And what do you expect? Explaining to some creep from Ivy League that he (she) has no understanding of high culture? This is not a bug, it is a feature which only now is being recognized.
What do you expect? Did you see my latest video with quoting Hofstadter...
… the complexity of modern life has steadily whittled away the
functions the ordinary citizen can intelligently and comprehendingly perform
for himself. In the original American populistic dream, the omnicompetence of
the common man was fundamental and indispensable. It was believed that he
could, without much special preparation, pursue the professions and run the
government. Today he knows that he cannot even make his breakfast without using
devices, more or less mysterious to him, which expertise has put at his
disposal; and when he sits down to breakfastand looks at his morning
newspaper, he reads about a whole range of vital and intricate issues and
acknowledges, if he is candid with himself, that he has not acquired competence
to judge most of them.
You literally have people whose "intellectual level" gets them to pedophilia or to writing some shitty pseudo-academic papers and they talk about "grace"? Really? Oh boy, Rachel McAdams and Christopher Walken have been so good portraying degenerates from New England in a positive light.
How proper to have a war criminal and psychopath late McCain in it. If anyone have any second thought, let me iterate--American "elites" have no class. They never did. No matter how West Point tries to pretend, they haven't been around when Russian Army was crushing Napoleon.
Of course, the first thing one needs to point out is that the term "analyst" applies to Danchenko only in so far as it applies to all of us who have a legitimate anal orifice. Other than that, this loser Danchenko has a typical background and career of political "scientists" and paid BSer (possibly prostituting himself as an asset to a variety of intel and governmental services). Generally, the guy is yet another iteration of "freedom loving" Russians and is in the same league as Masha Gessen, Julia Ioffe or such "expert" in Russia as Rebekah Koffler whose only Raison D'etre of their "professional" activity is to supply propaganda narratives about Russia to their US masters. Now, one of them, it seems, got busted for:
According to the indictment, Danchenko repeatedly lied to the FBI
about his sources of information and that deception mattered because the
FBI “devoted substantial resources attempting to investigate and
corroborate the allegations” in the dossier and had “relied in large
part” on that research in obtaining the surveillance warrants. A lawyer for Danchenko had no immediate comment. The
indictment says Danchenko misled the FBI by denying that he had
discussed any allegations in the dossier with a contact of his who
worked as a public relations executive and was also a longtime
Democratic operative who campaigned for Clinton, Trump's 2016 opponent.
Let me translate it to you into normal human language: this Danchenko dude (as is the case with MI-6 creep Steele) simply lied to FBI that the Democratic Party, namely Hillary Clinton and Obama's political machines, were directly involved into subversion of the Constitution of the United States and a shitload of many other laws, by means of providing fake information involving foreign power by means of avatars, whose "credibility" should have been enhanced by the fact that Danchenko is "Russian" and Steele allegedly had some contacts in Moscow, which was a full BS. Steele would have been figured out by good level FSB operative in 15 minutes, because Russia Steele knew in early 1990s and Russia of 2016, let alone of 2021--are two different countries.
So, pop-corn time. I will, however, reiterate--no matter how I despise Trump, NO person deserves to have his name, however flawed, to be dragged through the dirt most of which was a perverted fantasy straight out of Clinton and Obama houses and which accelerated already fast decline of the United States and completely discredited already tarnished American political system. This is an indictment to the whole political system:
The indictment also accuses Danchenko of lying to the FBI about a July
2016 phone call he says he had with someone he believed to be the
president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. That person,
according to the dossier and Danchenko's account to the FBI, told him
about a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” between the Trump
campaign and Russia. The indictment says Danchenko fabricated his
account and never actually received such a phone call.
Whole Russiagate was a fabrication by Democrats, but Danchenko is important, especially when his background is considered, in illustrating what a pile of delirious shit US foreign policy towards Russia is because it gets its "info" from such "experts", both inside Russia and inside the US. The result is totally expected--an utter disaster. And as always, don't tell me that I didn't warn you.
P.S. Congratulations to Virginia, and especially on this wonderful lieutenant-governor elect Winsome Sears. Black community should be truly proud of such a woman. She is inspiring.
Colonel Larry Wilkerson, speaking to a couple of people on the video-conference in April this year--around the time regime in Kiev decided to play games grown-ups play--and Wilkerson, who is a D.C. insider didn't mince words about real situation. Watch, and listen, what he says between 7:00 and 16:00 in the interview and mind you, the guy was Chief of Staff of then Secretary of the State Colin Powell.
He doesn't really say anything new for anyone who read me (this blog and books) for the last 7 years, but he reiterates one point which I try to stress non-stop for many years and this is, as Larry says, verbatim: "we don't know anything about that." That being, of course, a real war. Then he proceeds with his (or article he read) estimate on the number of casualties the United States will sustain in case of the war with someone like Russia or China and the reaction of Larry's partners speaks volumes. Wilkerson's number is at 40,000 in the first week. Compare this to Douglas Macgregor's estimate of the US casualties, say in war in Europe, which he puts around 300,000+ in total, with 110,000 of them KIAs in the first 110 days in WW I.
