"Judicial Watch announced today it has obtained new documents from the Department of State containing the telephone transcripts from the evening of September 11, 2012, in which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informs then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi “had nothing to do with the film.” The documents include previously unreleased telephone transcripts with world leaders about the Benghazi attack.
Clinton’s admission to Kandil was first produced to the Select Committee on Benghazi on October 13, 2015 and publicized on the day of Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, October 22, but court filings in Judicial Watch litigation show that the record was only produced after two federal court judges ordered the State Department to produce more Benghazi-related records to Judicial Watch. Similarly, Judicial Watch litigation also forced the release of the September 11, 2012 email in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed her daughter by email that the attack had been staged by an “Al Qaeda-like group,” rather than as the result of “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” as Mrs. Clinton had claimed in her official public statement one hour earlier." Judicial Watch
——————
Well, pilgrims, 11 September 2012 was the date of the Benghazi attack. Within a few hours of the attack, Clinton was on the telephone with the Egyptian prime minister telling him that the attack had nothing to do with the stupid anti-Islamic video and that the attack had been made by a group connected to AQ. For days thereafter she maintained the opposite in public.
On the same day, 11 September 2012, Hillary Clinton e-mailed her daughter that the attack was a deliberate AQ linked operation and that it had nothing to do with the broadcast anti-Muslim video.
A few days later Susan Rice was sent around to the Sunday news programs to spread the story that the attack had been a spontaneous manifestation of popular anger. She, obviously knew that was not true and was acting on orders from Obama's White House, and implicitly from Obama himself.
Why would the Obama Administration give such an order? Group think is a powerful motivator. That, and an inability to tell the emperor that he had no clothes are probably the answers to that question? pl
It was very obvious that the attack in Banghazi was part of an elaborate Al-Qaeda operation. It was so obvious that I got the story right just hours after it happened.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/09/the-us-ambo-killing-in-benghazi.html
On September 11 2011
– Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video confirming for the first time the death of his deputy Abu Yahya al-Libi by a U.S. drone strike.
– Egyptian al-Qaeda associates, including the brother of al-Zawahiri, storm the U.S. embassy courtyard in Cairo and raise the al-Qaeda flag.
– Libyan al-Qaeda associates storm the U.S. office in Benghazi and attack, with preregistered mortar fire (!), the CIA house.
Surely that was all a coincidence and “about a movie”? Obviously NOT.
But the Obama administration was hiding at that time that it had been working with al-Qaeda elements to attack Ghaddafi and was working with the same al-Qaeda elements in Syria to attack the Syrian people. It was also hiding the CIA weapon transfer from Libya through Turkey to al-Qaeda elements in Syria.
Al-Qaeda and associates tightly coordinated their action on Sep 11 2012. It was a warning to the U.S. that there were rules to be followed if the cooperation in Syria were to continue. The Obama administration acknowledged that by not revealing the attack as what it was. The cooperation in Syria was probably seen as more important.
I believe the White House was wedded to the narrative that no violent Islamist groups had taken root in Libya in the aftermath of Gaddafi’s overthrow. This was at a time when Obama was still riding the crest of the OBL killing as the 2012 election was approaching. In short, the big selling point was that he had dealt effectively with the al-Qaeda threat which was in terminal decline. Let’s recall that was only a few months later that Obama was shunning the DIA report on ISIL and amending he narrative as to declare it a junior varsity to classic al-Qaeda (which was being suppressed).
I completely agree on the group think process. My observation from work life tells me that it invariably produces a myopia that absolutely blinds the group the obvious outcome and consequences. I won’t list the many examples I can think of but it seems the higher places the members of the group are, the more irrational the thinking gets.
Does it really matter whether it is “group think” or “conspiracy”?
http://biblehub.com/luke/6-44.htm
(not that I am in “religion” in any way but what about some clarity of judgement)
I have always assumed that the reason for the lies was that the Administration was covertly running guns from Libya to the “rebels” in Syria.
No one has ever explained why Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi on that date, when it was well known that the area posed significant security risks.
No one has ever adequately explained the presence of the CIA safe house, or the deaths of the ex Navy Seals, either.
Benghazi is the reason that I refused to vote in the last presidential election.
