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Page added on August 10, 2014
Washington Threatens The World
The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil
The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil. The various sects that lived in peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad are butchering one another, and a new group, ISIS, is in the process of creating a new state out of parts of Iraq and Syria.
The turmoil brought into the Middle East by the Bush and Obama regimes has meant death and displacement for millions and untold future deaths. As I write 40,000 Iraqis are stranded on a mountain top without water awaiting death at the hands of ISIS, a creation of US meddling.
The reality in the Middle East stands in vast contradiction to the stage managed landing of George W. Bush on the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln where Bush declared “Mission Accomplished” on May 1, 2003. The mission that Washington accomplished was to wreck the Middle East and the lives of millions of people and to destroy America’s reputation in the process. Thanks to the demonic neoconservative Bush regime, today America is regarded by the rest of the world as the greatest threat to world peace.
The Clinton regime’s attack on Serbia set the pattern. Bush upped the ante with Washington’s naked aggression against Afghanistan, which Washington clothed in Orwellian language–”Operation Enduring Freedom.”
Washington brought ruin, not freedom, to Afghanistan. After 13 years of blowing up the country, Washington is now withdrawing, the “superpower” having been defeated by a few thousand lightly armed Taliban, but leaving a wasteland behind for which Washington will accept no responsibility.
Another source of endless Middle East turmoil is Israel whose theft of Palestine is
Washington-enabled. In the middle of Israel’s latest attack on civilians in Gaza, the US Congress passed resolutions in support of Israel’s war crimes and voted hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for Israel’s ammunition. Here we witness Great Moral America 100 percent in support of unambiguous war crimes against essentially defenseless people.
When Israel murders women and children, Washington calls it “Israel’s right to defend their own country”–a country that Israel stole from Palestinians–but when Palestinians retaliate Washington calls it “terrorism.” By supporting Israel, declared to be a terrorist state by a few moral governments that still exist, and accused of war crimes by the UN General Secretary, Washington is in violation of its own laws against supporting terrorist states.
Of course, Washington itself is the leading terrorist state. Therefore, it is illegal under US law for Washington to support itself. Washington, however, does not accept law, neither domestic nor international, as a constraint on its actions. Washington is “exceptional, indispensable.” No one else counts. No law, no Constitution, and no humane consideration has authority to constrain Washington’s will. In its claims Washington surpasses those of the Third Reich.
As horrific as Washington’s recklessness toward the Middle East is, Washington’s recklessness toward Russia is many orders of magnitude greater. Washington has
convinced nuclear armed Russia that Washington is planning a nuclear first strike.
In response Russia is beefing up its nuclear forces and testing US air defense reactions.http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russian-strategic-bombers-conduct-more-than-16-incursions-of-u-s-air-defense-zones/
It is difficult to imagine a more irresponsible act than to convince Russia that Washington intends to hit Russia with a preemptive first strike. One of Putin’s advisers has explained to the Russian media Washington’s first strike intentions, and a member of the Russian Duma has made a documented presentation of Washington’s first strike intentions.http://financearmageddon.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/official-warning-u-s-to-hit-russia-with.html By marshaling the evidence, I have pointed out in my columns that it is impossible for Russia to avoid this conclusion.
China is aware that China faces the same threat from Washington. http://yalejournal.org/2013/06/12/who-authorized-preparations-for-war-with-china/ China’s response to Washington’s war plans against China was to demonstrate how China’s nuclear forces would be used in response to Washington’s attack on China to destroy the US. China made this public, hoping to create opposition among Americans to Washington’s war plans against China. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2484334/China-boasts-new-submarine-fleet-capable-launching-nuclear-warheads-cities-United-States.html Like Russia, China is a rising country that does not need war in order to succeed.
The only country on earth that needs war is Washington, and that is because Washington’s goal is the neoconservative one of exercising hegemony over the world.
Prior to the Bush and Obama regimes, every previous US president went to great efforts to avoid telegraphing any nuclear threat. US war doctrine was careful to keep nuclear weapons limited to retaliation in the event the US suffered a nuclear attack. The purpose of nuclear forces was to prevent the use of such weapons. The reckless George W. Bush regime elevated nuclear weapons to preemptive first use, thus destroying the constraint placed on the use of nuclear weapons.
The overriding purpose of the Reagan administration was to end the cold war and, thereby, the threat of nuclear war. The George W. Bush regime, together with the Obama regime’s demonization of Russia, have overturned President Reagan’s unique achievement and made nuclear war likely.
When the incompetent Obama regime decided to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine and install a puppet government of Washington’s choosing, the Obama State Department, run by neoconservative ideologues, forgot that the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine consist of former Russian provinces that were attached to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic by Communist Party leaders when Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country–the Soviet Union. When the Russophobic stooges that Washington installed in Kiev demonstrated in word and deed their hostility to Ukraine’s Russian population, the former Russian provinces declared their desire to return to mother Russia. This is not surprising, nor is it something that can be blamed on Russia.
Crimea succeeded in returning to Russia, where Crimea resided since the 1700s, but Putin, hoping to defuse the propaganda war that Washington was mounting against him did not accept the pleas from the other former Russian provinces. Consequently, Washington’s stooges in Kiev felt free to attack the protesting provinces and have been following the Israeli policy of attacking civilian populations, civilian residences, and civilian infrastructure.
The presstitute Western media ignored the facts and accused Russia of invading and annexing parts of Ukraine. This lie is comparable to the lies that US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in behalf of the criminal Bush regime, lies that Colin Powell later apologized for to no avail as Iraq had been destroyed by his lies.
