BLUF:
[News With Views] The Cold War was not only a good tool to keep the American people terrorized, but it was also very profitable for the military-industrial-banking complex. But the unexpected implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 created a vacuum, which the conspirators had to fill.
The second mega PsyOp, whose only purpose was terrorizing even more the American people in order for them to accept the losing of freedom under the name of security, was the 9/11 operation which unleashed the so-called War on Terror and was used as a pretext to create the Office of Homeland Security, the TSA and other similar aberrations.
Currently, were are suffering the effects of the third mega PsyOp disguised as an effort to protect us from an invisible virus. As in the previous two, this one will result in more loss of freedom and more government control over the American people.
For the whole story you may read my book The Nuclear Hoax: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis. It reads like a Tom Clancy thriller.
#2
The Russians are famously great chess players.
<#insert dumb planning joke here>
While that episode of Cold War Theater was titled "Missiles in Cuba", the object of the gambit was Missiles in Europe - specifically removing short range tactical missiles NATO had installed near Russian (was it in Turkey?)
We may have "defeated" the USSR in Cuba, but if memory serves, the NATO missiles were removed. Exchanging pieces is a classic chess tactic.
Personally, I had just finished reading "On the Beach" at the time and was scared sh*tless.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[RIAFAN] Boris Rozhin, the author of the Colonelcassad Telegram channel, talks about the reasons for Turkish interest in Afghanistan and Turkey's attempts to maintain a military-political presence in this country.
Speaking about the situation in Afghanistan and Turkey's attempts to cling to this country by maintaining a military presence, many often underestimate the opportunities that Ankara can get if it manages to realize its difficult game and get into the Afghan case. Ankara is commonly seen as being left to the mercy of China, Pakistan, Iran and Russia.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: badanov ||
10/20/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
All that writing and he never even approached an answer.
Why? To keep the Generals and the more aggressive troops busy and trained up, in case he needs them, but not too close to home.
Kinda like the US was doing.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/20/2021 11:01 Comments ||
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#2
The Great Game is on and this time the English-speaking player has bowed out.
#1
The Battle of Adrianople occurred around Adrianople on April 14, 1205 between Bulgarians, Vlachs and Cumans under Tsar Kaloyan of Bulgaria, and Crusaders under Baldwin I, who only months before had been crowned Emperor of Constantinople, allied with Venetians[2] under Doge Enrico Dandolo. It was won by the Bulgarians, Vlachs and Cumans after a successful ambush.[3]
4000
300 heavy knights
(mainly from France)
French. explains it.
the Crusaders, who could not repay the leases on Venetian shipping, the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, suggested that the armies of the Fourth Crusade deviate from their intended goal of Jerusalem. Instead of continuing onwards, on the 12–13 April, year 1204 AD, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, was captured and sacked. Numerous cultural treasures were either destroyed or stolen, such as sacred texts, relics, manuscripts, icons, archives, works of art, as well as much wealth. The heart of Orthodox Christianity suffered irreparable damage, both from the sack, and the fires caused by the Crusader siege, which torched more than 2/3 of the city.
#2
City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas
by Roger Crowly
Covers that episode and more. Highly recommended. Crowly does an excellent job presenting the situation in a neutral tone, but I still came away with the same opinion as Woodrow, that Venice could have survived a default on payment, perhaps even making up the loss, but Constantinople would be critically hobbled from a sacking, but there was profit to be made, an insta army available, and East/West Christian cultures anyways..
[Newsbreak] Of course Donald Trump rained on the Roman triumph parade the political establishment and the combined houses of major media convened this week to honor the memory and accomplishments of warrior, diplomat and leading citizen Colin Powell on the occasion of his death on Monday.
In a classic bit of counterprogramming, Trump took the position that no other prominent commentator wanted to go near. In Trump’s formulation, Powell wasn’t a hero, he was a fool. In one of the "statements" he issues in hopes it will be reposted on Twitter — from which he is permanently banned — and become Topic A in the media, Trump blistered Powell as a "classic RINO" who dragged us into the Iraq war and slagged the press for treating him in death "so beautifully." Trump’s sulfurous elegy worked as designed, as the media chorus united to scold him for violating the no-speaking-ill-about-the-newly-dead conventions of modern manners and meta-analyses, like this one, assembled themselves to explain the former president’s strategy.