Excellent points. Plus, no marine guards and the civilian contractor responsible for security had an Al Qaeda flag on their web page. On top of that he was meeting with a Turkish official and the attackers waited until the Turks left before attacking. Also unexplained were the 400 tons of arms stored at the CIA facility co-located with the annex. Add it all up and it smells really bad. Actually traveling to a relatively unsecured facility without military escort on the anniversary of 9/11? My brain just cannot comprehend the plethora of bad decisions.
I would say that group think is more flexible in being applied to the situation at hand.
Dogma, in my experience, produces either a ‘ignore the man behind the curtain’ process (to avoid contaminating the dogma with facts) or the old ‘to a hammer, everything looks like a nail’ action, where things are bashed about to fit the dogma.
Conspiracy? These folks are supposed to get it right the first time. They are running our country’s FP. The performance here was putrid, IMO.
The related ‘secret’ was the fact the American presence was mainly to cover the CIA (+ consultants) operation. Hence, admitting that the attackers knew all about it and had turned the tables on us was double embarrassing: it showed that we had taken steps to deal with a publicly unacknowledged salafist threat, and that they had humiliated us.
> Also unexplained were the 400 tons of arms stored at the CIA facility co-located with the annex.
Cite on those 400 tons, please? I’ve been very interested in the gun-running possibility, as that’s the kind of thing that the US has been doing since the 1950s and the CIA Benghazi Base would be likely to help facilitate it if it were happening.
On large-volume gun-running in general, see (ahem)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/us/arms-cache-most-likely-kept-in-texas-by-the-cia.html
https://fas.org/irp/eprint/midwest.pdf
> Does it really matter whether it is “group think” or “conspiracy”?
In terms of results, probably not.
In terms of motivation and moral culpability, it might be more along the lines of sins of commission and sins of omission. I.e., conspirators know quite well what they’re doing, but group thinkers fail to examine how they’re just going along with the gang.
I’ve seen a fair amount of pernicious group think while serving in the government, but the really down-and-dirty conscious conspiracy stuff became obvious only after entering into the Beltway Banditosphere. Even then, the evil seemed to be concentrated in the bigger companies, like S***; there were a fair number of smaller ones that appeared to be genuinely trying to do a good and honest job.
Many sources and some are more credible than others. Here is one. http://www.businessinsider.com/us-syria-heavy-weapons-jihadists-2012-10?op=1
I’m not convinced the administration gave that order. Rice was briefed by the CIA, General Dave, IIRC. The collective does not have the greatest internal communication, and it seems to be at times rather poor. I also don’t see any proof Clinton was briefed before making those statements on the 11th. Why she would make definitive statements that early is a mystery though. I would suspect first her sloppiness, the history of which spans from Travel Gate to Server Gate, and includes the sending of Rice to Sunday newie shows. Rice lacks that skill-set.
Off topic: The British Donald Trump… courtesy of Eton and Oxford. And what a compelling argument he makes, including calling Obama a naked hypocrite. But I suppose that’s actually what this topic is about, so this isn’t off topic. The accent is a long, long way from Donald.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36057947
IMO
You are kidding yourself. Nobody but POTUS could authorize and sanction this. pl
could the outcry have been “Free Palestine?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpuWBjS62zM
~1:30
Clinton barks the Netanyahu line.
If it is the case that Israel planned to “mow the lawn,” then how is proportionality defined?
On what planet does a mainstream British Conservative politician whose been embedded in the British establishment from the moment he was born become, and I quote you direct, “The British Donald Trump”?
The “exit” camp represent a major part of the British conservative establishment. Get used to it.
Info wars has run a bunch of stuff which has more or less turned out to be accurate. I alsways treat that stuff with a grain of salt as a lot of conspiracy theory stuff runs amok; however, sometimes these things are true.
What I have never actually understood, and I have read a lot on it, is why we are so seriously dedicated to removing Assad. Syria has nothing at all to do with the US. We are supplying, training, equipping continuously and with renewed vigor this week, rebel forces known to be Al Qaeda or ISIS, which I believe is tantamount to treason.
