Saturday 16 February 2019

Trump Finds Re-Election Slogan – ‘Evil Socialism’


Trump Finds Re-Election Slogan – ‘Evil Socialism’
FINIAN CUNNINGHAM | 15.02.2019 | WORLD / AMERICAS

Trump Finds Re-Election Slogan – ‘Evil Socialism’

The 2020 US presidential elections are well underway with at least six Democrat contenders so far throwing their hats into the ring. For his part, incumbent President Donald Trump has newly minted a cause for his re-election – saving America from creeping socialism.
During his State of the Union speech last week, Trump conspicuously warned “fellow Americans” of the putative evil of socialism. He lambasted the “socialist dictatorship” of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, then fatuously and falsely leveled all the economic misery of the South American country on the alleged failings of socialism. As if years of US economic sanctions against the country and recent confiscation of oil assets have nothing to do with Venezuela’s turmoil.
In the next lines of his annual nationwide address, Trump then linked US political opponents with Venezuela’s socialist President Maduro, retorting: “And some people want to bring socialism to the United States!”
The logic is revealing. First, that the president should even mention socialism in this Union address in such a pointed way shows that there is a foreboding concern among the American oligarchy – of which supposed “maverick” Trump is a consummate insider – that there is a surging interest in working class rights, propelled by a popular disdain towards capitalism and a growing affinity with socialism.
Secondly, the pejorative bracketing of political opponents in the US with the “Maduro regime” in Venezuela is a tried-and-trusted method of political smearing. Any would-be contender for the White House who speaks out about class issues and the systematic social failings of capitalism will be, it is calculated, denigrated as a “socialist stooge” in league with Venezuela’s Maduro.
For the 2016 election, Trump ran on the ticket of “Make America Great Again”. For the 2020 campaign, the emerging re-election slogan will be along the line of “Keep Socialism out of America”.
Trump’s erstwhile promises to salvage the “American carnage” and reinvent American greatness have transpired to be empty gimmicks of a sales conman. More than halfway into his presidency, the vast majority of ordinary working Americans are no better off, maybe even worse off. Trump’s bragging about overseeing the world’s “hottest economy” is all hot air, as detailed by American economics professor Richard Wolff. The boost in stock market indicators rather than a reinvigoration of the real productive economy is very much down to the massive tax giveaways to the super-rich and corporate executives that this real-estate-magnate-turned-president has bestowed.
The continuing deterioration in social conditions for most Americans has resulted in an increased popular hostility towards corporate capitalism, Wall Street and what more and more citizens correctly perceive as a plutocracy masquerading as “democracy”. The alienation from capitalism and the myth of the “American Dream” has resulted in a growing openness among ordinary citizens to socialism. The corruption and misery of capitalism is driving people to search for alternatives. Polls have shown majorities of US public expressing a positive identity with socialist politics. It is no longer a taboo concept. This is quite a shocking achievement in the US, where decades of government, news media and academic propaganda have tried to expunge any notion of socialism from the American mind.
A reflection of the trend is seen in the increasingly critical rhetoric among certain Democrat politicians about economic injustice. The Bernie Sanders wing of the party, which includes new wave Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Tulsi Gabbard, have openly articulated the word “socialism” – which again is something of a dramatic development in the US after decades of McCarthyite witch-hunting and Edgar J Hoover-like demonization of socialists as “traitorous Reds”.
The latest Democrat to announce their bid for the White House is Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren. During her contender speech last weekend at a rally for Blue Collar communities, Warren spoke scathingly of “the failure of the American system”. She talked about the chasm between the oligarchic one per cent in American society and the massive poverty of the rest. It was an implicitly radical speech.
Trump is very much in that top one per cent of super-rich who have siphoned off America’s wealth during decades of neoliberal capitalism, overseen by both Republican and Democrat administrations belonging to the two parties of Big Business.
There is, however, an awareness among the more leftwing side of the Democrats that the party has to break from its sponsorship links to Big Business and Wall Street – as epitomized by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race – if it is to win the White House in 2020.
Trump should be an easy target for a genuine contender who can expose his empty conman talk about caring for “American workers”. Trump’s blatantly pro-rich tax banditry would also be a field day for a socialist candidate to make huge political hay. So too would his continuation of American imperialist warmongering, as most clearly manifested in the Trump administration’s outrageous interference in Venezuela’s democracy.
Donald J Trump, the big-mouth realtor, knows that he is vulnerable to a genuine political offensive from the left. There is a groundswell of opposition to “the system” among ordinary citizens – if it can harnessed by a confident socialist candidate. That would explain why Trump has lately “discovered” the threat of socialism to “our great country”.
The trouble is that it is doubtful if such a counter-candidate exists in the present US political landscape. In Elizabeth Warren’s rally at the weekend, she seemed to studiously avoid using the words “capitalism” or “socialism”. Her rival Democrat candidate, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reportedly distanced herself in media interviews from being identified as a socialist following Trump’s Red-baiting State of the Union speech last week.
Over the next year in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, we can expect more such withering attempts by Trump and the establishment political class to find common cause in denigrating any opponent who sounds too much like a socialist, even if that opponent doesn’t actually use the word themselves.
The irony is rich, or maybe that should be super-rich. Trump has complained about opponents in Washington and the corporate media for waging a witch-hunt against him over his alleged links to Russia. Yet this oligarchic conman has no scruples or hesitation in using witch-hunt tactics to defile opponents who are labelled as “evil socialists”.
This desperate maneuver by Trump to use socialism as a bogeyman is unwittingly a signal that America’s plutocracy does actually view the resurgence in class politics and socialism as a real threat to its privileged siphoning off of wealth under capitalism.
Can American voters find a candidate who courageously takes up their cause? That is the kind of breakthrough that America and the rest of world needs.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

«سوتشي» و»أوسلو»: آليات الصراع على الشرق الأوسط؟


فبراير 16, 2019

د. وفيق إبراهيم

الصراع على الشرق الأوسط لم يتوقف عند الحرب العالمية الثانية، وارثاً كل القتال القديم على هذه الأرض بمصطلحات ذلك الزمان.. المشرق الشرق ـ الشرق الأدنى، مقدّمة آسيا.. الخ.. العالم العربي، سورية ـ عراق.. الخ.