When the Malaysian airliner was destroyed, before any facts were known Russia was blamed. The British media was especially primed to blame Russia almost the instant it was known the airliner was downed. I heard the BBC’s gross misrepresentation and blatant lies on American National Public Radio, and only the Daily Mail’s propagandistic account was worse. The entire “news” event has the appearance of orchestration prior to the event, which, of course, suggests that Washington was behind it.
The airliner deaths became all important for Washington’s propaganda war. The 290 casualties are unfortunate, but they are a small fraction of the deaths that Israel was inflicting on Palestinians at the same moment without provoking any protests from Western governments, as distinct from Western peoples in the streets, people whose protests were conveniently suppressed for Israel by Western security forces.
Washington used the downing of the airliner, which probably was Washington’s responsibility, as an excuse for another round of sanctions and to pressure its European puppets to join the sanctions with sanctions of their own, which Washington’s EU puppets did.
Washington relies on accusations and insinuations and refuses to release the evidence from the satellite photos, because the photos do not support Washington’s lies. Facts
are not permitted to interfere with Washington’s demonization of Russia any more than facts interfered with Washington’s demonization of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.
Twenty-two reckless and irresponsible US senators have introduced the “Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014,” US Senate bill 2277, sponsored by Senator Bob Corker, who well represents in his ignorance and stupidity what appears to be the majority of the American population or the majority of voters in the state of Tennessee. Corker’s bill is a mindless piece of legislation designed to start a war that would be likely to leave no survivors. Apparently, idiotic Americans will elect any fool to power.
The belief that Russia is responsible for the downed Malaysian airliner has become fact in Western capitals despite the total absence of even a tiny scrap of evidence in behalf of the claim. Moreover, even it the accusation were true, is one airliner worth a World War?
The UK Defense Committee has concluded that a broke and militarily impotent UK must “focus on the defense of Europe against Russia.” The military spending drums, if not the war drums, are beating and the entire West has joined in. A militarily impotent Britain is going to defend Europe from a non-existent, although much proclaimed, attack from the Russian bear.
US and NATO military dignitaries and the Pentagon chief are issuing Russia Threat Warnings based on alleged but non-existent Russian troop-buildups on Ukraine’s border. According to the the Western Ministry of Propaganda if Russia defends the Russian populations in Ukraine from military attack from Washington’s stooge government in Kiev, it is proof that Russia is the villain.
Washington’s propaganda campaign has succeeded in turning Russia into a threat. Polls show that 69 percent of Americans now regard Russia as a threat, and that the confidence of Russians in American leadership has vanished.
Russians and their government observe the identical demonization of their country and their leader as they observed of Iraq and Saddam Hussein, of Libya and Gaddafi, of Syria and Assad, and of Afghanistan and the Taliban just prior to military assaults on these countries by the West. For a Russian, the safest conclusion from the evidence is that Washington intends war on Russia.
It is my opinion that the irresponsibility and recklessness of the Obama regime is without precedent. Never before has the United States government or the government of any nuclear power gone to such great efforts to convince another nuclear power that that power was being set up for attack. It is difficult to imagine a more provocative act that more endangers life on earth. Indeed, the White House Fool has doubled up, convincing both Russia and China that Washington is planning a preemptive first strike on both.
Republicans want to sue or to impeach Obama over relatively inconsequential issues, such as ObamaCare. Why don’t Republicans want to impeach Obama over such a critical issue as subjecting the world to the risk of nuclear armageddon?
The answer is that the Republicans are as crazed as the Democrats. Their leaders, such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham, are determined that “we stand up to the Russians!” Wherever one looks in American politics one sees crazed people, psychopaths and sociopaths who should not be in political office.
Washington long ago gave up diplomacy. Washington relies on force and intimidation. The US government is utterly devoid of judgment. This is why polls show that the rest of the world regards the US government as the greatest threat to world peace. Today
(August 8, 2014) Handelsblatt, Germany’s Wall Street Journal, wrote in a signed editorial by the publisher:
“The American tendency to move from verbal escalation to military escalation–the isolation, demonization, and attacking of enemies–has not proven effective. The last successful major military action the US conducted was the Normandy landing [in 1944]. Everything else – Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan – was a clear failure. Moving NATO units towards the Polish border with Russia and thinking about arming Ukraine is a continuation of relying on military means in the absence of diplomacy.”
Washington’s puppet states–all of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Australia–enable Washington’s unrivaled danger to the world by their support of Washington’s agenda of exercising hegemony over the entire world.
The 100th anniversary of World War I is upon us. And the folly that caused this war is being repeated. WWI destroyed a civilized Western world, and it was the work of a mere handful of scheming people. The result was Lenin, the Soviet Union, Hitler, the rise of American Imperialism, Korea, Vietnam, the military interventions that created ISIS, and now resurrected conflict between Washington and Russia that President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had ended.
As Stephen Starr has pointed out on my website, if merely 10% of the nuclear weapons in the US and Russian arsenals are used, life on earth terminates.
Dear readers, ask yourselves, when has Washington told you anything that was not a lie? Washington’s lies have caused millions of casualties. Do you want to be a casualty of Washington’s lies?
Do you believe that Washington’s lies and propaganda about the Malaysian airliner and Ukraine are worth risking life on earth? Who is so gullible that he cannot recognize that Washington’s lies about Ukraine are like Washington’s lies about Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, and Assad’s use of chemical weapons?
Do you think that the neoconservative influence that prevails in Washington, regardless of the political party in office, is too dangerous to be tolerated?
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.
54 Comments on "Washington Threatens The World"
Arthur on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 6:50 am
I don’t have to read the article, I know how he thinks and it is no doubt a home run again.
