War Criminal as Stand-Up Comedian

 

President Obama said the following publicly at a fundraiser, poking fun at criticism of him by the Republican candidates during their first debate.

(You can watch the video here. Quote occurs around 4:48.)

“Have you noticed that everyone of these candidates say, ‘Obama is weak.  Putin is kicking sand in his face.  When I talk to Putin he is going to straighten out.  Just looking at him.  He is going to be ...'  And then, it turns out they can’t handle a bunch of CNBC moderators.”

We've come to expect this sort of cuteness from this charming man, who seems to think his role as a comedian trumps his responsibilities as the most powerful leader of the free world, whatever 'free' could possibly mean in this age of 24/7 surveillance.  This remark, while entertaining and clever, is instructive in many ways.  It says a lot about Obama as a man, that despite his air of constant cool, he is vulnerable even to the cheap shots of fools like the Republican candidates, and that he personalizes the challenges which America's role in international relations presents.  It's been very obvious to me for a long time that Obama perceives his differences with Putin as a schoolyard scrap, rather than a profound confrontation of ideas and alternative actions.  It seems to escape him that in our dealings with Russia, we are attempting to balance the national interests of two equally important and determined peoples, not fighting over who's going to be quarterback of the football team or who gets to take out the homecoming queen on a date.
 
 

That he uses the most visible public podium in the world to level cheap shots at Putin, personal insults unworthy of a street thug, much less President of the United States, is both dangerous and counter-productive.  He has squandered a ton of good will tendered by Mr. Putin.  Certainly a lesser man than Vladimir would have long ago written off Obama as a childish dilettante.  But as we've observed at the G-20 meeting, he keeps insisting that he is open to cooperation and constructive engagement whenever the U.S. decides to stop pouting over its humiliation in Syria, and its horribly misguided and murderous actions in the Middle East now being judged by the world as the shameful disgrace they are.

On an entirely different level, in broad strokes it says even more about what is wrong with America's entire world view, its self-sabotaging foreign policy, and its reckless insensitivity to the havoc and hardship we as a nation inflict on the world, all while beating our chests about our duty and entitlement as leader of all humankind to celebrate a new historic Age of American Splendor and Enlightened Empire.

However, lately we've seen an even more baffling dynamic playing out.  We have on one hand, the bellicose, dangerously provocative hyperventilating of Ashton Carter, Samantha Powers, and the Devil Woman herself, Victoria Nuland (the scary creature pictured here).
 


Carter lumps Russia in with ISIS as the greatest threat to America, Nuland blames the Syria conflict, the refugee crisis, the Ukraine, and probably her clogged kitchen drain on Putin, the increasingly shrill Samantha Powers (see photo at the head of this article) is the MICs best friend with her mad R2P obsession, putting her in Guinness Record territory for the number of countries she would bomb into peaceful mourning . . . do I have to go on?  If you watch the news programs, you get pounded with the insane rants of these saber-rattling war hawks.  So you know.

At the same time, our Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde president steps into a phone booth, does a quick costume-change ala Superman, and becomes Mr. Diplomacy, all ready to do the right thing and actually start fighting terrorism in earnest.  This is, of course, after he's wasted three years bombing camels and sheep dip in the desert, while caravans of white SUVs stretching as far as the eye can see, glide by on their way into Iraq and Syria, full of weapons provided at least in part by the CIA, paid for by our allies, smuggled in through Turkey, or air-dropped by the U.S. itself.

What is this, the diplomatic version of good-cop/bad-cop?

Maybe it's the reincarnation of the Keystone Cops.

Why does anyone trust any of these people?

Yet here we see Obama, off in a corner, having a nice talk at the G-20 meeting with Putin, the same man he mocked and vilified both during his State of the Union address, and more recently with the eyes of the entire world watching at the United Nations.  How cozy.  How convenient.
 


Why does Putin still intimate that Russia is open to working with America, when time in and time out, America has proven it is entirely unreliable, lacking any concept or intent of dealing with others in good faith?  It negotiates treaties, then violates or walks away from them.  It grandstands, teetering like a circus clown on the high moral ground of dubious  self-proclaimed righteousness, while destroying countries, inflicting unprecedented levels of chaos and carnage, at the same time preparing for a major war with China or Russia, maybe both.  Is this hypocrisy, confusion, or just stupidity?

