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Author Topic: War Provocations and Peace Actions  (Read 19966 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #150 on: April 13, 2017, 10:35:25 pm »
TheDuran

CONFIRMED: US sharply cuts air operations in Syria fearing Russian missiles
ALEXANDER MERCOURIS
US sharply reduces air operations in Syria because of presence of Russian missiles after Moscow closes hotline.
The media is barely reporting the fact but the immediate effect of the US missiles strike on Syria’s Sharyat air base has been to reduce US air force flights over Syria as the US worries about Moscow’s reaction.

That this is so is confirmed by the New York Times which – presumably because its anti-Trump campaign overrides all other issues – has actually been doing some proper reporting about the Syrian conflict following the US missile strike.

This is all set out by New York Times in the following article, which says the following:

    The American-led task force that is battling the Islamic State has sharply reduced airstrikes against the militants in Syria as commanders assess whether Syrian government forces or their Russian allies plan to respond to the United States’ cruise missile strike on a Syrian airfield this past week, American officials said.

    The precautionary move, revealed in statistics made public by the command on Saturday, was taken as Russian officials have threatened to suspend the communication line the American and Russian militaries use to notify each other about air operations in Syria.

    So far, the Russian military does not appear to have taken any threatening actions, such as directing its battlefield radar or air defense systems to confront the Americans, or carrying out aggressive actions in the skies, United States officials said.

    But officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning said the commanders needed time to determine whether the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and the Russian military would treat the American cruise missile strike as a one-time operation that they would not respond to militarily. As a precaution, the Pentagon is flying patrols in Syrian skies with F-22 jets, the Air Force’s most advanced air-to-air fighter……

    Some American and other Western counterterrorism officials have said the missile strike could………make the fight against the Islamic State in Syria more difficult.

    “It seems clear that the strikes will complicate our efforts to pursue our counter-ISIS campaign in Syria,” said Matthew Olsen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “In particular, the ability to carry out U.S. airstrikes in Syria in support of the coalition against ISIS requires some degree of cooperation with Russia, which is now in serious jeopardy.”

    Other security experts said that much depended on the Trump administration’s next steps, and how the Assad government and its Russian patrons responded.

    “U.S. aircraft operating over Al-Tabqah are already ostensibly in range of the Russian S-400 system at the Humaymin Air Base, and we might see Russia deploy more air defense assets to Syria,” Jeremy Binnie, the Middle East editor of Jane’s Defense Weekly, said in an email. “But if the U.S. makes no moves to threaten Assad’s position, then they may well accept the punishment and move on.”

    William McCants, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of “The ISIS Apocalypse,” offered a similar assessment.

This is the military reality that is causing the US to give repeated assurances to the Russians that the missile strike on Sharyat air base – largely ineffective as it appears to have been – is intended as a one-off, and that in President Trump’s words: “Are we going to get involved in Syria? No.”

Whether the Russians believe this assurance is another matter.  Even if it is intended sincerely, the Russians must wonder whether the Trump administration can honour it given that by launching its missiles the Trump administration has decisively lost leverage in Washington to the regime change hardliners.

In any event what this episode shows is the huge leverage the presence of the S-400 and S-300VM Antey-2500 missiles in Syria is giving the Russians.

The Russians do not need to make threats or fire missiles at the US or do any other reckless or dangerous things to make their point and to limit US air operations in Syria.  Despite all the brave talk of Russia being under pressure in Syria, the reality is that the Russians can achieve the same result simply by turning off the telephone.  That is what they have done, and it the reason for the tough negotiations between Tillerson and the Russians in Moscow.


Good info.    Thank you, AZ.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #151 on: April 15, 2017, 03:03:11 pm »
Based on the recent Syria and Afghanistan bombings, one suspects the FSoA military will launch a barrage of Tomahawks at the proposed test site for the nuke.  Kim Long Dong has to be aware of that.  The most "proportional" and reserved retaliation would be to use an attack sub in his own waters to sink a carrier and a couple of battleships.  A more provocative and suicidal tactic would be to have a sub parked off the coast of CA fire off a few missiles at downtown Los Angeles.  They don't even need to be Nukes.

If Trumpty-Dumty does drop ordinance on NK, there is certain to be follow up fireworks IMHO.  This is not like bombing towel head terrorists who don't have a lot of response capability beyond IEDs.

On the upside, this could render my SS case moot.

RE


True. Another relative upside is that Japan won't have to worry about Fukushima. They can blame all that radionuclide pollution on fall out.   

https://www.rt.com/news/384755-north-korea-war-possible/
New Korean War may break out ‘at any moment’ – Chinese FM
14 Apr, 2017

China’s Foreign Minister warned that an armed conflict with North Korea may break out “at any moment,” urging Washington and Pyongyang to tone down their hawkish rhetoric and realize the price to pay for both sides if a new Korean War were to start.