Many forget that Vietnam, for all of its turmoil, was a protracted, 10-year long, war in which US casualties were accumulating over significant periods of time--many months and years. Wilkerson is correct asking what I call a Zumwalt question--what would D.C. do, how will it react, when it will be getting that kind of numbers killed and wounded, not to mention losses in high value and prestigious assets, such as combat aircraft, let alone combat ships, not to speak of aircraft carriers. Is the United States ready to take this in? Absolutely not, this is not even a theorem, it is an axiom. Wilkerson's story about Obama asking both Powell and Wilkerson during the meeting in the White House on how to get out of this Washington's "bias toward war" is remarkable in a sense that it shows a complete helplessness, in Obama case aggravated by Obama's overall mediocrity (not that anyone before him or after are better) and lack of principles, of the US political "elite" to do anything, even if to imagine that they want to do so, about not fighting wars.
The system is wound this way, you cannot do anything about it unless you change the system on a fundamental level or provide a massive shock to it. If not, you will continue to get people like Lindsey Graham dominating a political discourse and driving country into the ground, granted very little is left of it.
But then again, what "democracy"? Who buys this shit anymore? The United States has just elected and sworn to the highest office the guy who barely remembers his name and who has to be pumped with a cocktail of drugs to keep him focused for a few minutes. What do you expect from all that? I largely sat out this whole Afghanistan debacle because I don't kick those who are already on the floor, but political consequences of what we all observed in the last couple of months, from abandoning Bagram to a clusterfuck in Kabul with images which make Saigon imagery pale in comparison, did not even start to arrive in earnest, this all is still ahead of us and, boy, I can tell you--we are in for a ride which this country never experienced before. Remarkably, Biden's (or whoever makes decision for him) decision to escape Afghanistan was strategically correct, it was executed piss poor, but no matter the imagery from Kabul, any withdrawal, even more-or-less orderly one, would have been a declaration of a departure of the United States from its largely self-proclaimed status of hegemon. These are obvious conclusions anyone with IQ slightly higher than room temperature could have arrived to. But the main reason I started to write today, is the fact that I stumbled on this lecture on Mahan and I was perfectly OK with changing my perspective on Mahan from this professor of strategy in Naval War College until, in his Q&A, he gets to what he says on 1:19:00.
And he gets into this trope about America being "still the biggest economic power in the world." I turned this off. This is the guy who teaches strategy, alright, but he still waxes "service industry" and the myth of Chinese "stealing" shit because "we are so open". Surely, Chinese do steal shit, as does anyone else--it is called an industrial espionage, but did this John Kuehn guy ever heard about House Resolution #4444, or NAFTA, or any other legislative of fiscal instrument developed for the transfer of the US real economy, especially manufacturing, abroad? I understand the United States lies, many countries do, but it is one thing to BS the world for the sake of PR, nowadays met with sarcastic humiliating smiles, but to continue to lie to oneself--when was the last time this "strategy" Doctor Kuehn opened economic statistics, ANY economic statistics?
Now you see my point, lie and BSing permeates America's political discourse, media and academe. John Kuhn is a former naval aviator and I am damn sure that Boyd's fundamentals of OODA Loop are well known to him, but if this former naval officer convinces himself at the point of the first "O" (Observe) that some redundant, if not harmful, US "service industries", such as a financial one, count for anything towards China producing almost 15 times more steel than the United States (Russia produces almost the same amount as the US) or Chinese shipbuilding industry dwarfing that of the US. Or Chinese car-making, or pretty much anything, with the exception of commercial aerospace, but Russia is helping China on this one. So, a good start for the United States in terms of beating this bias toward war is to stop lying to themselves. Especially so on the level of an elite officer graduate and post graduate school such as Naval War College. In the end, Kuhn himself can follow Mahan's wise advice and admit that the nation should have a naval force commensurate with its economic capability and there is a reason the United States is de facto a bankrupt nation--it continues to maintain a military force and, especially the Navy, which it simply cannot afford. Not even close.
And then, of course, there is this teeny-weeny issue of revolution in military affairs and the fact that you cannot apply strategic naval wisdom of the 19th century, no matter how tantalizing this may feel, to technological and operational realities of the 21st one. You just cannot, because neither Mahan, not Corbett, nor Fischer could have foresaw fleets engagement envelopes measured in many thousand kilometers, space travel, hyper-sonic weapons, computers and ISR which would make Arleigh Burke and Chester Nimitz teary. Stop lying to yourself and face the facts that the United States failed as a military power, and it will be a real tragedy if it fails as a political entity, which either will slide toward a third-worlddom, a process which was underway for quite some time now, or will disintegrate completely. How about people of South Carolina vote this neocon SOB Lindsey Graham out of the office? I am sure people of South Carolina are smarter than Arizona voters who kept in office late war criminal and supporter of Islamic terrorists John McCain. Hey, one has to start somewhere, right?
On January/February 2021 issue on Foreign Affairs when on Friday visited Barnes & Noble. The only reason I spent this substantial sum of money (this is a price of a half-bottle of Jack Daniels--much more sensible investment) was, knowing that this is a Council on Foreign Relations publication, to preview what victorious Democrats are preparing for America in the nearest future. Boy, I was not disappointed. This volume #100, Number 1 is everything one needs to know about America's decline and mechanisms which drive this decline, if not collapse altogether. The "opening salvo" is Samantha Power's middle school level essay titled The Can-Do Power. America's Advantage and Biden's Case. This is a superb piece in so far as the exhibiting of delusion and lack of any professional adequacy of upcoming America's "foreign policy" establishment goes. Make no mistake, the United States didn't produce competent foreign policy in decades. There are simply no people of knowledge and statue in modern US "foreign policy" establishment capable of sober and professional assessment of both outside world and the internal US political trends to put US "diplomacy" to serve US national interests since nobody can formulate them, least of all American diplomats.
