Ten years ago, on May 2nd 2007, I decided to “scratch my itch” and to write what I thought and then make it public.  After a long interruption I wanted to analyze again and, for the first time, I wanted to make that analysis public (before that all my analyses were classified, you can read a more detailed version of this here).  Even if “public” meant all of: me and, maybe, a couple of web crawlers.  First, I wrote just on my word processor and then I decided to upload my very first public analysis on blogger.  Here is the full text of that very first post:
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Where the Empire meets to plan the next war

Take a guess: where would the Empire’s puppeteers meet to finalize and coordinate their plans to attack Iran?

Washington? New York? London? NATO HQ in Brussels? Davos?

Nope.

In Herzilia. Never heard of that place?

The Israeli city of Herzliya is named after Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, and it has hosted a meeting of the Empire’s Who’s Who over the past several days at the yearly conference of the Herzilia Institute for Policy and Stragegy. For a while, Herzilia truly became the see of the Empire’s inner core of heavy hitters.

(Non-Israeli) speakers included:

Jose Maria Aznar Former Prime Minister of Spain, Matthew Bronfman, Chair of the Budget and Finance Commission, World Jewish Congress, and member of the World Jewish Congress Steering Committee, Amb. Nicholas Burns US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Prof. Alan Dershowitz Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Senator John Edwards Head of the One America Committee and candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Gordon England US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Marvin C. Feuer Director of Policy and Government Affairs, AIPAC, Newt Gingrich Former U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rudolph Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City and candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, General the Lord Charles Guthrie of Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE. Former Chief of the Defense Staff and Chief of the General Staff of the British Army, Amb. Dr. Richard Haass President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Stephen E. Herbits Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress, Amb. Dr. Robert Hunter President of the Atlantic Treaty Association and Former U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO. Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation in Washington (also serves as Chairman of the Council for a Community of Democracies, Senior International Consultant to Lockheed Martin Overseas Corporation), Amb. Dr. Richard H. Jones United States Ambassador to Israel (also served as the Secretary of State’s Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq Policy), Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman Director, Israel and Middle East Office, American Jewish Committee (also served in the IDF Intelligence Directorate for over 25 years), Christian Leffler Deputy Chief of Staff of the European Commissioner for External Relations and Director for Middle East and Southern Mediterranean, European Commission, The Hon. Peter Mackay Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator John McCain U.S. Senator (R) from Arizona and andidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Dr. Edward L. Morse Chief Energy Economist, Lehman Brothers, Dr. Rolf Mützenich Member of the German Federal Parliament (SPD) and member of the Committee on Foreign Policy of the Bundestag (and Board Member of the “Germany-Iran Society”), Torkel L. Patterson President of Raytheon International, Inc., Richard Perle Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (previously served as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy), Amb. Thomas R. Pickering Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (previously served as Senior Vice President of Boeing), Jack Rosen Chairman of the American Jewish Congress (and member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC and of the Council on Foreign Relations), Stanley O. Roth Vice President for Asia, International Relations of the Boeing Company (member of the Council on Foreign Relations), James Woolsey Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and many others.

Pretty much the entire Israeli “Defence” etablishment (why does nobody call it “Agression establishment?) was present too.

Not bad for a “conference”?!

Of course, the main topic at the conference was the ucoming war with Iran. Richard Perle, the “Prince of Darkness”, delivered the keynote and conclusion: “If the Israeli government comes to the conclusion that it has no choice but to take action, the reaction of the U.S. will be the belief in the vitality that this action must succeed, even if the U.S. needs to act with Israel in the current American administration“.

Noticed anything funny in his words? It’s the “world only superpower” which will have the “belief” (?) in the action of a local country and, if needed, act with it. Not the other way around. Makes one wonder which of the two is the world only superpower, does it not?

Anyway – if anyone has ANY doubts left that the Empire will totally ignore the will of the American people as expressed in the last election and strike at Iran, this conference should settle the issue.

