I would add that they are also missing their brain and missing some courage. Strange characters indeed.
So in effect we were saved from catastrophe by Tucker Carlson. Of Fox News. Owned by Murdoch. Sigh. Its almost ironic as well as being intensely nerve wracking. Bolton and Pompeo are literally like bulls in a china shop, rampaging round the world, and Trump just sits there like a bloated buffoon barely comprehending what is going on. I read the other day that a poll was conducted about the United States using nuclear weapons on North Korea and a large minority of Americans agreed with nuking NK, even if over 1 million North Koreans perished. Incredible. This is what many decades of jingoistic constant propaganda and brainwashing has done to Americans. The exceptional beacon on the hill.
I watched a true racist nut-case (in my opinion at least)called Dobbs on PoxNEWS today. As ever with the ruling US elite, the hatred of China was deranged, but this critter was right out of control. Apparently the ‘Commies’ MUST pay the USA massive ‘restitution’ for all the wealth they have ‘stolen’ from the ‘Leader of the Free World’. The two Dunning-Krugerites with him snorted their approval. And then the old goat started mentioning China’s one trillion plus in Treasury Bonds, but quickly dropped the subject.
I think I got a little glimpse of the next US tactic to ‘bring China down’, an expression that seems to be becoming more and more openly stated as the USA’s ambition and prerogative. Repudiate their US Treasury Bonds, and maybe, if the shite has hit the fan and the fiat money Ponzi scheme is imploding, repudiate them all. Twenty-two trillion, or whatever lesser sum that ‘ferners’ hold, saved, and if you don’t like it, you’ll get the Iraq, Libya, Iran etc, treatment.
Four years ago during the Presidential campaigns, I had a discussion with friends of mine about who will win and who would be the best to win. I said Trump on both counts, while my friends were aghast, especially about my answer to the second. I was proven right on the first and hold to the second still, for the reasons I gave to my friend were two-fold:
1. Hillary would have the world at war before the end of her term, and everyone would be proclaiming her a Goddess for it because she was the first woman President. Trump is the only of the two who might be able to normalize relations with Russia, though I pegged the chances at very low. (With Hillary the chances would be 0.00000%).
2. Failing 1., Trump is such a stupid, egotistical, narcissistic buffoon that he may very well drive many of the U.S. allies (especially Europe) into the arms of the ‘other’ side, so the job of putting the U.S. down when the WWIII starts would be easier and potentially less devastating.
Well 1. didn’t pan out, and 2. is still iffy, but WWIII is coming soon. My prediction – WWIII starts in January 2020, or January 2021 at the latest. By WWIII I do not mean the proxy wars that have been on going. I mean U.S. and Russia shooting at each other, eventually with nukes. By 2023, the world will be broken, and the remaining people will need to pick the pieces and find some way to adapt to the changing climate.
I always look forward to reading Eric Zuesse articles but am usually disappointed with their analyses. This one in particular is dead wrong. Trump’s reported comment does not prove his stupidity, but the stupidity of the Americans who support him. I doubt that the reported late reflection about the 150 dead Iranians is anything but a fiction, but if it is not a fiction it is simply a face-saving device for Trump to back down from his threats of attacking Iran after he took to heart Tucker Carlson’s admonition that such a war would be a disaster for his presidency and his re-election prospects. His humanitarianism is of course nothing more than political theater, but the fact that it works for his supporters shows them to be utter idiots and he a master Péronist manipulator. I do not mean to suggest that the Democrats are any the less idiots, nor that Trump is not an idiot. I agree with Rex Tillerson that Trump “is a fucking moron” but not for the reasons Zuesse offers.
Trump’s real audience remains his Zionist masters who have persuaded him to draw another “red line” in the sand as they did Obama (Asad better not use chemical weapons or else!) just before the August 2013 false-flag sarin attack in Ghouta . Now Trump has declared:
“Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration,” he tweeted. This too is an act of appeasement to another audience, his real audience, and is the stuff of nightmares. The Zionist entity has been itching to have America implement its Oded Yinon & “Clean Break” plans by having the U.S. wage its war against Iran for a very long time; and they do not relent.
They haven’t relented for 3500 years, so there’s no chance now. It may get them, as well as Iran, obliterated, and the rest of us as well, but it’s worth the feeling of total control and power that they will briefly enjoy.
The morally perverse and the sexually perverse do have that orgasmic brevity in common.
Not exactly The Long View of History………… LOL.