مرة واحدة، استولى عليه الأميركيون بمفردهم 1990- 2010 وسرعان ما عاد الروسي إليه على هدي الصمود الإيراني ومقاومة سورية للإرهاب والنفوذ الأميركي.. كانت هذه المقدمة ضرورية للربط بين مؤتمرات سوتشي و اوسلو الأميركي الذي يجمع ستين دولة بينها اثنتا عشرة عربية بالإضافة إلى إسرائيل .

فإذا كانت سوتشي تريد تنظيم سورية لتسهيل الانطلاق نحو الإقليم، فإن أوسلو يهتم بالسيطرة على إيران للعودة إلى سورية وتقييد حركة روسيا والصين. لذلك فهما مشروعان متصادمان بالأهداف، ويؤسسان لآليات الحرب الباردة، الجديدة في منطقة تمتد من حدود أفغانستان حتى حدود مصر مع شمال أفريقيا، بما يشمل تركيا وإيران والمشرق العربي والسودان وآسيا الوسطى والقرن الأفريقي. هذا أقصى ما توصل إليه الأميركيون في التوسعة الأخيرة لحدود الشرق الأوسط التي واكبت أحاديثهم.

ماذا يريد سوتشي ؟

الدور الروسي في سورية، شرعي بطلب من دولتها، واعتبر منذ البداية أنّ التنسيق بين اللاعبين في الميدان السوري ضرورة للتسريع في الحل، وبناء على تحالفه التأسيسي مع إيران التي كانت من بين الذين طالبوا بالتدخل في سورية بنوا الأساس الجاذب لتركيا، الطرف المحوري في الأزمة فإيران جارة حدودية لتركيا ومنافستها في الإقليم، وشريكتها في الهم الكردي. ولأن للطرفين مشروعين متقابلين، فلا بدّ من التنسيق. أما روسيا فرأت في الميدان السوري طريق عودتها إلى القرار الدولي فاستعملت مع إيران مبدأ المصلحة المشتركة بالدفاع عن الدولة السورية، وجذبت تركيا بمشاريع اقتصادية خطوط غاز عبرها إلى أوروبا وبالسلاح ss400 والاستيراد والتصدير ونحو خمسة ملايين سائح سنوياً.. بالإضافة إلى الجوار في البحر الأسود، وهناك نقطة هامة، تتعلق بالرفض الأميركي لكل طموحات تركيا. ضمن هذه المعطيات تشكلت سوتشي على أساس القضاء على الإرهاب والنفوذ الأميركي ـ الخليجي على قاعدة سيادة الدولة السورية.

وبدا أنّ موسكو تريد من سوتشي أداء دور رافعة ، تعيدها إلى الثنائية الدولية مع الأميركيين، مقابل مشروع تركي يسعى من خلال سوتشي للعودة إلى العالم العربي من البوابة السورية المقفلة في وجهه، فقطر لا قوة لها على أداء هذا الدور، والخليج يخشى من طموحاتها الإسلامية ومصر ترفض إخوانيتها الإسلامية كما أنّ الأميركيين لم يولوه ثقتهم إلى حدود محاولتهم إسقاط نظام أردوغان، هذا ما جعل أنقرة تتمسك بسوتشي مع محافظتها على نافذة أطلسية تطل منها على تحالفاتها التاريخية بين الحين والآخر.

ماذا عن إيران الفريق الثالث في سوتشي؟ إيران في مرمى التصويب الأميركي ـ الخليجي ـ الإسرائيلي، منذ نجاح ثورتها الإسلامية في 1979، وهذا لم يمنعها من تأسيس تحالفات شملت افغانستان الهزارة وقسماً من باكستان والهند واليمن والعراق وسورية ولبنان، ما أدّى إلى اهتزاز النفوذ الأميركي في العالم الإسلامي، فخرجت إيران إلى الإقليم تشجّع على رفض الهيمنة الأميركية، في محاولة لتوسيع إطار الصراع معها، فتتقلّص معاناتها مما تتعرّض له من حصار ومقاطعات وتحريض داخلي وخارجي. كما أنّها وبهذه الطريقة تدعم حركة التمرد الإقليمي على الأميركيين انطلاقاً من حماية حليفتها سورية، هذا ما أدّى إلى نجاح سوتشي في إدارة الجزء الأساسي من أزمة سورية على الرغم من المراوغات التركية الواضحة.

ماذا عن وارسو ؟

يبدو أنّ مهمته الأساسية المحافظة على الدور الأميركي المتراجع في الشرق الأوسط على قاعدة استحداث آليات جديدة صادمة، لمصارعة الروس والإيرانيين والسوريين. ومنع العراق من أداء أدواره على الحدودين: السعودية كمعدّد والسورية كتحليف. لذلك جمع الأميركيون في اوسلو إسرائيل مع اثنتي عشرة دولة عربية في حلف يستهدف إيران. فكسرت بهذا المؤتمر الصراع العربي ـ الإسرائيلي، باختراع إيران الإسلامية عدواً جديداً للعرب، أو للقسم الأكبر منهم. وتحوّلت إسرائيل بفضل وارسو إلى حليف مأمون الجانب، يضع قوته العسكرية في خدمة مشروع تدمير العدو الجديد إيران.