Moreover, why should we as U.S. citizens for a second believe that Obama and the motley collection of people HE CHOSE TO SURROUND HIMSELF WITH are at all sincere about engaging Russia -- and of course the countries in Europe we have flooded with refugees by  bombing the Middle East for two decades now -- in a serious discussion about a peaceful resolution to this mess?  Which one of these blowhards are we even supposed to listen to?  Talk about mixed messages.  This administration is at war with itself!

So what are we to do now?  Get our hopes up that things are turning around?  That policy makers have finally woken up and are ready to put things right?

Then again, what choice do we have?

Wait until after the next election to see which psychopath will lead the charge?

I guess we need to take stock and count our blessings.  Maybe personally, I should commit to being a dutiful patriot by firmly resolving to respect Mr. Obama and honor his service as our president . . . to our country . . . and to the world.

After all, he's the best smart-ass money can buy.

And as war criminals go, the guy can sure yuk it up!



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]


War Criminal as Stand-Up Comedian

Plausible Deniability

 

We should be hopeful . . . but cautious.

The latest diplomatic initiative by the U.S. in what appears to be the beginning of a welcome and very necessary rapprochement with Russia, requires withholding quick judgment and maintaining a judicious eye.

We've seen this before. Granted, it would be wonderful if America has come to its senses and has decided that the risks of bullying Russia far outweigh any imagined  benefits. But taking even a cursory a look at recent history, "wonderful" is a rare, if non-existent, exception whenever the U.S. does anything on the diplomatic front.

I will be offering a possible scenario which with my every fiber I hope is not what unfolds.

Secretary of State Kerry, accompanied no less by the mistress dominatrix of neocon terror herself, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland __ a demon diplomat who helped engineer the most obvious coup in history in the Ukraine __ talked to Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Tuesday, May 12.

Apparently, Kerry passed along the sentiment that the U.S. wants to work in concert with Russia on the Ukraine crisis, and moreover supports the Minsk II agreement, viewing it as the most promising and constructive path toward resolving the dispute.

The meeting lasted four hours. Both sides claimed the talks were frank, though they didn't produce any major breakthroughs.

A few reporters noted that Nuland seemed to be pouting when she exited the meeting. Hardly a surprise there, since she is a shallow and vulgar shrew who only smiles when sparklers and balloons herald the triumphs of her destructive anti-Russian tomfoolery. 

In the press conference which followed the long discussions, Kerry then warned President Poroshenko he should "think twice" before shelling the Donetsk airport, something by the way he has already started doing.

While this apparent turnaround in the confrontation the U.S. has been mounting for over a year now __ vilifying Russia, imposing sanctions, demonizing Putin, increasing military presence and staging war games all over Europe, sometimes right next to Russia's borders __ appears to be a positive development, I fear this latest white hat routine is yet another diplomatic feint.

America is again the nice guy. Taking the initiative to make things right with the Russians. Talking up peace.  Encouraging Poroshenko to cool it with the aggression.

Of course, implied in Kerry's statement warning Poroshenko is that the U.S. has no control over him. That he's his own man. Which is blatant nonsense. If you just look close enough, you can see the puppet strings manipulating Poroshenko's every ham-fisted attempt to look like a credible figure.

So let's say Poroshenko not only continues to bomb the Donetsk airport, but mounts a full scale assault on the East. He has stated with embarrassing candor very recently, even after meeting with Merkel, Hollande, and Putin, and agreeing to the terms of Minsk II, that he will not rest until he has achieved total control over Novorussia, AND reclaimed Crimea. That his real focus is war with Russia itself, though this was couched in unaccounted for paranoia that Russia would be attacking Ukraine this summer.

Thus, continuation and expansion of this conflict is inevitable.

Russia has also made it clear that it wants the cease fire to hold, that it wants a peaceful resolution of the conflict in accordance with the Minsk II agreement, BUT it will not allow the wholesale slaughter of Russians in the Eastern territories.

Here is what I fear . . .

Now that they've benefited from six months of training by the U.S. "advisers", armed with new "defensive" weapons supplied by various parties at the behest of America and NATO, Poroshenko will attack the East. Russia will respond and send the Ukraine army running. Russia may even feel its necessary to post garrisons in the Eastern territories to protect the local population and prevent another assault.

The U.S. will then make propaganda hay out of all of this.

"We went to Russia. We tried to be friends. We don't approve of Poroshenko's rash moves but we can't control the guy.  What he did wasn't very nice.  But look at Russia!  They are trying to rebuild the Soviet Union by invading other countries!"