Re: Samantha Power, who is slated to become a big honcho in USAID in Biden's Admin, is known to a be a sanctimonious uncultured lawyer turned "diplomat" as US Ambassador to UN, who was periodically humiliated as a petulant teenager by then alive and well Vitaly Churkin.
Power, being uncultured and badly educated product of Anglo humanities sphere, substitutes knowledge, solid assessments and professionalism with hysterical moralizing and crusading spirit based on delusions and outright falsifications. She can check all boxes in the career path of US systemic foreign policy incompetence starting from Ivy League law background, to Pulitzer for falsification of the Balkan Wars and inability to apply personal experiences prudently. This is precisely the set of qualities required for modern American "diplomats" and Power is perfect for the job.
She opens her piece with a reference to... Madeleine Albright with her "indispensable nation" declaration, granted that even Power admits in her piece that this statement is being "vigorously debated" and goes for the jugular accusing, correctly, Trump Administration in being "incompetent". She thinks that Trump's response to world problems was very bad, which implies that Obama's response to them was very good. Remarkably, Samantha Power, who defended Syria's terrorists at the UNSC and was a part of Obama Admin, on whose watch Libya was attacked, not to mention a bloody coup and civil war in Ukraine have been unleashed by the United States, cannot be taken seriously as a geopolitical analyst--she simply has no background for that. She certainly has a reputation for being unhinged and that's the problem. The case she makes in her piece is an exhibit A of a delusion exercised by US "diplomacy" (quotation marks are deliberate). Power states:
"For all the criticism directed at US foreign policy is eras past, foreign leaders and public largely retained respect for the United States' willingness to undertake challenging endeavors and its ability to accomplish difficult tasks--a significant but underappreciated cornerstone of American power".
I agree, in the "eras past", especially on Power's watch as a bullhorn of Obama's radically interventionist and aggressive "foreign policy", the United States achieved absolutely stunning things, which otherwise no country could have ever achieved:
1. The United States through criminal policies in Libya, Syria and Ukraine made sure that overwhelming majority of Russians, while having no quarrel with American people, abhor the United States and viewed it as number one threat to Russia and the world already in 2015. Russians also made sure that they have enough power to annihilate the United States under any circumstances and made sure that "values" which Samantha Power and Democratic Party, she belongs to, profess are prevented from entering Russia by means of new Russian Constitution.
2. The United States, obviously, performed also an incredible diplomatic feat by making sure that already on Obama's watch Russia and China de facto concluded their political alliance, which, inevitably started to evolve towards a military one. All that while Power was still in UN.
3. US Middle East policies are altogether is an AIPAC-induced mess, which Power has zero power to change and will do as she told by her Israeli-first masters.
So, yes, the United States is a "can-do power" because to fuck it up on this truly historic scale one does need "diplomats" of Samantha Power scale of ignorance and zeal. Of course she is not alone, but there is very little difference, primarily without distinction, between Power and, say, Pompeo.
But Power doesn't stop her attempts to let people forget those bygone "eras" and proposes same ol' routine on repudiation of Trump's "policies" and following what is perceived to be Biden's policies. Again, a difference without distinction. Power states that the United States is a home to 40% of Nobel prize winners and based on that she concludes that the US should show people a way into economic recovery and technical progress. Sure. The problem with this argument is the fact that Power, having American "humanities" degrees, doesn't understand that Nobel Prizes in literature and, especially, economics are a complete BS since are primarily ideologically driven and are in the fields which have relatively minor to outright baneful, such as "economics", effect on human lives. What she doesn't know, of course, is that in the fields which truly matter for serious economic and technological developments, the United States long ago is not a leader, not even close, and in produces as many STEM graduates as Russia, whose population is more than two times smaller. This was in 2016.
By now Russia accelerates her STEM enrollments while in the United States most STEM graduates are... foreign. If Power thinks, and she does, that one can revive the country through granting non-STEM degrees, such as hers, I have a bridge to sell. But that is what Power proposes in essence--let's allow foreign students back in the US, since it reflects well on US reputation and is somehow supposed to be related to US... competence, lack of which Power admits while proposing utterly incompetent measures, which allowed China, indeed, to capitalize on by preparing a substantial portion of her STEM graduates in the US especially throughout 2000s-mid-2010s. What Power offers in effect is to prepare highly valuable scientific and engineering cadres for someone else, while continuing to destroy real education in the United States. I am sure the United States is in dire need for Ph.Ds in Diversity, Gender Studies and Political "Science". Can one be more oblivious to the very real issue for the United States than Power?
Remarkably, Power doesn't forget to attack China--I am not going to judge the merits of such attacks--but if Power thinks that already lost Covid-19 Vaccine race may somehow restore US "competence", she obviously wasted her time "teaching" in Harvard Law School, reproducing the now traditional American incompetence in the international relations field, instead of paying attention to actual trends both internationally and domestically. Remarkably, it was CFR's big honcho Richard Haas who in his twitter on January 6th, 2021, traditionally, over-reacted:
Which only strengthens my argument of the last almost a decade. The United States lost its mojo through a series of events, which I describe on this blog for the last 7 years. Also in my books. America is being destroyed and is being driven into the Orwellian world as a result of a systemic crisis which cannot be resolved within current economic, military and cultural paradigm. But that is what piece by Power, and as a whole issue of Foreign Affairs--can you believe this, they gave Francis Fukuyama podium again, Jesus--are a testament to. You cannot fix the American autoimmune disease, including through her increasingly incompetent and malevolent "elites", whose "intellectual" level and self-awareness are those of high school students. In other words, I spent my hard-earned $12.99 for pretty much what I knew already, I just needed the proof. I got it--there is no hope.