I get that the KSA doesn’t want any Shia countries at all, and much less an axis running from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. I get that Israel hates Iran, Hezbollah, and the Palestinians and that Iraq and Syria must be kept in disarray. I get that there is an enormous gas field in the Med shared by Cyprus, Israel, Syria, and Turkey and ownership is problematic. I get that Russia is supplying gas to Europe and that the Gulf states want to cut them out and emplacement them with a pipeline of their own except Syria is in the way. But, I don’t get why the US is involved at all and why we keep hammering a clearly (yet another) losing foreign policy debacle. Only the neocon agenda put forward by Kagan and Wolfowitz explains this and I keep finding myself confused as to who is running the show in the US. I mean really, it boggles the mind that we suck up to these countries we claim are allies who in fact do everything they can to destroy the US. This latest fracas about the missing 28 pages and culpability of the KSA and their counter to liquidate $750 billion in Amaerican paper is yet another chapter in this saga. Of course the KSA was involved. Why we continue to do any business with these head choppers is yet another confusing problem. The US is completely self reliant on oil production so why do we keep sucking up? I frankly don’t get it. We are risking nuclear war for….Syria? It makes no sense at all.
Agree! Election politics controlled the narrative.
Look no further than the DEMS and Republicans as to reason behind the decay in American life. Where do we get such men [and women]? Question asked mening exactly the opposite on movie made THE BRIDGES OF TOKO RI?
Thanks for this link! Americans have a stake in EU stability but not in EU corruption. U.S. IMO should leave NATO and Brexit vote should be leave the EU!
Embarrassed that the US ambassador was killed by a militia group we had worked with during the overthrow of Khadafy the administration lied about the motivation of the attack to cover their incompetence. I am shocked, shocked that such mendacity could exist at the highest levels of our government! There are far more important questions about Benghazi that need to be addressed than this small potatoes of a scandal.
I think a big part of her deception, and, more importantly, Obama’s deception was, indeed, based on the reasons you point out above. But I also think there was another reason, one that especially resonates with Obama. Arrogance. Thrown in with a natural bent towards patronizing certain types. . Blaming it on the film allowed it to be stated, and unstated, but implied, ‘see, all you ignorant[read: Christian, white people, mostly, the one’s ‘clinging to their guns and religion] see what those ignorant beliefs you have started? [and Islamaphobia but one of them]…you see the kind fire they can generate?’. He could look down his nose even more so, and with more satisfaction, than before. ‘see, ya all [let us assume he happened to speaking to mostly black audience and was playing his from the hood role] played around and got an Ambassador killed.’
PR
Yes, the whole operation centered in Benghazi for the purpose of buying up weapons to ship to Syria was really bad policy, but I doubt that it was illegal. The US government must remains government based on law. If it does not the corner has been turned that leads to something very like the Roman Empire in which law existed but did not matter. If the Secretary of State lied under oath before the senate (and I do not know yet if she did) then that would be for me an absolute disqualification for office. pl
Thank you.
Lying to the public also does not break the law, its just business as usual, but lying under oath to the senate is another thing indeed. The rule of law does matter.
British conservative establishment = a bad thing? If so is anti-assimilationism?
WRC
Yes to NATO exit.
Big NO to Brexit. Being British this would be a disaster for for my small island. We have spent decades integrating ourselves, albeit grudgingly and with bad grace, into Europe to leaves now would be suicidal for UK businesses and would leave us without influence on the world stage. Some of the British people do not seem to realise how impotent we are and think we have significance in our own write – sadly those days are long gone and leaving the EU will not bring them back. The Baby Borgs that have run our governments for many decades think we can become close to Big Borg and be a partner. This Goliath will continue to pay lip service to our input and expect compliance to their wishes. Without the additional weight of the EU they will have even less reason to accommodate us – beyond the buddy-buddy photo op and the [one of] our closest ally speech.
Breaking up their neighbours has long been Israel’s policy. The billionaires who control American politics are fanatically pro-Israeli. The Americans are being used to pursue a policy which is not in their interests.
‘An official statement’ is practically the modern definition of a lie.
In reply to rjj 17 April 2016 at 09:34 AM
I’ve corrected a ludicrously inaccurate characterisation of a British politician and suddenly the topic according to you is anti-assimilationism.
Got agenda much?
Buying weapons to send to Syria wasn’t just a bad policy, but, had it been known, it would also have been a deeply unpopular one. That would be my guess as to the reason for the lies.
As Old Microbiollist has pointed out, it seems that what KSA wants, KSA gets. How dependent is the US on Saudi and other Arab investment, to maintain the US $’s status as the world’ s reserve currency?
