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I used to respect Nome Chomsky's opinion but it seems he has missed the mark a lot lately
Or maybe he wasn't ever as smart as I thought he was?
He was against us supporting Ukraine which I think would have been a terrible idea and totally emboldened a very dangerous Russia / Putin. Snip: Though Chomsky denounced the Russian invasion of Ukraine, calling it a crime of aggression, it wouldn’t be far wrong to say Chomsky placed all of the blame for Russia’s attack on the U.S. government. The U.S., he said, crossed obvious “red lines” when it was clear that Russia would react violently.
When he is pressed on how we should negotiate with Russia he has no ideas.
Here was a Ukranian response to him: https://www.e-flux.com/notes/470005/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war
Chomsky: A Stronger NATO Is the Last Thing We Need as Russia-Ukraine War Turns 1
It is becoming increasingly obvious that this is now a U.S./NATO-Russia war via Ukraine, Noam Chomsky argues.
https://truthout.org/articles/chomsky-a-stronger-nato-is-the-last-thing-we-need-as-russia-ukraine-war-turns-1/
99 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here's a Twitter feed you might benefit from taking a look at: https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews
Davis is widely respected, and compiles footage from Russian TV shows where the pundits compete with each other to be more blatantly xenophobic and murderous than each other. They include some of the most popular state-sponsored Russian current affairs shows, hosted by figures like propagandists Vladimir Solovyov and Olga Skabeeva, and featuring Russia Today's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan among other barking mad nihilistic would-be war criminals.
Might the risposte be "They're just TV shows"? Nothing appears about current affairs on Russian TV without at least the tacit approval of Putin's regime.
If you do bother to check out Davis's feed, you'll see that Tucker Carlson features heavily as he's a favourite Western voice among the Russian propagandists. I'd beware that your own justifications and defences of Russia's war in Ukraine don't stray too far into the territory Carlson's claimed as his own.
Here are just a few tastes of the coverage from recent days:
Link to tweet
Julia Davis
@JuliaDavisNews
For those who may not have realized that gov't officials and Putin's pet propagandists actually meant what they've been saying on Russian state TV — for years! Their openly genocidal rhetoric matches their imperial mindset.
@JuliaDavisNews
For those who may not have realized that gov't officials and Putin's pet propagandists actually meant what they've been saying on Russian state TV — for years! Their openly genocidal rhetoric matches their imperial mindset.
Link to tweet
Carl Bildt
@carlbildt
A brutal honesty in this message from the 🇷🇺 Kremlin - 🇺🇦 should be erased from the map. A country that’s chairing the 🇺🇳 Security Council this month simply denies another country its right to exist. I think this is unique in the annals of international behavior in modern times.
@carlbildt
A brutal honesty in this message from the 🇷🇺 Kremlin - 🇺🇦 should be erased from the map. A country that’s chairing the 🇺🇳 Security Council this month simply denies another country its right to exist. I think this is unique in the annals of international behavior in modern times.
Link to tweet
TASS
@tassagency_en
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev believes that no-one in the world needs Ukraine, therefore it will cease to exist, he said in his post on social media:
https://bit.ly/3GrctI2
@tassagency_en
Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev believes that no-one in the world needs Ukraine, therefore it will cease to exist, he said in his post on social media:
https://bit.ly/3GrctI2
The full version of Medvedev's post that's being discussed:
Link to tweet
Dmitry Medvedev
@MedvedevRussiaE
WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT
1. Europe doesn’t need Ukraine. The forced support of the Nazi regime, by the American mentor’s order, has put Europeans into a financial and political inferno. All for the sake of bandera’s unterukraine, that even the snobby, insolent Polacks don’t take for a valid country, and time and again toss in the issue of its western areas anschluss. There’s a nice perspective ahead: to permanently put the nouveau-Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the decrepit EU’s arthritis-crippled neck. That’ll be the final fall of Europe, once majestic, but robbed off by degeneration.
2. The US doesn’t need Ukraine. True, the military and sanction campaigns are attempted for PR by political blabbermouths, who long ago attested to their impotence and imbecility. Average Americans don’t understand what “Ukraine” is, and where “it” is. Most of them won’t show this “power” on the map on the first take. Why won’t the US establishment focus on inflation and job issues, or emergencies in their home States, instead of a country 404, unbeknownst to them? Why does so much dough go across the ocean?
Sooner or later, they’ll ask for that. Then, storming of the Capitol in January 2021 would seem like scout games.