Also – there are other indicators and warnings. Besides the two aircraft carrier battle groups at Iran’s shores, AWACs planes and military equipment is being shipped to Turkey, and air bridge of C-17 heavy transport aircraft are delivering weapons to Siniora’s government in Lebanon, and forces are being deployed to Iraq to defend the dug-in US forces from Shia retaliation.

What about the Democratic majority in Congress? Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, settled any doubts about they would act when she declared at the 2006 AIPAC conference:

“The greatest threat to Israel’s right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology. Proliferation represents a clear threat to Israel and to America. It must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation, with a commitment and a coalition every bit as strong as our commitment to the war against terror.”

BTW – Hillary Clinton, the party’s leading contender for the presidential nomination, out-neocons many Republicans when it comes to Iran:

“Let’s be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime’s pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not – must not – permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.“

So much for the will of the American people. As Justin Raimondo exclaimed in his recent article about the upcoming war on antiwar.com – isn’t democracy wonderful?!

So count with yet another imperial war of agression, a baril of crude at over 100$ and oil shortages, rocketing inflation, job losses, a stagnant real estate market and stock exchange, and a national debt and government deficit which would make even Reagan proud. And plenty of dead Americans (nevermind the Iranians, right?).

But don’t worry: there will still be a huge supply of Chinese-made US flags to wave!

(written sometimes in February 2007)
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That was ten years ago and yet so little has changed since (even my typos are just as bad, or worse).  The Neocons are still in charge, Iran is still in the crosshairs.  Maybe fewer Chinese-made US flags are bought or waved (at least I want to hope so).  Hillary is gone but Pelosi is still there, and instead of an inarticulate bumbling idiot in the White House we now have, well, another inarticulate bumbling idiot.  True, in between these two clowns we have had “change we can believe in” and a lot of lost illusions about, well, change we could believe in.

Rather depressing, no?

Yes, but a few other things happened in the meantime, and they are most definitely encouraging.

First, Iran was not attacked.  That, by itself, is absolutely amazing.  For 10 years the Neocons have been strenuously trying to get the USA to attack Iran and they failed.  That, by itself, is a HUGE victory for all of us.  Why?  Because that shows that the Empire is not as strong as it thought it was and that for all the counter-factual nonsense about Iran sponsoring terrorism, threatening Israel (or anybody else for that matter) and having a military nuclear program, the Empire could not act on its own never-ending stream of threats.

Second, even though she was faced with immense difficulties, external and internal, and with quite a few positive zigs followed by some rather discouraging zags, Russia has managed to overcome it all and she even became much stronger.  Most amazingly, Putin finally succeeded in truly and deeply reforming the armed forces, something which nobody believed was possible and today, while rather small in size, the Russian armed forces are arguably the best on the planet.  Last year especially, was a year of triumph for Russia.  I will readily admit that I wish more Rubles had gone to butter than to guns, but in the current geopolitical reality butter would not keep the Russian people safe.  Guns will.

Third, the election of Donald Trump was a stunning blow to the imperial plutocracy running the AngloZionist Empire.  Trump was elected in spite of the worst propaganda hate campaign in world history and even though he proved to be a huge disappointment, the American people proved to themselves and to the rest of the planet that while a minority “deep state” wants war, imperialism, violence and the dictatorship of various minorities, most Americans do not.  That immense “Not In My Name” is a message of amazing defiance of the “basket of deplorables” against those who seek to enslave them.

Fourth, the political discourse inside the USA has also deeply changed.  In 2007 only a select few were familiar with ideas like “the 1%” (thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement!), or “false flag” (thanks to the 9/11 Truth movement!) or the idea of “Deep State” (thanks to the Tea Party movement?).  This, to me, is a reflection of the reality that more and more Americans understand that the enemy is not the “Islamic terrorist”, the “dictator with WMDs” or the “Russian hacker” – but the regime in power in Washington DC.  History has proven that American cannot get any meaningful change by the ballot and that the State has a lot more bullets that the people, but at least now the people are beginning to realize who the real enemy is (some knew all along, of course).  Ask yourself a simple question: do you know of anybody in the USA who still seriously and sincerely believes that the Federal government in DC stands for “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?