وبذلك يصبح التطبيع مع الكيان الإسرائيلي بأوجهه العسكرية ليس كافياً.. ويلزمه تطبيع اقتصادي واجتماعي وسياسي.. وهذه أهداف إسرائيل الحقيقية. لجهة أصحاب اوسلو فهم على علم بأنّ الحرب ضد إيران تشمل تحالفات إيران في المنطقة وتزعزع مكانتهم في العراق ولن يقف الروس منها موقفاً محايداً.. هذا إلى جانب اعتراض أوروبي على استهداف غير مبرّر لإيران.

بأي حال، فإنّ الأميركيين يعتبرون اوسلو وسيلة تحشيدية لوقف تراجعاتهم ومحاصرة إيران عبر قطع علاقاتها بستين دولة هم أعضاء اوسلو ودفعها للانهيار من الداخل. وما استهداف الحرس الثوري الإيراني بسيارة مفخّخة أوقعت عشرات القتلى إلا عيّنة مما تحضره مخابرات أوسلو لهذا البلد. يتبيّن أنّ سوتشي و أوسلو آليتان من حرب باردة حامية الوطيس، إلى درجة اندلاع حروب صغيرة تعكس الصراع الأميركي ـ الروسي ـ الإيراني ـ التركي على الشرق الأوسط،.. بمشاركة إسرائيلية ـ خليجية. لذلك فإن المدى العراقي قد يكون أكثر الساحات التهاباً في هذه الحرب الباردة لما يختزنه من أهميات الربط بين محور روسي ـ سوري ـ إيراني، وبين إصرار أميركي على احتلال العراق بشكل دائم لقطع طريق محور سوتشي ، كما قال بنس نائب الرئيس الأميركي في خطابه في اوسلو.

وهذا يكشف بوضوح أن وارسو هو الردّ الأميركي للعودة إلى السيطرة على الشرق الأوسط على متن الحلف الإسرائيلي ـ العربي..

الرابح حتى الآن هو سوتشي.. بانتظار النصر النهائي بعد عودة العراق إلى أدواره العربية والإقليمية.

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Nazi Racialist Ideology in Service to Trump Derangement Syndrome

February 14, 2019
by Norman Ball for The Saker Blog

russian dna.png
A full year ago, as it was dawning on most reasonable people the Trump-Russian Collusion narrative was a hoax drenched in donkey-fied Goebbelian misdirection, I noted with alarm (here on The Saker Blog) how Never Trumpism, in its manic excesses, was retracing a very dark chapter of Nazi racialist ideology.

