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'The War Machine Is Run on Contracts'

America's wars wouldn’t be possible without contractors, but presidents usually ignore the thousands who have died.

By KATHY GILSINAN | Published January 17, 2020 7:00 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted January 17, 2020 |

Mike Jabbar never met his replacement. But when Nawres Hamid died in a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq after Christmas, Jabbar saw photos of the wreckage and recognized the American flag he himself had helped paint on the door of a room now mangled. That was his old room, on his old base. It could have been him.

“Imagine something like that happens, knowing that you were supposed to be there and you weren’t there, and the person that replaced you is gone,” Jabbar, who like Hamid served as a translator for the U.S. military, told me in an interview. “It absolutely feels horrible.”

Jabbar was one of the lucky ones. He left his home country of Iraq last fall, at age 23, for the United States, where he’s now a permanent resident living with a friend in North Carolina.

The U.S. has relied on thousands of contractors like him and Hamid to help conduct its wars, in roles handling translation, logistics, security, and even laundry. America cannot go to war without its contractors, but presidents usually ignore the thousands who have died, including U.S. citizens. They are ubiquitous but largely unseen by the American public, obscuring the real size, and the real cost, of America’s wars. This also means that a president can selectively seize on one contractor’s death in the service of other goals.

Senior U.S. officials invoked Hamid, an Iraqi-born U.S. citizen, repeatedly to explain why they brought America to the brink of an all-out conflict with Iran—days before the public knew his name. Donald Trump, who has vowed to end wars in the Middle East, was willing to risk a new one to avenge an American contractor’s death—including by killing the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, a step previous presidents worried could unleash a violent backlash. Yet when a terrorist attack killed two more American contractors and one U.S. soldier in Kenya about a week later, Trump barely reacted. “We lost a good person, just a great person,” he said of the soldier. He didn’t mention the contractors.

As America's interventions abroad have become more complex and open-ended, the country has relied on contractors more and more for essential jobs like guarding diplomats and feeding the troops. Even as the U.S. tries to end those wars and bring more troops home, contractors can stay behind in large numbers to manage the aftermath—especially since many of them are local hires in the first place.

The government has no data on exactly how many American contractors have died in the post-9/11 wars; in fact, it’s hard to get a full picture of how many contractors have been involved in those wars at all. The Defense Department publishes quarterly reports on how many it employs in the Middle East—close to 50,000 in the region as of last October, with about 30,000 spread through Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Americans make up less than half the total, in a region where U.S. troop numbers fluctuate between 60,000 and 80,000. The contractor numbers fluctuate too, and the military’s data don’t include contractors working for other agencies, such as the CIA or the State Department.

The death toll is murkier still, though Brown University’s Costs of War Project gives a figure close to 8,000, counting Americans and non-Americans. “They are,” in the words of Ori Swed and Thomas Crosbie, researchers who have studied contractor deaths, “the corporate war dead.”

Jabbar told me he was happy to take on that risk. Like Hamid, he was born in Iraq; from his middle-school years, he said, he wanted to become an American, and taught himself English in part by listening to Eminem and watching Prison Break. He dropped out of college at 19 to serve as a translator in the U.S. fight against the Islamic State, and wound up alongside U.S. troops as they pushed toward the group’s Iraqi capital of Mosul in 2016. Instead of studying English and earning an information-technology degree, he was in the middle of a fight to wrest back territory from insurgents, translating battlefield instructions for the Americans’ Iraqi partners.

He later ended up with a Navy SEAL unit in Kirkuk, near where he grew up, and became all but officially part of the team; he lived with them, ate with them, patrolled with them, went to the front lines with them. Jabbar even once got beaten up and arrested while getting groceries for them—a case, he said, of mistaken identity, resolved only after he’d spent the night in jail.

“It is hard for me [to] emphasize enough how critical these dedicated people were to our military mission,” Joseph Votel, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, who retired last March after three years helping direct the anti-ISIS fight, wrote to me in an email. Interpreters on contract with the U.S. military were more than just language translators. “They helped with our understanding; they provided cultural context to the events playing out on the ground; and, they came to us with networks of their own that [were] always very useful in navigating complex situations … They did all this at their own personal risk.”

America’s reliance on private contractors in war didn’t start with 9/11, but it exploded in the wars that followed those attacks. The political imperative to keep troop numbers limited, and the need to rebuild amid conflict, meant that contractors filled gaps where there weren’t enough troops or the right skills in the military to do the job. They could often work more cheaply than U.S. troops. They might get limited compensation for death or injury, compared with a lifetime of Veterans Affairs benefits; they could deploy to places where the U.S. didn’t want to or couldn’t legally send the military, Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University, told me.

Even before the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Leslie Wayne documented the rise of contractors in The New York Times, noting their roles in training U.S. troops in Kuwait and guarding Hamid Karzai, then Afghanistan’s president. “The Pentagon cannot go to war without them,” she wrote. “During the Persian Gulf war in 1991, one of every 50 people on the battlefield was an American civilian under contract; by the time of the peacekeeping effort in Bosnia in 1996, the figure was one in 10.” In Afghanistan, according to the latest U.S. military figures from last fall, the ratio of American contractors to U.S. troops is almost 1 to 1; including local and third-country contractors, it’s about 2 to 1.

Iraq contributed further to the trend. “At the beginning of the Iraq War, expectations, foolish as they may have been in retrospect, were that this would be a pretty easy thing,” Deborah Avant, a professor at the University of Denver who has researched the industry, told me. But as the situation deteriorated, it would have been difficult to mobilize tens of thousands of additional troops to provide security. So contractors filled the gap—and not just for the Defense Department. “If ABC News was there, they needed to have security,” Avant said.

They weren’t just providing security, though, and they weren’t just American. They came from a range of countries in addition to the U.S. and did a range of jobs that in prior years the military had handled. “When I went into the Army … everybody was trained as a soldier, and then after you were qualified as a soldier, you might have trained to be a cook, or a laundry specialist, or a postal specialist, or a transportation specialist,” Schooner said. “Today, we train trigger-pullers, and we’ve outsourced all support services.” Because many U.S. missions overseas now involve reconstruction, contractors can also provide thousands of local jobs in struggling economies.

With contractor support, Schooner said, “We can send innumerable troops anywhere in the world, any distance, any weather, any geography, and we have them taken care of better than any army has ever cared for its people, for as long as you need.”

But the biggest benefit of all may be political. “Americans really don’t care what war costs,” Schooner said. “All they really care about is win or lose, and how many of our boys and girls come home in bags and boxes. So if you can, intentionally or unintentionally, directly or indirectly, artificially deflate the number of body bags or boxes, you’re winning.”

This doesn’t always work, however—and Iraq in particular has shown how contractor deaths or missteps can have severe political consequences, or even escalate conflict. Contractors have committed crimes that have hurt U.S. prestige and destroyed lives in Iraq—including the torture of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, and the 2007 massacre of 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. In 2004, four armed contractors were ambushed in Fallujah, their burned and mutilated bodies hung from a bridge. An “angry and emotional” President George W. Bush then directed the Marines to seize the city, the historian Bing West told a BBC reporter. The result was a vicious urban battle that left 27 American troops dead, along with roughly 200 insurgents and 600 civilians.

In Hamid’s case, Jabbar thinks Trump got some justice in having Soleimani killed. “[Hamid’s] gone now,” Jabbar said, “but if he knows somehow that all this happened because of him, he would be so happy. And I’m so glad that at this point interpreters are being looked at as very valuable.” Jabbar himself left Kirkuk as soon as he could, because he said he was facing threats. He received a rare visa to come to the U.S. through a program for interpreters that the Trump administration had slashed. He believes that the visa saved his life, and he wants to serve again—this time in the Air Force.

As for Soleimani, Jabbar is glad he’s dead. “He’s the guy who orders others to go and kill ‘traitors’ and interpreters.”

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Donald Trump Stumbles Into a Foreign-Policy Triumph

The president, however inadvertently, may be reminding the world of the reality of international relations.

By TOM MCTAGUE | Published January 17, 2020 1:00 AM ET | The Atlantic | Posted January 17, 2020 |

A year and a half into Donald Trump’s presidency, Henry Kissinger set out a theory. “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences,” he told the Financial Times. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.”

A term has been coined to describe this notion: Ryan Evans of War on the Rocks calls them “Trumportunities.” It is the idea that, whether by accident or design, Trump creates chances to solve long-running international problems that a conventional leader would not. His bellicose isolationist agenda, for instance, might already be forcing Europe to confront its geopolitical weakness; China, its need for a lasting economic settlement with the U.S.; and countries throughout the Middle East, the limits of their power.

The president’s erratic behavior might be doing something else as well, something even more fundamental. Through a combination of instinct, temperament, and capriciousness, Trump may be reminding the world of the reality of international relations: Raw military and economic power still matter more than anything else—so long as those who hold them are prepared to use them. The air strike that killed Qassem Soleimani was a reminder that the U.S. remains the one indispensable global superpower. Iran, or indeed anyone else, simply cannot respond in kind.

While it is clearly too early to judge the long-term ramifications of the president’s decision to order the killing (my colleague Uri Friedman has set out the dangers of accidental escalation), the initial assessment among many in the foreign-policy establishment here in London is not quite what you might expect. The attack—in the view of analysts and British officials I spoke with (the latter of whom requested anonymity to discuss government discussions)—has, at a stroke, reasserted American military dominance and revealed the constraints of Iranian power.

Although Trump’s foreign-policy strategy (if one even accepts that there is such a thing) has many limits, his unpredictability and, most critically, his willingness to escalate a crisis using the United States’ military and economic strength has turned the tables on Iran in a way few thought possible. What is more, the strike has exposed the gaping irrelevance of Europe’s leading powers—Britain, France, and Germany—in this whole crisis. The “E3,” which have long sought to keep the Iranian nuclear deal alive by undermining the U.S. policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran, have so far failed to do so. This week, they were finally forced to admit the apparently terminal collapse of the Obama-era nuclear deal, releasing a joint statement to announce that they were triggering its “dispute resolution” clause because of Tehran’s failure to abide by the terms of the agreement. The reality of the situation is startling: Europe’s attempts to keep the deal alive have achieved little in Tehran because of the Continent’s powerlessness. And European opposition to Trump’s Iran policy has achieved even less in Washington. In an interview, Boris Johnson all but admitted defeat in keeping the nuclear deal alive, calling instead for a new “Trump deal.”

To some extent, one British diplomat told me, the air strike that killed Soleimani was an extreme snapback to the hyperrealist, Kissingerian principles that largely guided American foreign policy after the Second World War. In this view, Barack Obama and his cautious multilateralism were the break with the norm, not Trump.

While Obama showed the possibilities of this approach—the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal being prime examples (both of which have since been dumped by Trump)—he failed to adequately address its weaknesses, those who spoke with me said. Principal among them, according to a British government official, was that under Obama, the West had forgotten the power of escalatory dominance. In other words, he who carries the biggest stick retains his dominance, so long as he is prepared to use it.

The argument for escalation is simple: If the response to any aggressive act by a foreign adversary is always to de-escalate in order to avoid a spiral of violence, then the advantage borne by military and economic dominance is lost, creating more chaos, not less. A logic has been allowed to develop among countries such as Iran and Russia, the British diplomat said, that the West will not escalate a crisis and will remain boxed into its cautious, multilateralist view. Trump has changed this.

Take Russia, for instance. The Western response to its incursion into Ukrainian territory was always proportionate and almost entirely economic. While there were very good reasons for this, that response meant that Moscow could escalate the crisis by moving more assets into territory it sought to control, safe in the knowledge that, having tested Western resolve, it would not be challenged militarily. In effect, the United States’ failure to enforce red lines empowered its adversaries.

With Iran, according to analysts at the Royal United Services Institute, Britain’s leading military think tank, Trump’s seemingly disproportionate response to Tehran’s aggression has left the Iranian regime shocked and unsure how to respond. At a briefing in London on Monday, I asked a panel of RUSI staffers whether, given that assessment, they considered the air strike a triumph for the president. No one on the panel demurred. Michael Stephens, a former British diplomat who is now a research fellow at RUSI, told me later that it was clear how badly the Iranians had been hurt, both in practical military terms and in pure national pride. “This has fundamentally changed the game and opens up the space for de-escalation,” he said. “It was a sucker punch which has scrambled their understanding of how the Americans might react in future. In the short term, it’s a triumph for Trump.”

Every option available to Iran now comes with huge risks, and the lack of serious response—so far—has damaged the Iranian regime’s reputation. The recent accidental downing of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight PS752 has also hit it hard, revealing a frightening incompetence as well as a limited retaliatory power.