America will then redouble its efforts to isolate Russia with new sanctions, more military presence on Russia's borders, more character assassination of Vladimir Putin. The U.S. will pull NATO and the rest of the world on board. Cold War 2.0 will exponentially accelerate and again we'll be facing the prospects of World War III.

It's simpleminded and stupid beyond belief but with the ironclad control the U.S. has on Western media, such nonsensical smears and blatant propaganda has worked in the past and will probably work again.

What is this all about?

The long game is pinning down Russia, keeping it in check, never allowing it the room to achieve its full economic and military potential. Hem it in, poke at it and always keep it off balance, constantly keep it scrambling __ something the U.S. does very effectively with its own citizenry __ make it angry, try to goad it into making a rash move, use any excuse to humiliate it in the eyes of the world.

It's a key ingredient of the demented neocon strategy of total dominance, which dreams of a world begging for mercy and crumbs from the Great American Empire.

Isolate Russia . . . contain it . . . ultimately dominate it.

If this new developing scenario plays out as I described it, it means that Kerry's mission to Moscow was just more geopolitical gaming, that America's claim to want cooperation and constructive engagement just more world-destabilizing hypocrisy, that maybe Victoria Nuland has some real acting talent, and more profoundly . . .

NO ONE SHOULD EVER BELIEVE ANYTHING WASHINGTON SAYS OR DOES!

What's new?


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Plausible Deniability

Obama’s Neocons and Other Hawkish Lunatics

 

People often don't see the obvious.

I constantly get criticized for maintaining that Obama is a warmonger. The
president's actions are proof positive:  His escalating of the war in
Afghanistan, his engineering the destruction of Libya, his manufacturing
the crisis in Ukraine, his demonizing Putin and resurrecting the Cold War 
with Russia, his infamous kill lists and callous use of drones in countries 
like Pakistan and Yemen.

Most recently, there was his request for unlimited war powers,
a new AUMF, a shrewdly and deceptively worded legislative authorization
which allows him to attack any country, anywhere on the earth,
targeting individuals, groups and nations which he alone decides are
deserving of some tough love __ aka annihilation by military force.

If this weren't incriminating enough, just look at the people he is surrounded by.

First, the hard-core psychopaths . . .



Ashton Carter is Obama's new Secretary of Defense. He wants confrontation with Russia; advocates a "preventive war" on North Korea, i.e. blow them to kingdom come now rather than later; and thinks we need to mount an aggressive campaign to fight ISIS. I guess he finds it easy to overlook the fact that our other aggressive campaigns created ISIS, that they are using the armaments we introduced into the region for their aggressive campaign, that every aggressive campaign we have mounted in the Middle East has recruited more fanatics and terrorists,
a fact which has been verified by our own security agencies. Carter is
an unapologetic proponent of projecting America's military across the
globe, without respect for the national interests of any other sovereign
powers and without patience for the niceties of diplomacy.

 

James Clapper is Director of National Intelligence, and is by any measure
Spy-Master-In-Chief.  He recently distinguished himself by 
lying under oath to the U.S. Congress,
evidence that he believes that as head of a major law enforcement
agency, he himself is above the law. Like other neocon exceptionalists,
he believes the U.S. itself is above the law, thus entitled to
ignore treaties, international legal precedents, and anything America
finds bothersome. He recently threw his flaming hat into the ring of
international politics by advocating sending lethal weapons to Ukraine,
violating the terms of the Minsk II agreement which is offering some
hope for the end of the bloody conflict, and more destructively,
antagonizing Russia, which has over the past year worked relentlessly to
broker peace there. But why would Clapper want peace? That might end up
reducing his bloated share of the federal budget.

 

Victoria Nuland is Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and married to Robert Kagan, one of the founders of the neocon Project for the New American Century.
She was instrumental in turning the Maidan demonstrations into a full-blown coup, an illegal, violent overthrow of the admittedly corrupt but still democratically elected government. She continues to sabotage any hope for a negotiated solution to the crisis she helped to orchestrate
and create. She is virulently anti-Russian and militantly in favor of
dismembering the country to expedite the control and plundering of
Russia's abundant natural resources, as well as those of the Ukraine,
for the benefit of American-backed banks and corporations.