In related news. In a face of political (and criminal) repressions in the US, Maria Zakharova admitted today (in Russian) that there are inquires and requests, primarily from Trump's supporters, about Russian citizenship. As I stated not for once, Russia is more than just superpower, it is also an arc. I predicted long ago that the stream of Western, primarily white, Christian folk to Russia will eventually grow to a river. Current American elites have three properties, they either are insane, or cowardly, or both. These are the people who do conceive of totalitarian society and many crave it, especially on the Democratic side. They do so because they are an urban office plankton, who care only about themselves and are subjected to all kinds of social and psychological pathologies. Such a society has no future and the America of the past is no more. Thus, the threat of violence, civil war, persecution and even mass repressions will drive increasing number of Americans to consider moving to Russia and this is totally understandable. BTW, for those people who asked, Griezbach family IS in Russia and they are now permanent legal residents and are on their way to citizenship. All kids are with them and are doing great. I could never imagine in my wildest dreams 25 years ago that I will say that: you want real democracy, free thinking, free inquiry and social normality? Russia. That is why it is so hated.
Not that we didn't know that Mitt Romney is an unprincipled power-hungry prostitute, but I like how this was phrased.
Basically, Judy Shelton views gold as it was always viewed prior to Nixon's 1971 "Gold Embargo" and other currency machinations which lead to the state of US economy which we all observe today. Mechanism of US financing its economy through US budget deficit was launched. US started to "tax" other nations and went from the economy of the "need" to the economy of the "want". Oh, it worked fine through 1990s until, as we all know, US decided to move her industries abroad and the rest is history. At this stage, anything which questions America's pure money "printing" is an anathema to America's "shareholders", many of who, frankly, do not give a damn if the US collapses tomorrow or exists as a viable state for a few years longer. As long, as they think, they have their fat accounts and real estate away from ANTIFA and BLM cultural enrichment they think they are fine. Hey, I just throw a shit here against the wall trying to see what sticks. Truth is, America which is tied to gold standard will find out really fast that most of her GDP is an inflated BS and will see her economy shrink catastrophically. This is why even mentioning of gold as a standard is a thought-crime in modern day America. Shelton learned it today a hard-way.
In related news, Obama released his memoirs recently (I didn't read them, nor am I intent to) and apart from complaining about Israelis basically running the US (nothing new here, really) foreign and domestic policies--Phil Giraldi gives a good overview at Unz (the site is down currently)--our friend Laurent Parodi directed my attention to another Obama's revelations and those are... pure gold.
Yes, we know. This is what one gets when the country chooses a lawyer by education and a community organizer by occupation as its President. I thought (at least I wanted to) that Obama's 2008 election was a watershed moment in the US history. It was a watershed moment, alright. Not the one I, as well as very many others, expected. By 2012 it was clear that Obama was a mediocrity and a feeble-minded figure-head, who not only wrecked Russian-American relations and laid down the foundation of the insanity which followed his caving in to neocons and interest groups in Syria and Ukraine, but he managed to damage the United States dramatically. By 2012 it was becoming increasingly clear that the guy was simply incompetent. Of course, you all remember his sacramental "Russia's economy is left in tatters". Now he parades his ignorance and frustration yet again, not understanding the nature of military power and its application. You say POTUS must have the understanding? No, the whole American political power class and even some fairly large segments of military do not have a grasp of what modern warfare against peer or near-peer is. This is not a theorem, it is an axiom, because the "power projection" is a euphemism for blowing shit somewhere. When and if the United States will decide to "project power" against Russia or China, then Obama should try again his definition of "superpower". Obviously, eight years in the White House taught him nothing. But then again, there are many US legislators whose ass developed a hardened uniform callus from abusing seats in both houses for decades--they also learned nothing. I am not being facetious, Senator Kennedy speaks for me.
Let's face it, US was and is being run by a bunch of morons, who do not know shit from shinola, and the whole world, with the exception of even stupider and cowardly Euro "elites", can see that. But then again, Obama is a Nobel Prize winner, what do I really know...
In many respects America's fate, even despite an economic calamity of a gigantic scale, was contingent upon bringing justice to those who unleashed unprecedented, historically, witch-hunt and mass-psychosis campaign. Anyone with an average IQ and even fleeting acquaintance with principles on which law operates knew and know where and who all those Russia, Ukraine and other "Gates" originated from. Well, it doesn't matter, evidently.
Sad, but totally expected, to be honest. Barr, however, made some clarifications:
Barr did not rule out the possibility of others being criminally investigated, without offering specifics.
We'll see about that, which, I am a bit on a shaky ground here, since Barr's statement is not born out by the reality:
Barr added that the election should be decided strictly on policy
debates, and that any investigation of a political candidate would need
to be approved by him personally. "We cannot allow this process to be hijacked by efforts to drum up criminal investigations of either candidate," Barr said.