But while the air strike itself might be a limited foreign-policy success for Trump now, the geopolitical gains he has won through escalatory tactics might yet dissipate if the killing turns out to be little more than an isolated incident, signalling nothing but the president’s capacity for shock. He has history in this area, after all. In 2017, Trump dropped the “mother of all bombs,” the largest conventional bomb the U.S. has ever deployed, to kill more than 90 militants in eastern Afghanistan, and the following year, he authorized, alongside France and Britain, air strikes on Syria in response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons. On neither occasion was the action followed up in any long-term fashion.

The lessons of the Soleimani killing also do not fit neatly into Trump’s worldview, suggesting the need for clear and consistent red lines, as well as the willingness to commit U.S. military resources to enforce them. It’s America back as global policeman.

At the moment, in the assessment of the British diplomat I spoke with, the only clear strength of Trump’s foreign policy is his unpredictability, which has the power to unsettle the United States’ adversaries. The diplomat said that Trump appears to understand American strength more instinctively than Obama but, unlike his predecessor, doesn’t seem to have anything close to a strategy to go alongside this insight.

So while there are “Trumportunities,” there are also “Trumptastrophes.” The president, accidentally or otherwise, has identified real problems, including Iran’s ability to act with relative impunity and China’s disrespect for the rules of global trade. With regard to Iran, Trump appears to have stumbled upon an effective mechanism to advance U.S. interests. But he has yet to show himself to be any better than his forerunners at solving the long-term problems he has identified—and may yet make them worse.

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We Can’t Afford to Ignore Lev Parnas’s Explosive Claims

We can’t afford to accept them at face value either.

By David A. Graham | Published January 16, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted January 17, 2020 |

Irony is thriving in the Trump administration. Consider this: The president spent months, and was ultimately impeached for, badgering the Ukrainian government to announce a probe into the natural-gas company Burisma. Yet all it took was the release of some text messages by Lev Parnas, an accused criminal with a checkered past, for Ukraine to quickly announce it is investigating alleged illegal surveillance of former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

The supposed surveillance, which is described in documents that Parnas turned over to the House Intelligence Committee, is one of several explosive claims to emerge this week. In the messages, Robert Hyde—who had contacts with the Trump family and is a Republican candidate for the U.S. House—described surveillance of Yovanovitch in Ukraine. She was abruptly fired in May 2019 after a pressure campaign directed by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer. (Parnas, for the record, told Rachel Maddow on Wednesday that he believed Hyde was telling tall tales.)

Parnas turned over notes that again suggest—as House testimony from Ambassador Gordon Sondland previously attested—that Trump and Giuliani were only interested in the announcement of a probe, not the fact of one. This both undermines Trump’s claim to have been trying to fight corruption in Ukraine and indicates that the president’s goal was hurting Joe Biden and enhancing his own reelection chances.

[David A. Graham: Trump wanted an announcement—not an investigation]

Parnas also produced a May 2019 letter from Giuliani to Ukrainian President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky requesting a meeting with Trump. Giuliani began the letter, “I am private counsel to President Donald J. Trump. Just to be precise, I represent him as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.” This is the latest evidence to debunk Trump’s claim to have been acting in an official capacity when he pressured Ukraine.

In an interview with The New York Times, Parnas also explained how Giuliani came to represent him and his partner, Igor Fruman. In Parnas’s telling, he was worried about acting as go-betweens for Trump without an official capacity to ensure their safety and access. Parnas first proposed that Trump make the two men special envoys, but after speaking with Trump, Giuliani offered a new idea: He would represent Fruman and Parnas, as well as the president, thus making them all subject to shared attorney-client privilege.

The Parnas allegations go on and on. Parnas has said that Trump was kept apprised of all of his actions by Giuliani, although Parnas said he did not communicate directly with the president about them. (Though Trump has claimed not to know Parnas, there are many photos floating around of them together.) If true, this would also debunk any claim (already implausible) by Trump that he was unaware of Giuliani’s actions.

As the Senate prepares to hold a trial for Trump, with acquittal a foregone conclusion, impeachment remains a strange duck. For anyone who has seriously considered the evidence, it’s impossible to conclude that Trump’s behavior was appropriate (although it remains possible to conclude that impeachment, or removal, is still excessive.) Yet even though the House has finished impeaching Trump, and despite the appalling facts uncovered, there is much that remains unknown about the president’s actions with regard to Ukraine, thanks to both Trump’s obstruction and the haste of the Democratic House.

[David A. Graham: The arrests of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman]

This makes it impossible to ignore Parnas’s claims. If true, they make the case against Trump that much more damning. They help to fill in some of the missing information, they underscore the president’s abuse of office, and they come from someone with firsthand knowledge.

And yet it’s also impossible to take Parnas at face value. Parnas, you may recall, first became a household name in October, when he was arrested with Fruman while attempting to leave the country, and charged with violations of election-related laws. This is a man who started a company called “Fraud Guarantee,” reportedly so that he could bury Google results about his own previous shady actions. If he is telling the truth now, he was both involved in a dastardly and preposterous scheme, and lied about it in the past.

Some of Parnas’s claims here deserve particular scrutiny, especially those not backed by documentary evidence. Though he claims Trump was aware of what was going on, he does not claim direct knowledge that this was the case. The fact that Parnas’s account squares with others, including Sondland’s, lends it some credibility. He also told Maddow that “Attorney General Barr was basically on the team,” but offers no evidence for the allegation, and no other evidence has emerged so far to support it. (A Department of Justice statement called that claim “100 percent false.”)

The dilemma posed by Parnas’s claims recalls the one created by Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House last February. As Republicans eagerly noted then, Cohen was a convicted liar, preparing to go to prison on tax-fraud, campaign-finance, and other charges. His testimony was self-interested: He both had reasons to exact personal revenge on Trump, and hoped that his cooperation might induce authorities to lighten his sentence. All of this was true, but Cohen (like Parnas) brought documents to back up his claims, and his testimony has largely been substantiated since.

Parnas is like Cohen in another way: Each was once a part of the Trump circle, and the president and his defenders now dismiss him as a liar and scoundrel. And as with Cohen, the defense is troubling even if true. If Cohen and Parnas are such obvious villains, how is it that they came to be close to the president, putatively working as part of his legal teams? The same question applies to any number of other criminals, con men, and charlatans we’ve come to know over the past four years as Trump associates. The fact that he is surrounded by such people says a great deal about either his judgment or his probity. (Probably both.)

The investigations into Trump have often had to rely on questionable witnesses like Parnas because other, supposedly uncompromised people with direct knowledge have declined to speak. The Trump administration blocked testimony from Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, to name only a few, and Trump has declined to speak under oath. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has conducted a bizarre public striptease, vacillating between hints he will and won’t testify, while saving his stories for a book; on the eve of the impeachment trial, he was spotted strolling around Qatar’s capital city.

In the absence of their testimony, the search for truth has had to depend on uncomfortable encounters with the likes of Lev Parnas. His claims can’t be believed at anything near face value. Yet they also cannot be dismissed out of hand, for the stakes are too high. As long as it’s Parnas’s story versus Trump’s, the question is which proven liar to trust.

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The Iran Plane Crash Is the Big Story

The accidental shoot-down of the Ukrainian passenger jet is a glaring example of how the conflict between the U.S. and Iran can spiral out of control even when neither party wants it to.

URI Friedman | Published January 14, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted January 17, 2020 |

The downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 and the deaths of all 176 people on board—newlyweds flying home from their wedding, graduate students charting ambitious careers, whole families returning from visiting relatives—have come to be portrayed as a tragic asterisk tacked onto the dramatic tale of how Donald Trump and Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei nearly went to war in the early days of 2020.

Over the weekend, for example, The New York Times published a comprehensive and vivid account of the week-long U.S.-Iran showdown. While the article ran more than 6,500 words, it included only one sentence on the plane crash. “In the confusion, a Ukrainian civilian passenger jet was destroyed by an Iranian missile,” the reporters wrote.

Trump, meanwhile, has claimed vindication for his handling of the crisis with Iran, but has barely mentioned the demise of Flight 752, other than to speculate about what caused the aircraft to explode. He has tweeted often (including in Farsi) about the anti-government protests currently roiling Iran without referencing the impetus for them: the Iranian military accidentally shooting down the airplane, whose passengers were mostly Iranian nationals, and the country’s leaders then lying to their own people and the world about it for days.

But the shoot-down isn’t just some side event in the latest chapter of this story. It is the story, just as much as the U.S. and Iranian governments deciding to de-escalate hostilities is. The incident is a glaring example of how the months-long tit for tat between the two countries—which is far from over, even though their confrontation is for the moment less violent—can spiral out of control even when neither side wants it to. And it should serve as a counterweight to any notion that the parties have full command over the struggle they’ve been stepping up ever since the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

It’s revealing that the most recent round of hostilities between the countries was bookended by mistakes and misperceptions. The Times reported that the triggering event—a rocket attack by an Iranian-backed militia in late December that killed an American contractor at an Iraqi military base—was intended to exert pressure on the United States but not escalate the conflict, according to U.S. intelligence assessments. “The rockets landed in a place and at a time when American and Iraqi personnel normally were not there and it was only by unlucky chance that [the contractor] was killed,” the paper noted.

Whatever Iran’s intention, the attack did indeed leave an American dead. Which prompted the Trump administration to kill dozens of militia members in retaliatory strikes. Which led to supporters of that militia storming the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Which resulted in Trump ordering the targeted killing of the Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. Which moved Iran to fire missiles at Iraqi military bases hosting U.S. forces. Which caused the Iranians to brace for blowback from the United States, creating the conditions in which an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile operator apparently mistook Flight 752 for an American cruise missile and, with 10 seconds to act and his communication channels malfunctioning, blasted it out of the sky above Tehran.

Iran seemed to carefully calibrate its missile barrage on Iraqi bases—which damaged U.S. military airfields, blast walls, and various facilities but inflicted no casualties—to symbolically avenge Soleimani’s death without dramatically ramping up its fight with the United States. And the Trump administration chose to respond with similar restraint, asserting that the Iranians were “standing down” and that Washington effectively would as well, by limiting its retaliation to additional economic sanctions. The two foes even exchanged de-escalatory messages over encrypted fax via the Swiss embassy in Tehran. But if one needed an illustration of the difference between intentionally escalating hostilities during a crisis and unintentionally doing so, there’s no starker one than the Iranian military (more or less) precisely firing missiles at specific U.S. military targets and then, hours later, accidentally launching a missile that obliterated a plane with Iranian citizens on board.

The downing of Flight 752 “shows how even restrained retaliation could quickly turn into inadvertent escalation” and how actors in international crises are often less capable than their adversaries assume they are, especially when they’re in a defensive crouch, Jacquelyn Schneider, a national-security expert at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, wrote on Twitter. (In this case, the incompetence of the Iranian military has been particularly noteworthy.) And while Iran and the United States are likely to proceed cautiously with their deliberate escalation—Iranian leaders know that they would lose a direct conventional war with the U.S., and Trump doesn’t want to get sucked into another protracted conflict in the Middle East—the biggest risk in ongoing tensions is inadvertent escalation, Schneider argued: “More mistakes will be made.”

Yes, the parties seem to have looked war in the face and recoiled, but they may simply be channeling their escalation in new directions rather than truly de-escalating. As the Trump administration heaps economic pressure on Iran and shines a spotlight on anti-government demonstrations there, and as Iran’s leaders grapple with this serious internal challenge to their rule and act out further by, say, launching cyber attacks, mobilizing proxy forces, or backing out of their commitments under the nuclear deal, the conflict could spin out of control again.

To confidently conclude that escalation is a manageable force would be reckless. Imagine, for instance, that those Iranian missiles had killed Americans, something Trump has deemed unacceptable and threatened to counter with overwhelming force. Troops at one of the Iraqi bases that came under assault told Reuters that a soldier came “very close to being blown up inside a shelter behind the blast walls.” And Lieutenant Colonel Staci Coleman, the U.S. Air Force officer who runs the airfield there, told The Wall Street Journal that she thought the Iranians “really wanted to target our [air] assets and if they so happened to kill Americans in the process, that was okay with them.” Or imagine if Americans had been on board Flight 752. How would the world look today? To channel Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in escalation, but sometimes escalation is interested in you. It’s a fallacy to presume that state actors can completely control a crisis. After all, who would have predicted that Iranians would be in the streets this week calling for the downfall of the supreme leader as Trump cheers them on?

“Most obviously, humility is in order,” Robert Jervis, an international-relations theorist at Columbia University, wrote recently, regarding the lessons of the U.S. standoff with Iran. “My guess is that neither President Donald Trump nor the Iranians know what they will do next (and what they think they will do may be different from what they will do when the time comes).” Next time—and there will be a next time—the Swiss and their encrypted fax machine may not be sufficient to avert a war no one wants.