I still don’t know why the militants attacked the people giving them arms nor why the ambassador was there. Even the conspiracy folks haven’t come with a good explanation.
Allen Thompson,
Good job.
why are Lebanon and Gaza cut out of the offshore petro rights?
But, who has been prosecuted for lying to Congress lately? Plenty of examples but no prosecutions.
I also recall illegal arms sales by Reagan (Iran-Contra) without any serious consequences to him.
I read somewhere recently that the entire scandal of Benghazi was because they didn’t want a public admission queering Obama’s chances for re-election. That seems highly plausible to me.
In the case of Obama, I don’t think he is the sort that takes bad news or disagreement very well. I doubt nothing gets to Obama without a good deal of sugar coating. When anything does go wrong, Obama tends to blame external forces whether it’s Putin, voter “apathy” (disgust is more accurate), Republican governors, gerrymandering (which apparently didn’t exist in 2006), and even voter impatience.
Obama stood by Shinseki for a week after he should have sent federal marshals to escort him out of the building with the message his personal belongings would be sent to his home because Shinseki was Obama’s choice and therefore of incapable of poor performance.
It’s difficult to see Boris as an equivalent to Trump. Nigel Farage of UKIP might be a better comparison. He at least has made some money in business, although nothing like Trump; and he’s an old fashioned conservative patriot, hated by the Conservative Establishment for offering their voters an alternative.
I’m no fan of HRC, but I can’t fault her for lying publicly about the Benghazi mess, especially in the days right after it happened.
That (lying, sometimes baldly) is part of the job (Secretary of State).
I think it was entirely appropriate for her to BS about what happened; in fact, she was OBLIGED to cover up the CIA operation in Benghazi. OTOH, if she was a key “decider” in setting up whatever the CIA was doing there, then she would deserve our scorn for that; but that’s never really been investigated, has it?
The Congressional Witch-hunt which followed exposed the fact that State was covering for CIA. IMHO, that’s TREASON.
BabelFish,
Re: ‘groupthink’.
In Britain, traditionally, élites were divided – often in very complicated ways. So, for example, the arguments over ‘appeasement’ pitted Tories against Tories (Chamberlain against Churchill), and also divided left-wingers in all kinds of complex ways.
This set limits to ‘groupthink’. People had to face off intellectual challenges from others like them at whom they could not simply sneer.
What is new about ‘the Borg’, both in the United States and Britain, is 1. the monolithic unity of most of the élites, and 2. their general – and in my view very foolish – assumption that what the ‘hoi polloi’ think and feel is irrelevant.
There’s a lot of British people who think that the disaster for Britain is continuing in the EU. It’s the Establishment in business, politics and the media which wants to remain, and is trying to scare the populace. They’re still going to trade, and arguably Britain might have more influence rather than less, albeit small. It’s just been reported that in 72 out of 72 occasions when Britain wanted a change within the EU, she was overruled. The fact that most laws in Britain now come from the EU, although the exact percentage is disputed, is widely hated.It’s also the EU and the interests like Soros which are forcing the Muslim invaders into Britain.
The EU is already creaking and may collapse under it’s internal strains, so its better not to be involved.
The fact that His Superciliousness is threatening to leave the White House to come and tell us to vote to remain in the EU does not enhance the popularity of either the EU or himself, except perhaps among the lefties who can’t seem to get enough of him.
it was a simple question asked in earnest (this time).
re: ” If it does not the corner has been turned that leads to something very like the Roman Empire in which law existed but did not matter.”
That corner has already been turned for the one percent and their hangers-on, as evidenced by the Obama administration’s refusal to seriously investigate, let alone prosecute the poobahs of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance and real estate) for establishing and operating business models that led to untold instances of perjury, forgery and fraud that led to the financial meltdown of 2008 and the subsequent looting of the US Treasury.
Old Microbiologist,
A basic principle of modern international politics is: tails wag dogs.
This is where all the talk about the ‘deep state’ is liable to be very misleading. It presumes that there is a clutch of people in the CIA, or wherever, who have a coherent idea of what they are doing and act as masterminds to ensure others do it.
In fact, most of these people are not very bright. They are ‘easy meat’ for people who they think they can manipulate, but commonly manipulate them.