The extraordinary warning comes amid massive US military buildup near the Korean Peninsula, with the carrier strike group ‘USS Carl Vinson’ heading towards the region. While US President Donald Trump is threatening to “take care” of the North Korean “problem,” Pyongyang says it is ready to repel any military action.

“Lately, tensions have risen with the US and the ROK [South Korea] on one side, and the DPRK [North Korea] on the other,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters on Friday, adding that “One has the feeling that a conflict could break out at any moment.”

He cautioned both sides that “if a war occurs, the result is a situation in which everybody loses and there can be no winner,” and that whichever side provoked a conflict “must assume the historic responsibility and pay the corresponding price.”

Earlier in the day, Wang said both Washington and Pyongyang must refrain from “provoking and threatening each other, whether in words or actions, and not let the situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage,” as cited by Reuters.

In an apparent attempt to cool down the US administration’s bellicose rhetoric, he added: “Force cannot solve the problem – dialogue can be the only channel to resolving the problem.”

China, North Korea’s close ally and main trading partner, does not welcome Pyongyang's nuclear program, but advocates finding political solution to the crisis. For its part, Russia, which also shares a land border with the reclusive state, expressed deep concern over the mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The tension on the Korean Peninsula was one of the topics Wang Yi discussed with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in a Friday phone call.

Moscow stands for “politico-diplomatic reconciliation” and urges all parties to show patience and refrain from “any actions which might mean making provocative steps,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

From 1950 to 1953, the US fought against North Korea’s troops in the Korean War. After the US-led coalition forces crossed the 38th parallel dividing the two Koreas, China deployed troops and entered the war, while the USSR rendered military and logistical support to their socialist allies. The conflict, which quickly became a war of attrition, claimed the lives of over 33,000 American and 400,000 North Korean soldiers.

According to some media reports, the ongoing US military buildup close to North Korean waters may go far beyond an ordinary show of force. On Thursday, American intelligence officials told NBC that the US has sent two destroyers capable of launching Tomahawk cruise missiles in the region, with one just 300 miles (some 480 km) from the North Korean nuclear test site.

American long-range bombers have also been positioned in Guam to hit North Korean targets. In turn, North Korea warned on Tuesday it would retaliate to any sign of American aggression with all means available.

“If the US dares opt for a military action, crying out for ‘pre-emptive attack’, [Pyongyang] is ready to react. We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions,” North Korea’s deputy foreign minister said in an interview with AP.

“The US introduces into the Korean Peninsula, the world's biggest hotspot, huge nuclear strategic assets, seriously threatening peace and security of the peninsula and pushing the situation there to the brink of a war,” the North’s General Staff said in a statement carried by KCNA.

So what now? Kim Young Fatty is freaking out, I'm sure. But if the US goads him into a war, or just flat starts one for no reason other than to prevent missile test launches, I look for North Korea to  own Japan in a week. Or be a smoking ruin from nukes.

What now?  ???

There will be an Old Trump Fatty freaking out pretty soon as well.

That incompetent greedball   will fold under the pressure.

The "Wag the Dog" game Trumpy is trying to play will eat him alive.

Expect "SEVEN DAYS IN MAY" when Old Fat Trumpy loses it.    8)
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #152 on: April 18, 2017, 12:50:40 pm »

North Korea says ready to react to 'any mode of war' from US 

Posted 18 Apr 2017 02:11
 Updated 18 Apr 2017 08:07

UNITED NATIONS: North Korea is preparing for "any mode of war" triggered by US military action, Pyongyang's envoy to the United Nations warned on Monday (Apr 17), saying his country would respond to a missile or nuclear strike "in kind."

The statement from North Korea's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Kim In Ryong, followed warnings from US Vice President Mike Pence to Pyongyang not to test US resolve.

"If the United States dares opt for a military action (...) the DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the Americans," Kim told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York. "We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs," he said.

North Korea has taken "self-defensive" measures in response to US threats of military action and these reflect Pyongyang's determination to "counter nukes and ICBM in kind," Kim said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Pence earlier told a news conference in South Korea that "the era of strategic patience is over" after North Korea on Sunday test-fired another missile and fears mounted that it may be preparing a sixth nuclear test.

Pyongyang is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

Kim also confirmed that a new nuclear test was under preparation, saying that the plans had been announced and that "it will take place."

"As far as nuclear test is concerned, it was already announced to the public. It is something that our headquarters decided. At a time and at the place where our headquarters deem necessary, it will take place," he said.

'GOT TO BEHAVE'

US President Donald Trump's decision at the weekend to send the Carl Vinson carrier-led navy strike group to the Korean peninsula shows that the "US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase," said Kim.

The North Korean deputy envoy asserted that Pyongyang would hold the United States "wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions."

The envoy criticised the US missile strikes that hit an air base in Syria last week, saying Washington was resorting to a "gangster-like logic" that its military action was proportionate and could apply to the Korean peninsula as well.

Trump on Monday said his message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was: "Got to behave."

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric separately expressed concern over rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and said the latest missile test was "troubling".