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Iran’s Response to Soleimani’s Killing Is Coming

The killing of Qassem Soleimani was a monumental blow to the country’s regional ambitions. It could be about to go back to basics in its response.

By SAM DAGHER | Published January 14, 2020 | The Atlantic | Posted January 17, 2020 |

BEIRUT—About two years ago, Qassem Soleimani delivered a speech at a ceremony in Tehran marking a decade since the death of Imad Mughniyeh, the senior Hezbollah commander killed in a car-bomb explosion in the heart of Damascus, an attack carried out by the CIA with support from Israel. Standing in front of a huge portrait of Mughniyeh superimposed against a panorama of Jerusalem, Soleimani addressed an audience of senior Iranian officials, as well as representatives of Iran’s proxy militias in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Yemen.

Soleimani hailed Mughniyeh as “the legend” responsible for practically all the achievements of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, which according to the Iranian general included building Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas into formidable threats to Israel and killing 241 American service members in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. “The enemy knows that punishment for Imad’s blood is not firing a missile or a tit-for-tat assassination,” he told the crowd. “The punishment for Imad’s blood is the eradication of the Zionist entity.”

Following Soleimani’s killing in an American air strike this month, it is worth remembering the man’s own words. Soleimani, Mughniyeh, and the current Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, formed a trio of men who carried out Iran’s strategy across the Middle East under Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And so it is hard to overstate the magnitude of the blow that Soleimani’s death has delivered. The focus in the days since his killing has been on the perceived impulsiveness of Donald Trump’s decision, Iran’s retaliation—limited thus far to the firing of 22 missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq, with no reported casualties—the public displays of grief for Soleimani in Iran, and the national- security implications. But as with Mughniyeh’s death, to paraphrase Soleimani himself, the response to the Iranian general’s killing will not be restricted to a lone missile attack or a tit-for-tat move—Iran is not yet done.

Take the case of Mughniyeh. In the summer of 2012, a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed five Israeli tourists and a driver in an attack in a Bulgarian resort town. U.S. and Israeli officials suspected that the bombing, which occurred four years after Mughniyeh’s death, was retaliation for the Hezbollah commander’s killing, as well as for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, which Tehran blamed on Israel. “I have received many messages from brothers in the resistance asking for permission to carry out martyrdom operations” to avenge Soleimani’s death, Nasrallah said during a speech aired at memorial services for Soleimani held throughout Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and the country’s south. Revenge, he continued, will be a “long” battle.

For now, in responding to Soleimani’s killing, self-preservation and maintaining staying power mandate restraint. The strike that killed him also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who commanded the largest of the seven main Iraqi proxy militias working for Iran, according to Hisham al-Hashimi, a Baghdad-based security analyst with the European Institute of Peace. Iran’s ability to retaliate is also complicated by the fact that it is loathed by most Iraqis, including its fellow Shiites, who recently attacked Iran’s missions in Baghdad and the south of Iraq. Iraqi Shiites blame Iran and the militias and parties affiliated with it for killing more than 500 protesters in Iraq since October, and they see these same actors as being behind much of the corruption and plundering of the country’s resources that has hobbled Iraq’s ability to deliver services and economic opportunities to its citizens. Mounting economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Iran and its allies in Iraq will also restrict their room to maneuver.

Read: The Soleimani assassination is America’s most consequential strike this century

Similar dynamics are at play in Lebanon, home to Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful regional proxy force. Once beloved as a resistance movement that liberated southern Lebanon from Israeli occupation in 2000, Hezbollah is now regarded by many Lebanese as part and parcel of the corrupt, dysfunctional, and sectarian political class that has brought the country to the brink of economic collapse. Residents of predominantly Shiite cities in southern Lebanon such as Nabatieh and Tyr, which are seen as bastions of support for Hezbollah, have even joined their fellow Lebanese in protests that have been ongoing for months. “The prevailing mood now is ‘Give me money and I’ll come out on the streets and chant against America and endorse any of your illogical propositions. But you do not want to give me money and still want me to come out against America, no,’” Ali al-Amine, a journalist and politician who is among the most outspoken anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Shiites, told me.

Given these limits to Iran’s short-term capabilities, it will likely focus on assessing the impact of Soleimani’s killing, plugging holes and vulnerabilities in its intelligence and security apparatus, reevaluating its strategy and approach, and streamlining its operations throughout the region. Tehran will also seize opportunities for détente with its regional archnemesis, Saudi Arabia, and seek rapprochement with the region’s Sunni Arabs, whose animosity toward Iran worsened after it partnered with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to crush an uprising in Syria, primarily carried out by the country’s Sunnis, that began in 2011.

Over time, the United States, Israel, and their allies—and all those perceived as harming Iran’s regional strategy—will face retribution, though, most likely in the form of covert operations and actions that will be much harder to trace back to Tehran. It would, in a way, be back to basics: bombings, assassinations, and stealth tactics long attributed to Mughniyeh. Indeed, Soleimani himself touted such efforts both at the memorial service for Mughniyeh and in a rare TV interview he gave in October. As Soleimani put it, it is the technique of “appearing like a sword and disappearing like a ghost.” It’s as if he were instructing his soldiers on the path they would have to take after his demise.

During the memorial for Soleimani, Nasrallah vowed to avenge his comrade’s killing by driving U.S. troops from the region and returning them to America “in coffins,” echoing the vow Soleimani made in 2018 to avenge Mughniyeh by “eradicating” Israel. Hezbollah will not shy away from carrying out operations against the U.S. and its allies, and may even resort to the campaign of assassinations and bombings that it turned to in Lebanon starting in 2005, when it felt under siege and compelled to defend its existence.

Elsewhere, having reconciled with Hamas after the two sides fell out over Iran’s support for Assad, Tehran could turn to the group to ratchet up confrontation with Israel in Gaza. In Syria, both Iran and Hezbollah will seek to maintain their presence and influence—Assad, for one, knows his survival hinges on patronage from Iran and Russia; Tehran, meanwhile, sees Syria as the second-most-important country in its axis of resistance, after Iran itself. And in Iraq, Iran’s proxy militias “have the wherewithal and expertise to escalate the situation and deliver painful blows to the U.S.,” Hashimi told me. There, too, he said, the focus will be on mobilizing assassination squads and mounting other special operations, rather than on carrying out conventional attacks on American forces.

In his October TV interview, Soleimani fondly recounted how, in 2006, he traveled through back roads to get to Beirut from Damascus during the 33-day summer war between Israel and Hezbollah, and how he, Mughniyeh, and Nasrallah oversaw the conflict from a command center in the Lebanese capital’s southern suburbs. He said that Israeli bombers were bringing down buildings all around them, and that they survived by moving around and dodging Israeli reconnaissance drones.

Soleimani hinted in the same interview that even if the trio were to all die, an entire generation had been groomed by them to continue the fight—in asymmetric warfare, he warned, there are no traditional fronts. “The enemy,” Soleimani said, “must contend with an expansive and smart field of land mines.”

______

By SAM DAGHER, the only Western journalist based in Damascus at the start of the Syrian conflict, is the author of Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria.

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witchofeindor · 5 years

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Hi Leah מה קורה I was in Dagestan this summer (it's so pretty!!) and I visited derbent and was told that it was pretty much a jewish town until like the 70s(???) when the majority of derbent jews migrated to Israel. Since you are Dagestani I was wondering if you could tell me more? Do u have a connection to derbent or are you from a different part of Dagestan? פשוט בא לי לדעת יותר על היהודים מדרבנט ו/או דגסטן בכללי. סורי אם זה אסק מוזר Love uu xx

Hi nonny, nice! Glad you had fun there! I’ve never been to Dagestan myself lol, I was born and raised in Israel lol

also yeah!!! My paternal grandma z”l was a Derbendi Jew, actually! (Both of my grandfathers were from Makhachkala though) her family was forced to move to Makhachkala though after the communists rose to power and stole everything from them and they became dirt poor, but her native language was the Derbendi dialect of Juhuri (=the language of Kavkazi Jews, derived from Persian), and whenever she’d get angry or affectionate she’d often switch from Russian into Juhuri lol (hence my VERY limited Juhuri vocab consists of mostly curses, food related words, and blessings/affectionate terms lol)

Researches show Kavkazi Jews, and that includes Dagestani & Azeri Jews, are descendants of Iranian Jews, whom we ARE linguistically related to (our language, Juhuri, is derived from Persian), and our praying נוסח is the Mizrahi one. Many Kavazki Jews though consider themselves close culturally to Iraqi Jews as well, and I’ve definitely seen similarities with my Iraqi Jewish friends, and it’s plausible that our ancestors stopped on their way from Erez Yisrael in what is nowadays Iraq, then moved to Iran, where they resided for longer, and then to Azerbaijan & Dagestan, though personally I am not familiar with researches who say that.

Despite our נוסח being the Mizrahi נוסח and being culturally close to Mizrahi Jews, Kavkazi Jews are considered their own distinct Jewish group, as are Georgian Jews, (I’m ¼ Georgian Jewish myself lol), Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews etc., who all form Jewish groups that are neither Ashkenazi, Mizrahi nor Sefardi.

Our minhagim are honestly also all over the place, and due to the Russian & Soviet rule over Dagestan, there’s a Russian influence on our culture as well and honestly culturally we are all over the place lol (in my family we have Dagestani dishes, Georgian dishes, Russian dishes etc., the kitchen is REALLY varied and I am sups thankful for it lol).

My paternal grandma z"l was from a pretty מיוחסת family in Derbent actually, her father was a rabbi and an אב בית דין, his tombstone even says so in Hebrew, (my paternal aunt stores MANY of the Jewish books he had in Hebrew & Aramaic up to this day) and being the daughter of an אב בית דין, my grandma knew many, many other Kavkazi Jews, and before her death, the רבנות ראשית בירושלים would often call her to verify on the Jewish background of Kavkazi Jews who wanted to get married via the Rabbanut, since she knew many, many of the Jewish families there.

Also I’m not Dagestani as much as I’m Jewish/a Dagestani Jew? Like our identity was always Jewish first, the location in the diaspora/exile always shaped our culture of course, but if you ask any Kavkazi Jew, they’ll tell you they are Jewish first, like that’s the main part of our identity in general, no Kavkazi Jew I know feels Dagestani/Azeri (since Kavkazi Jew is the collective name given to Jews both from Dagasten and Azerbaijan) like that’s not an important part of our identity as much as being Jewish is, if that makes sense? since we’re ethnically Jewish, unlike the 33 native nations to Dagestan?

Anyways, Derbent was the the cultural centre for Jews in Dagestan, and the Derbendi dialect of Juhuri was considered the closest to an ‘official’ one, and while most Kavkazi Jews from Dagestan either fled to Israel (like my family), moved to Moscow or to the US, the few that are left there reside mostly in Derbent and there’s still ongoing Jewish life there, to this day, actually! They have שחיטה כשרה there and everything. My uncle and cousin both married Jewish women from Derbent and many of their relatives still live there.

As for culture, I’d say in my experience there’s no big difference between Jews from Derbent and Jews from Makhachkala, seeing as both groups are Kavkazi and specifically Dagestani Jews?

One difference I do see in my family is language - both of my parents who grew up in Makhachkala, for instance, had Russian as their native language, while Juhuri was just the language their parents spoke when they didn’t want them to understand what they were saying (both of my parents have some understanding of Juhuri though, they are nowhere near fluent but they can understand most of it, esp. my dad), whereas my aunt, my uncle’s wife, who was born and raised in Derbent, spoke Juhuri as her native language, and acquired Russian only later. She’s fluent in Russian though, but speaks with an accent.

My parents don’t have as much of an accent, and - this is true for my extended family but no idea whether it’s the same for other Kavkazi Jews from Dagestan - my small family is more ‘Russianised’ in culture? Like, culturally I DO feel closer to Russian Jews than I do to fellow Kavkazi Jews, and in a couple of family events, I even had cultural shock when meeting extended family members, who were… much more ‘Kavkazi’ in culture than we were. I think this might be a big city vs. small town thing, but seeing as both Makhachkala AND Derbent are big cities, I don’t think that’s a serious factor there.

I would say that Derbendi Jews are less assimilated in Russian culture than Makhachkala Jews, seeing as, at least in my family, those raised in Makhachkala had Russian being their first language and don’t speak with much of an accent while Derbendi Jews were raised with Juhuri being their first language and Russian being their second, speaking the latter fluently albeit with an accent. So a linguistic difference surely exists.

The Juhuri pronunciation of Hebrew words and Jewish terms is the same in both groups though. (Everything ends with an ‘o’ instead of an ‘a’, similar to Iranian, Iraqi and Ashkenazi Jews. And I DO mean everything. We say XanukO instead of Xanuka, for fuck’s sake)

As for food though, we all share the same food but sometimes their names differ. For instance, what I’d call ‘kurze’ (similar to Russian pelmeni if you are familiar), Derbendi Jews call ‘dushpare’.