goebbels on ww1
In a disturbing instance of enantiadromia, this very same faction was accusing half the nation (not themselves of course —the Other shadow-half) of harboring neo-Nazi fixations of their own towards Donald Trump. Millions of Americans’ watched their populist effusions get transmuted by the opposition into a Wolf Blitzkrieg-narrated version of Triumph of the Will.
Of course much can be said about Trump’s subsequent drift into the same old Neocon orbit. But without doubt, the early hostile reception attending his Russian overtures did little to encourage a pivot towards improved relations between the two countries. Still, one cannot help but wonder how things might have turned out absent sui generis ethno-racial antagonisms. The original McCarthyism was salutary for destroying lives solely on the basis of ideology. In the present climate, decent men and women rise in salute of Tail-Gunner Joe’s scrupulous avoidance of DNA samples.
teenage virusHere’s an extended excerpt of the March 2018 Saker essay:
“The term Russian collusion sounds like it walked off a Tavistock Institute clipboard with the usual aim of promoting fear and avoiding mass enlightenment. Knowledge is power. Enlightenment is the coveted reserve of the Few. Not surprisingly, power favors misdirection (ignorance) over enlightenment (empowerment). Dumb down and frighten — divide and conquer.
This is why the plebeian class is often referred to as the disorganized masses. Buffeted by successive waves of misdirection, society becomes a de-articulated echo chamber of movements, ideologies and belief systems. Horizontalized incoherence averts vertical assaults on those who preside on high. The Internet alt-narrative, a bottoms-up constellation of knowledge simultaneously disseminated and protected by its distributive architecture, is climbing the enlightenment ladder slowly. It needs to hurry.
We find an early Russophobic send-up in the zany 1966 movie The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! Trying desperately to stay under the radar of state actors (with their penchant for international incidents and Independent Counsels) a Soviet sub and its crew, having run aground on a Cape Cod sandbar, enlist the support of sympathetic Cape Cod villagers to regain open waters. Their Russian nationality is initially hidden (isn’t it always?) behind the guise of Norwegian fishermen. Everyone has the presence of mind not to call CNN. The movie instructs that, when encountered in everyday interactions, Russians are people too. Imagine that! This humanizing touch was a real coup in Cold War America.
The visceral and reflexive fear of a prior era is being resurrected. But as prelude to what? More on that later.
Russian collusion is also calculated to stoke primate fears. In essence, the colluders have acquired an infection from the main doctrinal source; Russia being a sort of Typhoid Mary. The resultant false doctrine (revived nationalism, multilateralism, Eurasianism, post-Bolshevism, Christian renewal) has the potential to visit a cognitive plague on the larger group, or should we rather say their doctrine poses a health threat to the prevailing narrative, the latter being an illness in itself that seeks the preservation of the Few at the cost of the Many.
https://dxczjjuegupb.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/word-image-1-300x223.jpg
So, a pervading illness erects the strawman of a secondary ailment in order to defend the primacy of its own pathology. Never mind that, for Americans, this secondary ailment is exactly what the doctor ordered. The truth is disguised as a disease. The emanation point is Russia.
Keeping the masses both joined to a common moral cause (the Straussian baton of Greatest Present Evil has clearly passed from Terror to Russia) and trained on their potent enemy (for what appears to be an imminent conflict), our Managers find the prospect of We the People—in our militarized permutation—inflicting a deathblow on Russia, while getting annihilated ourselves, a very tempting two-for-one proposition.
For the moment, until a cure is found (or a war is started in earnest) we are urged to please wash our hands thoroughly after handling all things Russian. Russian flags on Olympic grounds could spark an outbreak. Ban them. If you encountered a Russian-sponsored ad on Facebook during the election be aware the contagion may have survived on your PC screen for weeks, causing some to waste their vote even on the likes of Jill Stein. Now that’s sick! The political valence of the click ads–Trump or Clinton—didn’t matter either. Germs are agnostic and airborne. They can travel for miles disguised as competing worldviews.
Sometimes the drumbeat can carry us into the most surreal byways. Take the positively eerie instance of a CNN correspondent venturing onto an elderly pro-Trump Floridian’s front lawn to question her patriotism and Russian sympathies.Throwing caution to the wind, he fails to don the official CNN gloves and surgical mask. What is he in this instance: a journalist, a stalker, an ideological ambulance-chaser, a proto-Soviet Precinct Captain?
More linguistic mischief. We encounter the nefarious The dozens of times a week as in The Russians. Deployment of the definite article as preface to an ethnic group, people or tribe is another tactic aimed at suggesting members of a particular group can no longer be referenced as autonomous individuals, having become hive-minded Stepford Wives lashed to an agenda injurious to the larger group. The The’s are behind the recent ramp-up of crime! No sooner do the The’s move into the neighborhood than property values take a dive. The The’s control the world!
The perils of ethnic scapegoating are a matter of historical inspection. Why then are they being so systematically courted? The indignation of our nation’s 2.9 million Russian-Americans is entirely too muted, certainly under-televised. Perhaps Wolf Blitzkrieg can look into this.
In a recent tweet, Hillary Clinton stoops yet again to Russia-baiting. Then there’s the thirteen Facebook trolls who happen to be Russian nationals engaged in a strictly business venture with no evidence of a state actor role and no overt political leanings. None of this prevents Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein from alluding by sly inference to the Russians during his press conference (here at 3:19) as though King Bee Putin himself was supplying the company with kitty and puppy clickbait pics from the depths of the Kremlin’s basement.
How does national origin warrant even a cursory mention unless a larger point is being made? The indicted will never see a court of law anyway. The slur was the thing. It was lodged. Mission accomplished.”
*****
Today, as the Trump-Russia Collusion hoax collapses in an exhausted heap, hopelessly discredited by the anticipated broadly bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report as well as the recent (and quite riveting) ABC News interview of former Trump (and long-time DOJ) attorney John Dowd, we can only look back in horror and beg the forgiveness of our Russian-American friends who, it seems even now, continue to weather an Anti-Slavism onslaught surpassed only in intensity by Nazi Germany itself.
So, what exactly is Anti-Slavism or Slavophobia? The insert below offers both definition and harrowing genealogy.
antislavism
For a televised rendition of manufactured Anti-slavic consent, The Jimmy Dore Show recently captured a Rachel Maddow installment in all its monomaniacal splendor. Captain Ahab would drop his harpoon in a fit of obsessive-compulsive inadequacy beside Maddow’s unmodulated intensity. Remember, this is culled from just one show. The mash-up mayhem begins here at 0:15. For those with bad earbuds, relax. The audio never strays far from Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia-Russia:
Maddow.png
Did media luminaries travel the globe systematically exploring and discarding potential instances of, say, Finnish and Indonesian collusion before stumbling across—and belaboring mightily—the Russian brand? Nyet. It was Russia Russia Russia from the get-go.
It’s high time Neo-Nazi revivalists such as Maddow either provide evidence of Slavic genome deficiencies and incontrovertible Untermenschen status or cease, desist and apologize profusely to this large and significant segment of American society.
If such evidence does exist, then all that remains is to determine as a society how this beleaguered genome in our midst can best be addressed from a public policy standpoint. Better to ask Maddow, but ideas include sequestering all Russians in Idaho, affording them spotty civil liberty protections or pursuing barbed-wire internment (ala Americans of Japanese descent in WW2), etc.
Mein kampf.png
From a purely American standpoint, the opportunity cost implicit in this unwarranted (and perilous) derailment of a Trump-telegraphed US-Russian rapprochement has been nothing short of ruinous for a reprised Kissinger-esque triangulation strategy, while wildly beneficial to accelerated Eurasian integration.
The double-helix China-Russia alliance (postulated in 2014 by Saker blog frequenter Larchmonter445) has been allowed two further years of unanswered fermentation, increasing the likelihood the US will face a two-front world war —something the Pentagon itself has recently conceded.
Thus, what may have started as a Hillary-Clinton-in-defeat face-saving campaign (if not an outright Obama-initiated GCHQ/Five Eyes coup) could well reap the bitterest fruit of all: a world-ending conflagration. It’s enough to want Heil Hillster back.
Not really.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Trump’s Warsaw ‘Peace’ Conference an Orwellian Parody



