Even NYT Admits This Now.

So, now the ugly "secret" is outed in the open officially, by one of the most vocal enables of Syrian terrorists, The New York Times:

Observers reported heavy gunfire, mortar fire, car bombs and other explosions. Black smoke from burning tires rose above the city, evidently in an attempt to obscure the view of pilots flying Russian warplanes overhead. The new offensive was a strong sign that rebel groups vetted by the United States were continuing their tactical alliances with groups linked to Al Qaeda, rather than distancing themselves as Russia has demanded and the Americans have urged.

Russia has reserved the right to attack anyone working with the Qaeda-linked groups, saying there is little distinction between them. The rebels argue that they cannot afford to shun any potential allies while they are under fire, including well-armed and motivated jihadists, without more robust aid from their international backers.

The question I have at this point is this: who was responsible for this "vetting" of those groups in the US? CIA? OK, we all know what CIA does, I am sure they will, at some point, institute a professional CIA "love my Jihad" holiday, since CIA's pathological attraction to jihadists seems to be incurable. But, in the end, people, how about 9/11? Anyone still have any recollections about poor innocent people being incinerated in Twin Towers, anyone even remembers those killed in hijacked planes? Those, like me, who remember this atrocity inevitably have to ask this question, the only one which really matters in the end for those who still hold something sacred in their lives: where is morality in all that? I don't buy for a second this NYT narrative: see underlined bold in blue above. What Americans? The ones whom I know, and who are my friends and colleagues--they wouldn't even think for a second and would shoot first and ask questions later, if at all, once they would have recognized those groups as jihadist, let alone those groups having even a slightest chance of aligning with Al Qaeda or ISIS. These Americans, who are a majority, no doubt are decent and honorable people who wouldn't play games with Islamic terrorists. But if NYT suddenly, after leading a chorus of condemnation by "Western" presstitudes of Russia, who methodically was obliterating these so called "moderate rebels", changes tune and attaches "Americans" in this "narrative" to Russians, something did really happen. The question is: what? Let me speculate.

1. Even half-a-year ago it was absolutely clear that there are no "moderate rebels" (well, except those three or five ones on which Pentagon spent half-a-billion dollars) in Syria. Unicorns? Yes! "Moderate rebels"? No! So what "Americans" NYT is talking about? Here is a quote: 

Mr. Kerry has continued to reach out to Syrian rebel groups. A State Department spokesman, John Kirby, reiterated on Thursday the United States’ longstanding criticisms of Russia, saying that Moscow was pursuing a self-defeating strategy.

“If that’s their intention, to reduce Aleppo to rubble,” he said, “then they will do nothing more than encourage the opposition to keep fighting, make a cessation of hostilities all the more elusive if not impossible, and bolster the rise of extremism in Aleppo as well as prolong a war that should not be.”

So, those "Americans" are Mr. Kerry and a bunch of other State Dept and CIA enablers of jihadists whose only purpose at this stage is not to lose whatever is left of their public "persona", however pathetic, and, who knows, maybe, just maybe, not to get indicted as war criminals and supporters of terrorism down the road. After all,  in light of the latest news about HRC and her despicable circle, with FBI Director finally, for whatever reason, deciding to do what was needed to be done from the get go--investigate, we have another reality unfolding. 

2. Donald Trump DOES have a straight shot at US presidency now and some rats are leaving HRC's ship already under the constitutional crisis pretext, which, actually does have some merit. This, together with FBI Director's change of the position on HRC's e-mails testifies to the fact that, despite counter-claims from HRC's campaign that there is nothing to see there, things are, most likely, very serious for Hillary. This does have a direct impact on neocon/neolib/interventionist cabal which infested State Department and, under Hillary's guidance (that is when she had time free from taking bribes for her and Bill's Foundation) committed a whole host of real war crimes--from Libya to Syria. And this, boys and girls, is no joke. 

3. If Donald gets elected POTUS, and the probability of such an outcome rose significantly since the end of the last week, he will have to consider his own slogans and, especially the main of those "Make America Great Again". Here is a conundrum: making America great again IS impossible without total revision of US foreign policy, which is one of the major, in fact--defining, factors which brought good ole' USA to the edge of total economic bankruptcy, military-political defeat and decline--a courtesy of neocon Bacchanalia which now is in full swing in US since 1999. But it is on HRC's watch and with the help of her "cadres" that this cabal started the Unites States on the slippery slope towards the conflict with Russia with all what follows from this terrifying scenario. Somebody really got scared in D.C. and now somebody has to pay for such state of the affairs if Donald comes to power. I think Trump is well aware of what is going on and I think he does contemplate the purge of neocons from their cesspools in very many high places in US government. Together with crooks from Wall Street, this neocon mob is clear and present danger to the real interests of the United States the way they are formulated, even if in part, by possible next US President Donald Trump. Neolibcon mafia knows it, hence hysteria in media, who also are directly responsible in inflaming "exceptionalist" propaganda, war-time jingoism, dehumanizing peoples around the globe, cheering on terrorists by creating around them fairy tales of "moderation". All meanwhile the nation was being driven into the ground by forces for which the United States and majority of the Americans were and are nothing more than a kindle for the global inferno of "democratization". Trotskyism is alive and well in USA but it must be destroyed. Donald's victory in 2016 elections may not be the end of this scourge but it will be a good, solid first step in making American great again among the community of world's leading nations. In the end, Al Capone went behind bars not for his most despicable crimes but for tax evasion and this was good enough. Many neocons are war criminals and their place is behind bars.

    

Until THAT, ideology and a creature, which articulated it, is not eliminated from the US politics nothing good will come for the US. Luckily, more and more people are beginning to wake up to this reality and that gives me some hope. And the vengeance better be "in this life", not the next.   

                    

                                    VOTE TRUMP!!!      

 

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't-IV.