3. Africa and Latin America don’t need Ukraine. The hundreds of millions spent by US on pointless fights in Ukraine, could finance many development programmes for Latin American and African states.
Latin America is gringos’ backyard – that’s what they’ve been rubbing in for decades. Africa’s had its share of suffering from the genocide, and colonial dependence, imposed by former western slave traders. That’s why the people of African huts and Latin American favelas ask a very reasonable question: for their former suffering and present-day loyalty, why is somebody else rewarded – very, very far away?
4. Asia doesn’t need Ukraine. By Russia’s example, they see “colour” technologies at work to eradicate the largest competing powers. They understand what scenario the America-led collective West has for them if they disobey. “Help us to overcome Russia, and we’ll soon come to you”, the utterly brazen Western leaders tell them. Such gigantic countries as India, China, and other Asia-Pacific states face the big enough challenge of post-pandemic economic recovery, let aside the drugged clowns, with their whining for aid.
“We are not interested in you”, Asia tells their messengers, responding to the calls to support Ukraine and confine Russia. The country, geopolitically many times closer to Asian powers, the one that historically has proven itself a reliable strategic partner. Do Asian giants need such headache coming from former colonisers?
5. Russia doesn’t need Ukraine. A threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy. The new Malorossiya of 1991 is made up of the artificially cut territories, many of which are indigenously Russian, separated by accident in the 20th century. Millions of our compatriots live there, harassed for years by the Nazi Kiev regime. It is them who we defend in our special military operation, relentlessly eradicating the enemy. We don’t need unterukraine. We need Big Great Russia.
6. Finally, its own citizens don’t need the Nazi-headed Ukraine. That’s why out of 45 million people there’re only some 20 million remaining. That’s why those who stayed want to leave for any place: the hated Poland, EU, NATO, to be America’s 51nd state. Joining the Antarctic with its pinguins will also be fine. As long as it’s quiet, and the food’s good. The ruling junta’s criminal ambitions forced Ukrainians to beg and roam around the countries and continents, searching for a better life. All that is for an obscure European perspective. Or rather, to let the harlequin in a khaki tricot and his band of thievish Nazi clowns to put the money stolen from the West into their offshore accounts. Would ordinary Ukrainians need that?
Nobody on this planet needs such a Ukraine. That’s why it will disappear
@MedvedevRussiaE
WHY WILL UKRAINE DISAPPEAR? BECAUSE NOBODY NEEDS IT
1. Europe doesn’t need Ukraine. The forced support of the Nazi regime, by the American mentor’s order, has put Europeans into a financial and political inferno. All for the sake of bandera’s unterukraine, that even the snobby, insolent Polacks don’t take for a valid country, and time and again toss in the issue of its western areas anschluss. There’s a nice perspective ahead: to permanently put the nouveau-Ukrainian blood-sucking parasites on the decrepit EU’s arthritis-crippled neck. That’ll be the final fall of Europe, once majestic, but robbed off by degeneration.
2. The US doesn’t need Ukraine. True, the military and sanction campaigns are attempted for PR by political blabbermouths, who long ago attested to their impotence and imbecility. Average Americans don’t understand what “Ukraine” is, and where “it” is. Most of them won’t show this “power” on the map on the first take. Why won’t the US establishment focus on inflation and job issues, or emergencies in their home States, instead of a country 404, unbeknownst to them? Why does so much dough go across the ocean?
Sooner or later, they’ll ask for that. Then, storming of the Capitol in January 2021 would seem like scout games.
3. Africa and Latin America don’t need Ukraine. The hundreds of millions spent by US on pointless fights in Ukraine, could finance many development programmes for Latin American and African states.
Latin America is gringos’ backyard – that’s what they’ve been rubbing in for decades. Africa’s had its share of suffering from the genocide, and colonial dependence, imposed by former western slave traders. That’s why the people of African huts and Latin American favelas ask a very reasonable question: for their former suffering and present-day loyalty, why is somebody else rewarded – very, very far away?
4. Asia doesn’t need Ukraine. By Russia’s example, they see “colour” technologies at work to eradicate the largest competing powers. They understand what scenario the America-led collective West has for them if they disobey. “Help us to overcome Russia, and we’ll soon come to you”, the utterly brazen Western leaders tell them. Such gigantic countries as India, China, and other Asia-Pacific states face the big enough challenge of post-pandemic economic recovery, let aside the drugged clowns, with their whining for aid.