Well, sure, we all know that Biden sonny's, Hunter, tenure with Ukrainian Burisma had nothing to do, like really-really nothing, with the fact of his senile cretin-father being Ukraine's Gauleiter not only on Obama's orders (Obama always was an amateur in foreign relations, not that there are any professionals in them in D.C. nowadays, but still) but on his own volition, being also an architect of a bloody coup and war there, having blood of thousands of innocent people on his wandering hands. This is not to mention that this coward is now hiding from exposure for his sexual exploits and, once those 2020 "elections" begin to delve into, quoting Barr, "policy debate" (Good ol' Joe cannot, fvcking orient himself in space-time continuum, let alone have "policy debates") we all can be 100% sure that sexual history of Joe will hit the "printing presses" of partisan media. So much for the "policy debate". But, as we all know, the land of the "laws" doesn't really hold up that well under the closer scrutiny. Evidently prosecuting corruption (sedition and treason is also not biggy anymore, evidently) in the US nowadays is contingent merely on who holds and how much power and influence. As Larison reports:
Say it ain't so! Come on, we all know that Mike Pompeo... oh, wait:
If Linick was investigating the bogus emergency declaration, he would have come across reporting that showed how a former Raytheon lobbyist
serving at the department was instrumental in pushing through the plan
to expedite arms sales that benefited his old employer. He would have
discovered that there was no genuine emergency that justified going
around Congress. Once his investigation was concluded, it would have
found that the emergency declaration was made in bad faith and that the
law was abused so that the administration could proceed with arms sales
that Congress opposed. Another reason for the firing was to protect Mike Pompeo from an investigation into the Secretary’s abuses of government resources for personal purposes.
We all know that a person who openly states that he "lied, cheated and stole" for a living as CIA's big honcho, is being truthful. How can anyone doubt Pompeo's truthfulness? Reality of the American political discourse, however, is such that one cannot stop wondering if any normal, not damaged mentally, people are left in D.C. I am sure many people around the globe ask the same question. American political "elites" today represent a gruesome picture. All politics, everywhere is a dirty business, always was and often it did attract people with serious psychological, if not psychiatric, problems. There is an excellent work titledThe Psychological Assessment of Political Leaders: With Profiles of Saddam Hussein and Bill Clinton. It is long and, at times, tedious read including delving into this proverbial psychobabble, but it is unequivocal in singling out narcissism as one of the main features of Western politicians. Lust for power and narcissism. It is in the foundation of the explanation to the phenomenon of American politics driven by non-stop lowbrow "election cycle" circus.
Once "look good" triumphs over all other considerations, the political class and its subservient media are doomed and so is the nation this political class pretends to lead. I am on record for years, that the only things US political class knows how to do is to "look good", unless they are caught in corruption or sexual scandal. And that is the problem--they are not caught often enough and this is everything one needs to know about present moment.
Russiagate hoax is not just imploding, now, for real, it is imploding with a serious implications for Mr. Obama--a mediocrity and small fragile man elected only because of his skin color and America, naively, thinking that he was a change everyone needed. Boy, did this guy Obama really brought a change. Now, this cesspool of Obama's top officials sing a very different song about Russiagate, because of being under the oath and fearing for their dear existence behind bars where all of them belong. I don't like this Judge Jeanine but her being a lawyer helps in her, quite correct, summary of Obama's instigated coup, which not only resulted in destroying US-Russian relations, but endangered the very existence of the United States as a nation where, at least internally, some laws were still working. Not anymore.
So, there was no collusion--we knew this all along. DNC, as I state ad nauseam, is a mafia structure designed for only one purpose--grabbing power by ANY means. I hope that after General Flynn's case was dropped at least some indictments will follow. I do not hold my breath, though--US political system is corrupt top-bottom and is dysfunctional, Wake me up when Comey, Strzok or Clapper go to jail, then I may change my mind. But at least now we have official, under oath, confirmation by all top Obama's officials that this was all BS to deny Trump presidency. If it meant destroying relations with the only nation in the world capable to wipe the United States off the map in half an hour, Obama thought it was a reasonable price to pay.
Speaking of Russia, to the greatest credit of the former US military attache to Russia, Brigadier General Zwak, he tried to mitigate this Victory Day "history" piece on the White House web-site, which created a shitstorm not just in Russia. This is laudable (in Russian). Other related news, however, are a bit unnerving for Pentagon since Russia just tested a brand new hypersonic missile (specifically stated--NOT X-32, which is very high supersonic M=4.6) for updated version of TU-22M3M (in Russian). As was predicted--saturation of Russia's forces with hypersonic weapons continues apace and we will not recognize warfare as a whole very soon. So, TU-22M3M will be able to carry not just Kinzhal but new system tailored specifically to these bombers which can strike deep into the Europe or oceans.
In other related news, this morning I read a very funny (no, really, I mean it) piece of "economic analysis".
LOL, I have an answer--because Dow is related the same way to economy as I am related to the greatest Sumo wrestlers. It is all fraud and cooked books. That is why. I also can give a hint: COVID-19 is merely a detail here, however convenient, for finding excuses for what has no relation to COVID-19 whatsoever and started long before pandemic arrived. But, hey, what do I really know.