Trump’s Warsaw ‘Peace’ Conference an Orwellian Parody

Trump’s Warsaw ‘Peace’ Conference an Orwellian Parody


It was billed as a “peace and security” conference on the Middle East, held in the Polish capital Warsaw this week. The much-vaunted US-led summit was anything but about peace and security in the conflict-ridden region. It was intended as a war summit against Iran.
Even the venue, Warsaw, had an unwitting Orwellian twist to its name. Warsaw? More like War Foresaw.
For several months, the Trump administration had been organizing the “ministerial-level” two-day summit held this week. As it turned out, major powers gave the conference a clunking big miss, knowing full well that the event was a thinly veiled attempt by Washington to organize an “Iran-bashing” summit. How stupid do the Americans think the rest of the world is? They are shameless in their arrogance.
Russia, Turkey, Qatar, Lebanon as well as most European leaders decided to stay away from the venue. This was in spite of the White House sending a high-level delegation led by Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Also in attendance was Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, best buddy of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed, and spectacularly unqualified peace tribune for the Mideast.
The de facto boycott by other powers can be seen as a sign of times of Washington’s diminished role, if not its fraudulent claims of being a diplomatic arbiter.
The reason for the absence of Russia and others was because they knew the American agenda was to drum up international support for antagonizing Iran with intensified economic sanctions. Despite its claims of being a “peace and security” conference, few nations believed that it was anything other than a war summit to galvanize international support or acquiescence for Washington’s obsessive aggression towards Iran.
The fact that the US-led conference in Warsaw was avoided by so many international powers, conspicuously the European Union, shows that Washington’s days of self-proclaimed global leadership are numbered. Washington’s credibility is spent. Indeed grossly in arrears.
The farce is almost beyond words. After decades of illegal warmongering and regime-change machinations in the Middle East, how could Washington expect anyone to take its conference this week on “peace and security” to be taken seriously with a straight face?
Misplaced arrogance or delusion are the only explanations for Washington’s belief that it could organize such a conference – and expect that anyone of significance would attend.
For years, Washington has been swinging a sledgehammer in the region, destroying whole nations, from Afghanistan to Iraq, from Libya to Syria, killing millions of civilians with its criminal imperialist wars. Peace and security called for by the United States? Give us a break from the sickening delusional pretense.
President Donald Trump’s unilateral abrogation of the international nuclear accord with Iran last year is testimony to the rogue state nature of the US. Yet, Washington in its arrogance expects others to attend a conference this week on the Middle East and its pejorative depiction of Iran as a rogue state.
It should be noted that while the US tried to rally the conference in Warsaw – and so evidently failed – the leaderships of Russia, Turkey and Iran were gathered in Sochi to continue diplomatic efforts at resolving the war in Syria. Nothing could highlight more the irrelevance and moral bankruptcy of Washington. Its conference in Warsaw aimed at increasing tensions with Iran was largely ignored, meanwhile Russia and others were continuing earnest diplomatic efforts to actually bring about a peace settlement in Syria – a country ravaged by eight years of war largely sponsored covertly by Washington.
Why Warsaw, or rather War Foresaw? Poland has been obsequiously sucking up to Washington over recent years, buying INF-busting American missiles systems and even calling for a new US military base on its territory, proposed, ingratiatingly, with the name ‘Fort Trump’.
The contradictions are choking. Trump is accused by domestic political opponents of being a “Russian stooge” and yet Poland’s anti-Russian government is laying down the red carpet for American militarism under Trump to antagonize Russia.
The farcical US-led Middle East conference could not be held in any self-respecting European country because of the glaring contradiction of Trump’s hostility towards Iran cutting across the European Union’s commitment to upholding the international nuclear accord with Tehran.
Trump’s so-called “peace and security” conference this week was an Orwellian masquerade for drumming up war against Iran. Germany, France and others committed to the nuclear accord knew that they could not possibly host such an absurd event.
The true belligerence underlying the Warsaw conference was betrayed by Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who on his way to the venue, bragged that it was about forming a war front against Iran.
The Warsaw summit was thus intended as a war conference against Iran. Fortunately, the event has fizzled into irrelevance due to the absence of Russia and major European powers.
However, it nevertheless shows that Washington is intent on starting another war in the Middle East – against Iran. Its propaganda effort may have misfired this week, but the non-event at least demonstrates the warmongering intent the US harbors towards Iran.
Fortunately, too, it can be averred that Washington’s decades of criminality, duplicity and deception have finally caught up with it. Nobody in their right mind can believe anything that US rulers say – especially in regard to peace and stability for the Middle East. Washington’s every word on the subject is an Orwellian parody.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

سؤال برسم النواب الذين يريدون استرداد قرار الحرب


فبراير 14, 2019

ناصر قنديل

– سمعنا على مدى يومين عدداً من النواب يتحدثون عن معادلة قديمة جديدة في الحياة السياسية اللبنانية، عنوانها استرداد الدولة ما يسمّونه قرار الحرب، وباعتبار أنّ المقصود هو سلاح المقاومة، وليس في مفردات المقاومة الذهاب لسلم مع كيان الاحتلال كي نستعمل المصطلح الكامل الذي يقوله أصحابه وهو قرار الحرب والسلم، وبالعودة لقرار الحرب الذي يعتبر النواب ومعهم من خلفهم من قوى سياسية يفترض أنها تحسب كلامها ومعادلاتها وخطابها، من المهمّ بداية لفت النظر إلى أنّ أغلب المتحدّثين عنه، يربطون به قيام الدولة، وصولاً للفوز بخطط مكافحة الفساد، وهم يتساءلون باستغراب: «كيف يمكن لدولة لا تملك قرار الحرب والسلم فوق أرضها أن تتمكّن من الفوز في معركة مكافحة الفساد؟» مستنتجين أنها معركة سيادة الدولة التي ينفصل بعضها عن بعض. وما يعنيه الكلام بصورة مباشرة تشريعاً لفساد طالما لم تستردّ الدولة بنظرهم قرار الحرب.