“We are not interested in you”, Asia tells their messengers, responding to the calls to support Ukraine and confine Russia. The country, geopolitically many times closer to Asian powers, the one that historically has proven itself a reliable strategic partner. Do Asian giants need such headache coming from former colonisers?
5. Russia doesn’t need Ukraine. A threadbare quilt, torn, shaggy, and greasy. The new Malorossiya of 1991 is made up of the artificially cut territories, many of which are indigenously Russian, separated by accident in the 20th century. Millions of our compatriots live there, harassed for years by the Nazi Kiev regime. It is them who we defend in our special military operation, relentlessly eradicating the enemy. We don’t need unterukraine. We need Big Great Russia.
6. Finally, its own citizens don’t need the Nazi-headed Ukraine. That’s why out of 45 million people there’re only some 20 million remaining. That’s why those who stayed want to leave for any place: the hated Poland, EU, NATO, to be America’s 51nd state. Joining the Antarctic with its pinguins will also be fine. As long as it’s quiet, and the food’s good. The ruling junta’s criminal ambitions forced Ukrainians to beg and roam around the countries and continents, searching for a better life. All that is for an obscure European perspective. Or rather, to let the harlequin in a khaki tricot and his band of thievish Nazi clowns to put the money stolen from the West into their offshore accounts. Would ordinary Ukrainians need that?
Nobody on this planet needs such a Ukraine. That’s why it will disappear
Maybe you missed Putin's addresses last year and earlier this one when he repeatedly set out his aim to return Russia's borders to some historical idyll where Russia is still a mighty empire. His actions and those of his armed forces indicate this is much more than a rhetorical stance.
The fact that it's deranged doesn't make it less sinister or indefensible.
Soldiers Kill civilians, women & Children and rape and plunder.. Imagine anyone defending that Horror. oh yeah, trump mtg and all the magats. 
Slava Ukraini! 🌻🇺🇦🌻 
We're helping Ukraine to fight for Ukraine's Democracy.. who know what would fall if Russia wins.
the two of them. Kagan played a large role in Bush's illegal Iraq war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan
Robert Kagan (born September 26, 1958) is an American neoconservative scholar, critic of U.S. foreign policy, and a leading advocate of liberal interventionism. A co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, he is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kagan has been a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidates as well as Democratic administrations via the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He writes a monthly column on world affairs for The Washington Post. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kagan left the Republican Party due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, for president.
snip
In 1983, Kagan was foreign policy advisor to New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp. From 1984 to 1986, under the administration of Ronald Reagan, he was a speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz and a member of the United States Department of State Policy Planning Staff. From 1986 to 1988, he served in the State Department Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.
In 1997, Kagan co-founded the now-defunct neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century with William Kristol. Through the work of the PNAC, from 1998, Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan as well as to "remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power". After the 1998 bombing of Iraq was announced Kagan said "bombing Iraq isn't enough" and called on Clinton to send ground troops to Iraq.
In January 2002, Kagan and Kristol falsely claimed in a Weekly Standard article that Saddam Hussein was supporting the "existence of a terrorist training camp in Iraq, complete with a Boeing 707 for practicing hijackings, and filled with non-Iraqi radical Muslims". Kagan and Kristol further alleged that the September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official several months before the attacks. The allegations were later shown to be false.
Robert Kagan (born September 26, 1958) is an American neoconservative scholar, critic of U.S. foreign policy, and a leading advocate of liberal interventionism. A co-founder of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century, he is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kagan has been a foreign policy adviser to U.S. Republican presidential candidates as well as Democratic administrations via the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He writes a monthly column on world affairs for The Washington Post. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kagan left the Republican Party due to the party's nomination of Donald Trump and endorsed the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, for president.
snip
In 1983, Kagan was foreign policy advisor to New York Republican Representative Jack Kemp. From 1984 to 1986, under the administration of Ronald Reagan, he was a speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz and a member of the United States Department of State Policy Planning Staff. From 1986 to 1988, he served in the State Department Bureau of Inter-American Affairs.
In 1997, Kagan co-founded the now-defunct neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century with William Kristol. Through the work of the PNAC, from 1998, Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, Afghanistan as well as to "remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power". After the 1998 bombing of Iraq was announced Kagan said "bombing Iraq isn't enough" and called on Clinton to send ground troops to Iraq.