חחחח sorry for rambling and info-dumping random info on you, but if you have any specific questions about Derbendi Jews, send me an ask and I’ll call my aunt for answers lol

Hopes this makes any sense? I’m sorry I’m being an incoherent mess as per usual lol

Anyways if you have any specific questions - send them my way and I’ll ask older family members for answers!

Love u too, nonny ❤️

#ask #reply #Jewish tag #Kavkazi tag #if I even have one #anon #Anonymous

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tappersia · 5 years

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For many years, one thing that has always kept many travelers from coming to Iran has been safety concerns. Many people — mostly Westerners — have always thought of Iran as one of the most dangerous places on earth. But why everyone seems to be worried about traveling to Iran? Is the situation in the country really that bad? In this article, I will try to explain what Iran really looks like and why the media has been trying to fool everyone for many years.

The Islamic revolution of 1979 marked a major shift in Iran’s tourism industry. For many years, Iran was considered (and advertised) as an unwelcoming destination for travelers. As a program to attract more tourists to the country, citizens of more than 70 countries can now get a Visa on Arrival (VOA) in a number of ports of entry. The word is spreading every day on the internet and social media and people are sharing their experiences in Iran, most of which are overwhelmingly positive.

Travel Risk Map 2019

According to the 2019 Travel Risk Map, launched by global risk experts International SOS in collaboration with Control Risks, Iran is listed in the “Low Risk” category. The majority of European countries are also falling in this category. According to their website, this report uses a number of factors like political violence (including terrorism, insurgency, politically motivated unrest and war), social unrest (including sectarian, communal and ethnic violence) as well as violent and petty crime to determine the risk of traveling to every country in the world. Other factors, such as the robustness of the transport infrastructure, the state of industrial relations, the effectiveness of the security and emergency services and the country’s susceptibility to natural disasters are also considered. You can check their website for more details on what every risk category is defined.

People, People, People

Iran is definitely one of the most misunderstood countries in the world. For the same reason, many travelers are surprised to see how the country and its people are completely different from their expectations. Many frequent travelers find Iran safer than most other destinations. Almost every solo female traveler I have talked to has confirmed that they feel more comfortable walking alone at night in the cities of Iran compared to some European countries.

When you first visit Iran, one of the first things you might notice is the amount of attention locals give to you as a tourist. Most Iranians tend to show a lot of respect towards foreigners. It is very common to be invited for a cup of tea or even for a dinner at their home. In fact, making friends in Iran is definitely what will make your experience unique.

The Money Problem

International credit and debit cards do not work in Iran, which means you need to have cash with you at all times. Needless to say, this might create some inconvenience knowing you have to carry all your money with you in cash. Therefore, Iran Tourist Card is a convenient solution for your financial needs in Iran.

Female Travelers

The Middle East is known for being a man-dominated region. In Iran, however, things are a bit different. Women’s presence in the society, especially in bigger cities, is much more noticeable compared to the other middle eastern countries. We have a comprehensive article regarding the safety of Iran for solo female travelers. In general, Iran is considered a safe destination for female travelers. Iranian police are very strict about any sort of misbehavior.

The Scariest Thing About Iran

you’ve heard about it before: we Iranians are not good drivers (and we don’t seem to be sorry about it!). A simple rule to keep in mind is that cars are the rulers of the roads. Do not expect drivers to stop the car or slow down for you to cross the street, even on a crosswalk. If it seems to be a challenge for you to cross the streets, always wait for another pedestrian to cross and follow them. Also, if you do decide to cross the street by yourself, make sure that the driver has acknowledged your presence.

If we take another look at the Travel Risk Map for road safety, we can see that Iran is unfortunately displayed as a “Very High Risk” destination when it comes to road safety. The major roads can be generally categorized as safe and well-maintained, but it is usually the careless drivers and the quality of most cars which make the roads unsafe. The good news is that bus drivers face a lot more strict rules and are usually more careful with their driving.

If a taxi driver is going too fast, try to ask them to slow down, this will hopefully work in most cases. To ask them, you can politely say: “Yavāshtar, lotfan!” which means “Slow down, please!”.

Traveling to “Prohibited” Regions

safety of traveling to the Western regions like Kurdistan or Sistan va Baluchistan region in the East has been always questioned by travelers wanting to visit more non-touristy areas of the country. While some countries ask their passport holders not to travel to parts of these regions, there are still adventurers who choose to explore their beauty. Visiting these areas is an extraordinary experience.

In Western regions, you meet Kurds and Lurs who are famous for their hospitality and fascinating culture which for a good reason, they’re all proud of it. As a matter of fact, many tourists choose to travel to the Western regions like Kurdistan, though it is advised by some sources not to travel within the 50 kilometers range of the Iran-Iraq border.

For a long time, Sistan va Baluchistan region has not been a popular destination among Iranians and foreigners. Although, this is changing quickly as some cities like Chabahar have attracted many Iranian tourists in recent years. Speaking of Chabahar, this part of the region is generally considered as safe as other parts of the country as the government has been investing in creating a tax-free trade zone. However, if you’re planning to travel to the little-known parts of the region, I recommend traveling with a local guide. Being close to Pakistan and Afghanistan borders and the police struggle with smugglers has kept many travelers from visiting the region. As a result, many stunning parts of the region are yet to be discovered.

Terrorist Threats in Iran

This might be obvious to anyone who has a little understanding of Iran, but for those who don’t: any concern regarding being targeted in a terrorist attack in Iran is complete nonsense. I have seen some resources listing Iran as a high-risk country in terms of terrorist attacks, and this is a big lie.

Conclusion

Generally speaking, violent crimes against tourists are almost unheard of in Iran. But like any other destination, you should always keep an eye on your belongings, mostly in crowded places like bazaars or metro stations where pickpocketing can be a problem.

#tappersia #iran #travel iran #Iran safety

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middleeasternsarecool · 7 years

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In no time at all, we went from being unknown to notorious. When I moved to Los Angeles in August 1977, perfectly intelligent, well-meaning Americans would ask me if we had roads and automobiles in Tehran, or if I had taken a camel to elementary school every day. The ones who did know Iran wanted to talk only about the ruins in Persepolis or Queen Farah’s jewels. Most people just couldn’t tell Iran from Iraq, Arab from Iranian, Shiite from Sunni. And they certainly couldn’t fathom such a thing as an Iranian Jew.

Oh, what a difference a year can make. By the summer of 1978, the high-rise condominium buildings in Westwood were filled to capacity with Iranians, and the kosher businesses in Pico-Robertson were tending to ever-increasing numbers of new customers. You would think this was a good thing.

Say what you will (and believe me, people do) about the way Iranian Jews have changed the social and economic landscape of Los Angeles; the place is a hell of a lot more interesting because of it. I know because I was here for the “before” pictures. My parents had a house in Trousdale since 1976; they had family in Pasadena and Beverly Hills. That’s how I learned about cream cheese, broccoli and “All in the Family” — we spent summers here, watched a lot of TV, and ate McDonalds a few times a week.

Before the Iranians came, Beverly Hills was a sleepy little village populated by cranky Eastern European Jews and polyester-clad Episcopalians from the Midwest. Hollywood was an embarrassing slum. Santa Monica was a communist enclave, downtown one large skid row. The food was rich, heavy and unsophisticated, fancy department stores catered to 80-year-olds, and you couldn’t breathe the air without risking lung cancer on any day of the week.

We can’t take credit for cleaning up the air, but with everything else, the sudden rush of a largely educated, well-off, and worldly people was a spark that lit up the region with much needed verve and color. The Muslims, who far outnumbered other Iranian immigrants, scattered across the state, from San Diego to Irvine to Palo Alto, from JPL to Google. The Armenians rebuilt Glendale. But, as for the Jews…

Not that the Ashkenazim see it this way, but Iranian Jews just about saved Jewish LA from the slow, quiet decline into which it had been pushed by increasing assimilation and growing indifference on the part of younger generations. In the early and mid-1970s in LA, the major synagogues on the West Side and in the Valley were beset by shrinking memberships, their day schools half full; Shabbat dinner was something you ate at Junior’s Deli on Pico or Nate ’n’ Al’s on Beverly Drive, and you had to be seriously observant to fast on Yom Kippur or eschew leavened bread on Passover. I exaggerate, of course, though not by much. And I generalize, but only to make a point.

Iranian Jews are the oldest population in the Diaspora. Neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazi, they’re correctly referred to as Mizrahi, or easterner. Iranian Jewish history dates back to 587 B.C.E, when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the First Temple and brought the Jews as slaves into the area that was then Babylon and that, in time, became the great Persian Empire. When, in 539 B.C.E, Cyrus the Great issued the first declaration of human rights, giving the Jews freedom to return to Palestine and rebuild the temple, about half took his offer. The rest scattered across the empire, to the lands we know today as Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan and many, many more.

Most of the Jews in Arab countries were forced out by their governments at some time between 1920 and 1970. By contrast, the lot of Iranian Jews improved greatly in that period. Protected from the mullahs by the Shah’s father and later the Shah himself, they were, for the first time in 1,400 years, allowed to live freely and to prosper alongside other Iranians. Their exodus occurred in 1978; their chosen places of exile were New York and Los Angeles. You would think this was a good thing.

It was. For most of us Iranian Jews. It saved us once and for all from an existence that had been precarious from the start and remained so, even during the best of times — the reign of Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi — because even then, we were dependent for our safety on the good graces of one man. The Iranian Jewish migration came at an exorbitant cost — emotional and otherwise — to the first generation, and though that’s not to be taken lightly, in the long run we are all better off for it.

For us it was a blessing in disguise. We would hear many Ashkenazim say:

There’s too many of them, they have too many relatives, their kids are spoiled, their wives too entitled, the men are too competitive in business, they’re all looking for a bargain and when they get one, they ask for even bigger discounts and concessions.

There’s too many of them and they’ve taken over Beverly Hills and Brentwood and Encino and Sherman Oaks and all the schools and synagogues, they turn up in the hundreds every time one of them dies and clog up the parking lot at the mortuary then they sit shiva for a week and receive hundreds more every day and clog up the street with their Bentleys and Maybachs.

There’s too many of them and they know they’re not liked so they pretend they’re anything but Iranian, they started out telling us they were Greek or Italian and some still do but the rest have moved on to claiming they’re Persian as if that’s different, but it’s like saying you served sausage for dinner instead of hotdog.

Note, please, that I said “many,” not “all” Ashkenazim feel this way. I know because they’ve told me, more than once, that this is how they feel. They usually start it with, “Don’t take this the wrong way but…”

So what if every other physician in LA happens to be Iranian, they say, when I try to point out some of our better qualities, and that many of them are world famous for their contributions to research and treatment in their field; most of them are useless to the larger Jewish community because they marry Iranian girls and boys. So what if these doctors’ kids ace the SAT’s and land in the top universities of this country without the benefit of parents who are big donors or legacies; they’re dark skinned, their mothers speak Persian to each other, they eat dinner late, and have too many parties. So what if Sunset Plaza was just a few dry and dilapidated blocks east of the Roxy and the Rainbow until some Iranians developed the area and filled it with sidewalk cafes and shops; the place is crawling with sleazy old American sugar daddies and their young, blonde, Christian Louboutin-wearing Russian protégés.

For the record, I do believe we eat dinner late, and that our parties are too noisy and would go on till 3 or 4 in the morning if the cops didn’t come. Then again, the same natives who complain about Iranians having too many relatives and throwing too many large parties count on these traits in all their fundraising efforts. They’re always “honoring” one Iranian Jew or other, regardless of the real qualifications of the “honorees” because, wouldn’t you know it? You’ll fill up half the ballroom with his or her cousins, and the other half with his or her party friends.

The fact is, few people like having their backyards suddenly occupied by throngs of strangers, and all the more so if these newcomers look and act like nothing the locals have seen before. In the case of LA’s Iranian Jews, the culture shock to the natives was greater because the newcomers were unlike any previous group of immigrants: They weren’t poor, uneducated, lost and ashamed. If anything, they were too assertive, too proud of their cultural heritage, too determined to remain distinct and separate from the rest.

There were other differences, too: American Jews showed up on time for an invitation; anything else was considered rude. Iranians expected the guests to start arriving at least one hour late; they deemed being on time an imposition at best, irksome and inconsiderate under any circumstances. Americans ate dinner at 6 or 7 p.m.; Iranians started at 9 p.m. on a weeknight and 11 p.m. or later on weekends. So American guests left Iranian dinner parties hungry, and Iranian guests showed up when everyone else was on their way out.