The west and it’s dream of world hegemony and destroying it’s own population in the process, is finished. The population of the west should actively pursue regime change in Washington and the capitals of Europe. Once that is accomplished, the first thing we should do is mending relations with Russia. Next we will halt any further immigration to the west. Next we should announce the end of growth and implement measures, if necessary radical ones, to deal with the upcoming energy shortages. Forget about the welfare state, pensions, forget about development aid, that is all finished. Concentrate for survival on your family and the three generation home. Teach children at school how to grow your own food.
paulo1 on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 7:53 am
I read this and thought this must be Orlov. Sounds like him, but I’ll never know because I won’t bother to read Infowars ever if this is a sample. There is a little bit of truth in this, but mostly slavering hate and distortion.
Why is this shit posted here? You, editor…are degrading this site with poor choices. I thought this site was about Peak Oil….or do you simply justify by saying everything is about oil so this is….
Anyway, the “I hate everything USA hate meme” is alive and on display….again.
Paulo
Makati1 on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 7:54 am
Arthur, you are correct. I read this on the globalresearch.ca site earlier. He is spot on.
Perhaps there are more reality articles now that the US has put the screws to it’s NATO allies with this Ukraine fiasco. The lies are becoming too blatant from the mouths of Kerry and ‘O’ to be ignored anymore.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 8:16 am
Paulo, I echo your thoughts completely. This site is becoming unbalanced and this will threaten its objective scientific repetition. Does this site choose to cover PO and the related dynamics of or is it becoming hijacked by anti-American postings and commentary. Hell, I want to criticize my country and the political/economic leadership but I find myself engaged in a propaganda war with both the postings and the comments here. I feel instead of doing useful US criticism I am defending some objectivity and reality of the US and its position in the world. This is really becoming ridiculous and no I am not leaving. I love a challenge and battle. Wake up folks and let go of ideologue comments and hypocrisy. In a global interconnect world of free flow of ideas, wealth without borders, and the reality of who is in charge (1% ers) this is much different than the many here who are stuck in 20th century thinking.
eugene on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 8:48 am
Anyone who thinks the article is BS hasn’t a clue as to US history but operates from a lifelong propaganda basis. For the early part of my life I lived under the same delusion. Vietnam started to take that away. Once one begins to slip from the delusion a whole world opens up. I now see the delusions of Paulo 1 and Davy on the sun in the vast majority of Americans. And I am not alone. Many, many vets are of the same opinion. This has been our intent and behavior from the first day we reached the continent.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 8:58 am
Paulo, you missed this at the bottom of the article: “Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.”
I have been reading his work for years, he is far out, but very well informed and an original thinker. I have a lot of respect for people that go their own way in spite of having been part of the establishment for such a long time. It doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says, or even most, but he opens my mind to new ideas and perspectives. His work is easier for me to read, I guess, because of my annoying neutrality and impartiality. I don’t have a dog on this fight.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:00 am
Now I’ll read the article! 😉
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:18 am
Juan, I am suspicious of specialist and what you describe is an insider. Both conditions are blinders to reality. Yes, very true on this guy knowing the bad side of the defacto US leadership Primarilly the DC/Wall street Mafia. But this is only partial reality with the new reality being the global integration of TPTB with free movement of wealth and ideas. Now this global BAU reality is breaking down with trade wars, nationalism, and wanna-be dictators like Putt. This is a systematic crack in hyper globalism. This hyper globalism has already compromised all locals. This hyper globalism cannot Have less growth and less complexity. I believe the next causality of this polarizing multipolar world is the global integrated finance system then the all important energy sector. It is over in 3-5 years as the glue fails.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:25 am
Eugene, when you chose sides you chose black and white. You are joining the “P” idiot in idealogue and propaganda. This site has likewise turned to the dark side of truth distortion. I find Paulo, a Canadian, among the most objective and real on this forum. You on the other hand are a unhappy vet looking to lash out at the country you now hate. The truth is not about revenge through propaganda it is balance scientific supportable objectivity.
shortonoil on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:39 am
“War is the last resort of the incompetent” R. Heinland
For those of you who do not believe that this article should have been posted here, all I can say is that you apparently do not fully appreciate the significance that petroleum plays in our civilization. The ability of petroleum to power our civilization began its decline about the year 2000. It is no coincidence that the small measure of sanity that ruled this nation for 250 years began to fade. Like a corned animal it is lashing out in all directions to defend itself. Like a trapped muskrat it will chew off its own leg in an attempt to escape. The coming end of the oil age will have far more impact than empty gas tanks on some freeway. It will tear to shreds the very fabric of society.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:05 am
OK, I read the article and I think this thread could get interesting. The article brings up a large number of issues that are extremely important for us right now. I, against my wishes, believe that most of the information in here is close to the truth, a very hard to swallow, makes you sick in the stomach, kind of truth.
The author is obviously very angry with Washington and its allies. We need to consider his biases and our own biases when reading his work, as we always must with everything we read and know.The language used is too emotional or excessive at some points, insulting at others, obviously on purpose. He is an excellent writer, technically, which means he is aware of what he is doing and how he comes across. I, personally, think this is counterproductive because it alienates people like Davy, that might otherwise react differently to the information contained in the article, which I consider useful.
I think the author overestimates the power of the American voters in today’s political reality. Mitt Romney or McCain would have been even worse than Obama, IMO. US voters don’t have any real choices, all viable presidential candidates are puppets of TPTB, and rule for them, not voters or citizens. And the same is true for the vast majority of countries in the planet today. So, calling all Americans idiotic is one sided, unfair, and assigning blame to the wrong party, IMO, we are all idiots, not just the Americans. I’ve met people from all over the world in my life, and there’s good and bad everywhere, and we are not in control, TPTB are. But this Ukraine crisis has me really scared, I have been actually considering going back home these past few months, something I never expected to do. We want to stay here, but I have to think of my wife in her old age, maybe a widow. I hate this whole shit!