He urged North Korea to "take all the steps necessary to de-escalate the situation and return to dialogue on denuclearisation."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will next week chair a special meeting of the UN Security Council on North Korea.

- AFP/de

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/north-korea-says-ready-to-react-to-any-mode-of-war-from-us/3685330.html

 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #153 on: April 19, 2017, 01:56:03 pm »
No, wait!  WTF is going on?  There are not 3, not 2, not 1, but NO carriers in the Sea of Japan.  WW3 is postponed - there's an important exercise with the Australians in the Indo-Pacific to deal with first, THEN we'll get round to the naughty North Koreans.

Kim must be laughing his head off, and China-Russia, who presumably could see by satellite the USS Carl Vinson was sailing SOUTH from Singapore, must be thinking "What a bunch of amateurs !"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-north-korea-carl-vinson.html
Aircraft Carrier Wasn’t Sailing to Deter North Korea, as U.S. Suggested

As Charlie Pierce said apropos this:

Let us catch our breath for a minute and take stock.

These people misplaced an entire carrier attack group and then tried to bluff their way past it in a way guaranteed to make a crazy guy with a bad haircut and a huge army nervous.


http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a54605/trump-aircraft-carrier-north-korea/


"Got To Behave" 

Like I said before, it's all about posturing. 8)  North Korea has been at this for a while. BUT Trump is a bird of exactly the same BULLSHIT feather.

More TRUMP-like posturing behavior in video below:


Ya know, I do believe Trump is in to Tom Clancy novels. In one of those tales, a carrier group was sent to attack Japan (the bad guys in that particular novel) while CNN continued showing reruns of THAT aircraft carrier in the group in dry dock for repairs as if they were still going on. This latest BLUFF by Trump may be something like that, but in reverse.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #154 on: April 20, 2017, 10:18:08 pm »
Message to the POS POTUS:


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #155 on: April 22, 2017, 03:57:40 pm »
Will This Ship Killer Make Naval Convoys Obsolete? ???

The Tomahawk missile is famous for attacking stationary targets on land, but except for a short-lived anti-ship variant now out of service, it had not been used against mobile or floating targets. That changed dramatically two years ago when a modified Tomahawk punched a hole through a shipping container on the deck of a moving merchant ship (video below).


While the Tomahawk anti-ship missile can hit moving targets at sea – making them a lot smarter than their more famous cousins – they do not have the target selection and tracking intelligence you might expect to find aboard the world’s most technologically advanced 21st century warship

But that might change soon with the U.S. Navy announcement this month of a successful air-launch of the newest variant of Lockheed Martin’s Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) from a F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter plane. This follows the successful test of the surface-launched LRASM variant that was conducted aboard the USN SDTS in July of last year.

LRASM is designed to detect and destroy specific targets within groups of ships by employing advanced technologies that reduce dependence on surveillance and GPS navigation. Armed with a 1,000-pound penetrator and blast-fragmentation warhead, LRASM employs a multi-mode sensor, weapon data link and an enhanced digital anti-jam Global Positioning System to detect and destroy specific targets within a group of ships.

Basically, this stealthy missile will have enough AI on-board for highly accurate targeting and the ability to survive an enemy’s electronic countermeasures and sink a specific ship located within a convoy or busy shipping lane.

Once operational, both LRASM variants will play a significant role in ensuring military access to operate in open ocean/blue waters, owing to its enhanced ability to sink both naval and merchant ships from extended range.

http://gcaptain.com/will-ship-killer-make-naval-convoys-obsolete/

Agelbert NOTE: NOW you KNOW what REALLY hit the Pentagon on 9/11.






He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #156 on: April 23, 2017, 02:43:09 pm »
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/21/the-president-formerly-known-as-hitler/

April 21, 2017
The President Formerly Known as Hitler

by CJ Hopkins

For most of the spastic talking heads who are paid to repeat whatever some producer whispers into their earpieces around the clock while making weird faces, the footage of those turgid Tomahawk missiles rising angrily out of their silos on their way to violently penetrate the enemy and explode in shuddering spasms of global corporatist power was literally orgasmic. Pent-up editorialists instantly pumped out geysers of overwhelming approval. MSNBC’s Brian Williams lost it and started raving on camera about “the beauty of our fearsome armaments,” and quoting Leonard Cohen, and so on.
//
The global capitalist ruling classes can put up with a lot from a US president (who is the most powerful man in the world, after all), but there are a few lines one does not cross, and some fundamental responsibilities they need to know are going to get handled. Playing neo-nationalist grab-ass (or selling the world some Hope and Change crap) is all fine and good when you are out on the hustings, but as Obama noted on his way out of town, “reality has a way of asserting itself.” Or, as corporatist puppet Chuck Schumer put it,”you take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.” I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but we’re talking about the US military, CIA, NSA, and the rest of the military industrial complex. These are people who have no problem murdering entire families by day and going home and playing with their kids at night. Did anyone really think they were going to allow some word-salad-babbling billionaire to screw around with their long-term objectives because he happened to win a presidential election?