We knew this all along, didn't we? It is not just about personalities, however repulsive in his narcissism and lack of statesmanship Obama was. It is systemic, no matter who comes to power to the Oval Office--it will make no difference. No difference, whatsoever. What is known as US power (political) elite has been on the downward spiral for some time and, in some sense, the whole Epstein affair with serious pedophilia charges, not to mention an unspeakable slap on the wrist in which this well-connected pervert was let go ten years ago, is just one of many indications of a complete moral and cognitive decomposition of this so called "elite" which continues to provide one after another specimens of human depravity. Remarkably, as much as I always feel nauseated when seeing GOPers, it is impossible to hide the fact that Epstein's clients in their majority are mostly associated with putrid creatures from the so called "left", with Bill Clinton featuring prominently in the company of this pervert.
There were some attempts to even conceive a possibility of somehow "progressives" and "conservatives" getting together in their condemnation of this heinous crime (yeah, yeah, I know, Presumption of Innocence).
Doesn't it sound wonderful, warm and fuzzy, or too good to be true? It sure does, because, as much as most American elite "conservatives" are not really conservatives, what passes as "progressive" in the United States is PRIMARILY based on sexual deviancy, including implicit promotion of pedophilia by "intellectual class", and "environmental" agenda, period! Everything else is secondary. Those who think that actual conservatism (not a caricature it is known in the United States) has anything to discuss with the so called "progressives"--they unwittingly support this very "progressive" cause which, in its very many manifestations, is a realization of the worst kind of suppression of many millennia old natural, including biological, order of things and, in the end, elimination of normality as such--a future even Orwell would have had difficulty describing.
Of course, Pinkerton gets some flashes of common sense, when states that:
Most likely, a true solution will have “conservative” elements, as in
social and cultural norming, and “liberal” elements, as in higher taxes
on city slickers coupled with conscious economic development for the
proletarians and for the heartland. Only with these economic and
governmental changes can we be sure that it’s possible to have a nice
life in Anytown, safely far away from beguiling pleasuredomes.
Well, he puts it very crudely, but I see where he is at least trying to get it from. I will add, until nation, as in American nation, recognizes itself as a nation, as people who have common history, culture and mission, thus, inevitably producing this aforementioned healthy social and cultural norming--no amount of wishful thinking or social-economic doctrine-mongering will help. There is no United States without European-keen, white Christian, heterosexual folk, both with acutely developed sense of both masculinity and femininity, period. But this is precisely the state of the affairs which American "progressives" are fighting against; this is the state of the affairs which they must destroy be that by imposition of suffocating political correctness, the insanity of multi-gender and LGBT totalitarianism, or by criminal opening of the borders to anyone, who, in the end, will vote for the Democratic Party. You cannot negotiate with such people. In the end, WHO is going to negotiate? A cowardly, utterly corrupt, current GOPers and geriatric remnants of Holy Reaganites? Really? Ask how many of them are Mossad assets and are in the pockets of rich Israeli-firsters and Gulfies?
True "Left" economics, which seeks more just distribution (not re-distribution) of wealth, based on a fusion of economic models and types of property, cannot exist within cultural liberal paradigm of "privileged" minorities, be them racial or sexual ones, aided by massive grievance-generating machine--it is not going to last. Both economic and social normality can exist ONLY within cohesive nation and that, due to activity on both nominal sides (in reality it is the same) of American political spectrum, has been utterly destroyed. The mechanism of this destruction is rather simple and it comes down, in the end, to the, pardon my French, number of ass-holes populating unit-volume (density, that is) of political space in America. It goes without saying that such a density in the US reached deadly toxic levels, and Russiagate coup, Epstein's Affair, or the parade of POTUSes with the maturity levels of high school kids are just numerous partial manifestations of what one can characterize as the end of the rope. After all, who would be making any agreements with representatives of the system which is rotting and decomposing?
I would pause a little here. Yes and no. Here is Colonel Wilkerson who talks about both wealth (starts roughly at 14:00) and about other very important strategic and operational fact: overwhelming majority of weapons on hands today are among those who either support Trump openly or simply had it with system in general.
And here is the issue: my bets are on people with military backgrounds, who had first hand experience with military organization (standard manuals, combat manuals et al) and have operational and command experience in their conflict with American Social Justice Warriors (you know--"progressives") and other openly terrorist "progressive" organizations such as Antifa. At least ruined Portland started to do something about it.Is there any real left left in the US? And I don't mean this a-hole Bernie Sanders.
And here is my rephrasing of Tolstoy's conclusion to War and Peace: there are too many ass-holes in American politics today, very many of them being so called"progressives". This number must be reduced by all legal means today, and if American ass-holes can work together terrorizing majority of good, not ass-hole people, what's precluding those good people to work together? Nothing, except for the rotting corpse of GOP which had audacity to call itself "conservative". If not, all is lost and we do not want to live in the world which will come. And the guns will start speaking. UPDATE: 07/11/19
Oh goody, do they read me or is it one of those moments when, in Lenin's description of Revolutionary Situation, economic slogans transform into political ones? Evidently Catholic Conservative Michael Warren speaks in unison with Lenin and me, with both me and Warren certainly not being Marxists or "communists". Here is what Warren has to say today:
It is a very loaded statement. It is also not an incorrect one. It is also relevant to what I preach for years, decades really, that history of the so called "communism" in USSR was a conservative history--a transition from depravity and corruption of Russian Imperial "elites" to what resulted in the mutated nationalism of sorts in late 1930s and led to the defeat of Nazism, historically unprecedented restoration of the destroyed country and then breaking out into space. But that is a separate story--in USSR, as it is the case in Russia today, sexual perversion and deviancy are not looked at lightly. Nor are, in general, "liberal values" which are precisely designed to end up with the legitimization of pedophilia--a long held, and hidden, desire of Western "elites". Guess why such an obsession with, realistically, literary mediocrity of Nabokov's Lolita by Western moneyed and "intellectual" class. Who in their own mind, unless one is a forensic psychiatrist or detective, would be interested in such a topic, not to mention writing a book on it, not to mention a variety of Hollywood and, in general, Western cinematography artsy class making scores of Lolita movies? Each time I read Lolita, in both Russian and English, I felt an urgent desire to take a shower after reading this concoction. I guess, I am not "sophisticated" enough to recognize appeals of this type of "art". As Warren notes:
Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt
for our leaders when we discover that two presidents cavorted with
Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on minors. We should feel disgust at the mere possibility
that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be
furious that these injustices haven’t even come close to being properly
redressed. This is how revolutions are born. America is reaching the point
where, 200 years ago, a couple French peasants begin eyeing the
Bastille. The question is, can conservatives channel that outrage into
serious reform before it’s too late? Can we call out the fetid, decadent elites within our own ranks? Are we prepared to hold our own “faves” to account—even Trump himself? Alas, it’s only a matter of time until we find out.