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:15 am
Short, no aurgument with the article. It is a good read and shows a political specialist insiders point of view on an important subject. Yet, this article is an unbalanced and distorted article. My issue with this site is balance, objectivity, and scientific supportability. This site fails miserably in the above ground PO dynamics. I suspect this is because we have an editor who is bent in a different dirrection. It is the balance of postings that would allow for this idealogue propaganda to have credibility. Propaganda is not necessarily lies it is truth distortions. “And” please not the idiot Forbes and othe DC/Wall Street Mafia as the alternative propaganda. These posting just inflame the justification of the idealogue and propaganda I find offensive to a well rounded truth spewed here. Short, highest respect with you and you contributions here. But, short, if you do not see the idealogue and propaganda distortions in the amount of onesided postings and excessive onesided comments I fear we are in trouble on those site.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:21 am
Juan, good luck anywhere else. I find no alternative palatable except maybe Canada.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:21 am
Davy, we agree on contraction, decline, fall, collapse, and that the economic system’s requirement of constant growth is the weak link. My realization of this is the reason I have been trying to learn macroeconomics since 2007, a subject I had previously discriminated against.
We just seem to be going for the worst possible ways to do this contraction thing, that’s all, I’m a bit dissapointed.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:32 am
Davy, It would be one of two family farms, ten miles apart, in cattle, sheep, and wine country in Uruguay, South America, our home country, where my wife has all her family and excellent friends and neighbors that have known her all her life, except her sister who is here with us, but we’d all go back together as a last resource only. We want to stay here all our lives, if we can, or for as long as possible.
shortonoil on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:36 am
“But, short, if you do not see the idealogue and propaganda distortions in the amount of onesided postings and excessive onesided comments I fear we are in trouble on those site.”
OK, Reverend Davy, you are preaching to the choir! As things continue to unravel over the next couple of decades we will see more extremism. Opinions will become more subjective. People will grasp for any measure of hope. Desperation is the nemesis of rational.
bobinget on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:41 am
President Bush in invading Iraq made what historians will doubtless name America’s greatest foreign policy blunder.
In an effort to minimize historical damage of the Cheney/Bush Presidency the Right in America is determined to to blame President Obama for most, if not all of our military and diplomatic failures in the Mideast.
Not a day goes by that one ME failure piled another disaster has not been attributed to President Obama’s ineptitude. No mention of the fact that every president since Ike did business with the likes of Saddam Hussein, Saudi Royals, M. Gaddafi etc. The “joke” around Washington was always.. “Okay, he’s a SOB but he’s OUR SOB” Besides, we need cheap oil.
Only in Cuba have we maintained a staunch opposition
to mildly bloody dictators, the Castro Brothers. For over 50 years, long after trading peacefully with Vietnam do we still embargo Cuba.. Some say that embargo will end the day Cuba finds commercial oil. Seeing Venezuelan oil trade most here would agree.
While 1,500 a day in CAR are being murdered, the US does squat. Thousands in Sudan sicken and die every day. Do we send in F-18’s? Transports loaded with MRE’s? Water? Quoting President O, “We can’t be everywhere”.
In the 1950’s all some island nation need say to Washington was that Communists were making headway and (military) aid came rushing in.
Today, if your poverty stricken nation has no oil or prospect of oil, forgetaboutit. Too bad they can’t fake oil.
True or false? the Shadow Government in Washington is Exxon and has been for five decades.
If true, how many off shore oil companies have the most powerful (and expensive) military at their sides?
Boat on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:43 am
What seems to be missing is common sense when it comes to discussing nukes. A couple of handful of these bad boys would put the world in climate freeze If exploded over large population centers. Even lovely Pakistan has the capability to take out the entire world. Articles like this are silly.
dissident on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:46 am
Washington gets away with messing up the world because the western media is outperforming the North Korean media in bootlick apologia, omission and conformity to government narratives.
Libya is an example of the mess that is created by regime change. There is basically no coverage of the mess. But there was plenty of coverage of the “glorious liberation from tyranny”.
In Ukraine the western media never reported the state repression imposed after the coup. Listening to the coverage you would think that the rebellion in the east came out of nowhere. All of the massive demonstrations and the thousands of arrests by Kiev of demonstrators and organizers have never been mentioned. That the rebels wanted their political rights respected and did not start out as separatists but federalists is also never mentioned.
People in the west are the ones that need to be freed from tyranny. As Huxley illustrated in “Brave New World”, you are not free just because you are content with your two car garage house in the suburbs and your standard of living.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:46 am
Yea, Short just can’t help preaching and doing battle. I think it comes from being in the 1%’er world for so many years struggling to fight the idealogue propaganda of the Forbes/Fox News meme. I left that world luckily with a not quite golden parachute but good enough. Your point accepted in my arrogant humility.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:50 am
Juan, my specialty is land management and habitat restoration and as short pointed out part time preacher. Ha. Anyway can I move in with you if you go back to those farms! Really sounds great. “Plus” Juan most Nuk waste/WMD are in northern hemisphere. I fear the northen hemisphere will be a nasty place eventually. You may be making a wise move!