In January 2002, Kagan and Kristol falsely claimed in a Weekly Standard article that Saddam Hussein was supporting the "existence of a terrorist training camp in Iraq, complete with a Boeing 707 for practicing hijackings, and filled with non-Iraqi radical Muslims". Kagan and Kristol further alleged that the September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official several months before the attacks. The allegations were later shown to be false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership." The organization stated that "American leadership is good both for America and for the world," and sought to build support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."
Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Observers such as Irwin Stelzer and Dave Grondin have suggested that the PNAC played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, particularly in building support for the Iraq War.
snip
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the PNAC sent a letter to President George W. Bush, specifically advocating regime change through "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The letter suggested that "any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," even if no evidence surfaced linking Iraq to the September 11 attacks. The letter warned that allowing Hussein to remain in power would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." From 2001 through the invasion of Iraq, the PNAC and many of its members voiced active support for military action against Iraq, and asserted leaving Saddam Hussein in power would be "surrender to terrorism."
Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998, letter to President Clinton urging "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power," and the involvement of multiple PNAC members in the Bush Administration as evidence that the PNAC had a significant influence on the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, or even argued that the invasion was a foregone conclusion. Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, for example, Jochen Bölsche specifically referred to PNAC when he claimed that "ultra-rightwing US think-tanks" had been "drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for the emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq" in "broad daylight" since 1998. Similarly, BBC journalist Paul Reynolds portrayed PNAC's activities and goals as key to understanding the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, suggesting that Bush's "dominant" foreign policy was at least partly inspired by the PNAC's ideas.
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was a neoconservative think tank based in Washington, D.C., that focused on United States foreign policy. It was established as a non-profit educational organization in 1997, and founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. PNAC's stated goal was "to promote American global leadership." The organization stated that "American leadership is good both for America and for the world," and sought to build support for "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity."
Of the twenty-five people who signed PNAC's founding statement of principles, ten went on to serve in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. Observers such as Irwin Stelzer and Dave Grondin have suggested that the PNAC played a key role in shaping the foreign policy of the Bush Administration, particularly in building support for the Iraq War.
snip
Shortly after the September 11 attacks, the PNAC sent a letter to President George W. Bush, specifically advocating regime change through "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The letter suggested that "any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," even if no evidence surfaced linking Iraq to the September 11 attacks. The letter warned that allowing Hussein to remain in power would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." From 2001 through the invasion of Iraq, the PNAC and many of its members voiced active support for military action against Iraq, and asserted leaving Saddam Hussein in power would be "surrender to terrorism."
Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998, letter to President Clinton urging "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power," and the involvement of multiple PNAC members in the Bush Administration as evidence that the PNAC had a significant influence on the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, or even argued that the invasion was a foregone conclusion. Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, for example, Jochen Bölsche specifically referred to PNAC when he claimed that "ultra-rightwing US think-tanks" had been "drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for the emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq" in "broad daylight" since 1998. Similarly, BBC journalist Paul Reynolds portrayed PNAC's activities and goals as key to understanding the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, suggesting that Bush's "dominant" foreign policy was at least partly inspired by the PNAC's ideas.
Bush's Master Plan: The war that came out of the think tank
It was the complete opposite of a conspiracy: as early as 1998, ultra-right US think tanks were publicly forging plans for an era of American world domination, for the disempowerment of the UN and for a war of aggression against Iraq. For a long time they were not taken seriously. Meanwhile, the hawks in the Bush administration are calling the shots.
By Jochen Bolsche
03/04/2003, 1:45 p.m
https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/ausland/bushs-masterplan-der-krieg-der-aus-dem-think-tank-kam-a-238643.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
German commentators and correspondents have been confused for days. Washington is juggling so quickly with changing justifications for the intended storming of Baghdad "that it can make the outside world dizzy," judges the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". And the "Nürnberger Nachrichten" reports on a "riddle guessing" in the USA, where President spokesman Ari Fleischer publicly declared at the end of last week that a war in Iraq can only be avoided if Saddam not only disarms but also resigns - a condition which is not covered by any of the 18 UN resolutions passed so far. Astonished, the paper asked whether Bush spokesman Fleischer had "performed what is probably the most momentous Freudian slip of his career - or whether the President had expressly authorized his statement."