In this, I, essentially an atheist, and a conservative Catholic, are speaking in the same voice.
James Clapper doesn't look good. I guess because he is genetically driven to deceive. So, his precious bodily fluids do not serve him well and now birds are beginning to sing.
I think we will see, hear and read many of this kind of "revelations", especially when there is a very good chance to be subpoenaed for explanation of this whole "situation". It is fascinating to see CNN and its media-whores, such as A. Cooper, trying to do damage control. So, get the pop-corn, ladies and gentlemen.
UPDATE: excellent piece from Paul Craig Roberts today:
As many of you may have
noticed, my public activity which manifests itself in writing is dedicated to
issuing warnings about a systemic and dangerous inadequacy of most Western so
called Russian "scholars", who have no military background
whatsoever, when writing about Russia and her wars. Robert Fisk may be a good
connoisseur of Middle East, an Arabic language speaker and even some kind of
war correspondent, but professional military man he is not and he is certainly
clueless on Russia. It is expected from people who have their degrees in
English and so called Political pseudo-science. Let's face it—it is difficult
to explain to the so called "humanities"-trained journo how physical
properties of modern weapons influence tactical, operational and strategic
considerations even on a single (forget global) theater of operations. It is
even more difficult to explain it to a "products" of largely
Anglo-Saxon "school of thought" (in reality ideological cliché
generating machine) on Russia.
Fisk demonstrates his
absolute cluelessness on real war and application of serious military power
(yes, one needs serious military academic background or vast military service
experience, or both, to grasp that) within the framework of the peer-to-peer
competition between military superpowers in his newest piece in his native news
outlet. In his "analysis" titled for some reason In the Middle East, Putin
has a lot to thank Trump for right now, Fisk comes
up with ridiculously shallow rationalization of why, indeed, Putin has to thank
Trump and in doing so exhibits a complete lack of historic memory and
understanding of the dynamics of Russia's involvement in Syria which was done
completely on Russia's own volition and happened on Obama's watch in September
2015. Needless to say, operational and strategic benefits of Russians initially
providing serious air power to Assad's troops became evident almost
immediately, in the time when no one even seriously thought that Donald Trump
would run for the office and win. But for Fisk those "little" details
mean absolutely nothing against the background of some trivia which one
inevitably gets in operational zones by talking to different people. But,
obviously, the fact of Russians having a tactical, operational and strategic
agency when dealing with the US in Syria is not known to Fisk.
Fisk
shocks his readers with some rather startling "revelation" about
Putin and the reasons General Asapov was killed.
I don't
know how to comment on that gibberish which references Soviet Afghan War's
"political generals" or "disasters" (well established
Western propaganda clichés) but somehow, I think, that "team" of
Russians Fisk allegedly met and which supposedly told him that what is known in
US as Battle Damage Assessment reports go directly to Kremlin, may have been
pulling one on him, a simple joke on Russians' part. Putin may have been a
serious intelligence professional but field military officer who would have no
problems to easily navigate between imagery, ballistics and types of explosives
he was not—it is a field which is covered in military, not intelligence,
academies. So why would such reports go "directly" to Kremlin
bypassing appropriate structures in General Staff remains a complete mystery to
me. Does Putin, who is an extremely busy man, have the time to dwell over such
data without appropriate professional military comments and briefings? I doubt
it very much, but what do I really know.
But Fisk
doesn't stop here with dubious claims. He does insist that Trump's exit from
Iran's nuclear deal is what made Russian success in Syria possible.
As for what the “experts” like to call geopolitics,
Putin immediately understood the need to uphold the Iranian nuclear accord when
Trump tore it up. At one stroke, he became a closer ally of Iran, he could sympathize
with Europe and he was able to present himself as steadfast in a treaty he signed
with China. But he is entering a potential market war with the US – a dollar
war – alongside a Europe whose governments may be prepared to stand up to
Washington (some of them, at least), but whose big businessmen are already
showing their usual cowardice in the face of American profit and loss. There is
something scornful about all this. Putin is not going to worry about Russian
mercenary deaths in Syria; their activities are intended to test American
military willpower in Syria. Nor does America weep for its Kurdish mercenaries,
or protect them in Afrin. Putin is not going to scream about human rights
abuses in Gaza – the shooting down of unarmed demonstrators or the Israeli
destruction of clinics or hospitals – when his own jets have been destroying
clinics and hospitals in Syria. He sticks to the “war on terror” – and being an
ally of all. The children may rattle their toys, but the tsar has the keys to
the nursery. The crackpot in the White House neither knows nor cares nor, one
suspects, understands. He long ago opened the door for Putin – and Putin walked
straight through it.