And there were more serious grumblings: that Iranian Jews are cunning, sneaky, materialistic, vain, rude, intolerant and unwilling to assimilate.

I will say right now that some of us are those things.

I’m painfully aware that I’m about to raise the ire of many an Iranian Jew by merely admitting the obvious — that we are not individually, or as a community, perfect in any way — but that’s only because they know what I’m saying is true. You become like this — reluctant to show the laundry — when you’ve lived in hostile territory for 1,400 years. The world judges us harshly enough, you think, without one of our own giving it reason to. Except of course in this case, “the world” whose judgment we fear is other Jews.

So Iranians don’t talk about themselves in public unless the news is good, and Americans shy away from going on record with their feelings about Iranians for fear of appearing intolerant. At the risk of offending both sides at once I will go ahead and say that some Iranian Jews are deeply flawed, but so are some Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and some Catholics and Protestants and Baptists and Unitarians.

What are the ultra-Orthodox, if not unwilling to assimilate? The bankers on Wall Street if not greedy and dishonest? All the East Coast “old money” if not vain, the West Coast “new money” if not materialistic?

You would think Jews know better than to condemn an entire community for the sins of one member. You would think Americans realize that, as with most things — good and bad — they do greed, dishonesty, and intolerance bigger, better, more spectacularly than anyone else.

“All the trouble in this town started,” an American Jewish woman said to me one night before a packed crowd, “when the Iranians came and started to build those big houses.”

The person who said this was hosting a literary event at which I was the speaker. We were at her house in Brentwood Park, one of those neighborhoods where zoning laws require that every lot be at least an acre in size. The house itself was easily 10,000 square feet. I asked her if it was built by an Iranian. It wasn’t. I asked if Brentwood Park was developed by Iranians. It wasn’t. I asked if it wouldn’t be fair to say that the natives like big houses as much as the newcomers.

“But they’re buying everything up and down the street,” the lady said.

Not all native Angelenos are as provincial as this person, of course. Many are warm and welcoming and eager to find common ground with newcomers. There are a number of good and wise Ashkenazi and Sephardic rabbis in this town, as well as a number of fair and tolerant Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, who have made it a mission to help the natives understand and accept the Iranians. I think their efforts have yielded results. Progress has been made; peace and reconciliation are within the realm of possibility. But it’s slow going — like the traffic in LA and, come to think of it, in Tehran.

The truth is, the Ashkenazim and Sephardim who dislike the Iranians do so not because of our differences, but because of our commonalities. We, Jews of all backgrounds, are not the easiest people in the world to live with. Many a Jewish comedian has made a living by pointing that out to us. We scramble and strive and aspire and resist. We’re resourceful and resilient. That’s the key to our survival and, often, our accomplishments. For whatever reason, the world has always held that against us and we, in turn, have held it against each other.

I don’t happen to care much for the entirety of the sentence, ”It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” of that very famous novel. It’s much longer and less elegant than these few words would have you believe, and the more it goes on, the less interesting it becomes. Dickens would have done well to stop at a good thing but he got paid by the word. Nevertheless I do appreciate the universal truth in the opening salvo — that good and bad, triumph and dejection, joy and heartbreak all exist within the same moment in every one of our lives. And I especially like the book’s title, “A Tale of Two Cities.” It reminds me of Jewish LA — the way I know it, and the way it must seem to the natives.

#Gina Nahai #Iran #Persian Jews #Iranian Jews #Jewish #Judaism #Mizrahi #Mizrahim #Sephardi #Sephardic #Sephardim #news #article #mod Mansour

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peaceandlovenoonecanstopthewar · 4 years

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13. The 2020 Race-Riots and Black Lives Matter Protests: An AntiWar Retrospective

I might be jumping the gun a bit by writing this restrospective now, you see; 2020 isn’t over yet, and neither are the Riots and Protests. But I think I’ve gathered enough information to decipher what’s going on and where we are headed as a nation, and as a country.

https://youtu.be/6uDIg2fN2T4

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The nationwide, and later worldwide, George Floyd Black Lives Matter Protests; started in Minneapolis, Minosota

The year 2020 started off with a literal bang, with the drone assassination of Iranian General - Soleimani. This was a major concern in the International AntiWar Community; because it was thought that his assassination could potentially trigger war with Iran, and possibly Russia. In reality, the United States, Israel, and their allies are already fighting a proxy war with Iran in Iraq; and that’s one of the many war-related stories that is often buried in the news by domestic conflict and dissention.

https://youtu.be/RH0HfYhA-Ic

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The funeral procession of Iranian Commander General, Qasem Soleimani

Another tragedy to come out of the ongoing U.S.-Iran conflict was the accidental downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752. Both of these incidents could have easily resulted in war, but thankfully neither incident sparked a larger conflict. Though America’s proxy-wars With Iran in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria continue raging on.

While Israel continues to try to provoke Iran into war; most recently with it’s assassination of an Iranian college professor and top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh; the United States, and Global Community continues provoke civil-unrest in the general population, at large, with the intention of drawing attention away from both the U.S. Presidential Election and the War On Terror.

My concern, at this point, is that if the United States enters into another meaningless war with Iran and Russia; then we might potentially see another draft. I know I said that in previous articles that another draft would never happen; because it would launch another massive AntiWar Protest Movement, but I think such a thing could potentially happen... If the civil-unrest of the AntiWar Movement could potentially be masked by the civil unrest of general political or racial dissention. That is to say, that if the Anti-War/Anti-Draft protest movement happens during mass civil-unrest; it would be hard for such a movement to be unified. Though, I highly doubt that most Americans are eager to go marching headlong into another war, or are eager to send their teenage sons and daughters to die in a campaign that started before they were even born.

https://youtu.be/PFcDP6EhYtA

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The AntiWar Protests that started January 2020, in response to the U.S. assassination of an Iranian General

While it’s a bit taboo for anyone who isn’t a Black to criticize the “Black Lives Matter” Movement; I’m doing so at the risk of angering or alienating my fellow “social justice warriors” because I think how we protest the legitimate grievances of police brutality, racial and economic injustice, and racial profiling makes a difference if we want to create lasting positive change in society and in the world. Therefore, the reverse-racism has to end; if racial justice and equality are truly our goals as a nation.

https://youtu.be/Dyft7EqJJ0Q

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A white man is attacked by BLM demonstrators in Portland, Oregon

While I can sympathize with grievances of Black Lives Matter protesters, and the many injustice committed against African American Americans and especially Black African American victims of police-brutality. Victims who often don’t receive the some justice and due-process that White victims of police-brutality often receive. I feel that those already disproportionately affected by the Coronavirus pandemic and the generally disenfranchised, like the homeless and disabled, the out of business and unemployed; have become the primary targets of the violence and destruction caused by rioters and protesters alike.

https://youtu.be/PUMNK8V7un0

A homeless man who had all his earthly possessions stolen and burned by BLM and ANTIFA rioters

This isn’t to suggest that the police and/or counter-protesters are innocent, as both sides are responsible for countless acts of unprovoked, undeserved, unnecessary bloodshed during the 2020 riots/protests; yet, it is through this meaningless violence that I believe the message of peaceful and well-meaning protesters have been lost.

Videos of men and women being dragged from their cars, because of their race; by out of control protesters, do little to increase solidarity and have done damage to the reputation of the BLM organization, as well as individual protesters who need empathy, sympathy, and cross sectional support to lend legitimacy to their movement.

This isn’t to say that violent protests don’t grab attention and headlines, or that these BLM protesters should steady their hands simply to keep complacent white Americans happy. It’s only to suggest that the message of equality and due process; is being lost in cries to “defund the police,” and “fight racism,” by burning down Black neighborhoods and businesses.

https://youtu.be/QjQuo5RzD2U

An elderly, disabled Black woman cries after her local store was burned down by Black Lives Matter rioters/protesters

What started as a show a unity against police brutality and racial profiling; quickly degraded and disintegrated into dissent and political bickering along the same usual lines of Right/Left, Blue/Red... As Americans quickly forgot about George Floyd; as well as the solidarity they shared against America’s “Endless Wars” in the Middle East, at the beginning of 2020... And the threat of an upcoming war with Iran. One that many fear could eventually lead to World War III, and the reinstatement of the draft.

With all this going on in the world, it’s hard not to see the 2020 Black Lives Matter/ANTIFA protests as anything else but another convenient distraction to spark racial and partisan tensions, along a particular political divide; in order to keep Americans from being united against the Military Industrial Complex, and those in Washington who are sending our friends and family; sons and daughters, brothers and fathers, mothers and sisters... To die in an illegal, immoral, and unethical wars overseas.

It’s important to note that the year has ended with the Nasdec the highest it has ever been... So, no matter who is winning, by the political and racial fighting and bickering... We, the American people. Average Black, White, Brown, Yellow, and Red; American citizens... are certainly losing.

The only question, now, is can we united together against the war... Before it is too late?

- Peace & Love

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armeniaitn · 3 years

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Honoring the life of Aurora Co-Founder Vartan Gregorian

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/honoring-the-life-of-aurora-co-founder-vartan-gregorian-74565-07-06-2021/

Honoring the life of Aurora Co-Founder Vartan Gregorian

On June 5, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative held an Aurora Dialogues Online event titled “Vartan Gregorian. The Aurora Co-Founder,” focused on Vartan Gregorian’s extraordinary life as humanitarian, educator and mentor. The tribute was moderated by David Ignatius, Associate Editor and Columnist for the Washington Post, with speakers including Aurora Co-Founders, Aurora Prize Selection Committee members and Aurora Prize Laureates. The viewers also had a chance to watch several videos featuring Vartan Gregorian over the years and hear him speak about the issues closest to his heart.

To kick-of the event, David Ignatius greeted all participants and the audience. “[We are here] to pay tribute to the late Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Co-Founder and my dear friend, the incomparable Vartan Gregorian, who was an inspiration to us all and a man whose intellectual and moral legacy will live on and influence generations of thinkers and scholars,” said Mr. Ignatius, turning the floor over to Aurora Co-Founder Noubar Afeyan.

Noubar Afeyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, set the tone for the tribute: “Over many years that I knew Vartan, I always felt he was looking over my shoulder and over the shoulder of all those he knew. What’s even more impressive though is that through his life’s work Vartan also looked over the shoulders of many thousands, if not millions more, most of whom he didn’t know.”

It was hard for Lord Ara Darzi, Chair of the Aurora Prize Selection Committee and Director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, to remain composed and not overwhelmed with emotion as he spoke about Vartan Gregorian. “He was authentic, he was selfless, he was generous to many, including me. He was poetic, he was a romantic, he was a legend. Also, his wit, his infectious smile and the twinkle in his eyes made him a superb member [of the Selection Committee]. I’ve learned a lot, watching him in action for a number of years,” said Lord Darzi.

One of the people who have experienced Vartan’s life-changing touch was Dr. Tom Catena, Chair of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, 2017 Aurora Prize Laureate and Medical Director of Mother of Mercy Hospital, Nuba Mountains: “He was the guy who grew up in different cultures, around people of different religions and different beliefs. And I think this really made him the man he was. He was a guy who could really get along with anybody and I think everybody felt that he was their friend.”

This sentiment was echoed by Marguerite Barankitse, 2016 Aurora Prize Laureate and Founder of Maison Shalom, who said: “He was a symbol of hope, a symbol of love, of humility, of compassion. He was a holy man. He’s a saint. He has achieved what is written in the Holy Bible. He changed the world into a paradise.”

Other speakers were also eager to list Vartan Gregorian’s achievements while simultaneously highlighting his unwavering modesty. Samantha Power, USAID Administrator, former US Ambassador to the United Nations and former Aurora Prize Selection Committee member, referred to Vartan Gregorian as her “hero friend”. “The loss is immeasurable, but the fact that he had Aurora and the energy that it gave him was incredible. <…> His own courage, his own fortitude, his own resilience are so self-evident. He is the embodiment of a self-made American man, but for any of us who’ve had the privilege of Vartan telling his own story, you would think that he had almost nothing to do with it,” said Ms. Power.

Vartan Gregorian truly lived by the principles he was striving to instill in others, noted Ernesto Zedillo, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member, Director at Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico: “When I tried to distinguish one element of Vartan’s interaction with the world, with humanity, with the people he had contact with throughout his life, the common element was generosity. And I think it was that generosity that led him to such incredible achievements. And generosity means love, love with which he did everything, and I think that is what made it possible.”

It was his unique personality that had Mary Robinson, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member, Chair of The Elders, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights captivated the moment she met Vartan Gregorian when he was still President of the Brown University – and not only captivated her, but also her husband, as she warmly remembered. “From the beginning, we were absolutely enchanted with this incredible President of the University – his humor, his knowledge. When I worked from New York for 8 years, we had a lot of long discussions about human rights and other issues,” she reminisced.