I was extremely busy this month (moving and other things) and I hardly had time to post much. But since Saker posted today this at UNZ Review, I decided that it is as good of a time as it will get to point attention to this:

Report proposes canceling U.S. aircraft carriers, investing in lasers to combat Russia and China.

Talk about the "blasphemy" on a grand scale, since these news made it not only to the pages of WaPo, but also to CNN. All this "blasphemy" originated in the Center For New American Security think-tank.  The report looks at several ways of optimization of Pentagon's budget (nothing new here) and uses some fairly familiar "Hi-Low" lingo: remember Zumwalt and Project 60? And views, as CNN reports: Despite cutting the Ford-class carrier program after only two of the four planned ships are complete, the three think-tank experts said their plan will ensure that the US still has 10 aircraft carriers by the end of the decade due to their 35-year lifespan, but that the carriers would take on new functions, acting as prepositioned operating bases around the world. 

The phrase which really caught my attention was this: Investing in the airwing gives aircraft carriers utility going forward, Hendrix said, noting that long-range strike aircraft would allow the carriers to sit out of range of Russian and Chinese anti-ship missiles.

This really makes one scratch one's head, trying to figure out what is missing in this picture. That, certainly, happened to me until I had my Eureka moment and referred myself to my own writing. Namely, and I quote myself, while giving some simple example: It starts with a simple realization of operational reality of Russia's Air Force, whose air superiority, air defense (intercept), strike, refueling and early warning assets are located exactly around both Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

American military thinkers, it seems, consistently forget to take into account that even if US Navy CBG(s) is (are) "prepositioned" in such a way that they can "sit out of range of Russian and Chinese anti-ship missiles", which in itself is a very difficult proposition to start with, their air-wings WILL encounter, in case of Russia (I will abstain from discussing China's capabilities), a very competent and numerically superior Air Force. Interestingly, those thinkers also forget that those Russian planes are long-range, all have refueling capability, and do have capability to launch a plethora of long-range anti-shipping missiles at CVN. From various iterations of high supersonic X-31 missiles to air-launched Brahmos, to sub-launched Kalibrs--the menu of weapons which can strike "prepositioned" CVN is very rich, to put it mildly. It is also very doubtful that deployment of US Navy's attack subs (SSNs) well within the ranges of Russian ASW aviation and SSKs, who are a very serious threat to any, even most advanced,  SSN, will be easy. 

       

  
It has to be understood that US Navy is "stuck" with its aircraft-carriers and operational concepts which follow--that is "power projection" against some third world hellholes where carriers don't have to deal with either serious air force, capable air defense or this ever-present problem of "leakers" (such as one, two or three 3M54) which can ruin the day by taking out AEGIS escorts. After that the fate of CVN will be unenviable. It is clear for any attentive observer (and people from CNAS do have some pedigree) that in the last 20 years the naval warfare paradigm changed dramatically and with it changed the role of carriers. Yes, they are great for power projection, as current deployment of venerable Admiral Kuznetsov into the Eastern Mediterranean shows. This old-timer, once his CBG reaches the station, will do some "power projecting", thus training its air-wing, including validation of combat capabilities of newest MiG-29Ks, will kill some terrorists and will demonstrate the flag. Some people will get combat awards and all this is fine with me. But in real war between serious nation-states, or alliances of those, neither Kuznetsov nor any Ford-class CVN have any chances of survival against determined,  competent and well armed adversary. 

A salvo of 8 or 10, let alone 12 or 16, 600-700 kilometers range, high supersonic anti-ship missiles from different directions is a problem which alone is a grave threat to any, even most advanced, surface combatant. When this problem is compounded with CBGs air-wings engaged in the air battle for own survival against aircraft and pilots who are as good, if not better, as those of air-wings, one has to ask a question which authors of CNAS' report ask implicitly and quite explicitly answer it--the age of those magnificent mammoths is over and no number of reshuffles of the outdated operational concepts will save them. The coming of hyper-sonic, long range weapons (and they are already here) overturns current fleet air-defense as we know it completely. And maybe the authors of this report do have a point when they propose to invest into lasers. After all, for Mach=6 ASM (that is 2000 + meters per second, or 2 kilometers per second) it would take somewhere between 15 to 20 seconds to cover the distance from where it, maybe, will be detected to the platform which will detect it. Good luck shooting it down, even more luck of shooting down the salvo of those.    

US Navy will continue to be forced, as it was in 1950s when US Navy found the role for carriers as reserve (secondary) nuclear strike platforms, time after time to grasp for sinking concepts in order to preserve its CVN Fleet's "power projection" capabilities, a lot of juicy captains' and admirals' positions and, of course, visuals, that is until the first salvo of a serious war is fired. Or, as late Scott Shuger, himself a carrier officer at some point of time, noted in his late 1980s piece: Even a 28-carrier fleet would not ensure the success of wartime operations involving carriers. The navy's scenarios for those operations are unrealistic. For example, theyfail to allow for degradation of carriers' defensive capabilities as hits accumulate, imperfect weather conditions, conflicts between the power projection and air defense missions,and potential changes in the composition of Soviet bomber and submarine forces.  
It goes without saying that since then, missile strike capabilities changed dramatically, if not in a revolutionary way, aircraft carriers--did not. And that is the problem for carriers and their operational concepts. As Commanders Gattuzo and Tanner, both--enormously experienced carrier aviators, noted: "Money spent furthering manned aircraft technologies and programs—the CVNX (proposed Nimitz-class carrier replacement) being one of them—is like polishing cannonballs so they will fly a little farther."         

To be continued....   

Poland's Defense Minister Lives On The Moon.

No really, Poland Defense Minister Antoni Macierewicz', since him taking this important position, claims about Russia and her military are really worthy of monitoring by psychiatrist. His latest claim is that Egypt sold notorious ferries of Mistral-class to Russia for 1 dollar. I already wrote about how useless these ugly ferry-boats are for the Russian Navy and was very glad (and not me alone) that their delivery to Russian Navy ultimately failed. Egypt's Navy has gotten those ships and they better stay there, granted that Russia will supply two helicopter (KA-52) wings for both. But each time when you think that this pathetic Mistral saga has finally came to a close... bang! Macierewicz suddenly pops up as the Jack from the box and delivers his startling "revelations".