 

General Philip M. Breedlove, is the current Supreme Allied Commander Europe
(SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations. He has had a remarkable career indeed, but his recent detachment from reality and delusions of grandeur have made him the major proponent for war on Russia in the E.U. theater of command. His constant spewing of venomous anti-Russian rhetoric and wild claims have made him both a laughingstock and a thorn in the side of the saner members of the European community, who for some reason
don't want Europe to become an incinerated pile of rubble in service to
the American dream of world hegemony. If Russian troops and equipment
had invaded Ukraine as many times as General Breedlove has claimed __
against all evidence to the contrary __ half of the Russian military
would be set up in vast emplacements visible from the moon with a cheap
pair of binoculars. But you know those cagey Russians! They made
everything invisible! They're there! Really. Just ask Breedlove.

 

U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt is a California guy with a very shallow, checkered career in the diplomatic services, which makes him the perfect tool to go about the business of spreading propaganda, sidling up to chocolate king Petro Poroshenko __ current President of Ukraine __ for photo ops and general glad-handing, and promoting the depraved neocon agenda, unburdened by a comprehension of the complexities of international
relations, indifferent to the human suffering being inflicted on
citizens in the East of the country, and cavalier about the potential
for nuclear war the machinations of the U.S. is creating. Snatching war
and death from the jaws of peace and harmony? All in a days work!


Then, there are those without official neocon credentials but who embrace undisguised bullying and unrestrained militarism.

 

Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, seemed over the course of
much of her career to have her heart in the right place. She cared so
much about victims of genocide, she even wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning
book about it, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.
She has stood strong for religious freedom, human rights, women's and
LGBT rights, and campaigned against human trafficking and for protection
of refugees and religious minorities.

Unfortunately, lately she's become very confused. She wants to accomplish these noble
things by bombing everyone into submission. She was instrumental in the destruction of Libya,
and now her weepy voice can be heard spreading propaganda and
subjecting the world to her acrimonious diatribes promoting chaos and
violence at the United Nations. Power issues shrill catcalls demonizing Putin, rails against Russia, then without blinking prevaricates about the actual role the U.S. has played in the Ukraine. What happens to these people? Is there some mutant strain of warmongering meningitis going around?

Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry put a unique spin on an old
tactic. Instead of doing the familiar GOOD COP/BAD COP routine, these
veteran clowns do BAD COP/WORSE COP __ each of them vying to be more
obnoxious, deceptive, and counter-productive than the other.

 

Joe Biden has always been a straight-talker, unafraid to lay it on the
line, paint stark images in bold strokes. He shoots from the hip and
often ends up with his foot in his mouth. The problem now is not his
candor. It's his rancor. That and his willingness to ignore facts and be a complete stooge for policies which at best are misguided, or at worst will plunge America and Europe into another major war. He and Kerry have already alienated Russia, undone years of diplomacy, unraveled the trust that had slowly built over decades, and launched Cold War 2.0, a frightening confrontation which has the potential to bankrupt the country, if not trigger the nuclear holocaust of World War III.
Joe just can't shut the fuck up. Maybe the gaffs were funny before, but
it's hard to get a giggle going when we're facing human extinction.


 

Unlike Biden who is a full-out puncher, the more guileful John Kerry is a master of the feint and duck. He'll often use the Rope-A-Dope to keep everyone off-balance, as if
this vindicates the havoc he will in the end remorselessly inflict. His pronouncements combined with Obama's has turned a peaceful and generally promising detente with Russia into a hostile and dangerous game of chicken. Along the way, Kerry has managed to alienate many of America's most trusted allies, and create panic and hysteria among many former nations of the Soviet
bloc. When not hiding behind his adorable impersonation of Pepe Le Pew,
he's threatening, intimidating, bullying, and overall a bombastic
buffoon.

If these lunatics are allowed to continue, they will not rest until they destroy the world.

These folks are so blind, so arrogant, so incapable of perspective and moral sensibility, so drunk on power and possessed by delusions of imperial grandeur and world conquest,
so out of touch and incapable of common sense and common decency, so
lacking empathy and basic kindness, they are happy risking nuclear
annihilation to see their misguided priorities and psychopathic visions
prevail.

Obama's foreign policy is a box of chocolates. Except you always
know what you're going to get __ more war, more bombing, more drone
assassinations, more innocent civilian deaths, more illegal regime
change, more chaos and destruction.

Then again, what else can we expect? It's the company he keeps. Obama is surrounded by bloodthirsty, arguably mad, imperialist warmongers, megalomaniacs who see themselves as saviors of the Universe, chosen by
destiny and blessed with infallibility. Were any of them to undergo
sound and objective psychological testing, they would immediately be
committed to maximum-security institutions for the criminally insane.

However, America treats them differently.

It elevates them to the highest positions of power.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]