– بالعودة إلى المعادلة نفسها، آملين بصدق أن نقرأ أو نسمع نقاشاً لما سنقوله، من أصحاب المعادلة ومسوّقيها، السؤال البسيط هو كيف يمكن إمساك الدولة بقرار الحرب، كي لا نقع في استعمال مصطلح مفخّخ يهدف لتظهير المقاومة كمغتصِب قرار الدولة بالحرب، والذي يستتبعه أصحاب المعادلة بالدعوة لسقف أدنى هو وضع سلاح المقاومة تحت إشراف الدولة، وسقفه الأعلى نزع هذا السلاح من يد المقاومة. وبالمنطق المصلحي البراغماتي وبعيداً عن مناقشة ما إذا كانت الدولة قادرة على القيام بدورها من جهة، وبالدور الذي تقوم به المقاومة من جهة أخرى، رغم التفاوت البنيوي بين الدولة والمقاومة والذي ينعكس حكماً على أهلية قيام أيّ منهما بدور الآخر، سنسير بمنطق أصحاب المعادلة تسهيلاً للنقاش وتبسيطاً لعرض الوقائع والمعادلات المنطقية عندما تكون الخلفية وطنية صادقة، وليست مجرد كيد سياسي، أو تحقيق رغبات خارجية يشكل مجرد تبنّيها طعناً بوطنية أصحابها وادّعائهم منطلقات سيادية لمعادلاتهم.

– مصلحياً، لا مصلحة للدولة ومكوّناتها التي تمثلها القوى السياسية، خصوصاً الممثلة في المجلس النيابي والحكومة، منح جيش الاحتلال الذي يتربّص بلبنان وحدوده البرية والمائية وينتهك أجواءه، ومن ورائه قيادته السياسية، أيّ مكسب من النقاش اللبناني والقرار اللبناني المتصل بإدارة الدفاع عن لبنان، طالما خلفيات المشاركين بالنقاش والقرار وطنية خالصة، وإذا كان المطلوب وقوف المقاومة عملياً وراء الجيش اللبناني كقوة دفاعية احتياطية في مواجهة أي عدوان، لا تقدّمها عليه. وهذا هو المفهوم العملي لما يسمّونه إمساك الدولة بقرار الحرب. فالمنطقي ليس البدء بالخطوة الأولى من عند المقاومة بمطالبتها بإعلان خضوعها لقرار الدولة في الحرب، وهو إعلان لن يفعل سوى إشعار كيان الاحتلال بتحقيق ربح مجاني، يتمثل بإشعار المقاومة بأنها محاصرة في داخل بلدها، ودفع الضغوط على لبنان والمقاومة للمزيد من التصعيد أملاً بتحقيق المزيد من القيود على المقاومة، بينما عندما تكون الخطوة الأولى عملياً وليس إعلامياً من طرف الدولة، فيصير مفعولها عكسياً على معنويات كيان الاحتلال وثقته بجدوى الضغوط، ومثله كلّ مَن يساند هذا الكيان، خصوصاً ما يمثله الموقف الأميركي ومن ورائه بعض الغرب والعرب.

– عملياً وواقعياً، يسهل على أيّ طرف تحرّكه الحسابات الوطنية فقط، أن يبدأ بالسؤال عن حقيقة وجود احتلال لأرض لبنانية ووجود تهديدات ونيات عدوانية إسرائيلية. وعندما يكون الجواب إيجابياً، يصير السؤال البديهي طالما أنّ الدولة هي المعنية بتحرير الأرض المحتلة وردّ الاعتداءات ووقف الانتهاكات للسيادة اللبنانية براً وبحراً وجواً، كيف يمكن للدولة فعل ذلك، والسير بالخطوات العملية التي تترجم تمكين الدولة من تحقيق هذا الهدف؟ وإذا تساهلنا مع أصحاب معادلة إمساك الدولة بقرار الحرب وقبلنا تأجيل البحث باستراتيجية وطنية للتحرير، وقد فشلت كلّ الرهانات على إنجازه دبلوماسياً منذ العام 2000، كما فشلت بعد القرار 1701 الذي نص على تكليف الأمم المتحدة بإنهاء قضية الأراضي اللبنانية المحتلة، ونكتفي مؤقتاً، بالتساؤل: ماذا يجب أن تفعل الدولة لمنع الانتهاكات وردّ العدوان، طالما أنّ الجهد الدبلوماسي اللبناني الضروري والمفيد ليس كافياً بدليل مواصلة كيان الاحتلال بناء الجدار الإسمنتي على الأراضي اللبنانية ولتهديد ثروة لبنان النفطية في المياه الإقليمية للبنان وانتهاك مستدام ومتمادٍ لأجوائه؟

– الجواب البسيط هو أن تقوم الدولة بامتلاك الأسلحة التي تمكّن جيشها من التصدّي للانتهاكات وردّ العدوان، وجعل جيشها قادراً على تولي المهمة، وعندما يقف مساندو خيار المقاومة لمنع ذلك، مواجهتهم باعتبار أنهم يحولون دون إمساك الدولة بحقها السيادي وهو قرار الحرب، والذي يحصل فعلياً أنّ أهل المقاومة وقادتها هم الذين يطالبون الدولة بفعل ذلك، ويعرضون استعدادهم للمساهمة في تمكين الدولة من الحصول على الأسلحة التي يحتاجها الجيش اللبناني لتتمكّن من وقف الانتهاكات للأجواء اللبنانية والاعتداءات على المياه والأراضي اللبنانية، وهي ببساطة عملية أيضاً معلومة جداً، شبكة دفاع جوي وصواريخ أرض أرض متقدّمة، وصواريخ أرض بحر فعّالة، وشبكة رادارات متقدّمة لرصد تحرّكات جيش الاحتلال براً وبحراً وجواً، ويعلم دعاة إمساك قرار الحرب، أنّ المترتّب طبيعياً على تمكين الجيش من القيام بهذه المهمة، سيجعل المقاومة تلقائياً قوة احتياطية تساند الجيش اللبناني عند الحاجة، وتقف وراءه في مواجهة قرار الحرب «الإسرائيلي» عندما يصير تدخّل المقاومة ضرورة، ويجب وفقاً لنظرية هؤلاء اعتبار هذا إنجازاً كبيراً في سعيهم إذا كانت خلفياتهم وطنية فقط.