After all, according to him, Russia, apart from paying the whole... drum roll...one dollar for Mistrals,

      

also created and supports Islamic terrorism. Well, what can I say--the guy is a Defense Minister of a NATO country which tries desperately to feel very important and is dying for attention from her master across the Atlantic. If NATO wants such Defense Ministers to continue occupy important positions in the Alliance, it should really start thinking about opening HQs on the Moon, since it is the only appropriate place for lunatics such as Macierewicz to express their views. On the other hand, most of Western political "elite" today is in a hardly better mental state than Poland's Defense Minister. It is, however, a very good raison d'etre for European Space Agency, they may, at some point in the future, indeed, develop a viable program for the settlements on the Moon. But something tells me that even the most insane European politicians still sing like the real Man On The Moon Andy Kaufman did, if you know what I mean;-)

    

  ..........

Why? Oh, Why?

EU drops sanctions threat against Russia over Syria. Indeed, why? The answer is extremely simple, so, no use to read and listen to Euro-morons' justification of such a decision--in Syria Russia fights Islamic terrorism in all of its manifestations, from ISIS to Al Qaeda and its affiliate groups. Does any one want to impose sanctions on the only major power, which, together with Syrian Army, fights terrorism, thus exposing oneself as a supporter of terrorists? Even real supporters of terrorists such as France, who is culpable in creating a mayhem in the Middle East, and its pathetic President have enough brains not to do so. 

Reality of all those Western sanctions on Russia has been discussed in this blog on numerous occasions and it is safe to say that those sanctions really helped Russia to launch her re-industrialization program, granted that it still progresses not with the pace I, as one of Russia observers, would like to see. But still, it is ongoing. Truth is, Many European businesses hate anti-Russian sanctions and some are trying to find the way to bypass them, but, in general, these sanctions, together with widely spread anti-Russian (Russian "threat" et al) sentiment of Europeans is a reality on the ground in Europe and let Europeans deal with those. I see no tragedy, in fact, the opposite is true, in Russian manufacturers substituting European imports. Nor European public opinion matters as far as the historic geopolitical shift, which is occurring this very minute as I write it, goes. As I said, current "Europe" as a Europe is done. The facade is still there (in some places) but behind it--no life and no European culture is left. I thought it would have been very appropriate for Europe to slap another round of sanctions on Russia because of Syria--that would have been very entertaining. As General Gromov and Dmitry Rogozin summarized it in their "Russian Advice On Afghanistan" NYT article 6 years ago:

"In fact, we were the first to defend Western civilization against the attacks of Muslim fanatics. No one thanked us. On the contrary, everyone was impeding our actions: The United States, NATO, Iran, Pakistan, even China."

Europe can enjoy now the fruits of her policies. As per US, as of now, as I said many times before, it is a separate story. But as Russian proverb goes: Nasilno Mil Ne Budesh' (You can not make someone to like you), Europe chose her destinies herself. 

Oh, No! An "Accident".

Coincidence? Even if it is--it is a telling one. US so called "main stream media" is a sewer which helps bring US (and us) into the Orwellian reality of a "thought-crime",  "two minute hate" sessions and "being always at war with East Asia". US political class was always corrupt but this campaign, for the first time, exposed a catastrophic degree to which US media, political and public institutions, which once were marketed globally as the golden standard, are rotten to the core. 

Make your own conclusions.... Vote Trump--he might be our last chance.

Poor, Poor Dears.

In another step to oblivion, Sweden politician comes up with a wonderful plan--an integration of returning jihadists into Swedish society.  

Jihadi rehab: Swedish city plans free driver’s license, housing & tax perks for returning fighters 

I am sure this wonderful plan will work miracles of "integration". After all, those poor, poor jihadist dears need some down time after rape, pillage, murder of innocent civilians they committed in Syria--who wouldn't? This caught my attention:

Also an April, a report appearing in the Swedish media claimed that Islamists have successfully infiltrated Sweden’s Green Party. Lars Nicander from the Swedish National Defense University said there is “a very similar effect today, in which people close to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party, are apparently gaining large footholds in the Green Party.”

And why I am not surprised when reading words "Green Party"? It immediately brings back memories of another "Green Party" coward and traitor--the mayor of Cologne, who blamed German rape victims (rapes committed by culturally "superior" Muslims).  Europe is done, but no normal nation will have a "Green Party" as a viable political force--all "greens" are well beyond the issues of environment, and even those are "radicalized" to the point of suicide--such as Germany's refusal of nuclear energy. Green movement today are all shills for globalism, obliteration of what's left of Western culture and are for the final triumph of multiculturalism, which will be the end of any of us who treasure traditional values. Greens are traitors to Western Civilization, which lives out its last days in Western Europe. Sad but cold hard fact. Europeans did it to themselves and they have only themselves to blame. My condolences--the cultural cancer has metastasized and even surgery is not a solution anymore.   

Mr. Obama, Russian Army Is Neither Second, First Nor Fifth In The World.

It is impossible to explain to Harvard lawyer that Russian Armed Forces are not interested in being ranked by anybody, as Obama tried to do in his press-conference, together with Italy's PM Renzi, remarks today. 