This is great stuff.


I agree the M.I.C. has never felt threatened by the latest song and dance man POTUS.

But you understand, Surly, that this latest especially POS POTUS is exposing the power that the M.I.C. has always gone out of its way to pretend it doesn't have. THAT IS, the FACT that the USA is a M.I.C. "benevolent" dictatorship dressed up in representative democracy pig lipstick. Trump's impotence is not what we-the-people are supposed to be cognizant of...

The military has no morals whatsoever, and never did. And they DO own the FASCIST place called the USA. They plan ahead and they "game" every contingency using our tax dollars in order to be ready, willing and able to instantly defend their power base, while we pretend they defend our country.

Remember when Ron Paul said that, if elected POTUS, the first thing he would do was order the US Military to return from all foreign bases? I do. I laughed. The FIRST POTUS that tries that is OUT within a month or so (if they don't just kill him with a "lone nut").

Have you heard the latest ditty that our brave soldiers are trained to march to in basic training? Here it is:

Quote
We went to the market where all the hadji shop,
pulled out our machetes and we began to chop,
We went to the playground where all the hadji play,
pulled out our machine guns and we began to spray,
We went to the mosque where all the hadji pray,
threw in a hand grenade and blew them all away.

The above is from a recent article (speech) by David Swanson. He tells it like it is.  :(

Back when I was in basic, in 1967, the ditties were far more innocent sounding (even as we were murdering 4 million people in Viet Nam).
Quote
I know a gal from Kansas city
Left, right, left right
She don't drink beer but you can suck her titty
Left, right, left right
One, two ,three, four
left right, LEFT RIGHT!
 (then repeat)

The F-35 and the Incinerating Ski Slope

By David Swanson - Posted on 22 April 2017

http://warisacrime.org/content/f-35-and-incinerating-ski-slope

It's sad.       


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #157 on: April 23, 2017, 05:29:30 pm »
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/21/the-president-formerly-known-as-hitler/

April 21, 2017
The President Formerly Known as Hitler

by CJ Hopkins

For most of the spastic talking heads who are paid to repeat whatever some producer whispers into their earpieces around the clock while making weird faces, the footage of those turgid Tomahawk missiles rising angrily out of their silos on their way to violently penetrate the enemy and explode in shuddering spasms of global corporatist power was literally orgasmic. Pent-up editorialists instantly pumped out geysers of overwhelming approval. MSNBC’s Brian Williams lost it and started raving on camera about “the beauty of our fearsome armaments,” and quoting Leonard Cohen, and so on.
//
The global capitalist ruling classes can put up with a lot from a US president (who is the most powerful man in the world, after all), but there are a few lines one does not cross, and some fundamental responsibilities they need to know are going to get handled. Playing neo-nationalist grab-ass (or selling the world some Hope and Change crap) is all fine and good when you are out on the hustings, but as Obama noted on his way out of town, “reality has a way of asserting itself.” Or, as corporatist puppet Chuck Schumer put it,”you take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you.” I don’t mean to be overly dramatic, but we’re talking about the US military, CIA, NSA, and the rest of the military industrial complex. These are people who have no problem murdering entire families by day and going home and playing with their kids at night. Did anyone really think they were going to allow some word-salad-babbling billionaire to screw around with their long-term objectives because he happened to win a presidential election?


This is great stuff.


I agree the M.I.C. has never felt threatened by the latest song and dance man POTUS.

But you understand, Surly, that this latest especially POS POTUS is exposing the power that the M.I.C. has always gone out of its way to pretend it doesn't have. THAT IS, the FACT that the USA is a M.I.C. "benevolent" dictatorship dressed up in representative democracy pig lipstick. Trump's impotence is not what we-the-people are supposed to be cognizant of...

The military has no morals whatsoever, and never did. And they DO own the FASCIST place called the USA. They plan ahead and they "game" every contingency using our tax dollars in order to be ready, willing and able to instantly defend their power base, while we pretend they defend our country.

Remember when Ron Paul said that, if elected POTUS, the first thing he would do was order the US Military to return from all foreign bases? I do. I laughed. The FIRST POTUS that tries that is OUT within a month or so (if they don't just kill him with a "lone nut").

Have you heard the latest ditty that our brave soldiers are trained to march to in basic training? Here it is:

Quote
We went to the market where all the hadji shop,
pulled out our machetes and we began to chop,
We went to the playground where all the hadji play,
pulled out our machine guns and we began to spray,
We went to the mosque where all the hadji pray,
threw in a hand grenade and blew them all away.