– السؤال الطبيعي هو لماذا تقشعر أبدان هؤلاء كلما جرى الحديث عن امتلاك لبنان شبكة دفاع جوي؟ ولماذا يصيبهم الذعر إذا سمعوا بمصادر دولية مستعدّة لتزويد الجيش اللبناني بما يحتاجه في مواجهة «إسرائيل»؟ وهم يعلمون أنهم عندما يقولون إنّ الجيش اللبناني وحده يتولى مسؤولية الدفاع عن لبنان، يتحدثون عن إلقاء عبء مواقفهم السياسية الغامضة، على الجيش الذي يفترض بهم عندما يتحدثون عن مسؤوليته الدفاعية أن يوفروا له وسائل هذا الدفاع، وروسيا متاحة، وربما فرنسا، والمال الخليجي يفترض أن يتحمّس لتسديد متوجبات شراء هذا السلاح طالما أنّ التنافس مع إيران يحرّك الأوروبي والخليجي، واللبنانيون سمعوا عن هبة الثلاثة مليارات دولار من السعودية للبنان لتسليح الجيش، وعن صفقة مع فرنسا لهذا الغرض، قبل سحب العرض والصفقة، فلمَ لا يذهب هؤلاء إلى السعودية وفرنسا ليفقأوا حصرمة في عيوننا، بجهوزيتهم السيادية ودعم حلفائهم لها، ولبنان بالمناسبة بدون قوى مقاومة في الحكم كان أشدّ شجاعة في فعل ذلك قبل نصف قرن عندما قصد فرنسا لشراء شبكة صواريخ كروتال للدفاع الجوي، من دون أن تقيم حكوماته المتهمة بالتبعية والمطعون بوطنيتها، قياساً بحكومات اليوم، أيّ حساب لغضب واشنطن وغير واشنطن، فلماذا لا يفعل السياديون ذلك؟

– ببساطة هذه خارطة طريق سهلة وواضحة للإمساك بقرار الحرب، وهي خارطة طريق تشجعها المقاومة، ولا تحتاج سجالاً داخلياً، ولا تمنح كيان الاحتلال أيّ مكسب معنوي أو مادي، بل بالعكس يكفي حدوث ذلك ليكتشف حماة كيان الاحتلال أنّ المزيد من الضغوط على لبنان ستخلق نتائج عكسية على كيان الاحتلال وتُعقّد قدرته على العدوان، فهل من وطني سيادي لا يفرحه ذلك ويتفادى السجال الاستفزازي الداخلي الذي يُفرح العدو، إنْ كانت حساباته وطنية، ولا نقول فقط هذه المرة؟

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River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

The Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon as a diagnostic tool

February 15, 2019
[This column was written for the Unz Review]
The Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon as a diagnostic tool
Ever since Tulsi Gabbard announced that she will be running for President in 2020 her personality and candidacy have been a subject of heated debates and after I posted a rather small message from her, I have been getting panicked emails warning me that she is a fake and that I should not “jump on her bandwagon” or otherwise endorse her.
So, first and foremost, I am not – repeat NOT – endorsing her in any way shape or fashion.
However, I do find her and what is taking place around her extremely interesting and I want to look at it a little closer.  This won’t be a review or analysis of her ideas, political platform or chance of getting elected.  Neither will I try to read her mind and do what so many other folks are doing and confidently declare that I know what her true values, ideas or plans are.  I don’t.
But there are a few things which can already be observed about her which I want to comment on.

Ask yourself: why do liberals hate this lady?
First, one might imagine that she would be the *dream* candidate for the Democratic Party: she is a female, she is not White, she has impeccable “patriotic” credentials, she is obviously both very good looking and very smart, she does not have any skeletons in her past (at least none that we know of for the time being) and she is not associated with the notorious Clinton gang.  So what’s there not to like about her if you are a Democrat?
Well, as we all saw, the putatively “liberal” legacy Ziomedia hates Tulsi Gabbard with a passion.  Maybe not as much as that legacy Ziomedia hates Trump or Putin, but still – the levels of hostility against her are truly amazing.  This may seem bizarre until you realize that, just like Donald Trump, Tulsi Gabbard has said all the right things about Israel, but that this was not nearly “enough” to please the US Ziolobby.  Check out the kind of discussions about Gabbard which can be found in the Israeli and pro-Israeli press:
This is just a small sample of what I found with a quick search.  It could be summed up “Gabbard is not pro-Israel enough”.  But is that really The Main Reason for such a hostility towards her?
I don’t think so.
I believe that Gabbard’s real “ultimate sin” is that she is against foreign wars of choice.  That is really her Crime Of Crimes!
The AngloZionists wanted to tear Syria apart, break it up into small pieces, most of which would be run by Takfiri crazies and Tulsi Gabbard actually dared to go and speak to “animal Assad”, the (latest) “New Hitler”, who “gasses his own people”.  And this is an even worse crime, if such a thing can even be imagined!  She dared to *disobey* her AngloZionist masters.
So, apparently, opposing illegal wars and daring to disobey the Neocons are crimes of such magnitude and evil that they deserve the hysterical Gabbard-bashing campaign which we have witnessed in recent times.  And even being non-Christian, non-White, non-male and “liberal” does not in any way compensate for the heinous nature of “crimes”.
What does this tell us about the real nature of the US society?