In Trump’s defense, the graveside broadside was at least consistent with his previous comments on Powell. In 2020, when Powell defected from his Republican Party colleagues to endorse Joe Biden for president, Trump called Powell "a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars." The only purely naughty thing Trump did was hit somebody who couldn’t hit back. It wasn’t as much a Trumpian low blow as a rabbit punch to a defenseless bunny.
If Trump had thought it necessary to justify himself, he could have claimed he was only telling the truth, adopting the position first articulated by I.F. Stone that "funerals are always occasions for pious lying." But neither remaining consistent nor tweaking convention were Trump’s primary objective. After all, nobody needed Trump to remind them that Iraq was Powell’s great failure; it was one he had acknowledged himself. That corrective sentiment could be found in most of the ledes of the obituaries and assessments that came spilling out. The AP even moved a story that dealt exclusively with the special hatred Iraqis still harbor for Powell for his role in pushing the invasion.
So the postmortem smear didn’t illuminate Powell. But it did help explain something true about Trump. Without Twitter, without chyron-to-chyron coverage from Fox News and without a pulsing presidential campaign to boost his messages, Trump depends on his shock-jock skills to elbow his way into the public sphere and onto the front page. Wicked mugging like this may look brainy and calculating, but it’s a good bet that, for Trump, swinging wildly when nobody pays attention to him has become his first instinct. Shouting through a megaphone to reach the cheap seats is also a technique he uses in court, too, filing ridiculous lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, to overturn election results or to punish his niece Mary Trump . His grandstanding shouldn’t work after all this time, but it still does.
The Powell incident doesn’t mark the first time Trump has dug up a corpse and danced it around to win the spotlight and score a few political points. Trump continued to verbally assault political rival Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain for months after he died in 2018. In 2019, Trump suggested that the former Michigan Democrat Rep. John Dingell, then only 10 months dead, was "looking up" from hell . (Trump was irate about Dingell’s wife, Rep. Debbie Dingell, also a Michigan Democrat supporting the Trump impeachment even though he had approved the lowering of flags for the late member of Congress.) And he’s never been sentimental about America’s war dead. In 2020, the Atlantic ’s Jeffrey Goldberg reported that behind the scenes, Trump called them "losers" and "suckers."
Trump seems to intuitively understand that these cheap shots don’t cost him with his base, which applauds his corrosive moxie. Given his history of explosive comments, he has set a baseline expectation for rude conduct that he must exceed to keep his fans entertained and to keep his critics appalled enough to drive his "statements" into the news. Truth be told, he probably didn’t care much one way or the other about Colin Powell, but, seeing the general’s death forming a news wave, he decided to paddle out and ride it to shore in hopes of getting noticed. But the downside for Trump — if downsides exist in Trumpworld — is that as he descends ever lower to hack his way into the news, he will end up sending the equivalent of an audition tape to the social media outlets that have only suspended him (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitch), that they should never let him return.
That leaves Trump standing there, smoldering, lacking enough rhetorical fuel to reach political liftoff and waiting for his next countdown.
GOD sits in Final Judgement of all Deeds, GOOD and BAD.
With that said. Trump is correct in saying RINO. Mr. Powell floated politically as the wind blew in DC. An DC used him as a Poster Child to promoted their image.
#5
Truth = Smear. Another entry for the NewSpeak dictionary.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2021 6:59 Comments ||
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#6
Except they found loads of chemical weapons that were supposed to have been destroyed. Even after that, seem to have been a panic when ISIS overran the facility the coalition was using to dispose of the stuff. Let's bury the LIE that there were no WMD. If you don't think chemical weapons are not WMD even though they've been treated as such since the end of the Second World War, then you won't mind some being stored in your neighborhood.
#7
^ Meth is a chemical weapon and its cooked in just about every US city.
BTW: Some Chemical weapons did exist.
We had enough soldiers exposed to prove them to know so. But the MASSIVE amounts claimed to have been in his hands by Bush. Later we had MSM, WaPo, NYT and CNN telling us they were moved further up north and across the border into Syria.... our next politically stage war.
#8
we had MSM, WaPo, NYT and CNN telling us they were moved further up north and across the border into Syria
Say it with me: "The old shell game."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2021 7:57 Comments ||
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#9
Trump's entire statement (link is to his website.) Does not seem vitriolic or off-color to me. Hardly dance on a grave type stuff, at least it seems to me. YMMV.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2021 8:08 Comments ||
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#10
The last mental image i have of mr Powell is of he and then president GHW Bush telling Gen Swarzkopf that he couldn't chase Saddam's army to Bagdad. Not a good image.