"We think that Russia is a large, important country with a military that is second only to ours and has to be a part of the solution on the world stage rather than part of the problem,"

Russian military is in the business of defending own country and as such has a track record without equals in the military history: from Teutonic Knights, Mongol--Tatars and Polish Invaders, to Napoleon and Hitler--these last two, accidentally, also loved to "rank" Russians. We all know how it all ended. For overwhelming majority of Russians war is not a joke and not a Hollywood movie--it is a historic reality spun over a millennium and ingrained in Russian cultural code. Russian Armed Forces have to be good at only one thing--destroying the enemy who tries to attack Russia proper and in her vicinity and in this business, as thousand year long history testifies, Russians are damn good at it. Probably, best in history. For some strange reason Russia simply does not like to be conquered, what a loser--doesn't Russia know about all benefits US "democratization" brings to people (I am being facetious, of course). Any "rankings" by anyone, be it POTUS, be it some "think tank" or some second rate journo from some faux-geopolitical rag--all of it is meaningless and reflects absolutely nothing as pertains to real military capabilities honed for achieving specific military-political goals, as stated in the military doctrine. Russia's Military Doctrine is explicitly defensive and does not, unlike it is with the US, define Russia as a "leader" or "global cop".  

Well, when speaking of Obama today, one has to bring his famous "Russia is a regional power" snafu and "Russia's economy in tatters" up. One has to, it is impossible to avoid it, especially against the background of voices within US who, however reluctantly and insincerely, begin to admit that basically they have no clue. Putting Russian Army in the 2nd, 5th, 1st or 21st place makes no difference for the cold hard fact of Russian Army today being able to conventionally defeat any opponent in her immediate vicinity. That is what Russian Army is designed for, that is how it is built. Russian sphere of vital interests is well defined and it is not global, it is, indeed, regional and, as Sergei Karaganov noted: "Russia will never again fight on her own territory". But these are capabilities which are characteristic of a superpower. Once the nuclear deterrent is added up here, the picture emerges of what Russians were longing for centuries--of the nation whose borders are untouchable. It also moves Russia into the status of whatever power label is in vogue today: super, pooper, hyper or great. But one is literally forced to ask Obama:"Mr. President, if Russia is a "regional" power, whose economy is in "tatters", how, then, this ever-declining power managed to built this military which is "second only to" US?" How does it work? Can Obama answer this question? I am sure his advisers will come up with something. 

But for the foreseeable future two things will remain the same--West "elites'" total ignorance of Russia and Russians and repetition of the mantra of US "providing global leadership" and with it running good ole' USA into the ground for the sake of narrow, greedy, cosmopolitan "elite" who has no loyalty to majority of the American people. Yet, this Obama's admission today is a stark indicator of lack of any serious foreign policy strategy for the US. It was on Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Obama's watch that United States officially has become a supporter of Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists. In this case, knowing whom Russia is dealing with today, it seems only natural for Russian Armed Forces to become, indeed, second to none in what they do--defend their own people. In this sense, Russian Armed Forces are on their way to become number one in that. After all, as Russian Emperor Alexander III succinctly observed: "Russia has only two allies--her army and her navy". And that is the essence of Russian history. 

     

         

Time To Speak In Broadsides, It Is Still Not Too Late

The American "Left" is desperate. First, it is not real Left--it is a neo-liberal interventionist cabal more interested in war and post-modernist globalist Pax Americana than in the fate of old Left's ideas of economic disparity between what today is known as 1% and the rest. Secondly, speaking broadly, US is not multi-party political system anymore--it is one-party rule country which still pretends that it is "democracy" and "republic"--it is neither. US de facto is ruled by a single party of corrupt power-hungry hawks who have media propaganda machine at their disposal and classic American political distinction between  GOP and Democrats is, at this stage, irrelevant. After all, supposedly "dedicated" GOPers such as neocons had no problem changing their party affiliations and endorse Hillary who, in her political outlook, ideologically would fit well in either political "party". The only "difference" today between so called Democrats and Republicans is this "important" question of sexual minorities and the speed with which US must become Orwellian reservation. Both parties are in the pockets of Wall Street, Military-Industrial Complex and ethnic and religious mafias. Democrats want Orwellian "reality"  as fast as possible, Republicans are still trying to squeeze better deal for themselves and their donors while they can and then--no problem, the completion of the mad house, which US is increasingly reminiscent of, can commence unopposed. They still think that they will leave their lives out in gated communities--what a bunch of ignorant morons. This is just the start.

Yet, this Hillary's "Left" and political prostitute Ryan's "Right" are nervous, very nervous in a face of The Donald. I agree with many sensible observers of American political stage--Donald is a very flawed man, no doubt about that. Yet, by a strange (or may be not) coincidence he touched American nation's nerve and committed a criminal offense on a massive scale--he started talking about what majority of Americans really care about and talk, and think, among themselves. Establishment can not have this, because for them this means one thing--being accused of incompetence, malice and treason of majority of American people with all that this entails. I wrote a lot on the incompetence of US "elites" but desperate times call for desperate measures. In the latest salvo by HRC's campaign against Trump US media-machine pulls into the light yet another "expert". Enter  former US "intelligence officer" Malcolm Nance. 

Former U.S. intelligence officer: Russia has turned Trump into ‘unwitting asset’

Wow! But before we get into details of this "former intelligence officer's" Clanciesque BS, let's take a look at the guy himself. In the US this guy goes under such titles as: Malcolm Wrightson Nance (born 1961 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American career cryptologic senior chief petty officer, author, scholar and media commentator on international terrorism, intelligence, insurgency and torture. He is an internationally recognized expert in the history, personalities and organization of al Qaeda and its affiliates including the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant ISIL; jihadi radicalization, Islamic extremism in Middle East, Southwest Asian and African terror groups, as well as counterinsurgency and asymmetric warfare. Malcolm Nance practices in the fields of national security policy particularly in anti- and counter-terrorism intelligence, terrorist strategy and tactics, torture and counter-ideology in combatting Islamic extremism. In 2014 he became the executive director of the counter-ideology think tank the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideologies (TAPSTRI) in Hudson, New York.