"It's not a war on Saddam's microbes"
One way or another: Bush critics all over the world are convinced that the desert war is really intended to replace Saddam, whether the dictator has weapons of mass destruction or not. "It's not a war against Saddam's microbes," writes the Hanover-born Israeli journalist and peace fighter Uri Avnery, "it's quite simply a war for world domination, economically, politically, militarily and culturally." Concepts for such a policy do indeed exist. They were already being developed in the 1990s in ultra-right "think tanks" - think tanks in which cold warriors from the orbit of secret services and revivalist churches, from armaments and oil companies, forged spooky plans for a new world order. In the visions of the hawks, international law is replaced by the law of the strongest. Of course, the only remaining superpower should always be the strongest.
World Power Visions on the Internet
For this purpose, the USA would have to be in a position to permanently control the raw material reserves of the planet and to get rid of every possible competitor and keep them down - with all means of diplomatic and journalistic, economic and military power, if necessary also by preventive war. Whatever was concocted in the think tanks in the 1990s, from the disempowerment of the UN to a series of future wars of subjugation - it was the complete opposite of a conspiracy: Almost all of these visions of world power have been published, some are accessible on the Internet. For a long time, however, the elaborate works were dismissed as pipe dreams, written by intellectual outsiders, arch-conservative relics from the Reagan era, sidelined Cold Warriors who, financially supported by lobby organizations, spent the winter politically in some study room while Bill Clinton and his deputy were in Washington Al Gore ruled. At that time, a more internationalistic spirit prevailed in the White House: There was talk of "partnerships for the universalization of human rights" and of fair "multilateralism" in relations with allies; On the agenda were treaties on climate protection and armaments limitation, on banning landmines or on the establishment of an international judiciary.
Saddam's overthrow was planned as early as 1998
In this liberal climate, what was postulated by a "Project for The New American Century" (PNAC) founded in 1997, which, according to its statute, fights for "America's global leadership", went almost unnoticed. Five years ago - on January 26, 1998 - the project group called on the then US President to overthrow Saddam and to radically reverse his dealings with the UN in a letter to "Mr. William J. Clinton". As long as it is not clear whether Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, there is a risk for the USA, Israel and the moderate Arab states in the region as well as for a "significant part of the world's oil reserves". Literally it says already in the ninety-eight paper: "That means being ready to take military action in the short term, since diplomacy has clearly failed. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power... We believe that the United States, under the already existing UN resolutions have the right to take the necessary steps, including military ones, to secure our vital interests in the Gulf. In no case can American policy be allowed to continue to be paralyzed by the UN Security Council's misguided insistence on unanimity."
snip
It was the complete opposite of a conspiracy: as early as 1998, ultra-right US think tanks were publicly forging plans for an era of American world domination, for the disempowerment of the UN and for a war of aggression against Iraq. For a long time they were not taken seriously. Meanwhile, the hawks in the Bush administration are calling the shots.
By Jochen Bolsche
03/04/2003, 1:45 p.m
https://www-spiegel-de.translate.goog/politik/ausland/bushs-masterplan-der-krieg-der-aus-dem-think-tank-kam-a-238643.html?_x_tr_sl=de&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
German commentators and correspondents have been confused for days. Washington is juggling so quickly with changing justifications for the intended storming of Baghdad "that it can make the outside world dizzy," judges the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". And the "Nürnberger Nachrichten" reports on a "riddle guessing" in the USA, where President spokesman Ari Fleischer publicly declared at the end of last week that a war in Iraq can only be avoided if Saddam not only disarms but also resigns - a condition which is not covered by any of the 18 UN resolutions passed so far. Astonished, the paper asked whether Bush spokesman Fleischer had "performed what is probably the most momentous Freudian slip of his career - or whether the President had expressly authorized his statement."
"It's not a war on Saddam's microbes"
One way or another: Bush critics all over the world are convinced that the desert war is really intended to replace Saddam, whether the dictator has weapons of mass destruction or not. "It's not a war against Saddam's microbes," writes the Hanover-born Israeli journalist and peace fighter Uri Avnery, "it's quite simply a war for world domination, economically, politically, militarily and culturally." Concepts for such a policy do indeed exist. They were already being developed in the 1990s in ultra-right "think tanks" - think tanks in which cold warriors from the orbit of secret services and revivalist churches, from armaments and oil companies, forged spooky plans for a new world order. In the visions of the hawks, international law is replaced by the law of the strongest. Of course, the only remaining superpower should always be the strongest.