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:50 am
This my country, Uruguay.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uy.html
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 10:53 am
No augument Dis! How about Russian and Chinese communism. They left a great legacy didn’t they!
penury on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 11:19 am
Davy I hope you remembered to celebrate on the 7th of Aug. 50 years ago another great American announced a dastardly attack on America. Remember “Gulf of Tomkin”? I am certain that the next day you went down and enlisted to serve your country or if not then perhaps Gulf War One, or Iraq 2 or maybe Afganistan> Maybe with your specialist knowledge you would like to do a spreadsheet answering the question “Since 1776, including wars against native Americans, how many years has the U.S. not been involved in a war?” (Spoiler alert: the answer is 28.) For your information you might also like to read Smedley Butler’s book “War is A Racket’ Other than that I hope you have another nice day.
rockman on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 11:34 am
The world, and all that happens in it, is a rather simple place. But only if one paints it with just a few simple colors. Thank goodness it isn’t so complex that the global dynamics of all the players can’t be characterized in just a few sentences.
And these are just my few simple sentences describing this simple subject.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 11:36 am
Pen, I was watching the nightly news as a kid with fascination at the war. I wanted to get into the Special Forces in the 80’s but I was medically disqualified from service do to a fracture I got as a kid that did not heal properly. I have since turned against the whole American warrior mentality and will not influence my boys to join the services unless BAU collapses and they will fight to protect our home locally in a potential civil war type scenario. Pen, I am not going to deny the US has been at war most of our history. Can you blame the US with Europe as an influence and example? Then you have the European gift of WWI and WWII. Finally you have Stalin and Mao that let the Monster MIC out of the bottle. So if you want to be a US basher look at yourself in the mirror and ask “Self am I reading history fully or just taking sides and being a propagandist?”
paulo1 on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 12:02 pm
My anger and main point is frustration with confusing the American People with a few Govt psychopaths….much like is done with Muslim extremists. As Rockman says, the world is painted with many colours.
FYI, my Dad was in day 3 Normandy landings. My mom was a frontline nurse with the Canadian army. They met and married overseas during the war. They returned to NA and made a home in the US but left when the Viet Nam debacle started. Much like people here advocating a method of leaving and relocating, they first bought a few acres on Vancouver Island in 1965. Laying the groundwork they very quietly applied for imigration status and my mom reverted to her Canadian citizenship. When I was a teen my dad remarked he no longer recognized the US as what it was and felt ashamed of what was done in Viet Nam. He never talked about ‘his’ war unless he had a few too many drinks.
The ‘people’ might be bullshitted into still believing the propaganda, (it starts in K with the flag up front of the classroom and the pledge….every event is marked by patriot songs and flyovers), nevertheless, I believe the average working American is solid and as honourable as everyone else/anyone else. They are also a generous people for the most part.
They do not deserve this current political system, and perhaps 40% voter turnout demonstrates this disillusionment. The daily Pledge is akin to watching a madras in operation…get them young and fill them with lies.
This writer might have worked high up in the ‘system’, but folks like my dad lived it as we are now. When I think of Americans I think of my cousins and other relatives. They are good people. They are not warmongers. They are not evil nor are they destroying the world. Someone has to speak for them and what they stand for. I stand by my earlier comments and they are as valid as anyone elses. Best of luck as this unfolds.
regards
Paulo
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 12:07 pm
Paulo, I agree, as stated in my comment above. It is important to assign blame where it belongs, not just as one wishes. The people are one thing and “their” government another.
JuanP on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 12:30 pm
Davy, I was researching your state’s statistics and realized that Missouri, your state, and Uruguay, my country are exactly the same size, around 69,000 sq. miles.
We have just over half the population down there, a little over three million compared to a little over six million in MO.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 1:18 pm
Thanks Paulo, you have deserved respect both for your perspective and your real life prepper activity. You walk the walk so to speak by living a natural prepper life not one preached as a movement but lived naturally. You make a good summation of a reality which I would like to see mentioned at a minimum. The reality is this reality is not talked about here. I see Zerohedge deteriorating also in the same way as PO.
I am wondering what is the cause of this accelerated slide into propagandist ideologue on all sides? It is plain to see the DC/Wall Street Mafia propagandist ideologue and the degree of investment in that meme. I am thinking we are seeing what is called in finance “Log periodic bubble with finite time singularity”. In relation to ideologue propaganda on both sides this would be an urgency, speculation, and (idea) fractal with diminishing time scales causing a detachment from the objective and supportability of science, history, and current events. So what we have forming in this polarizing multipolar world locked together in hyper complexity and interconnectedness is a conflict bubble. This conflict bubble is the extreme distortion and corruption of the truth for propaganda reasons in an attempt to win over confidence and the hearts and minds of the world body. It is in effect a great divorce from a stable multipolar world back to an unstable polarized world locked in hyper BAU globalism. This divorce is too expensive for our global interconnected economic system. This system cannot function economically with a fractured global political system. The reason for this conflict bubble and polarizing multipolar world divorce is limits of growth and diminishing returns. The reality is the pie is getting smaller and the wealth transfer to maintain the growth is hitting diminishing returns. We are in effect bifurcating politically and soon will collapse economically along with this political bifurcation. The entire system is in a mega predicament that has finally pushed the system to break from the sever brittleness and stress of disequilibrium. This can play out over years but it can no longer be avoided. The break has occurred and the momentum is descent.
Davy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 1:23 pm
Juan, most of the population is concentrated in Kansas City and St. Louis with significant cities along I70/I44/I55 corridors. The state has not grown like other areas and just got over being a backwater a few years ago. Carrying capacity has been breached but not terrible considering the food and water resources of the region. It is my hope growth will stop in Missouri soon. Your country is on my Bkt list to visit. What an awesome place.
adamx on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 3:22 pm
The first part of this article is spot on – the US destabilized the middle east and the end result will be suffering on a massive scale. Afghanistan as well. That said, the religious aspect shows that there were deep faults before the US decided to rend them apart chaotically. If you put this article together with the article about how the US allies are funding ISIS, you get something closer to the truth. Saudi Arabia has quite a bit to do with the situation in the mid-east.