Before I start I want to make it very clear: throughout my feeble military career I served with many highly professional Chief Petty Officers some of whom were "professional cryptologists" or, in Russian, were called SPS (СПС--Связь Повышенной Скрытности) or The Increased Clandestine Communications. These were people who were the ones who carried what was known as not even Top Secret but Special Significance (Особой Важности), something akin to US Code Word status, cipher materials for communications systems and were extremely restrained people. Those, sometimes college-educated, Chiefs were NOT "cryptologists", in essence they were protocol care takers, nothing more. I do not want to go deep into this but in those times they physically delivered what was known as "seasonal materials"--things for which one, should he have lost or incorrectly destroyed those, could face a court marshal and very serious and long terms of imprisonment. In some other, severe, cases--one could face a "firing squad". The actual cryptology requires a very serious education in... math. Well, here we have a "scholar" who has a whole high school diploma behind him: Malcolm Nance is a graduate of West Catholic Boys High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Well, let's see what his competences were in the US Navy and for that we go to the... US Navy's careers site. As you can see immediately, this Malcolm Nance "scholar" guy most likely was a cryptologist technician with all things this, with all my love and respect to technicians, expertise level entails--purely narrow focused set of skills. Well, anything above this technician focus, that is even junior officer position, as we can see, requires: Within Navy Cryptology, there are distinct focus areas that have their own training paths and job descriptions. Each CT role works under the oversight of Cryptologic Warfare Officers (four-year degree required) or Cyber Warfare Engineers (four-year degree required) – and potentially both. Nance, doesn't have any of it and while we shouldn't doubt his possible serious experience as a cryptology care taker, I doubt he can be described as real serious intelligence officer who has the ability to pass judgements on the subject matter which requires a completely different academic, experience and military-intelligence level. Yet, this self-proclaimed "scholar" had no problem dropping one of the stupidest and ignorant platitudes for the sake of Hillary's campaign: The intelligence term, Nance explained, refers to “someone who thinks they’ve adopted a position but that position has been carved out for them, groomed for them.” “They’ve been put into a position where they can actually carry out the wishes of another power,” he said. “Lenin used to call these people ‘useful idiots.’”

So, the guy thinks that he is qualified, which he is not (not even close), to pass the judgement on what could only be described as the greatest operation of influence in history by turning Donald Trump in Russian Manchurian candidate?  Absolutely, this guy really thinks so. Not only that, look at this:

      

This guy already managed to write a "book" which went on sale on Amazon on October 10. Talk about convenient coincidence but the the question has to be asked: does this "intelligence officer" really know on what level and who plans and executes such level of operations? If he says yes, this "expert" if full o' shit. Can this "internationally renown" specialist in Al Qaeda support his "theses" on anything Russia-related? We all know the answer. The guy is invested in HRC's campaign and uses a military and intelligence lingo and titles to BS incompetent public thus revealing himself as a paid stooge of Hillary and those who are behind her. But let's recall what really serious people (with many serious degrees) stated recently--I refer to Nicholas Gvozdev: 

Last year, the calculation of Saudi Arabia—and by extension of the United States—was that Russia could not sustain its more assertive position in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) in light of declining energy prices, and that unsheathing the oil weapon would curb Kremlin ambitions. This was wrong. Today, it is Saudi Arabia that has begun to search for ways to firm up oil prices while Rosneft—Russia’s state oil company—declares that it has no need for capping production. Syria has not proven to be the quagmire that President Obama said it would be for Moscow. The Russia-Turkey partnership now seems to be back on track while Ankara’s ties with Washington worsen. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s signature economic initiative for Asia, is on political life support, Chinese president Xi Jinping will travel to the BRICS summit in Goa later this week to unveil ambitious proposals for free trade arrangements that bypass the West.  

If this truly educated man (Gvozdev), who spent years teaching US Naval officers in Naval War College had to admit that the US calculations, assumptions and decisions on Russia were wrong--and those were made by people who, unlike our "expert", actually are very high-ranking analytical and intelligence people, some with damn serious degrees--any comments by some Chief who spreads some dead Clanciesque and le Carre's "intelligence" cliches and myths are, frankly, preposterous. Nance's "opinions" on Russia are nothing more than a propaganda fodder and lies on the subject Malcolm Nance can not possibly have any competent opinion precisely for the reasons of him never operating on any, even junior, intelligence level in anything related to Russia. Those who did buy his "opinion", failed miserably, accepting politically-driven BS from some low level hack in support of Hillary and against Trump which is ridiculous. Time to speak in broadsides. I would suggest Mr. Nance to stick to what he supposedly is "expert" in--Al Qaeda--and to try to stop spreading BS both about Trump and Russia, albeit at this stage, it makes no difference for Russia at all. 

  

New Olympic Sports.

By now, after doping scandals from WADA and hackers' revelations about massive "officially allowed" medical exceptions for full-blown doping for sportsmen from some "exceptional" nations, after political atrocity against Russian, absolutely clean, para-Olympians,  I hope the modern Olympic movement goes the same way the horse buggy went. It is totally corrupted and ideologically-driven. But not before that:

Pole dancing at the Olympics? Federation seeks IOC recognition.

Hey, if Bob Dylan can get Nobel Prize for Literature (nothing personal against Bob per se and he does have some awesome songs) why not pole-dancing? No, really, this could be an awesome Olympic "sport", it certainly will attract vast TV audience of males around the globe. I also would suggest in this case to add to Olympics: "threesomes with obstacles", "lap dance relays" and "track and field masturbation"--that sure as hell will make steadily declining Olympic Games audiences explode and will provide TV ratings which will finally beat those of soccer's World Cup. Think about it. I would love to see the faces of feminists. But this is just me.

Hysteria And Delusion

The signs of this hysteria and delusion among today's US "elites" are all over the country. Nowhere it is more apparent than in US media, including the so called "scholarly" and "professional" magazines dealing with foreign affairs and geopolitics. Late Samuel Huntington was one of the founders of the Foreign Policy magazine, which for years demonstrated a complete lack of expertise on pretty much any serious Russia-related issue but after Crimea's return back home, to Russia, in 2014 this magazine has become a panopticon of BS-pushers, hack-produced "opinion" pieces and, in general, became an openly Russophobic rag which continues to defend indefensible.