World Power Visions on the Internet
For this purpose, the USA would have to be in a position to permanently control the raw material reserves of the planet and to get rid of every possible competitor and keep them down - with all means of diplomatic and journalistic, economic and military power, if necessary also by preventive war. Whatever was concocted in the think tanks in the 1990s, from the disempowerment of the UN to a series of future wars of subjugation - it was the complete opposite of a conspiracy: Almost all of these visions of world power have been published, some are accessible on the Internet. For a long time, however, the elaborate works were dismissed as pipe dreams, written by intellectual outsiders, arch-conservative relics from the Reagan era, sidelined Cold Warriors who, financially supported by lobby organizations, spent the winter politically in some study room while Bill Clinton and his deputy were in Washington Al Gore ruled. At that time, a more internationalistic spirit prevailed in the White House: There was talk of "partnerships for the universalization of human rights" and of fair "multilateralism" in relations with allies; On the agenda were treaties on climate protection and armaments limitation, on banning landmines or on the establishment of an international judiciary.
Saddam's overthrow was planned as early as 1998
In this liberal climate, what was postulated by a "Project for The New American Century" (PNAC) founded in 1997, which, according to its statute, fights for "America's global leadership", went almost unnoticed. Five years ago - on January 26, 1998 - the project group called on the then US President to overthrow Saddam and to radically reverse his dealings with the UN in a letter to "Mr. William J. Clinton". As long as it is not clear whether Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, there is a risk for the USA, Israel and the moderate Arab states in the region as well as for a "significant part of the world's oil reserves". Literally it says already in the ninety-eight paper: "That means being ready to take military action in the short term, since diplomacy has clearly failed. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power... We believe that the United States, under the already existing UN resolutions have the right to take the necessary steps, including military ones, to secure our vital interests in the Gulf. In no case can American policy be allowed to continue to be paralyzed by the UN Security Council's misguided insistence on unanimity."
snip
Images seared in my mind's eye for life. The fact it was an orchard made the horror even worse.
The Killing Tree, where they executed hundreds of children (so they did not grow up and take revenge) via beating them to death, was one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen in my life. Maybe the most.
Same feelings of staring into the abyss that I got at Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
The stupa is filled with over 5,000 skulls in multiple levels, behind plexiglass walls, some of which are opened up during the day.
I was going to post some other pics, but I decided to refrain, as they are just so brutal.
nor a "works cited" page. Decontextualized quotes are not "citations".
Last edited Sun Apr 16, 2023, 12:47 PM - Edit history (1)
If Not Now…
There are a number of persuasive reasons to cast a vote for Ralph Nader in the fall, and a number of unpersuasive reasons, too.
There are a number of persuasive reasons to cast a vote for Ralph Nader in the fall, and a number of unpersuasive reasons, too.
or this one...
Why I'm voting for Bush (but only just)
Or maybe the Christopher Hitchens who told us we were unduly worried about the Supreme Court?
Now I know that many of you are sincerely, gravely, brow-furrowingly worried about which future monarch gets to appoint which future Justice. But why not admit it? You don’t really know, and you won’t really be asked, who will fill the next Supreme Court seat. (And it was the Democratic majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, not George Bush senior, who made Clarence Thomas a Supreme.) It is as possible, in theory as well as practice, to imagine Gore making a safe and stupid reactionary appointment as it is to picture Bush making an “unpredictable” centrist one. The point, though, is that it is servile to wait upon their pleasure and caprice in this way.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/if-not-now/
As for any "gift for turning a phrase", Hitchen's style is pompous and self-conscious, but that might be by design to distract from the paucity of intellectual depth.
There are no citations in the Hitchens pontification, simply several decontextualized quotes. It's not a scholarly article; it's an opinion piece in a literary quarterly.
The idiot Hitchens told people to vote for Ralph Nader in 2000, assuring them that there was no need to worry about the Supreme Court. Then he doubled down and proudly preened that he was voting for Bush in 2004.
Hitchens does not have the requisite judgement for his opinion to be valued.
Now I know that many of you are sincerely, gravely, brow-furrowingly worried about which future monarch gets to appoint which future Justice. But why not admit it? You don’t really know, and you won’t really be asked, who will fill the next Supreme Court seat. (And it was the Democratic majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee, not George Bush senior, who made Clarence Thomas a Supreme.) It is as possible, in theory as well as practice, to imagine Gore making a safe and stupid reactionary appointment as it is to picture Bush making an “unpredictable” centrist one. The point, though, is that it is servile to wait upon their pleasure and caprice in this way.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/if-not-now/