#11
Nothing that Pravda / our Wokesters claim about the hideous sins of OrangeAdolf is true.
That said, Trump ought to have a bit more respect for the dead -- unless his real purpose for existence is, as Kissinger said, to "expose the pretenses of our era." That alone may make it all worth all the fuss.
#12
I used to have a T-shirt that said "We should forgive our enemies. Right after they are taken out back and shot." Over the top? Less and less all the time these days.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/20/2021 9:57 Comments ||
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#13
#10 The last mental image i have of mr Powell is of he and then president GHW Bush telling Gen Swarzkopf that he couldn't chase Saddam's army to Bagdad. Not a good image.
Posted by irish rage boy
This was the correct decision. Leave Iraq wounded, and just strong enough to be a counter weight to Iran... The plan was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and punish them heavily, not to occupy the country...see 2003 for the counter argument and negative results of an occupation/nation building.
And there was no WMD program in Iraq leading up to the second war...our guys attached to the survey team only reported finding a few old rockets with chemicals in them. The Duelfer Report is a good reference. I do remember hearing that after his capture Saddam stated that he bluffed the Shia with reports that he still had chemicals to keep them under control.
IMO there are two Powells - one the Military leader and the second, the poor politician...at times intertwined. I am appreciative and likely owe my life or some of my buddies lives to the correct decision that Powell influenced Bush to make to push overwhelming force into the theater to decisively win.
#14
The article is what happens when you go writing at Allegory 'R' Us drunk at 2:30 am.
Rabbit punch a defenseless bunny? Junior high lit teacher would have had my ears on a necklace.
Powell was many things. In the early WOT days, among my Anti-WOT orbit, he was the blackfaced cover for war crimes. Here, he is being used as a dirk in a political op/ed. I guess his appeal is selective.
Some unusable ancient junk is not a functional WMD program. Powell lied. Bush lied. They all lied to us. They knew what they were doing. They didn't care.
Powell never had our "allies" help pay for the war as promised. He endorsed Osama Obama when he was clearly a treasonous threat. And some of his public attacks on Trump were never based on actual issues. Pretty RINO sad.
Excerpted: "From 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein's rule"
"In all, American troops secretly reported finding roughly 5,000 chemical warheads, shells or aviation bombs, according to interviews with dozens of participants, Iraqi and American officials, and heavily redacted intelligence documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."
More at the link, Facts are annoying, I know, especially, if you have held onto a fallacy for so long...
John 8:32 - Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
#18
LOL it's hilarious how people on this website actually trust anything the New York Times says. I mean, it warns you right there on the masthead: it's the New York Times!
#19
Ref #17: There are people here at this site (regulars and lurkers) who assisted with the UN effort to destroy Saddam's bugs and gasses.... that is until the Canal Hotel went kaboom in Aug 2003 and United Nations' Special Rep in Iraq Sérgio Vieira de Mello was killed and over 100, including human rights lawyer and political activist Dr. Amin Mekki Medani. After that, everyone rucked up and unassed the AO.
Yes, we've established that Saddam was up to no good with his bugs and gasses. Most everyone here is convinced of that.
#20
What #9 said. I don't think Trump's statement is disrespectful. I don't this Trump's statement will have the effect that Jack Shafer would like it to.
#23
It goes without saying that any Trump article in the mainstream media is anti-Trump BS.
As for Saddam, he and his hell-spawn needed to be whacked. I'm OK with deploying the full might of the US military to do that even if it is just over a long weekend and we leave right after. Bash and dash.
At the time, I thought trying to turn Iraq into an actual country was a worthwhile goal. We did it quite successfully with Japan, after all. Although, we did have to sit on them for a decade or so.
In retrospect, it was bad idea. The Iraqis were stuck at a tribal level of social evolution and were simply not ready to be a nation. A worthwhile goal, maybe. But not achievable without more effort than we were willing to put into the job.
#24
More at the link, Facts are annoying, I know, especially, if you have held onto a fallacy for so long...
John 8:32 - Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Posted by: Fling Slolurt8561
I don't need to read your "link" we were there...had guys on the survey team. You can trust your google or you can get your boots in the sand to determine the facts.