Yugoslavia is the other example. The US didn’t do that, and if they hadn’t bombed the Serbs someone would claim they wanted a genocide of the muslim Bosnians. Not saying it was right, but it was a vicious war before US involvement.
On the Ukraine situation, it’s unfair to blame it all on the US – Russia clearly has their own agenda. Both Russia and the US find conflict to be more in their interest than peace over there, so they empower radicals and separatists rather than pushing for a peaceful solution. The US wants Ukraine fully in the NATO orbit, Russia wants it fully in their orbit, and neither really wants Ukraine to stand apart.
There is also a common thread between all of these situations and the Israel/Palestine situation: the intent to create a “pure” state. There is both a religious and ethnic element to this. The rhetoric of self-determination and the concept of the state as an ethnic and/or religious entity is at fault for this. If you want to blame the US, you’d have to blame Woodrow Wilson. Ethnic and religious cleansing to create a “pure” state goes back at least to the Greek-Turk population swap. Israel can’t have the Palestinians because then it ceases to be a “Jewish” state. The Palestinians don’t wish for equal rights in a one-state solution because then they have to live with the Jews. Who is there to side with when nobody can get past the religious or ethnic crap?
In any case, in all of these situations, it’s clear that the US was a key player in creating the bloodshed. Perhaps that was inevitable. It’s certainly undeniable. And certainly the US is not acting in the best interests of the people, but rather in it’s own interest.
Energy Investor on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 5:47 pm
I think PCR is intelligent and always worth reading…I am enjoying his book about “The Tyranny of Good Intentions”. But I have to say that the politics of MENA countries is over-simplified in his writings.
I don’t have any brief for Israel, but he seems rather myopic with regard to the Islamist/Zionist struggle. The right of the state of Israel to exist may have been debatable in the 1940’s, but now it is simply a question of how can Israel make peace and heal rifts between Arab and Israeli. It will be hard to achieve that peace, but if the USA did not help Israel, I doubt it would be long before Israel’s nukes needed to be used – and I suspect almost anything is preferable to that.
The bigger threat to humanity is Islamism. It threatens to take everyone back into the dark ages.
We all have an interest in what the USA does. We rely implicitly on Pax Americana despite the USA often behaving like the world’s biggest terrorist organisation. My own countryfolk saw through the Neocon lies and ballyhoo about Saddam Husain and declined the invitation to attend the Iraq war (rather butchery of a nation). Most British people saw through the lies too but their politicians – like those in the USA – are beyond the control of the general public. Previously we had joined and died in every UK/US war.
Bush Cheney and Rumsfeld are clearly “war criminals”. But then, so was FDR for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Everyone in the “free world” knows this. But we all recognise the reality that the folk like Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot and the ISIS leaders are even worse.
America’s biggest problems are not external. Though most foreign policy is driven by protecting the interests of the military/industrial complex. The USA’s problems are internal. The country cannot govern itself competently, nor can it ensure the safety of its own citizens.
America’s legal code is a horror story. Until that is simplified there is unlikely to be rational government as we (in British legal administrations)would understand it. And I believe Paul Craig Roberts agrees on that…
But for the rest of the world there is the depressing reality that if the USA cannot deal with something as simple as its gun laws, it will never deal effectively with population control, and we will also be powerless to deal with the global problems that matter. This in turn means our species is destined for die-back. We are behaving more like a plague of locusts than a rational species.
When America’s empire ends, we will probably suffer more than her citizens.
The other day I had a visit from a lovely Russian lady to deal with certain judicial matters, but by the end of it I realised she was probably one of the more recent Russian spies to set up in our country. She knew I knew and I knew she knew I knew. Anyone who thinks that Russia’s FSB has not been manouvering her foreign assets in a similar way to the USA seems unaware of what has been happening.
In our country we have since 1900 always had senior government officials who have been Communist sympathisers…just as the USA has. While I was brought up to believe that Senator Joe McCarthy was just a rabble-rouser and that his persecution of folks was wrong…I now realise he was quite right. Meantime it is clear that with Hopkins and Oppenheimer both as spies, the bomb was stolen by Russia and the cold war need never have existed in the first place.
We sheeple rarely get to see the truth behind world events. But it is there if you look hard enough.
On this site, we mostly accept the facts that humanity’s exponential growth and associated resource depletion will end badly. However, with China buying access to most resources that are not nailed down, with the BRICS grouping providing global reach for the USA’s competitors and with the SCO turning Eurasia into a fortress, the geopolitical forces at work against the USA and its allies are becoming more formidable.
Even in tiny New Zealand we can see that. When the global oil price spikes upward and supplies become constrained it will be countries like us who will be first to suffer. We rely on the “free market”. Yet China relies on supply contracts that have been bought and paid for by loans and investment arrangements. When rationing (by whatever means) arrives, we know pretty well who will get our share!
Right now, the world faces huge risks to its financial systems…all hostage to the derivatives casino. Whether you work for BIS, IMF or any of the world’s central banks, you already know the biggest proximate crash will come from the popping of some obscure bubble in asset prices.
The USA does more damage to poor countries by its ham-fisted financial bludering than ever it does by its military adventurism.
The Arab Spring was arguably caused more by the weaker dollar than the interference by CIA and NGOs – obscene as those were.
The efforts of China to control international waters are part of China’s realisation that they need to control the sea lanes to ensure they get the resources they need. Chinese expansionism is right now more dangerous to the global peace, than the occasional forays of US armed forces who seem more motivated to use expensive explosives to re-arrange desert rocks.
Throughout the world there are plenty of folk who understand these realities and this is why they ally themselves with the USA and take the good from the relationship with the bad. In general terms, we share similar interests.