Shirin Ebadi, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member, Nobel Laureate, Iranian lawyer and a human rights activist and Founder of Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran, talked about Vartan’s unrelenting quest for tolerance, understanding and peaceful coexistence, quoting an ancient Persian tale about the common source of all religions – humanity. “If a group spreads hatred in the name of religion or ideology and considers violence permissible, be certain that they have made a mistake and have gone astray. <…> I would like to pay tribute to Vartan Gregorian, my mentor, and to remember his efforts to spread knowledge, thanks to which he paved the way for peaceful coexistence,” said Shirin Ebadi.

This was a cause the next speaker, Mirza Dinnayi, 2019 Aurora Prize Laureate and Co-Founder and Director of Luftbrücke Irak (Air Bridge Iraq), could certainly get behind as someone who has seen his people persecuted for years and continues to fight for their lives today: “When I remember Vartan, I see an Armenian single mother who brought this great man and hero to the world, as a gift to the humanitarian family of the world. So we should also spread this ideology of humanism, of peace, of coexistence.”

Vartan’s high spirits were a guiding light for many, as were his compassion and commitment, noted Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member and Founder and President of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa: “An eternal optimist, I never ever think that there’s no hope in the world I live in, because not having hope is not having life. <…> Vartan was someone who showed me, in those very short six years, that indeed, remaining indifferent to the suffering of others was not something that he did. He treated you like you mattered. He treated everyone like they mattered.”

There was a certain light in Vartan that shone not only though his words, but most importantly, his actions, added John Prendergast, Aurora Prize Selection Committee Member, human rights activist and Co-Founder of The Sentry: “He believed in the things most of us could not yet see and he worked to make them happen. The concept of “bari luys,” good light, was very important to him. He saw it as hope for a better future. <…> He was transcendent in his ability to live in hope for a better future and in working to see that better future come to pass.”

As Vice President of International Program and Program Director for Russia and Eurasia at Carnegie Corporation of New York and Aurora Creative Council Member, Deana Arsenian has probably spent more time at Vartan’s side than, perhaps, all of the other speakers combined. She expressed her gratitude for the event and a little sadness due to the inability to “compress my 30-year relationship with a person who can only be described as a force of nature into one moment,” so she could share it with others. She did try, however, telling the audience a touching story of Vartan finding time in his busy schedule to talk to two five-year-old’s he met on the street during his trip to Yerevan in 2016, adding that it showed his “warm and fuzzy inner personality.”

In conclusion of the event, Ruben Vardanyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative; Co-Founder of Noôdome, thanked everyone and revealed his certainty that the cause that was so crucial for Vartan Gregorian will still go on, honoring his legacy. “Vartan had an important role in doing many projects in his life, but this was a unique project for him because he was one of the Co-Founders of Aurora, together with us. For him, it was critical that we continue, because Aurora for him was important not only as a humanitarian issue. He liked that we found a way to keep this global agenda connected to the Armenian world,” said Mr. Vardanyan.

Read original article here.

#Yerevan #Society

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newsnigeria · 5 years

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Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/in-praise-of-shamelessness/

In Praise of Shamelessness

by Jimmie Moglia for Ooduarere.com

So much has been said about the Venezuelan crisis that adding more would equate to gilding the lily or bringing coal to Newcastle.

The following, then, is but a brief aside on the psychology and physiognomy of the protagonists of the ongoing coup, starting with Guaido’ – or “Guido” as per Mike Pompeo’s re-baptism, while he anointed him as self-appointed president of Venezuela.

The true face of Guaido?

If the face is indeed an open book where men may read strange matters, the attached image of the afore-said putative president of Venezuela proves the point. A camera immortalized him thus in 2009, during a political demonstration.

I have unprofessionally modified some extreme features to obscure a part of the body that I will forbear to mention out of my inviolable respect for the ladies.

Still, apart from the image, it is as clear as the summer sun that, despite his pathetic rabble-rousing, Guido is but one of the many lying knaves and stipended ruffians, abounding in politics and in Christendom at large.

Political liars notoriously invert factual reality to suit their personal interest, or utter bragging and platitudinal nonsense about freedom, democracy and the like. Confirming the proven maxim that ‘it will come to pass that every braggart shall be found an ass.’

On the other hand, watching the current Administration with an impartial eye, it would appear that bragging and arrogance are recommended as the supply of every defect, and the ornament of every excellence.

Furthermore, given the Administration’s engineering of the Venezuelan coup, I wonder how the same Administration would react if a congressman or senator imitated Guido and declared himself president, instead of the elected Trump.

Sometimes chances mock, and changes occur unexpectedly in place and time. For instance in France, where it is impossible to ignore the similarity between the two winters of discontent, distant in space but not in time.

For the yellow-jackets shout “Macron Dimission” in France, as loud as Guido wants Maduro to resign in Venezuela. Probably the Administration thinks that the fool multitudes that choose by show should either avoid to ask what is the difference between Macron and Maduro, or provide unaided their own answer.

As for Mike Pompeo, add a glass of wine in one hand and a sausage in the other and we have a tolerable reincarnation of Falstaff, or of one of the gluttons in the hell of Dante’s Divine Comedy, though in some way more sublimely ridiculous – or rather, more ridiculous and less sublime.

Politically, Pompeo states that, “The Heritage Foundation has shaped my thinking on matters of the world and public policy issues.” Where ‘thinking’ refers to Reaganomics, Thatcherism and freedom to loot and pollute by the usual suspects. An ideology perfectly embodied in the notorious “Citizen United” Supreme Court case, which treats corporations as persons – sanctifying the notion that he who has (or receives) the most money wins the elections (presidential or otherwise).

Internationally and briefly stated, the Heritage Foundation stands for regime-change in any country whose interests appears not directly benefiting the elites who created, maintain and fund the think-tank. Besides Venezuela, Nicaragua is at the front, along with El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Grenada, Cuba and, of course, all wars in the Middle East.

According to Pompeo, Congress should pass a law re-establishing collection of all metadata. Followed by combining the collection with publicly available financial and lifestyle information of individuals into a comprehensive and searchable database. That is, legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed.

Understandably, Pompeo opposes closing Guantanamo. After a visit to the prison while some prisoners were on hunger strike, he said, “It looks to me like a lot of them had put on weight.” Though he may have been inspired to say so while seeing himself in the mirror.

He criticized the Obama administration’s decision to end secret prisons and the requirement that all interrogators adhere to anti-torture laws.

Expectedly, Pompeo strongly disagreed with the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated during the Obama administration. He said, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” Adding that a better option than negotiating with Iran would be to directly carry out “under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.”

Naturally, during a visit to Israel in 2015, Pompeo said that “Prime Minister Netanyahu is a true partner of the American people” (!), and that “Netanyahu’s efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons are incredibly admirable and deeply appreciated”. And further, “In the fight against terrorism, cooperation between Israel and the United States has never been more important,…we must stand with our ally Israel and put a stop to terrorism. Ongoing attacks by the Palestinians serve only to distance the prospect of peace.”

Given that Israel just killed or wounded about 3000 Palestinians during the last year of unarmed demonstrations by Palestinians in Gaza, I will direct the Aesopian-minded reader to review or remember the Latin story about the wolf and the lamb.

Of Assange, “… we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now … Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak themselves and their actions in the language of liberty and privacy; in reality, however, they champion nothing but their own celebrity. Their currency is click-bait; their moral compass, nonexistent. Their mission: personal self-aggrandizement through the destruction of Western values.”

Talk about a world upside-down. Even assuming the statement to be true, it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black or, if you like, of whipping his own faults in other men. As for his interpretation of “Western values” maybe Mr. Pompeo should speak for himself and stick them up where he thinks best.

He disapproved of the “Clean Power Plan” and in 2013 introduced the self-explanatory “Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act.” And in his latest performance he has taken to insulting the nation of Venezuela with the rage of a superstitious crank.

If there’s a history in all men’s lives, the tales of Pompeo speak for themselves. As they do for Bolton, whose own history and actions in government prove him to be as opposite to any good as the south is to the north.

Bolton personifies, in appearance and posturing, the classic bully, qualified by nature, servility and experience to exercise the office of a criminal. He is as prone to mischief as able to perform it. The number of Bolton’s ‘accomplishments’ is great and well known – listing them would constitute an unwanted mode of annoyance.

Suffice a short glimpse of his mode of reasoning on an important issue. Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard, which was at the time an unofficially-official means to avoid the draft, and being sent to Vietnam. In a 25threunion book of his university he wrote, “I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost.” And in his own book he clarified his decision, “… by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from.”

A statement that would be a perfect entry in an instruction and operating manual for chicken-hawks, in the chapter titled, “How to persuade others that cowardice is courage.”

According to experts in his train, Bolton is a “conservative” rather than a “neo-conservative.” What’s the difference? It’s a diffuse and complicated question that may be examined by different methods, upon different principles – it requires a great labor of research and dexterity of application.

Suffice to say that the neo-conservative movement was founded by a handful of followers of the communist philosopher Leon Trotsky. Which makes communists of the neo-conservatives, and neo-conservatives of communists. A perfect instance of the unity of opposites “Coincidentia Oppositorum” – a term attributed to 15th century German philosopher Nicholas of Cusa in his essay, “De Docta Ignorantia,” (Of Learned Ignorance.)

But I digress. There is one more character in the troika of evil in the train of Trump. Associate his deeds with his countenance, add a couple of horns, and an observer may be tempted to say, “Here comes the devil in the likeness of Elliot Abrams.” And although national security frees crime from reproach, Abrams, as we know, is actually a convicted criminal, later pardoned by Bush Jr.

Again, rather than a list of his crimes, a glimpse into his mode of reasoning is shorter and I think more meaningful.

Needless to say, all members of the troika are Israel-firsters. In 2005 Abrams, as an even more special friend of Israel, was a protagonist in a meeting between the US Foreign Secretary and Syrian envoys, including the Syrian minister for emigration, Bouthaina Shaaban. The US advanced the thesis that Syria was hostile to the American invasion of Iraq – because, allegedly, Syria allowed the Iraqis defending themselves against the US, to cross into Syria.

They were pretexts. The Syrians told the US party that the news was false and probably propagated by hearsay. If the Americans wanted to know the truth, they should visit and interview those who lived in the affected area.

Abrams then pulled Ms. Shaaban aside and said, “What is the relevance of truth in what happens in the world? The important thing is the concept and the images that affect the minds of people. Whether the conveyed images reflect reality is secondary and reflect nothing.”

From which we deduct what we already know, namely that, for the US Administration, reality is an abstraction, where the truth or falsehood of a fact depends on the size of the audience, as with a TV serial.

I could not verify the source of the anecdote, but it fits the character. Besides, it is almost a mirror rendering of the historical answer given by Donald Rumsfeld to a journalist who questioned the truth and reality of an Iraq-related report, “We create our own reality.” Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defence during the Bush Jr. invasion of Iraq.

Back to Venezuela. I realize I am in a minority, but I do not think that the primary US goal of destroying Maduro is the desire to own the oil resources of Venezuela. Just as in Iraq Saddam Hussein was quite happy to sell the oil to any buyer who agreed on the price.

Astutely, the media serfs of the deep state have foisted two creeds onto their followers. One is for the distracted multitude, who like not in their judgment but their eyes (or ears). It holds that Venezuela is a dictatorship and Maduro tortures and starves the Venezuelans, because he is a socialist.

The idea may satisfy a certain section of an old right that associates the words ‘socialism’ or ‘social measures’ with evil.

The other creed addresses those who prefer to believe a more tenable reason than a somewhat obsolete fear of socialism. In twitter-like terms the creed goes, “They do it for the oil” – where ‘they’, of course, are the wise guys of the State Department.

Instead, I rather think that the ongoing attempted coup in Venezuela follows the steps of the so-called ‘globalization’, a euphemism for the Kalergi Plan, described in the article “The Waves of Time,” and carried out according to the objectives – of and for – the chosen people.

That the political-ideological leaders of the chosen people may have a particular ax to grind with Venezuela is understandable. It is one of the few countries not to have diplomatic relations with Israel. And while defending the Palestinians during a televised rally, Hugo Chavez called Israel “un pays de mierda.”

Given that even a minor criticism of Israel causes the ADL to brand the critic as an ‘anti-Semite,’ Venezuela had it coming. Keeping in mind that Saddam Hussein was also a defender of the Palestinians.

But there are other indirect signs showing the progress of the Kalergi Plan, besides the hatred for Venezuela.