The above is from a recent article (speech) by David Swanson. He tells it like it is.  :(

Back when I was in basic, in 1967, the ditties were far more innocent sounding (even as we were murdering 4 million people in Viet Nam).
Quote
I know a gal from Kansas city
Left, right, left right
She don't drink beer but you can suck her titty
Left, right, left right
One, two ,three, four
left right, LEFT RIGHT!
 (then repeat)

The F-35 and the Incinerating Ski Slope

By David Swanson - Posted on 22 April 2017

http://warisacrime.org/content/f-35-and-incinerating-ski-slope

It's sad.       


Damn...I know I got brainwashed in boot camp, but we didn't have any such cadence when I was there.  I would never have sung that s h I t.  I would have quit in boot camp!

I don't know why anyone would argue with anything you said in the above quote?  I certainly would not. 


  Thank you Lucid. May your children grow up to be as principled as you are.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #158 on: April 25, 2017, 04:30:23 pm »
American Imperialism Leads the World Into Dante’s Vision of Hell

Posted on Apr 24, 2017

By Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould

Editor’s note: This article is the first part of a four-part series on Truthdig called “Universal Empire”—an examination of the current stage of the neocon takeover of American policy that began after World War II. Read Part II on Tuesday.

SNIPPET:

“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate. (Abandon all hope ye who enter here.)”—Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno (Part I), Canto 3, Line 9

Before the Tomahawk missiles start flying between Moscow and New York, Americans had better educate themselves fast about the forces and the people who claim that Russia covered up a Syrian government gas attack on its own people. Proof no longer seems to matter in the rush to further transform the world into Dante’s vision of Hell. Accusations made by anonymous sources, spurious sources and outright frauds have become enough. Washington’s paranoia and confusion bear an uncanny resemblance to the final days of the Third Reich, when the leadership in Berlin became completely unglued.

Tensions have been building since fall with accusations that Russian media interfered with our presidential election and is a growing threat to America’s national security. The latest WikiLeaks release strongly suggested that it was the CIA’s own contract hackers behind Hillary Clinton’s email leaks and not Russians. The U.S. has a long reputation of accusing others of things they didn’t do and planting fake news stories to back it up in order to provide a cause for war. The work of secret counterintelligence services is to misinform the public in order to shape opinion, and that’s what this is.

The current U.S. government campaign to slander Russia over anything and everything it does bears all the earmarks of a classic disinformation campaign, but this time is even crazier. Considering that Washington has put Russia, China and Iran on its anti-globalist hit list from which no one is allowed to escape, drummed-up charges against them shouldn’t come as a surprise. But accusing the Russians of undermining American democracy and interfering in an election is tantamount to an act of war, and that simply is not going to wash.

This time, the United States is not demonizing an ideological enemy (USSR) or a religious one (al-Qaida, ISIS, etc.). It’s making this latest venture into the blackest of propaganda a race war, the way the Nazis made their invasion of Russia a race war in 1941, and that is not a war the United States can justify or win.

The level and shrillness of the latest disinformation campaign has been growing for some time. But the American public has lived in a culture of fake news (formerly known as propaganda) for so long many have grown to accept fake news as real news. George Orwell saw this coming, and here it is. As a big supporter of U.S. military intervention in Cuba and an avowed practitioner of “yellow journalism,” in 1897, William Randolph Hearst admonished the illustrator he’d sent to Cuba who’d found no war to illustrate: “You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.” Hearst eventually got his war, and America’s experiment in imperialism was off and running. 

Americans should know by now that their country’s wars are fertile ground for biased, one-sided, xenophobic, fake news, and the United States has been in a permanent state of war since 1941. Although the targets have shifted over the years, the purpose of the propaganda hasn’t. Most cultures are coerced, cajoled or simply threatened into accepting known falsehoods demonizing their enemies during wartime. But no matter how frequently repeated or cleverly told, no lie can hold if the war never ends. The legendary cold warrior, Time and Life magazines’ Henry Luce , considered his personal fight against Communism to be “a declaration of private war.” He’d even asked one of his executives whether or not the idea was probably “unlawful and probably mad?” Nonetheless, despite his doubts about his own sanity, Luce allowed the CIA to use his Time/Life magazines as a cover for the agency’s operations and to provide credentials to CIA personnel. 


http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/american_imperialism_world_dantes_vision_of_hell_20170424
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #159 on: April 25, 2017, 07:48:25 pm »

[embed=640,380]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m115jFNN2E0[/embed]


https://www.yahoo.com/news/entire-u-senate-white-house-north-korea-briefing-150459069.html


Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea, senior Senate aides said on Monday.

All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.



While top administration officials routinely travel to Capitol Hill to address members of Congress on foreign policy and national security matters, it is unusual for the entire 100-member Senate to go to such an event at the White House, and for those four top officials to be involved.


U.S. officials have expressed mounting concern        over North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack the United States and its Asian allies.