One can
sense both desperation and sour grapes, not to mention reading direct propaganda
BS about Russian "mercenaries" willing "to test American
military willpower" (why? And how?), in this admission of Russian and
Syrian success in war unleashed by the US, Saudis and Israel. To
"test" American military willpower Russia doesn't need
"mercenaries", but Fisk doesn't know this, since he doesn't have any
awareness of what was really happening on April 13 with Gerasimov conveying to
Dunford all possible outcomes of US TLAM salvo hitting anything related to
Russian forces in Syria. After all, the warning from Gerasimov
(in Russian) that Russian forces will shoot down not only missiles but their
carriers, including sinking surface targets, was not just some posturing.
The warning was heeded, thankfully. As we all know—all
those TLAMs "reached targets" and not a single one of those was shot
down. But the truth is--it wasn't
Trump's "door opening" for Putin which expanded the field for
Russia's diplomatic maneuvering in Syria. It was Russia's military power
applied professionally which made it possible but as I stated so many times
West's political and media class has no clue about the nature and application
of military power and what consequences it produces—Fisk is no exception, he is
the rule, in a sense of having no clue. In general, as I am being a public persona
for 4 years the main motif of my writing is that West in general has some gigantic
issues with causality, which means it is incapable of observing the cause and
effect properly, whenever dealing with Russia.
Here comes
this issue of military power and strategy—Russians fight war in Syria not to
"defeat" the US per se, albeit this defeat is a direct byproduct
(intended or not is a matter for further discussion, but I state that it is
intentional) of Russian activity in Syria. Nor Russians fight the war there to reestablish
themselves as a major player in the Middle East—this too is a byproduct,
however important, in Russia's war there. The main political objective of
Russia, who fights jihadists for centuries is to draw the line for a very real
Caliphate whose existence is clear and present danger to Russia's Southern
underbelly. Fighting such a war with clearly defined objective is something
unknown to Anglosphere "strategists" who used to live in a bubble of
own delusions and who sure as hell should be aware of the role of the US and
her "allies" in unleashing a horror of Islamism on the world. As
mounting empirical evidence shows—Russians know damn well how to fight this
kind of war and were doing this well before Trump allegedly "opened the
door" to Putin. Truth is, once in Syria, one with even a modicum of
military background or understanding of military affairs could see where this
whole Russian war was going. Bibi flying to Moscow as if going to regular work
should have given some clue about not necessarily hidden dynamics of that conflict.
The
foundation of this Russian success was Russian military power, whose application
created most of the conditions and impetuses for a very effective diplomacy.
Without Russia's cutting edge arsenal and military training of SAA no diplomacy
or any other purely political action would have had any effect, as it never did
in the last 20+ years with the "exceptional" and "indispensable"
nation. Power matters and Russia demonstrated it starting from 2015 to a full
extent, from an impressive operational tempo of her VKS forces, to a whole
range of stand-off weapons and precision-guided munitions, to state-of-the-art
C4ISR complex, to, finally, ability
to control most of Mediterranean and Persian Gulf if push would come to shove.
Surely, Mr. Fisk, being a connoisseur of
the Middle East should know what such power demonstration means there, nor
should he be oblivious to the fact that Syrian AD shooting down a bulk of US
and NATO missiles on April 13 has already come down in Arab world as a gigantic
victory, the stuff of legends to be remembered proudly for generations. At the
center of all that is Russia, or, if Fisk prefers, Putin and surely Iran knew
this all along, as well as everyone knew that Trump will inevitably exit Iran
Nuclear Deal—so, what door then did DJT "open" for Russia, when
Russian-Iranian, initially tacit, geopolitical pact was in works a moment
Russia deployed her force to Syria? If Mr. Fisk doesn't remember I may remind
him, again, this was on Obama's, not Trump's, watch, a precise watch on which
war on Syria was unleashed by
Obama's operatives and DJT and his exiting Iran Nuclear Deal wasn't even in
plans.
Donald
Trump may well be clueless and a "crackpot" but it was not on his but
Obama's watch that atrocity in Libya happened, these were Obama's people who
unleashed Nazi coup in Ukraine, in the end it was Obama who couldn't forgive
Russia for playing a crucial role in eliminating Syria's chemical weapons. It
was Obama who "opened the door" to Putin, or, more generally, Russia,
which finally shed the last illusions about American benevolence and decidedly
got to the real business of defending her national interests. Doing so,
Russia's geopolitical weight and scale considered, not to mention her military history,
she initiated massive tectonic geopolitical shifts going from strength to
strength and that is what makes this piece by Fisk not only filled with many lies
and propaganda (what's new?), but makes it into lament for already massive
losses by Anglo-American conglomerate. Against these events, Trump's exiting Iran's
Nuclear Deal is just an episode, however important, in a long and arduous process
of American military and economic decline which only accelerated now. In the
end, not even Obama or Bush the lesser, who is directly responsible for a
mayhem in the ME, but American foreign policy consensus and a cabal of
"experts" who serve it (Fisk will fit right in there) "long
ago opened the door for Putin – and Putin walked straight through it."