It is my long standing contention, which I can back up with facts, that US "diplomacy" today is nothing more than a collection of badly educated and uncultured people who are brainwashed with American "exceptionalism" and most of whom are not really diplomats but have degrees in political "science"--that is have no systematic knowledge of the world around them. As the review of the book by real US diplomat, James Bruno, states:

Our foreign policy is in the hands of the clueless, the self-serving and the politically corrupt. Read this book first. Then fill out papers to emigrate. The author provides a first-hand view from inside the belly of the beast of the U.S. foreign policy establishment. His insights are so spot-on that government censors have blocked out whole sections of text. The Foreign Circus will have you alternatively laughing and shaking your head. And when you read tomorrow's headlines, you'll have a better appreciation why Washington screws up.

Enter the latest opus in Foreign Policy (and Hudson Institute) by yet another hysterical and delusional hack, Peter Rough. His piece has a very promising title: The Best Way to Defeat the Islamic State and Succeed in Syria? Push Back on Putin. The whole piece is a testimony to the depth of the both, yes, hysteria and delusion of American "exceptionalists" when forced to face the reality. I will allow the readers of my blog to make their own conclusions but... But who is Peter Rough? Here is what his biography tells us:

Peter Rough is a Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where he researches a wide range of national security issues. Currently, he is co-leading two in-depth studies: one that examines Iran’s challenge to the American-led regional order in the Middle East and another that investigates U.S. extended deterrence in the second nuclear age. Until recently, he helped edit Hudson's journal, Current Trends in Islamist Ideology. Prior to joining Hudson, Rough collaborated with Leila Fawaz on a social history of World War I in the Middle East, A Land of Aching Hearts, published by Harvard University Press in fall 2014. A former Associate Director in the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, he also served as Director of Research in the Office of George W. Bush, assisting the former president with his memoir, Decision Points. Rough has completed stints as a Policy Analyst at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he served also as staff briefer to Administrator Henrietta Fore, and as an advisor to U.S. Army Special Operations Command, where he analyzed Unconventional Warfare doctrine for the Commanding General’s Strategic Initiatives Group. In 2012, he was responsible for U.S.-Russia bilateral relations as a member of the Romney for President Russia Working Group. In 2016, he served as a member of the Rubio for President Middle East Working Group. Rough began his career at the Republican National Committee specializing in political research. A proud native of Des Moines, Iowa, he holds a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from The George Washington University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he was a Cabot Corporation Scholar.
He is a native German speaker.


Isn't it a biography of a classic US humanities "educated" hack who knows everything a little bit and nothing at all? Here it is--a perfect embodiment, a portrait, of a current US faux-intellectual "elite" who not only fvcked the surrounding world up to the point of bringing it to the brink of the WW III, but screwed own country, that is US, so badly and have a stunning track record of utter failures in anything they apply their pathetic "skills" to, that the only thing which is left for them is to try to create a make-belief world where their supposed "expertise" is in demand. Evidently Rough (and his publishers), who are totally oblivious to the facts on the ground in Syria, missed the point at which they, accidentally, dropped their mask of "expertise" and "objectivity" and are openly suggesting support for Al Qaeda (and ISIS). This, of course, is apart from open lies which are in the foundation of current (and past) US Administrations' such as this:

If the president is rejecting Kerry’s counsel, the secretary of state should resign. Assad now ranks as perhaps the worst killer since Pol Pot brutalized Cambodia in the 1970s while Putin has revealed himself as an insatiable revisionist intent on exploiting American weakness. Far better for Kerry to exit the stage in a burst of honor than vainly travel the world like a modern-day Falstaff perpetually humiliated by Putin. It is past time for the U.S to end the diplomatic track and impose meaningful costs on Russia, Iran, and Assad. The future of the region and the defeat of the Islamic State depend on it.
 Come to think about it, if I were Peter Rough (or Foreign Policy editor) I would "exit the stage in a burst of honor", but sadly, meanings of such words as honor, integrity and academic honesty are unknown to likes of Rough and these "experts" will continue for now to poison the air with their hysteria, delusions and lies until are smashed by the inevitable march of history or not prosecuted at the war crimes tribunal where many of them truly belong. Unless, of course, they follow the example of their ideological father, Dr. Goebbels, and commit a suicide. Or start facing reality as, once respected by me (not anymore), Nicholas Gvozdev tries to do.

Last year, the calculation of Saudi Arabia—and by extension of the United States—was that Russia could not sustain its more assertive position in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) in light of declining energy prices, and that unsheathing the oil weapon would curb Kremlin ambitions. This was wrong. Today, it is Saudi Arabia that has begun to search for ways to firm up oil prices while Rosneft—Russia’s state oil company—declares that it has no need for capping production. Syria has not proven to be the quagmire that President Obama said it would be for Moscow. The Russia-Turkey partnership now seems to be back on track while Ankara’s ties with Washington worsen. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s signature economic initiative for Asia, is on political life support, Chinese president Xi Jinping will travel to the BRICS summit in Goa later this week to unveil ambitious proposals for free trade arrangements that bypass the West.

And while I may agree with this "Strategy" professor from Naval War College in this, his closing remarks still have me questioning his degree of the touch with the reality.

As an observer of U.S. policy, I can’t say for certain where the United States might be prepared to compromise and where it would stand firm. But U.S. leaders have to make these calls based on their assessment of U.S. values and interests combined with costs America is willing to pay. But U.S. policy will be on a firming footing once there is a salutary realization that, when it comes to the Kremlin, there are no risk-free options.
 
US policy cannot be on a "firming footing" anymore because the utter bankruptcy of US foreign policy institutions (and concepts) coupled with militant incompetency of its "think-tankdom" and so called "expert communities" is a fait accompli and what US needs is not "firming footing" for yet another military and political disaster and defeat, but a complete renewal of its political and academic elites--not complicit in creation of global chaos and bloodshed. This painful but necessary and long overdue, for national survival, process of beating addiction to perceived hegemony may start with electing Donald Trump to Oval Office. There is no guarantee that he will pursue policies which do serve real American national interests but there is a chance. The alternative to Trump leaves no chance at all and will see delusional people like Peter Rough setting US on the final approach to national suicide and with it, possibly, to a global one too. We still have a choice.