He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #160 on: May 10, 2017, 04:30:14 pm »
 

May 10, 2017

Trump's Cuts to Foreign Aid Threaten Global Health, Benefit War & Disaster Profiteers


http://therealnews.com/t2/story:19056:Trump%27s-Cuts-to-Foreign-Aid-Threaten-Global-Health%2C-Benefit-War-%26-Disaster-Profiteers

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #161 on: May 21, 2017, 08:31:21 pm »
Gorbachev: It Was Worse Than This, and We Fixed It

 
By davidswanson - Posted on 13 May 2017

By Дэвид Суонсон  (David Swanson)

On Friday in Moscow I and a group from the United States met with former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. He said the current relationship between Washington and Moscow alarmed him. But, he said, it is possible to rebuild trust. “We had a situation that was worse, but we were able to rebuild trust. And people-to-people contacts helped to rebuild trust.”

When Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan first met, presidents of the two countries had not met for six years. Members of Reagan’s cabinet opposed the meeting. Gorbachev came out of the meeting saying of Reagan “He’s not a hawk, he’s a dinosaur.” Reagan came out denouncing Gorbachev as “a die-hard communist.”

But they kept meeting. Eventually and inevitably Reagan asked what the Soviets would do if the U.S. were attacked by a meteor or aliens. Both men said their countries would help each other. However, Reagan was a fan of Star Wars, both the weapons boondoggle and the movie — which he may have kept distinct from each other in his mind. Gorbachev and Reagan accomplished a great deal of disarmament, not to mention Gorbachev’s accomplishing the nonviolent dissolution of an empire. But they could not get rid of all the nuclear weapons, and they could not take other serious steps in that direction, because Reagan was not willing, and the U.S. government was not willing.

Just as the climate of the culture of the day, as created by activists, journalists, citizen diplomats, and hundreds of other forces, may have mattered more to the disarmament efforts’ successes than the precise words or personalities in the negotiating room, the established war interests in Washington may have determined the failures more than anything else.

“When the Soviet Union broke up,” Gorbachev said on Friday, “many in the West were rubbing their hands together. That was immoral. Our country was in a severe crisis, and it was treated as an enemy.”

On Friday, Gorbachev faulted the same forces on both sides. “We both have the military industrial complex,” he said. “They want war, but we want peace.” He then quoted U.S. President John F. Kennedy saying that the peace we need is not a “Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.” Gorbachev recounted telling Reagan the very same thing that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is reported as having said this week: “the era of a master-pupil relationship is long over.” Russians want peace, but they want peace among equals, not peace under somebody’s boot heel.

Gorbachev tried for peace, and had the United States fully reciprocated, it is conceivable that today weapons of war would be banned from the earth. For that effort, Gorbachev is not honored in his home country as much as around the world. And the U.S. refusal to accept peace and friendship is recognized and regretted least in the United States — greatly to our shame.

http://warisacrime.org/content/gorbachev-it-was-worse-and-we-fixed-it
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #162 on: May 30, 2017, 03:07:24 pm »
Another Way Donald Pissed Off Germany

May 29th, 2017 by Steve Hanley

Originally published on Gas2.

Donald Trump is suffering from oral diarrhea again. On May 25, while attending a NATO function in Brussels, the braying jackass masquerading as America’s putative president told the assembled officials, “The Germans are bad, very bad. Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US. We will stop this.”

Image by Kürschner, art produced and displayed in Germany 
His remarks were first reported by German newspaper Der Spiegel and some have suggested that translation issues may have been responsible for a misunderstanding. However, Der Spiegel claims a number of people heard The Donald’s intemperate remarks and interpreted them the same way. Remember, this is the same little boy in grownup clothes who handed Angela Merkel a bill for the cost of keeping American troops on German soil for the past 50 years when she visited Washington earlier this year.

This is not the first time Trump has had vacuous things to say about German carmakers. In January, he said much the same thing, complaining he sees nothing but Mercedes in Manhattan but no Cadillacs in Europe. He threatened back then to impose a 35% import duty on German cars, which spurred one German car company executive to quip that America should “build better cars.”

Trump repeated his threat to slap a high tariff on German cars again in Brussels, blissfully unaware that Volkswagen and BMW manufacture large number of cars in the US. His remarks are just another example of someone who shoots from the lip without any knowledge of the subject he is talking about. As one person commented on Jalopnik, “The working assumption now is that Donald Trump doesn’t know anything, period.”

“According to MIT’s Observatory of Economic Complexity, a visualization tool for international trade data, Germany has a $252 billion positive trade balance, with the majority of goods being cars, which make up 12 percent of all exports,” Jalopnik writes. “The top destination for German export goods, the OEC shows, is the U.S., representing 9.9 percent of all export value, or $122 billion.”

Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, says the press is blowing this all out of proportion. “He did say, ‘They’re very bad on trade,’” Cohn admits, but he claims his boss doesn’t have a problem with Germany. “He said his dad is from Germany. He said, ‘I don’t have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade.’”