Appeasing *never* works with the Neocons
It is also interesting to note that the most vicious (and stupid) attacks against Gabbard did *not* come from “conservative” media outlets or journalists.  Not at all!  Most of the attacks, especially the more vicious ones, came from supposedly “liberal” sources, which tell us that in 2019 USA “liberals” do not refer to folks with liberal ideas, but to folks who are hell-bent on imperialism and war; folks who don’t care one bit about any real “liberal” values and who use a pseudo-liberal rhetoric to advocate for war outside the USA and for a plutocratic dictatorship inside the USA.
As for Gabbard herself, she already managed to publicly back-peddle to one obnoxious lobby (the homo lobby) on the issue of marriage (see hereherehere and here) and I fully expect her to cave in to the Zio-lobby just like Trump has been doing every day since he made it to the White House.  Apparently, US public figures like Gabbard and Trump still don’t understand the simple fact that NO amount of grovelling will EVER appease the Neocons or the Ziolobby (see here for a perfect example of that attitude from Commentary).
[Sidebar: this entire business about Rep. Ilhan Omar also illustrated something very crucial to Donald Trump’s personality.  Let me explain:

A typical “lowered” “rooster” (and no, in Russia they are not Presidents!)
In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, one of the tricks used by the prison/camp administration to break a prisoner (be he political or not) was to stick him into a cell with the so-called “roosters”.  In the slang of the Russian criminal underworld, the “roosters” are the very lowest category of prisoners (in what is a rather complex hierarchy): “roosters” are either homosexuals, rapists, child molesters or men who have been down-ranked (“lowered” in slang) to that status as a punishment for some kind of action which the criminals consider reprehensible (like interacting with other “roosters”, mistakenly sitting down next to one, not repaying a card-debt, etc.).  I won’t go into all the details here, but suffice to say that one thing which was well known in the Soviet jails/camps is that somebody who has committed some kind of trespass can be “lowered” to the status of “rooster” and that the prison/camp administration often uses these man as “combat roosters” – they send them to attack and even rape some prisoner who needs to be broken.  And, needless to say, after you have been raped by such “roosters” you yourself get that status for the rest of your life.

Trump wants her to resign from Congress
What Trump did in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar is act like a “lowered combat rooster”, sent to abuse somebody else on the behalf of the prison/camp administration.  Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. This is just a verbal whip used by AIPAC/ADL/etc to beat up their opponents.  In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter  that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  Duh?!  Is that really news to anybody?  Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign.
By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ .  This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!
But the Neocons have now “lowered” Trump to the status of “rooster” and he now is acting like a willing “combat rooster” for those who “lowered” him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of “rooster”: one who willingly serves his own rapists.  See for yourself:
The amazing thing is that Trump seems to be  completely oblivious to how utterly dishonorable, spineless, subservient, weak and cowardly he looks every time he tries to so crudely brown-nose the Neocons.  Apparently being a narcissist does not include the ability to be aware of how others might see you.]
In fact, one of two things are most likely to happen next:
  1. Tulsi Gabbard remains true to her ideals and views and she gets no money for her campaign
  2. Tulsi Gabbard caves in to the Neocons and the Deep State and she become another Obama/Trump
Okay, in theory, a third option is possible (never say never!) but I see that as highly unlikely: Tulsi Gabbard follows in the footsteps of Trump and gets elected in spite of a massive media hate-campaign against her and once she makes it to the White House she does what Trump failed to do and appeals directly to the people of the USA to back her in a ruthless campaign to “drain the swamp” (meaning showing the door to the Neocons and their Deep State).  This is what Putin did, at least partially, when he came to power, by the way.  Frankly, for all her very real qualities she does not strike me as a “US Putin” nor does she have the kind of institutional and popular backing Putin had.  So while I will never say never, I am not holding my breath on this one…
Finally, if Gabbard truly is “for real” then the Deep State will probably “Kennedy” her and blame Russia or Iran for it.
Still, while we try to understand what, if anything, Tulsi Gabbard could do for the world, she does do good posting messages like this one:
I don’t know about you, but I am rather impressed!
At the very least, she does what “Occupy Wall Street” did with its “1%” which was factually wrong. The actual percentage is much lower but politically very effective.  In this case, Gabbard speaks of both parties being alike and she popularizes concepts like “warmongers in ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage and new places for people to die“.  This is all very good and useful for the cause of peace and anti-imperialism because when crimethinkconcepts become mainstream, then the mainstream is collapsing!
The most important achievement of Tulsi Gabbard, at least so far, has been to prove that the so-called “liberals” don’t give a damn about race, don’t give a damn about gender, don’t give a damn about minorities, don’t give a damn about “thanking our veterans” or anything else.  They don’t even care about Israel all that much.  But what they do care about is power, Empire and war.  That they *really* care about.  Tulsi Gabbard is the living proof that the US Democrats and other pretend “liberals” are hell bent on power, empire and war.  They also will stop at nothing to prevent the USA from (finally!) becoming a “normal” country and they couldn’t care less about the fate of the people of the USA.  All they want is for us all to become their serfs.
All of this is hardly big news.  But this hysterical reaction to Gabbard’s candidacy is a very powerful and useful proof of the fact that the USA is a foreign-occupied country with no real sovereignty or democracy.  As for the US media, it would make folks like Suslov or Goebbels green with envy.  Be it the ongoing US aggression against Venezuela or the reaction to the Tulsi Gabbard phenomenon, the diagnostics concur and we can use the typical medical euphemism and say with confidence: “the prognosis is poor”.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!