NOTE: I am still struggling with the formatting of this text, I will update links later. 

French Foreign Minister Ayrault Is Imbecile.

I mean it. Here is the guy who represents the nation which initiated atrocity in Libya and took an active part in atrocity in Syria and he dares to pontificate on Aleppo.  

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Wednesday he would tell his Russian counterpart in Moscow that the situation in the Syrian city of Aleppo could not continue, describing Russia's action as "cynicism that fooled nobody".

Talk about living in parallel reality. But then again, hey, look at the guy's "credentials": Mr Ayrault was born on 25 January 1950 in the town of Maulevrier, some 40 miles from the northwestern city of Nantes. The son of a textiles factory worker and a dressmaker, he became interested in politics as a student and stood in his first election at the age of 26. The following year he was elected mayor of the town of Saint-Herblain, an office he held for 11 years.Mr Ayrault worked as a German teacher until he was elected to the National Assembly in 1986. At the age of 39, he became Mayor of Nantes, a position he still holds.His administration is credited with the renaissance of the city - the sixth largest in France. He married French teacher Brigitte Terrien in 1971. They have two children. According to France 24 TV, he likes music, cycling and dancing. Reuters describes him as "reserved", "conciliatory" and "a long-time Hollande ally". 

France, by the efforts of her midget Sarkozy and, now, by Euro-lefty Hollande, long ago has turned into a secondary European power, a US lapdog and into growing in leaps and bounds third world shithole. But the question here is not that Ayrault is simply unqualified to hold such a position but is in the fact that he threatened in his interview to one of the French TV stations on the eve of his visit to Moscow with Hague Tribunal For War Crimes. The threat, obviously, was to Russia. This is when it becomes clear that the guy is a complete moron, same as his boss Hollande. I think Lavrov already explained to this "minister" what is the pecking order in the world today and that these are France's politicians, who really should get ready to face War Crimes Tribunal, especially for enabling ISIS in Libya, granted, of course, that "mighty" France (together with UK) ran out of precision guided munitions on the third day of brutal attacks on Libya and had to beg their big boss to support their criminal undertaking. I feel for people of France, those who still count themselves to be French, not some Euro eunuchs. But the truth is, nations deserve their rulers and France certainly deserved what she has today--a liquidation or going out of business sale committee, for which Ayrault is a perfect fit.

  

The Discreet Charm Of The American Academe

I stated many times (in fact, this was one of the main reasons I started this blog) that most of what passes in US as Russian Studies field has to be either 90% cleansed of those, mostly self-proclaimed, "Russia experts" or this field has to be completely closed for good. The reason for that drastic measure being, to put it straight, inability of most (with some few exceptions) US "academe" to have even remotely objective and knowledgeable view on the subject of their "expertise"--Russia. Enter John Mearsheimer, whose academic credentials are indisputable and who is well known in the US and abroad, to some audiences, as an author on mostly foreign relations and big power politics and, of course, as an author of The Israel Lobby and U. S. Foreign Policy. Mearsheimer is a former US Air Force officer, a graduate of the West Point. Now that we cleared this, let's get to the point(s). 

1) There is no such thing as political "science"--it is a figment of imagination of humanities "educated" bureaucrats for growing their own field and providing more and more tenures (or sinecures) for people who have difficulties with differential equations and salvo model. The so called "political science" is nothing more than a collection of some postulates and theories all of which separately are wrong because they can not be right for reasons of a stochastic nature of human life. In the last 30+ only one (single) theory on foreign relations and geopolitics came more or less relatively close, and even then with some major mistakes, to describing our complex world's reality, it was Samuel Huntington's magnum opus "The Clash Of Civilizations And The Remaking Of World Order". The rest produced in this field is basically nothing more than a collection of pretentious pseud-academic crap which was debunked already by overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary: be it Fukyama's The End Of History or Brzezinski's  take on geopolitics--all of those "theories" turned out to be a complete crap, all of this crap is produced mostly by Ivy League "educated" political "scientists" such as... Mearsheimer. Ideologies? Well, that is another game and that is the only field where "political science" has any meaning since it is good only for justification of one or another delirious political idea. Or, in layman's lingo--good for bullshitting people.

2. There is also no such science as "history", it never existed and today, in the unfolding new technological paradigm it ceased to exists as we know it. Why? Because for history to become a "science" it has to have its causalities right. Well, getting causalities right sometimes is difficult even in precise sciences (which, incidentally, require an intellectual effort on several orders of magnitude larger than in "humanities" field) and in order to be serious modern historian one has to have a wide range of competences ranging from military history to economics, languages to serious technological expertise. One especially has to get military history right. All this is required to get more or less objective picture of the world and here is the catch: 

Mearsheimer's mantra is the "decline of Russia".  Not for once did I note his this, supposedly very "academic", assessment of Russia and I did ask not for once myself a question: is it a lapse of judgement by otherwise well recognized academician or is there something more sinister in all of that? Well, I have got my answer yesterday. 

“This (Russia) is a declining great power. The only reason we have problems with it is because we have pursued liberal hegemony which called for running our alliance structure right up to their border. A self-created problem.” 

While Mearsheimer  is absolutely correct in identifying some of the reasons of the US "problems" with Russia he completely misses the issue--great or super powerdom IS NOT defined the way it is defined by the combined West. And here we must recall what late Samuel Huntington predicted in 1996, a decline of the West relative to other emerging powers. So let me not procrastinate and get to the point: Mearsheimer gets it totally wrong since it is the US, not Russia, who is declining power and in fact, last three years saw a great acceleration of this decline. Russia, meanwhile, is in ascension mode, re-emerging from her forcefully induced slumber. And here comes this state of mind of US true elites, people with consciousness, common sense, integrity and real patriotism, such as deeply respected by me Philip Giraldi who in his yesterday's piece in The American Conservative makes the same mistake as Mearsheimer.  