But another German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, claims European officials who heard Trump’s remarks were horrified at our Dear Leader’s lack of the most basic understanding of international trade agreements. He continues to spout ignorance every time he opens his mouth and did little on his grand tour to the G7 meeting other than convince world leaders he is a dangerous lunatic who is best ignored. Sadly, America’s position on the world stage is being greatly diminished by Trump’s stupidity. Soon, the world will move on to more important things and leave America to stew in its own hyper-nationalistic juices.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/29/another-way-donald-pissed-off-germany/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #163 on: May 30, 2017, 11:18:43 pm »
Another Way Donald Pissed Off Germany

May 29th, 2017 by Steve Hanley

Originally published on Gas2.

Donald Trump is suffering from oral diarrhea again. On May 25, while attending a NATO function in Brussels, the braying jackass masquerading as America’s putative president told the assembled officials, “The Germans are bad, very bad. Look at the millions of cars they sell in the US. We will stop this.”

Image by Kürschner, art produced and displayed in Germany 
His remarks were first reported by German newspaper Der Spiegel and some have suggested that translation issues may have been responsible for a misunderstanding. However, Der Spiegel claims a number of people heard The Donald’s intemperate remarks and interpreted them the same way. Remember, this is the same little boy in grownup clothes who handed Angela Merkel a bill for the cost of keeping American troops on German soil for the past 50 years when she visited Washington earlier this year.

This is not the first time Trump has had vacuous things to say about German carmakers. In January, he said much the same thing, complaining he sees nothing but Mercedes in Manhattan but no Cadillacs in Europe. He threatened back then to impose a 35% import duty on German cars, which spurred one German car company executive to quip that America should “build better cars.”

Trump repeated his threat to slap a high tariff on German cars again in Brussels, blissfully unaware that Volkswagen and BMW manufacture large number of cars in the US. His remarks are just another example of someone who shoots from the lip without any knowledge of the subject he is talking about. As one person commented on Jalopnik, “The working assumption now is that Donald Trump doesn’t know anything, period.”

“According to MIT’s Observatory of Economic Complexity, a visualization tool for international trade data, Germany has a $252 billion positive trade balance, with the majority of goods being cars, which make up 12 percent of all exports,” Jalopnik writes. “The top destination for German export goods, the OEC shows, is the U.S., representing 9.9 percent of all export value, or $122 billion.”

Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, Gary Cohn, says the press is blowing this all out of proportion. “He did say, ‘They’re very bad on trade,’” Cohn admits, but he claims his boss doesn’t have a problem with Germany. “He said his dad is from Germany. He said, ‘I don’t have a problem with Germany, I have a problem with German trade.’”

But another German newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, claims European officials who heard Trump’s remarks were horrified at our Dear Leader’s lack of the most basic understanding of international trade agreements. He continues to spout ignorance every time he opens his mouth and did little on his grand tour to the G7 meeting other than convince world leaders he is a dangerous lunatic who is best ignored. Sadly, America’s position on the world stage is being greatly diminished by Trump’s stupidity. Soon, the world will move on to more important things and leave America to stew in its own hyper-nationalistic juices.

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/29/another-way-donald-pissed-off-germany/


Good Point.

What could trump have meant?  Is he not a free-trade capitalist?  Was the trade deal between US and Germany not negotiated and sign off by both sides?  Is no one allowed to export more than they import otherwise the US will impose tariffs to even things up?


Trump is a  liar. He is also a bully. Scratch a bully and you find a coward. His mission was to offend those that threaten polluter interests in the USA (and Russia). Do you think that shove Trumpy gave the Montenegro guy was extemporaneous? Montenegro is on  the Paruski poop list right now. Trumpy is just showing his loyalty to the mafia that owns him. And as for Germany, they have managed to really make the polluters in the USA lose a lot of money with the popularity and growth of Energiewende.

Trumpy "wrote" a book some years ago about negotiation. Part of his approach is, of course, intimidation. But he isn't stupid enough to not check out who he is going to intimidate before he puts on the performance of being a loose cannon with no holds barred. That's all show business for the rubes. When the doors are closed, he says he wants this and that and he will make life real hard for the other party if they don't go along to get along.

At that point in the negotiation, the other party gets huffy and Trumpy puts on the charm to "compromise" with what he was expecting to accomplish from the start.

HOWEVER, when he has NO INTENTION of negotiating anything at all, and is, instead, on a mission to denigrate some party that is giving those that own him some heartburn, he just plays the bull in a China shop  routine. That's what all that noise about "trade" with Germany was about.

All that works in the corrupt world of business oligarchs. However, diplomacy is more nuanced than Trumpy can handle, IMHO.  Trumpy's big problem is that he thinks ANY publicity is "good" publicity, like show ratings. In politics, people have longer memories and loyalties of diplomats are not always a function of how much bribes they get. So Trumpy really messed up in carrying water for polluters. That will help bring him down  HERE due to a cascade of complex diplomatic back channel loyalties  people HERE have with Europe.



Germans are not a people to be trifled with. They have a lot more influence in the USA than Trump and his Wrecking Crew can afford to ignore or deliberately offend. They will enthusiastically help sabotage everything he wants to do for his fascist polluter owners.