Russia and China watch with amusement as the USA wastes it military advantage.
Yet for both NZ and Australia, China is our largest market. So we are caught between the attractiveness of Pax Americana on the one hand and trading relationships on the other.
Makati1 on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 7:52 pm
Energy, I read your post and while you are on the right track, you are still leaning too far American to survive the coming wars. America needs to go down. Not be wiped out, but be crippled financially, so that they close their 1,000+ bases around the world and realize that they can never have total control/dominance.
There IS a World War III going on right now. BRICS is part of it, as is TPP, and all those other alphabet financial organizations and agreements. The US has the largest military, but also the largest debt, by far, than any other country. In it’s psychopathic need to be number 1, it is destroying the rest of the world. That is why the drive to take down the dollar is gaining steam. It is the easiest way to cripple America and most of the NATO countries.
The future is in the East, no matter how you feel about it. That is the last area of growth in the world. Yes, China is buying up Africa and South America. How is that different from the plundering of the West on both continents for the last 500 years? I suggest you learn Mandarin. Many of the young Filipinos are. The tree that bends in the storm survives.
Makati1 on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 8:01 pm
Paulo: “The people are one thing and “their” government another.”
In a dictatorship, that is true.
In a Democracy, that is NOT true. The government of the US is the one elected and maintained by the citizens. They have the one they want, wither it is by decision or by sloth.
There are about 230,000,000 voting age Americans today. THEY decide what their government is and does. There is ZERO reason that they too cannot rise up and do what the East Ukrainians are doing, if they don’t like what their government is doing around the world. But, the US is a “let someone else do it” nation.
Andy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:18 pm
A very good article. So much shit is getting spread by the presstitute mdia these days it’s disgusting. Obviously PCR is pretty riled by it all.
He covered a lot of ground pretty quickly so obviously the details are pretty condensed. Yet the fact remains that the US acts as if the usual rules don’t apply to itself, but must apply to everyone else. Hypocrisy, and hubris to think they can get away with it.
To be fair, Grenada was the last US victory.
Andy on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:20 pm
Pax Americana? Is that a joke? 1 country per year more or less since I was born.
GregT on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 9:53 pm
“Obviously PCR is pretty riled by it all.”
That’s how I read this too, and PCR is not alone. People all over the world have had enough. This will not end well for us in the west. We have been far too complacent, for far too long.
Live by the sword, die by the sword……..
GregT on Sun, 10th Aug 2014 11:19 pm
We have been far too complacent, for far too long. We deserve the governments that we have enabled.
Energy Investor on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 12:09 am
Some of us are old enough to remember what happened in WWII when our young men went to help out Britain with Germany and our country was exposed to Japan. Then it was America who saved us. I have noticed there are many folk in places that have been helped by American action. These folk who understand their debt seem to counter-balance those with a chip on their shoulder – to some extent.
The sharing of culture and history is an important part of our lives and we can empathise with America’s difficulties and yet be far enough away to criticise. The way the Japanese soldiers treated our people in WWII, reinforced the totally different cultures we have.
Australasia is a supplier of essential resources to China and we are agricultural producers exposed to the military heavyweights in Asia.
New Zealand has traded with China throughout the days of Chairman Mao and for senior Chinese leaders, the names of the late Rewi Alley and Vic Percival are well known to them providing a special relationship between us that no other country has. Yet we view their militarism and quest to lock up our resources with some suspicion. We are accutely aware that, were it not for US carrier borne military power, our position could be rather worrisome.
In a quasi-judicial role I interact with Chinese immigrants several times a week. We seem to attract many of their best and brightest as new citizens.
But the old bonds with USA, Britain and Europe will still remain. Like USA we have a British colonial heritage.
I hold the view from my research that we have entered the early stages of the first global depression and that escallating money and credit creation is simply a smokescreen for the disappearance of sufficient growth to keep the global banking system going.
So I expect soon to see a financial crash that leads to a reduction in oil demand, oil prices and an end to growth as we know it.
None of us can be sure how catastrophic this will prove to be. Nor do we know when it will hit us. We learned post 2008, the forces that would muster to defend the status quo – mostly at the taxpayers expense. But even so, the agencies such as IMF, BIS, ECB and the Fed have at least had a trial run. So their resolve “to do whatever it takes” shouldn’t be underestimated.
Some of their strategies post GFC show they understand some of the issues – at least.
Just that they have proven powerless to effect a global recovery with paper money, credit and shonky statistics.
But we need to be realistic too. China is not moving to mitigate what is to come, but to take advantage of it.
Tsar Vladimir the great also shows his understanding of what is happening. Folk who read his 1993 St Petersburg thesis will know what I mean. he could easily be a blogger on this site 🙂
Using sanctions to try to marginalise and undermine Mr Putin, shows the Pentagon’s strategists understand more than Paul Craig Roberts seems to appreciate.
The game between USA and Russia at present is more akin to a game of chess in which we cannot see all the players or all the chess pieces. For example Angela Merkel is certain to be playing a bigger hand in the relationship than is currently in the public domain. Yet we have heard nothing of late. It is amusing to see her alternatively bow to and scold Mr Putin and that suggests a much closer relationship than the press seems to think.
As imperfect beings we cannot know everything and it seems dangerous for us to presume we do.
We folk in the South Pacific are happy to trade with China and Japan, yet we know the limitations of that.
Makati1 on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 1:55 am
Energy, I agree with some of your ideas, but the US sanctions are meant to promote war, not peace. The West(US) needs a world war and they don’t care who dies to get it. Putin holds the Aces in this game of poker and the West, the joker. China is standing by … for now, but will side with Russia in any real confrontation.