Fifth, a double tectonic geostrategic change has happened with worldwide consequences.  The most important one is the de-facto symbiosis created between Russia and China by Putin and Xi.  Rather than repeat it all here, I will just refer you to the brilliant White Paper Larchmonter445 wrote about it for the Saker Blog: the Russia-China Double Helix.  Trump latest aircraft-carrier centered histrionics have made that Russian-Chinese partnership even stronger.  The second tectonic shift was been Europe’s suicide by reality denial.  I was born in Europe, I love Europe and it breaks my heart see what has happened to Europe, but I will also say that this is richly-deserved karma for the despicable role of the Europeans into the destruction of the Ukraine (instead of the Ukraine becoming Europe, it is Europe which became the Ukraine).  In other words, Russia has acquired a powerful ally while the USA has lots its most powerful one.

Sixth, with the US Ziomedia finally showing its true face (of a propaganda machine which would have made the Herr Doktor Goebbels green with envy), the free media and blogosphere have had an immense, truly historical, victory over the propaganda machine.  Don’t doubt it – when you see the Washington Post or Harvard University listing many websites (including, in both instances, the Saker Blog) as a “fake news” site they are doing it because they are in a panic.  Ditto for the sharp rise in YouTube censorship.  The presstitutes are freaking out.  Because of us!  This is also our collective victory.

Seventh, last but not least, the Saker blog and the Saker Community are doing great.  In spite of the painful loss of the German Saker blog, the rest of our community is doing great, we are reaching not only more people, we are reaching the right people and our voice is now one of the most recognized ones.  When I wrote that first blog entry I would never have imagined that one day there would be a multi-lingual and multi-national “Saker community of blogs”, that about 100 volunteers worldwide would be helping us and that it was possible to unite under one conceptual roof libertarians, communists, monarchists, Christians, Muslims, agnostics, anarchists and many others.  And yet here we all are, working together without compromising our values, without having to silence the voice of our consciences.  Who would have thought that such a “collaboration in diversity” was possible?!

I have already mentioned several times on this blog that my spiritual father used to say that “one soul is more precious than the entire universe”.  I still fully agree with that.  This is why we also should never worry about our ranking, approval ratings or, for that matter, about those who hate what we do and even who we are.  Let us worry instead about this “one soul” for whom our efforts might make a real difference.  I promise you that there are many, many more than just one.  You could say that just because of a few such souls all our efforts were absolutely worthwhile.

Yes, it is depressing to see how little has changed, but we can also find solace and courage in the fact that so much has changed too.   I can honestly tell you that before I started this blog I felt very, very lonely and extremely disgusted with mankind.  But then I met so many kind, honorable, courageous, compassionate, generous, intelligent, beautiful and otherwise remarkable people through this blog and our community that it has completely changed my views on my fellow human being.  I used to just see zombies, now I see potential allies and friends everywhere.  David Rovics is right – We are everywhere!

Thirty four years ago, in 1983, Solzhenitsyn concluded his amazing “Tempelton speech” with the following words: “Our five continents are caught in a whirlwind. But it is during trials such as these that the highest gifts of the human spirit are manifested. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone“.  His appeal to resist Evil still rings true today.  We have to resist Evil not because we will prevail – though we will – but because of what we are and who we are, and because resistance is the only honorable reply to Evil.

I want to end this note by thanking you, all of you, for all the wonderful things which you have shown me, for restoring my faith in mankind and for making that huge difference to my own “one soul”.  Never, not in my wildest dreams, could I ever have imagined that there was so much beauty, love, compassion and kindness out there.  Thanks to you all, now I know that there is.

Happy 10th anniversary to you all, my friends!

Cheers and hugs,

The Saker