All that is just my opinion, which you probably totally disagree with. ;D  But so far, Trumpy is acting pretty much in the exact way I expected him to when I told Golden Oxen in November of 2016, right after the election, that Trump would be pure poison for this country.

The longer he stays, the worse things will get HERE. But perhaps that will work out to Russia's benefit. I certainly don't see a long Trump presidency doing anything but bringing utter chaos to the USA.


« Last Edit: May 31, 2017, 01:07:12 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: War Provocations and Peace Actions
« Reply #164 on: May 31, 2017, 02:45:10 pm »
Jimmy Carter Brilliantly Explains How The Establishment Gave Us Trump


Published on May 11, 2017

I don't know that much about Jimmy Carter, other than that he had solar hot water heaters installed on the White House roof and that Raygun had them removed.  He's spot on with his analysis of Dump and how he got into office.  Although I honestly still don't believe that they count votes.  Not that it matters with the Corporatocracies lobbyists doing their evil work. 

After watching the above video I watched another from the same dude.  In it Jimmy Carter stated that he never fired a bullet, missile, or dropped a bomb while in office.  He never did any violence anywhere is the boast.  If that's true its amazing.  Here was a president, who managed to not get assassinated, and was a proponent for non-interventionism, non-violence, and renewable energy.  It's a wonder to me that he made it out alive

I was a crazy Republican "supply sider" back then. I was rooting for Reagan and had no love for Carter. It was well over a decade later that I began to connect the dots on how I had been brainwashed against Carter by the media. Carter made a lot of enemies in the fossil fuel fascists so they went to town to bring him down. Of course NONE of this was framed as a pollution solution versus more fossil fuel subsidy swag on behalf of profit over people and planet. BUT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT! Carter was framed, as Eddie mentions below, as mealy mouthed, incompetent, etc. Actually, none of that was true. In fact, Carter's competence was severely undermining the profit over planet oligarchic power base (although Carter was way too nice to the Military). Yes, inflation was through the roof, but that was not as big a deal as the Republican crooks and liars try to make it out to be. Inflation was HIGH because all those union contracts out there AND the Cost of Living Allowance math FORCED the Capitalists IN AND OUTSIDE OF GOVERNMENT to PAY their employees decent wages. ALL that changed to the massive economic attack on we-the-people by Reagan and Greenspan. During the entire Reagan/Bush onslaught, the fossil fuel industry was coddled, babied, given all sorts of extra breaks and generally welfare queened back to the prominence they had LOST during the Carter years.


People talk about "Wall Street" crooked banks back then without realizing that the lion's share of the crookedness of those banks was connected to the aiding and abetting of  the fossil fuel industry fascists. But never mind that now. Let me answer you and Eddie about the heat Carter took (see after Eddie;s comment). 

He took a lot of heat for not attacking Iran when they took the hostages at the US Embassy. At the time I thought he was being a wuss...but in hindsight, not so much.

The claim that Carter didn't kill anyone or engage in warlike activity is true because of accidental circumstances, not because Carter was not ready, willing and able to kill for empire. His plan to rescue the hostages in Iran failed because of engine failure on one of the aircraft going in low over the desert. They had planned something like the Son Tay raid of Vietnam days, where two of our biggest choppers accompanied by a C130 for air to air refueling went in to rescue the POWs. They got in and out okay but the POWs had been moved a day earlier (the drones we launched routinely from B52s to take pictures  of the prison only did it about once a week).
 
So Carter tried the same thing, which would have certainly resulted in a LOT of dead Iranians, but the C130 crashed in the Iranian desert somewhere and the choppers had to rescue the the downed crewmen. Carter would have won the election if that C130 had not crashed because the fire power in those flying machines was adequate for the rescue task.

The failure was seized upon by Reagan, Bush and CIA Fossil fuel fascist company to denigrate Carter. It worked. Reagan won the election. I was one of the idiots that voted for him.  :-[

The other part about Bush COMMITTING TREASON by negotiating with the Iranians in Paris, BEFORE the election, to NOT release the POWs until Reagan was inaugurated, came out over a decade later. And anybody that understands how Bush (former CIA director and always loyal to war and fossil fuel fascists) operated, SHOULD be able to put two and two together and realize that there is a near 100% probability that Bush, KNOWING of the planned hostage rescue attempt in advance, MADE SURE that C130 had "engine failure".  


But for what it's worth, Carter was logical and reasonable in regard to pollution and renewable energy, BUT he pushed for, AND OBTAINED, some of the biggest budgets for the "defense" department that this country had seen up until then. For him to say he didn't shoot anybody might be technically true, but the fact that he massively increased the funding and the size of the M.I.C. means his hands are as dirty as any president who did deliberately kill for empire like Reagan (and Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Bush, Clinton, Shrub, Obama and Grumpy Trumpy).


Carter should keep his mouth SHUT about his contributions to "peace" while POTUS.

« Last Edit: May 31, 2017, 04:40:33 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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