All the US has succeeded in doing is to destroy another country (Ukraine) and promote Russia/China ties. Obama is strengthening the BRICS union and encouraging more and more countries to avoid the USD in trade. That is slow death for Western banks and countries.
The little country of NZ, much as I love it’s beauty, is alone. All most of the world knows about it is that it is where the LOTR was filmed. Most could not even pick it out on a world map with no names. It is at the bottom of the world and, basically a resource mine for China.
The US cannot protect you from China, Russia, or anyone else. They cannot even protect themselves. Your only real advantage is that you may have longer before the radiation from the war in the north arrives at your home.
EndOfHistory on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 2:32 am
I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
An August summer night, soldiers passing by
Listening to the wind of change
The world is closing in, did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers
The future’s in the air, I can feel it everywhere
Blowing with the wind of change
Gee, that was a rather short end of history, don’t you think? 🙂
Then again, maybe they knew something with “The future’s in the air”, like in N-bombers… 🙁
edboyle on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 5:47 am
Great thread with intelligent comments. My Canadian father and uncles all fought in wwii and my mom grew up in england. I grew up in US and have lived in Germany since 91 and beenmarried with a 50% russian/germam since 97. I usually avoid pcr and similar and like po facts, climate change but the concrete day to day hours online reading on the ground in ukraine since february has waked me up. Today the rebels captured a truckload of very hitech canadian antitank weapons landed recently in charkov. Lots of weird stuff.keep eyes open.General opinions do little.Facts on ground. Who isusing, abusing population there and why? Some nazis, others poor schmucks forced to fight, dying fast, as inexperienced.1 million fled already. Hot water, fuel in doubt and crops in ukraine, life itself in donbass. 12 oligarchs dividespoils using nazis as thugs to push it through with backup from western military industrial, press, politicians. No intelligent opposition. Why?
Davy on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 6:12 am
EI/Ed, I as an American appreciate your insight. You hit the nail on the head of many issues. I am criticizing American government and lifestyles/attitudes because we have drifted from a period of strength/strong values to one of decline. Yet, this decline is multipolar. Anyone who thinks anyone can come out of a bifurcated hyper complex integrated global system where each and everyone one of us has been delocalized is in delusion. I have been a passionate pepper since 2006. Engaged in PO, CC, and systematic stress issues since college in mid 80’s. I became very focused in 2000 when the Y2K influenced me deeply as a start of realizing we had become vulnerable to collapse by complexity. Anyone here thinking there is a checkmate in this chess game is deceiving themselves. There will be winners and looser but those folks will be unrecognizable now because they will not be current participants. The winners will be locals and small regions with comparative advantage in a collapsed global BAU. Mega cities (west and developing world) and regions in severe overshoot (east Asia/Africa/ME) will fall the farthest just because they have the most starvation to manage. There is no way to predict winners and losers but we can use science to understand vulnerabilities and comparative advantage. We know the rich west has the farthest to fall but the rich west has the most low hanging fruit yet to pick in attitude and lifestyle changes. The third world is already at the bottom so some will say able to live in a collapsed world on subsistence and low complexity. Yes, in some locations but any third world location with a population in overshoot to carrying capacity will quickly spiral out of control when food insecurity hits into a failed state.
Makati1 on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 8:54 am
FYI:If you missed it…
(Conditioned) Human Nature within the Insane Asylum
“… While there are certainly many ‘benefits’ of war enjoyed by the minority psychopath controllers, such as economic enrichment, power enhancement and more social control, a seriously dysfunctional and neurotic population must be managed in the same way unstable chemical compounds are. Occasionally dangerous pressures must be carefully vented away or burned off lest the volatile concoction self destruct and take the psychopaths with it…”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-10/conditioned-human-nature-within-insane-asylum
I found it to be a fairly accurate description of the USSA today.
baptised on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 11:41 am
Ron Paul Sr. for president. 2016 Could it really happen?
Dredd on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 11:57 am
Washington has to do the deed now that it is the it Nanny Oil-Qaeda State.
GregT on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 12:42 pm
“President Obama announced last week that he was imposing yet another round of sanctions on Russia, this time targeting financial, arms, and energy sectors. The European Union, as it has done each time, quickly followed suit.”
“These sanctions are, according to the Obama administration, punishment for what it claims is Russia’s role in the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, and for what the president claims is Russia’s continued arming of separatists in eastern Ukraine. Neither of these reasons makes much sense because neither case has been proven.”
“Even when the goals are clear, sanctions have a lousy track record. Sanctions are acts of war. These sanctions will most definitely have a negative effect on the US economy as well as the Russian economy. Why is “winning” Ukraine so important to Washington? Why are they risking a major war with Russia to deny people in Ukraine the right to self-determination? Let’s just leave Ukraine alone!”
Ron Paul August 3rd 2014
This why Ron Paul will never be allowed to be elected POTUS.
He doesn’t support the DC Mafia.
Energy Investor on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 4:38 pm
Thanks guys, but I am surprised the Americans missed the deliberate mistake in my earlier post…it wasn’t FDR who dropped the bomb. He was dead by then. It was Truman 🙂
But yes, li’ll ole NZ is pretty much irrelevant in the overall scheme of things.
Northwest Resident on Mon, 11th Aug 2014 4:47 pm
Energy Investor — I noticed, but considered it a trivial “mistake” compared to everything else you had to say. At worst it was a little boo-boo sitting on the sideline, not relevant to the major thrust of your post at all. So, I let it pass. Now, if it had been an egregious spelling error, I would have hit you on that.
I have read that NZ is one of the preferred “doomer havens” for extremely wealthy folks. If true, then it is a long way to paddle from the West Coast of America for all those seeking to eke out a little revenge on the one-percenters, but don’t worry, a few of us will make it!!