For example, the inflow of migrants into Europe continues steadily, even if the media no longer talks much about it. From what I am told by some friends, migrants in Italy, unofficially are no longer required to pay for public transportation, nor are they asked to show a ticket. This follows various reported cases of a conductor being assaulted by migrants when they were requested to produce the ticket. Though the same world media give ample coverage to any episode that may be artfully construed as ‘racist.’

Just very recently, Feb 4, 19, in Sweden, a black pregnant woman was removed from a train for not having a ticket. All networks broadcasted the news, claiming that the woman had been roughly handled. Even so, she had a voice strong enough to complain and threaten the allegedly ‘racist’ police.

Here in the US I will refer to the sequence of events surrounding the Covington Catholic High School students’ trip to Washington D.C, for a peaceful demonstration against abortion. Apparently they do this every year, as a component of their guided visit to the capital (and they pay for the trip).

Anyone can have his own views on abortion, but no one, as yet, prohibits peaceful demonstrations. As most readers may know, the media blasted the students for not yielding to an abusive group of Black Israelis (sic), plus one Native American who chanted and banged his war-drum in the face of the students.

The media attempted to turn the event into another Charlottesville, but further videos showed clearly who were the attackers and that the students reacted quite civilly, without answering in words and kind to the provocative actions of their opponents.

In the meantime, in one of its articles, the Guardian interviewed a Dan Siegel, a Jewish psychiatrist, interested in remodeling the teenage brain to prevent what he calls “in-group attachments” – translation, consciousness of being white.

Siegel has invented a method called “mindfulness wheel of awareness” aimed at leading his patients to abandon any sense of ethnic identity (Kalergi docet). He called his method ‘Essence’ (Emotional Sparks, Social Engagement, Novelty-seeking and Creative Exploration). Here is a quotation showing all the finesse of Freud-like pseudo-science.

“You want to expand your “circle of identity” so that within the phrase “like me” you include a lot of diversity. What I would say is that the plane of possibility is accessed more when people integrate consciousness. People are too confined, so they are excessively differentiated and not accepting the value of other life forms including other humans that do not fit into that initial high plateau of identity. What has been fascinating about doing the wheel of awareness practice — and I think this is consistent with some of the research about reducing some of the implicit racial bias with mindfulness practices— is that when people access the hub, they’re gaining more access. They are more readily accessing the plane of possibility and in the plane, there is no racism. In the plane, there is this experience of reality that embraces the fluidity of identity. That is, “you” are made up of people who are not your racial background. You are people who don’t speak your same language. You are people who are of different religions. It’s not just that they’re different and that is okay. It’s that you are both part of the same sea of potential or the plane of possibility. What has been beautiful about explaining this is that people get a feeling of relief that they can now basically be in a state of love and acceptance.”

Siegel convinces his clients that they will be happy by thinking that they are several different people all-in-one, a Muslim from Afghanistan, a Voodoist from West Africa, a Buddist from Tibet etc. That is, to feel a “reality that embraces the fluidity of identity” the patient (or in this instance, the misled and young European-American student,) must have a multicultural mind. He must convince himself that he contains within himself other people who are not of his racial background and have different religions.

I paraphrased the last statements to avoid the rambling Freudian psycho-babble of such remarkable captain of erudition.

Anyone among the rest of us, who came up with this nonsense, would be branded as a producer of low merriment and buffoonery. But Siegel is highly regarded by the mainstream academic and scientific establishment. And, even more ominous, he has even received an invitation to address the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family on the subject of child psychology.

I strayed from the main subject, only to show, with a few examples, what the Kalergi operatives, and the world shapers of the collective mind, have in store for the rest of us. And any objecting government must be overturned.

As for Venezuela, we cannot look into the seeds of time and see which grain will grow and which will not, but it never yet did hurt to hold some likelihoods and forms of hope.

As for the organizers of the coup, we cannot even ask, “Shame where is thy blush?” because they have brought shamelessness to grand new heights and turned a liability into an asset or, if you like, have made a virtue out of a vice.

#Venezuela

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: The Russians have an expression: words are deeds. Indeed, words contain a mesmeric power, and while this power can be used for good, it can also be used to harness dark and pernicious forces. For as Orwell understood all too well, words can be hijacked by a corrupt ruling class and used to indoctrinate, manipulate, and deceive. In order to understand how the liberal class has come to be so beguiled by the forces of reaction, one must take note of the unprecedented liberal hysteria over racism, sexism, and homophobia. Indeed, the more liberals remain transfixed with this unholy trinity, the more indifferent they become to the terrible suffering inflicted by capitalism, as they are drawn further and further to the right, and pulled ever more deeply into a vortex of amorality. This is not to suggest that racism, sexism, and homophobia do not exist, but rather, that these words have been co-opted by a ruling establishment which has succeeded in duping the faux-left into embracing policies that are deeply antithetical to the interests of American workers, patients, and students. In politics either one believes in unions, single-payer, and public education or one doesn’t. Either one opposes imperialism, or one does not. The problem with anchoring a political discourse around who opposes racism, sexism, and homophobia and who (allegedly) doesn’t, is that these words are inherently ambiguous to the point where they can be manipulated to mean almost anything. All too often, the racists, sexists, and homophobes can simply comprise anybody who has the temerity to challenge liberal orthodoxy. In an article in U.S. News and World Report titled “The Problem with Hillary-Hate,” Joanne Cronrath Bamberger bemoans the criticism of her hero, arguing that, “Pundits and journalists alike continually refer to her as corrupt and untrustworthy, even though the things people point to for support either are false or they can’t say why they use those words because, well, it’s just a feeling they have”. “We came, we saw, he died,” Hillary famously blurted out when asked about the brutal murder of Gaddafi. While this may never be mentioned on CNN, Libya was a country that had a high standard of living, and had attained a sound nationalization of its health care and education systems. Gaddafi infuriated the Western elites by attempting to establish a gold-backed dinar, leading NATO to unleash a barrage of merciless savagery and violence on a country that is now in a state of complete and utter lawlessness, yet this fails to elicit even so much as a shrug from the sanctimonious imaginary left. For these acts of barbarity pale in the decaying liberal mind with an accusation of sexism. Bamberger continues: Disagree with her policies all you want. Propose different plans that are better. But continuing hate-based commentary about Clinton implicitly says to us all that it will also be acceptable to throw the next woman presidential candidate – viable or not – under the bus with detestable accusations and made-up charges. To let that kind of hateful disrespect for any woman continue allows it to become our cultural norm. This lamentable mentality is illustrative of how the sexism card can be used to stifle criticism – not only of an extremely corrupt politician – but of foreign policies that are nothing short of genocidal. In an equally inane article in the HuffPost by Maya Dusenbery, titled “Medicine has a Sexism Problem, and it’s Making Women Sicker,” the author (who has rheumatoid arthritis and a female rheumatologist), writes: While I’ve been a feminist writer for years, before I got sick, I hadn’t given much thought to how sex and gender bias has skewed what we know and don’t know about health and disease and how it affects the quality of medical care that patients receive. But after my brush with the autoimmune epidemic – an epidemic that seemed strangely off the radar of both the public and the medical system – I started to explore it. What I’ve discovered is that a lack of knowledge about women’s health, and a lack of trust in their reports of their symptoms – entwined problems that have become remarkably entrenched in the American medical system – conspire to leave many women misdiagnosed, dismissed and sick. Hospital errors are the third leading cause of death in this country, and thousands of Americans continue to file for bankruptcy due to medical bills they cannot pay, while little Cuba has had constitutionally mandated single-payer since 1959, yet these are mere trivialities. The real problem with our health care system is that it is sexist. If sexism is the son, racism is the father, and no one loves talking about racism more than liberals. Regrettably, they know nothing whatsoever about it. Last April, Milo Yiannopoulos was driven out of a New York bar by a pack of vituperative liberals who repeatedly yelled “Nazi scum get out.” That Milo is a flamboyant homosexual, married to a black man, and has a Jewish maternal grandmother surely makes him the strangest Nazi that ever lived. Whether one agrees with what he says or not, is neither here nor there. The point is that it is simply far too common for anyone who disagrees with fundamentalist liberal dogma to be beaten with the truncheons of racism and sexism. That the real Nazis are in Kiev, and that they violently seized power in a coup which was wholeheartedly backed by the Obama administration is, to quote John Pilger, beyond irony. In an article in The Washington Post titled “The Racist Backlash Obama Has Faced During His Presidency,” by Terence Samuel, the author writes, “From the very beginning, Obama’s ascendance produced a huge backlash that was undeniably racist in nature….” This was an administration that destroyed Libya, Yemen, Ukraine, supported death squads in Syria that led to the destruction of over half the country, slaughtered thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, passed the National Defense Authorization Act, set aside a trillion dollars to modernize our nuclear weapons arsenal and brought relations with Moscow to their nadir. Moreover, these genocidal polices were paid for with trillions of dollars, while a vast swath of American society is either uneducated, unemployed, or without decent health insurance. Yet these acts of brazen criminality and barbarity are incidental. So let’s ignore the content of Obama’s character, and just talk about the color of his skin. At a lecture at Trinity College Dublin in June, Hillary said, “Vladimir Putin has positioned himself as the leader of an authoritarian, white-supremacist and xenophobic movement….” What is striking about these remarks is that much of Hillary’s presidential campaign was anchored in Russophobia – undeniably one of the most dangerous forms of racism – and which contributed to an ideology that led to the murder of twenty-seven million Russians during the Second World War. Liberals wield an extraordinary amount of power in the public schools, and regard themselves as valiant crusaders against racism. Yet while they repeatedly and vociferously maintain that the ethnic studies programs and the multicultural curriculum are the antithesis of racism, they are actually the quintessence of it. For these policies have fomented an unprecedented degree of segregation in our schools and in our society. Indeed, virtually any attempt at elevating the level of education for poor students of color – especially in the humanities – will invariably land a public school teacher in the doghouse with a liberal administrator. In this schizophrenic order that would make Orwell blush, the real racists are now holier-than-thou anti-racists. Accusations of homophobia have also become quite useful when it comes to duping insouciant liberals into embracing reactionary policies. In an article in The Guardian titled “Iranian Human Rights Official Describes Homosexuality as an Illness,” the author bemoans the fact that, “An Iranian official whose job is to protect human rights has described homosexuality as an illness, after a UN special rapporteur expressed concerns about the systematic persecution of Iran’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.” What a pity that the editors of a once respectable newspaper are happy to print anti-Iranian propaganda, so as to foment liberal bloodlust for yet another regime change. The author also fails to question why one of Washington’s best friends in the Middle East, the Saudi monarchy, a regime that delights in decapitating people as punishment for “sorcery and witchcraft,” is permitted to impose a theocracy infinitely more reactionary and medieval than the one in Iran, and can do so without even the faintest trace of rebuke from the Western media. And what of the Washington-backed jihadi death squads in Syria and Libya? What is their record on gay rights? Indeed, the same question could be raised regarding the rights of women living under the yoke of these barbarians. But they are “the good terrorists,” and so all is forgiven. In an article in The Guardian by Peter Tatchell, titled “World Cup Fever, Gay Rights Abuses and War Crimes – It’s an Ugly Mix,” the author writes, “I’m here for the World Cup – but unlike thousands of fans, I won’t be cheering on this festival of football. LGBT+ people and many other Russians suffer state-sanctioned persecution and far-right violence. These abuses need to be challenged.” The decision of Washington to unleash Neo-Nazi and other far-right paramilitaries on the Donbass that have murdered thousands of ethnic Russians, Moscow’s military intervention in Syria that saved the country from the fate of Libya, and the fact that Russians enjoy free health care and superior education, are of no interest to Western propagandists. Russians are simply terrible people, and what better way to get liberals to embrace Russophobia (not to mention the annihilation of the planet), than to talk about the country’s lack of gay rights? This is not to say that identity politics and multiculturalism have been a failure. On the contrary, they have been a resounding success. However, contrary to fundamentalist liberal dogma this success lies not unto the heart of the left, but under the iron heel of the right. Increasingly, those who have been indoctrinated to view the world through the warped prism of identity politics are incapable of seeing political reality for what it is, but for what the ruling establishment desires it to be. For they have been enshrouded in a veil of blindness. That liberals have severed all ties with The Civil Rights Movement, unions, intellectual inquiry, and anti-imperialist sentiment is incontrovertible. The ongoing fervor and cultlike zealotry over racism, sexism, and homophobia has ushered in a new era of witch-hunts, and is indicative of a liberal class that is increasingly unmoored and unhinged. The psychosis of contemporary liberalism has defiled and contaminated our very language, and caused the national discourse to be paralyzed by a deranged political philosophy that has fomented a war of all against all, while allowing the elite to use liberals as attack dogs to vilify, intimidate, and silence all who oppose the machinations of capitalist power both at home and abroad http://clubof.info/

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giancarlonicoli · 6 years

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Mass Hysteria

Mike Mish Shedlock

5 hrs

-edited

The mass hysteria following Trump's meeting with Putin is likely to last for days. Most are outraged. Few see the light.