BTW - Were these few old buried shells unfilled or the few rockets filled with degraded chemical weapons worth 4,400 dead US soldiers and 32,000 wounded...and the uncounted thousands of soldier suicides? The WMD PROGRAM in Iraq was a FALLACY...it did not exist...no plants or production facilities pumping out WMD to arm Bin Laden. Hell, Saddam hated Bin Laden by the way. No connection there either.
The negative effect the occupation had on our Army was distinct and still being felt...all the good leaders killed, wounded, the ones used up and got out, after multiple multiple rotations...a few good ones stayed and the rest were backfilled by the likes of Milley who is only capable of mouthing buzzwords like "branches and sequels" and "righteous strike." The effect of this horrible decision lingers...it is actually not over:(
#25
As for Saddam, he and his hell-spawn needed to be whacked. I'm OK with deploying the full might of the US military to do that even if it is just over a long weekend and we leave right after. Bash and dash.
#26
Saddam hated Bin Laden by the way. No connection there either.
It was reported that Al Qaeda cadres trained at Salman Pak alongside Saddam Hussein’s other pet jihadi organization cadres, and were given research projects for summer break in Afghanistan that included killing puppies with war gasses. But the main Al Qaeda connection in Iraq is through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, later formally called Al Qaeda in Iraq when Zarqawi became Al Qaeda’s #2.
A worthwhile goal, maybe. But not achievable without more effort...
Looking at the experimental data, I am forced to conclude it is not achievable period. But we had to test the proposition. I don’t think Iran will be able to civilize them, either — they have poor control over their small domestic population of Sunni Arabs.
#27
That was one of Mueller's lies. He gave the impression that the FBI, the trusted organization that would never lie, approved of the invasion as absolutely necessary. Because Iraq was going to give WMD to Al-Qaeda, despite Saddam utterly hating Islamists and Al-Qaeda utterly hating nationalists like Saddam.
Iraq giving WMDs to Al Qaeda would be as absurd as the Jews giving Zyklon-B to Hitler.
"That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor."
On October 31, 1998 President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act that made it official US policy to support “regime change” in Iraq.
#28
#26 Saddam hated Bin Laden by the way. No connection there either.
It was reported that Al Qaeda cadres trained at Salman Pak alongside Saddam Hussein’s other pet jihadi organization cadres, and were given research projects for summer break in Afghanistan that included killing puppies with war gasses. But the main Al Qaeda connection in Iraq is through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, later formally called Al Qaeda in Iraq when Zarqawi became Al Qaeda’s #2.
Fred laid it out in yellow hilight here.
Posted by: trailing wife
Bottom line up front is that Saddam was in no way connected with the 9/11 planning, execution, nor attack...and did not have an active WMD program to enable AQ. 9/11 was all on Bin Laden.
I am not sure I get your point above...I stated that Saddam hated Bin Laden. Whether or not different Sunni extremists that later branded themselves as AQ in Iraq passed through there doesn't change that fact. We all agree Zarqawi was crazy and dangerous and had AQ links.
Just because Saddam and Bin Laden both hated the US...doesn't mean they were buds. They were competitors in a way...and if it were possible, Bin Laden would likely have killed Saddam and emplaced a proxy in his place giving OBL C2 over the Iraqi military remotely.
#29
#27 That was one of Mueller's lies. He gave the impression that the FBI, the trusted organization that would never lie, approved of the invasion as absolutely necessary. Because Iraq was going to give WMD to Al-Qaeda, despite Saddam utterly hating Islamists and Al-Qaeda utterly hating nationalists like Saddam.
Iraq giving WMDs to Al Qaeda would be as absurd as the Jews giving Zyklon-B to Hitler.
#31
Just because Saddam and Bin Laden both hated the US...doesn't mean they were buds.
The enemy of my enemy.
By the way remember the centrifuges found buried in the sands? The Mustard gas attack on the Kurds? Our SeaBees finding a warehouse with Chlorine gas canisters with Air Force labels?
#32
Bottom line: No American presidential administration would have permitted Saddam to remain in power after 9/11. The dispute was over how to remove him and what should follow.
The best strategy was that which the U.K. Foreign Office recommended: Cut off the head of the snake and leave the Ba'athist party regime intact. Perhaps carve out a US protectorate for Kurdistan and put a forward air base there.
Don't know what Powell's view was of that proposal, but the mro-con zealots around W surely bear most of the blame for ignoring such wise, historically-informed counsel. Pity.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