"The reality is that Russia, apart from its nuclear arsenal, is a bit of a mouse that roared. Its struggling economy generates a GNP that is on par with that of Italy, and it spends one-seventh as much as the U.S. on the military. It has one aircraft carrier versus 10 in the American arsenal, one-sixth as many helicopters, one-third the number of fighter aircraft, and less than half as many active-duty military personnel. It has no effective military allies, while the U.S. has nearly all of Eastern and Western Europe in NATO."

As I pointed many times in this blog--it doesn't matter what Russia spends or how many aircraft carriers she has, what matters and this is the only metric which matters is what bang Russia is getting for her buck while spending much less than US. In the end, what matters is the ability to win wars, not the number of aircraft carriers. Russia is not going to fight US Navy's CBGs on the high seas for a dubious and operationally and strategically meaningless victory (or defeat) there. Far from it, Russia would "invite" if push comes to shove those CBGs closer to Russian shores where, as I already delved into here, she will be able to deploy an overwhelming force of aircraft, ASMs, Air Defense, ECM and ECCM that will make any number of CBGs fat targets for a sequence of salvos from the air, land and on and underwater. It doesn't matter how many helicopters or aircraft USAF has, not all of them will be deployed and those which will be in the case of conventional war (I underscore--conventional) will face a collection of threats USAF encountered.... never. Nothing like it experienced in its history. Hence is this hysteria from yet another US general. 

People are missing the most important point: Russia's GDP, which is incidentally much larger than that of Italy or France, is large enough and structured in such a way that it is totally capable (not without delays and setbacks, but who doesn't have those) to produce for a fraction of costs of NATO nations state of the art weapons and operational concepts which will force the enemies to fight the war by Russian, not their, rules. Like with the moving Soviet heavy industry during Great Patriotic War to Urals, beyond the reach of Luftwaffe--the feat without comparison in human history (1500 machine building plant were transferred in several months)--the speed with which Russian Armed Forces rearmed into the state-of-the-art modern fighting force should have served as a warning and a hint that something is missing with all this Russia's expert analysis, but it didn't. But if definition of the superpowerdom in the US rests on this proverbial power projection one has to ask a question, can this US power projection work against Russia? Well, it can't and what is most important neither US, not combine NATO force (what kind of force is that--is a separate story altogether) not only cannot "defeat" Russia in her vicinity but will sustain losses and damages on the scale it never even planned for and, eventually, will be utterly defeated.  If the best soldiers in history--those of the top form Wehrmacht and SS formations circa 1942-43 found themselves signing the capitulation act in Berlin in 1945, I think the conclusion is inevitable. But other, inevitable and highly warranted conclusion has to be made--if self-proclaimed military hyper-power can not win a single war and is doomed to sustain a catastrophic defeat should it try to conventionally attack this eternally declining Russia, what is the conclusion? What does it say about this hyper-power? I guess we all know the answer and no amount of BS or mantras will change anything. We just need to hope that some rogue "exceptional" element in Pentagon will not lose his nerve and will not do a stupid thing which will cost all of us dear. After all, some people do believe fairy tales of their own making but it is time to face the hard cold facts.   
 

Rememeber WW II,

which US won on its own pretty much with some minor help from USSR? Well, as it turned out, US is also the main force in defeating ISIS and Russia tries to steal credit for it. I kid you not, that is what White House says and it must be true. 

But seriously, this is already not even funny anymore. The mass hysteria in US main stream media, which produce daily propaganda which would have made Goebbels blush, and prolonged lapse of reason at the political top, including its support for Al-Nusra (which is Al Qaeda) have me thinking that the coup already happened and US at this stage slides into the Orwell's reality more and more. One thing is clear, current US "power elite" doesn't know how to lose honorably, because, frankly looking at Robert Kagan, Samantha Power or at Ash Carter one shouldn't exercise any illusions on them having any integrity, but that is a defining characteristic of these "elites".

US right now is at a geopolitical cross-roads. It lost in Ukraine, it also lost in Syria (hence a hysteria) and it needs to salvage at least something. Obviously real geopolitics didn't turn out to be WWE fake shows, in real big power games there is a price to pay. So, what's left?

1. Possible, however improbable, attack on Russian forces in Syria. I do not even want to contemplate this, but should the desperation push US "elites" to such a reckless act, consequences will be global and fast. 

2. Attack on Assad's forces. That is more like it, reasonably high probability. But that also will mean that SAA will suddenly obtain a very sophisticated latest Air Defense complexes and since this act will mean war with US, Syria will use those complexes, while, probably, upgrading its arsenal of Anti-Shipping Missiles to something like... P-800 Yakhont. 

3. By any means, other than pp.1 and 2, trying to achieve partition of Syria. Well, that is the most realistic objective, but then again--it is yet to be seen if US has enough resources to deal with this other than massively arm its main ally in the region--Islamic Terrorist Internationale. 

4. Fill in the blanks..........  , knowing that (inevitable) defeat in Syria for US means a very abrupt departure from self-proclaimed hyper-power status (currently it is in fairly slow but unstoppable motion). This has, apart from crushed egos, huge ramifications for US domestic policies.

So, US "elites" face these choices and, judging by their mental status, it is a not foregone conclusion that common sense will prevail. But if we all will be able to last through US Presidential Elections without major war and will elect The Donald we will have the chance to lower tensions and eventually work out some arrangement which will not be perfect but will work for all sides involved and will allow to preserve US status as the first among equals and that will also mean much better world for all.  

UPDATE: 

So, there are moves now to prevent pp.2 scenario. As Fox reports:

Russia deploys advanced anti-missile system to Syria for first time, US officials say