My article Congratulations to President Trump for an Excellent Summit with Putin spawned numerous some I could not tell if they were sarcastic or not.

For example, reader Brian stated " There is zero doubt now that Putin stole the election from Hillary. So much so that she MUST be given the nomination again in 2020. All potential challengers must step aside. To refuse her the 2020 nomination would be evidence of traitorous activities with Putin."'

I congratulated Brian for brilliant sarcasm but he piled on. It now seems he was serious.

Mainstream media, the Left an the Right were in general condemnation.

Numerous cries of treason emerged from the Left and the Right (see the above link)

It Happened - No Trial Necessary

A friend I highly respect commented "There is simply no question that they did it. You can legitimately claim that it’s not important or that there has been no tie to Trump shown. On the Russians’ side, they can say, screw off, we were pursuing our interests. But you can’t take the view it did not happen. It happened."

There is a question who did it. Indictments are just that, not proof.

The US fabricated evidence to start the Vietnam war and the US fabricated WMD talk on the second war in Iraq. US intelligence had no idea the Berlin Wall was about to fall. The US meddled in Russia supporting a drunk named Yeltsin because we erroneously thought we could control him.

They Are All Liars

It's a mystery why anyone would believe these proven liars. That does not mean I believe Putin either. They are all capable liars.

Let's step back from the absurd points of view to reality.

US Meddling

The US tries to influence elections in other countries and has a history of assisting the forcible overthrow of governments we don’t like.

Vietnam

Iran

Iraq

Libya

Drone policy

All of the above are massive disasters of US meddling. They are all actions of war, non-declared, and illegal.

I cannot and do not condone such actions even if they were legal.

911 and ISIS resulted from US meddling. The migration crisis in the EU is a direct consequence of US meddling. The Iranian revolution was a direct consequence of US meddling.

Now we are pissing and moaning that Russia spent a few million dollars on Tweets to steal the election. Please be serious.

Let's Assume

Let's assume for one second the DNC hack was Russia-based.

Is there a reason to not be thankful for evidence that Hillary conspired to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination?

Pity Hillary?

We are supposed to pity Hillary?

The outrage from the Right is amazing.

It's pretty obvious Senator John McCain wanted her to win. Neither faced a war or military intervention they disapproved of.

Common Sense

Let's move on to a common sense position from Glenn Greenwald at the Intercept.

Debate: Is Trump-Putin Summit a “Danger to America” or Crucial Diplomacy Between Nuclear Powers?

Greenwald vs. Cirincione: Should Trump Have Canceled Summit After U.S. Indictment of Russian Agents?

Greenwald vs. Joe Cirincione

GLENN GREENWALD: In 2007, during the Democratic presidential debate, Barack Obama was asked whether he would meet with the leaders of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria and Iran without preconditions. He said he would. Hillary Clinton said she wouldn’t, because it would be used as a propaganda tool for repressive dictators. And liberals celebrated Obama. It was one of his greatest moments and one of the things that I think helped him to win the Democratic nomination, based on the theory that it’s always better to meet with leaders, even if they’re repressive, than to isolate them or to ignore them. In 1987, when President Reagan decided that he wanted to meet with Soviet leaders, the far right took out ads against him that sounded very much just like what we just heard from Joe, accusing him of being a useful idiot to Soviet and Kremlin propaganda, of legitimizing Russian aggression and domestic repression at home.

GLENN GREENWALD: It is true that Putin is an authoritarian and is domestically repressive. That’s true of many of the closest allies of the United States, as well, who are even far more repressive, including ones that fund most of the think tanks in D.C., such as the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia. And I think the most important issue is the one that we just heard, which is that 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons are in the hands of two countries—the United States and Russia—and having them speak and get along is much better than having them isolate one another and increase the risk of not just intentional conflict, but misperception and miscommunication, as well.

JOE CIRINCIONE: Right. Let’s be clear. Glenn, there’s nothing wrong with meeting. I agree with you. Leaders should meet, and we should be negotiating with our foes, with those people we disagree with. We’re better off when we do that. And the kind of attacks you saw on Barack Obama were absolutely uncalled for, and you’re right to condemn those.

JOE CIRINCIONE: What I’m worried about is this president meeting with this leader of Russia and what they’re going to do. That’s what’s so wrong about this summit coming now, when you have Donald Trump, who just attacked the NATO alliance, who calls our European allies foes, who turns a blind eye to what his director of national intelligence called the warning lights that are blinking red. About what? About Russian interference in our elections. So you just had a leader of Russia, Putin, a skilled tactician, a skilled strategist, interfere in a U.S. election. To what? To help elect Donald Trump.

GLENN GREENWALD: I think this kind of rhetoric is so unbelievably unhinged, the idea that the phishing links sent to John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee are the greatest threat to American democracy in decades. People are now talking about it as though it’s on par with 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, that the lights are blinking red, in terms of the threat level. This is lunacy, this kind of talk. I spent years reading through the most top-secret documents of the NSA, and I can tell you that not only do they send phishing links to Russian agencies of every type continuously on a daily basis, but do far more aggressive interference in the cybersecurity of every single country than Russia is accused of having done during the 2016 election. To characterize this as some kind of grave existential threat to American democracy is exactly the kind of rhetoric that we heard throughout the Bush-Cheney administration about what al-Qaeda was like.

JOE CIRINCIONE: Why does Donald Trump feel that he has to meet alone with Putin? What is going on there? I mean, that—when Ronald Reagan met with Gorbachev at Reykjavik, at least he had George Shultz with him. The two of them, you know, were meeting with Gorbachev and his foreign minister at the time. This is—it’s deeply disturbing. It makes you feel that Trump is hiding something, that he is either trying to make a deal with Putin, reporting something to Putin. I tell you, I know U.S. intelligence officials—I’m probably going right into Glenn’s wheelhouse here. But U.S. intelligence officials are concerned about what Donald Trump might be revealing to the Russian leader, the way he revealed classified information to the Russian foreign minister when he met privately with him in the Oval Office at the beginning of his term. No, I don’t like it one bit.

GLENN GREENWALD: I continue to be incredibly frustrated by the claim that we hear over and over, and that we just heard from Joe, that Donald Trump does everything that Vladimir Putin wants, and that if he were a paid agent of the Russian government, there’d be—he would be doing nothing different. I just went through the entire list of actions that Donald Trump has taken and statements that he has made that are legitimately adverse to the interest of the Russian government, that Barack Obama specifically refused to do, despite bipartisan demands that he do them, exactly because he didn’t want to provoke more tensions between the United States and Russia. Sending lethal arms to Ukraine, bordering Russia, is a really serious adverse action against the interest of the Russian government. Bombing the Assad regime is, as well. Denouncing one of the most critical projects that the Russian government has, which is the pipeline to sell huge amounts of gas and oil to Germany, is, as well. So is expelling Russian diplomats and imposing serious sanctions on oligarchs that are close to the Putin regime. You can go down the list, over and over and over, in the 18 months that he’s been in office, and see all the things that Donald Trump has done that is adverse, in serious ways, to the interests of Vladimir Putin, including ones that President Obama refused to do. So, this film, this movie fairytale, that I know is really exciting—it’s like international intrigue and blackmail, like the Russians have something over Trump; it’s like a Manchurian candidate; it’s from like the 1970s thrillers that we all watched—is inane—you know, with all due respect to Joe. I mean, it’s—but it’s in the climate, because it’s so contrary to what it is that we’re seeing. Now, this idea of meeting alone with Vladimir Putin, the only way that you would find that concerning is if you believed all that.

JOE CIRINCIONE: So, Trump knew that this indictment was coming down, before he went to Europe, and still he never says a word about it. What he does is continue his attacks on our alliances, i.e. he continues his attacks on our free press, he continues his attacks on FBI agents who were just doing their job, and supports this 10-hour show hearing that the House of Representatives had. It’s really unbelievable that Trump is doing these things and never says one word about it. He still has not said a word about those indictments.

GLENN GREENWALD: That’s because the reality is—and I don’t know if Donald Trump knows this or doesn’t know this, has stumbled into the truth or what—but the reality is that what the Russians did in 2016 is absolutely not aberrational or unusual in any way. The United—I’m sorry to say this, but it’s absolutely true. The United States and Russia have been interfering in one another’s domestic politics for since at least the end of World War II, to say nothing of what they do in far more extreme ways to the internal politics of other countries. Noam Chomsky was on this very program several months ago, and he talked about how the entire world is laughing at this indignation from the United States—”How dare you interfere in our democracy!”—when the United States not only has continuously in the past done, but continues to do far more extreme interference in the internal politics of all kinds of countries, including Russia.

GLENN GREENWALD: The United States funds oppositional groups inside Russia. The United States sent advisers and all kinds of operatives to try and elect Boris Yeltsin in the mid-1990s, because they perceived, accurately, that he was a drunk who would serve the interests of the United States more than other candidates who might have won. The United States interferes in Russian politics, and they interfere in their cyber systems, and they invade their email systems, and they invade all kinds of communications all the time. And so, to treat this as though it’s some kind of aberrational event, I think, is really kind of naive.

GLENN GREENWALD: It wasn’t just Hillary Clinton in 2016 who lost this election. The entire Democratic Party has collapsed as a national political force over the last decade. They’ve lost control of the Senate and of the House and of multiple statehouses and governorships. They’re decimated as a national political force. And the reason is exactly what Joe said. They become the party of international globalization. They’re associated with Silicon Valley and Wall Street billionaires and corporate interests, and have almost no connection to the working class. And that is a much harder conversation to have about why the Democrats have lost elections than just blaming a foreign villain and saying it’s because Vladimir Putin ran some fake Facebook ads and did some phishing emails. And I think that until we put this in perspective, about what Russia did in 2016 and the reality that the U.S. does that sort of thing all the time to Russia and so many other countries, we’re going to just not have the conversation that we need to be having about what these international institutions, that are so sacred—NATO and free trade and international trade organizations—have done to people all over the world, and the reason they’re turning to demagogues and right-wing extremists because of what these institutions have done to them. That’s the conversation we need to be having, but we’re not having, because we’re evading it by blaming everything on Vladimir Putin. And that, to me, is even more dangerous for our long-term prospects than this belligerence that’s in the air about how we ought to look at Moscow.

Indictments and First Year Law

Mish: I now wish to return to a statement my friend made regarding the idea "No question Russia did it".

From Glenn Greenwald

As far as the indictments from Mueller are concerned, it’s certainly the most specific accounting yet that we’ve gotten of what the U.S. government claims the Russian government did in 2016. But it’s extremely important to remember what every first-year law student will tell you, which is that an indictment is nothing more than the assertions of a prosecutor unaccompanied by evidence. The evidence won’t be presented until a trial or until Robert Mueller actually issues a report to Congress. And so, I would certainly hope that we are not at the point, which I think we seem to be at, where we are now back to believing that when the CIA makes statements and assertions and accusations, or when prosecutors make statements and assertions and accusations, unaccompanied by evidence that we can actually evaluate, that we’re simply going to believe those accusations on faith, especially when the accusations come from George W. Bush’s former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who repeatedly lied to Congress about Iraq and a whole variety of other issues. So, I think there we need some skepticism. But even if the Russians did everything that Robert Mueller claims in that indictment that they did, in the scheme of what the U.S. and the Russians do to one another and other countries, I think to say that this is somehow something that we should treat as a grave threat, that should mean that we don’t talk to them or that we treat them as an enemy, is really irrational and really quite dangerous.

Mish - Six Questions

Is this a trial or a witch hunt?

Do we need to see the evidence or do we believe known liars?

Is Trump guilty of treason? Before we even see proof Putin was involved?

Is the CIA incapable of fabricating evidence?

Even if Russia interfered in the election, why should anyone have expected otherwise?

Has everyone forgotten the US lies on WMDs already?

Irrational and Dangerous

I don't know about you, but I have no reason to believe known liars and hypocrites.

I disagree with Trump all the time, in fact, more often than not.

The amount of venom on Trump over this is staggering.

Adding a missing word, I stand by my previous statement: "Nearly every political action that generates this much complete nonsense and hysteria from the Left and Right is worthy of immense praise."

If you disagree please provide examples. The only two I can come up with are Pearl Harbor and 911. In both, the US was directly attacked.

For rebuttal purposes I offer Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Russia, Iran, WWI, treatment of Japanese-American citizens in WWII, and McCarthyism.

Greenwald accurately assesses the situation as "really irrational and really quite dangerous."

Indeed.

And if indictments and accusations were crimes, we wouldn't need a jury.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock

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