In the case of policy towards Syria, what we have is the results of a complex interaction between two different ‘tails’.
Another basic principle of modern international politics – particularly American politics – is that, with Jews, there is an inverse correlation between intelligence and power.
If you are a seriously intelligent Jew, with a life devoted to trying to make sense of the historical background to current events, like Stephen F. Cohen, your name will be mud. Everything possible will be done to discredit you.
The unintelligent Jews (aka overeducated idiots) are, of course, everything an intelligent (or perhaps I should write ‘cunning’) ‘tail’ could wish for. So Ahmed Chalabi managed to inveigle Perle, Wolfowitz, et al, into enlisting the vast strength of the ‘dog’ – the U.S. military – into, essentially, handing over Iraq to Iranian clients.
At that point, of course, the Saudi ‘tail’ went into overdrive, trying to get the ‘dog’ to reverse the creation of the ‘Shia Crescent’.
From the point of view of the Zionists, meanwhile, they were confronted with the – genuinely existential – threat posed by progressively increasingly ‘capabilities threat’ posed by missiles of increasing accuracy and range in hardened Hizbullah positions north of the Litani river.
Obviously, if such missiles can cover the whole of Israel, the notion of that country as a ‘safe haven’ for Jews confronted by the ever-present threat of the ‘goyim’ rediscovering their ‘inner Nazi’ becomes even more of a ‘bad joke’ than it already was.
At that point, the traditional assumption of the Saudi ‘tail’ that the ‘infidels’ were infinitely bribable (not altogether false), came together with the traditional assumption of the Zionists that, if you whined enough about ‘anti-Semitism’, the ‘goyim’ would do what they were told.
So, the two different ‘tails’ were wagging the dog in unison.
Unfortunately, both the ‘tails’ are cunning, but not intelligent.
As to the Zionist ‘tail’, these people are propagandists, who – as propagandists commonly do – end up swallowing their own lies.
Accordingly, they actually came to believe that somehow there was a ‘third force’ of ‘moderate insurgents’ who provided an alternative alike to the jihadists and Assad.
DH et al
After having discussed the JW disclosures with people who are actually knowledgeable it is clear to me that on the evening in question HC was faced with a presidential order to describe the Benghazi attack as spontaneous. This probably resulted from the proximity of the November general election. HC evidently knew better having been briefed by Embassy Tripoli but decided to acquiesce rather than resign. Rice accepted the task of carrying this tainted message to the Sunday news shows. I have no idea whether or not HC told the truth in sworn testimony before closed congressional hearings but it is transparently true that Obama has no choice but to try to defend her. pl
what’s wrong with insignificance?
which choice is irreversible?
You are quite right that if you don’t pursue the links to Kagan and Wolfowitz (and the motivation of their army of supporters and fellow travellers) the situation is incomprehensible.
However, the polarization to nuclear war is not at risk due to Syria itself, its due to a desire to break the alliance between Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, also militarily linked to Russia.
Strangely enough, Assad was willing, not that long ago, to leave the Hezbollah – Iran alliance and sign on to peace with Israel, if the Golan Heights would be returned to its rightful owners.
Israel rejected this, and, of course, so too did the US. Both preferred regime change within Syria, and felt it would be easy enough to accomplish through “a popular uprising”. The US then allied with terrorist forces to accomplish this deed.
Quite simply, the goals of a greater Israel are supported by the US and, as that project evolves, it has already meant, and will continue to mean, widening war. To achieve this policy in Washington, it has been necessary to suppress information and democracy within the US.
In reply to rjj 17 April 2016 at 01:16 PM
Yeah right. Got agenda much?
In reply to cynic 17 April 2016 at 12:45 PM
I think you’re right about Farage – although once UKIP looked like it was eating into Labour’s vote he dropped the flat tax of 31% proposal.
He also denied he was a Thatcherite – saying that its time was past. (See for example here: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-27654958 )
In both cases he was trying to get support from Labour voters he’s not stupid far from it and he knows how toxic Thatcher’s name is amongst Labour supporters.
As it turned out UKIP did reasonably well in the elections for the European parliament and disastrously badly in the elections for the House of Commons. Farage couldn’t even get elected in the seat for Thanet which is in his home count
I think Melissa Kite, who is a Thatcherite, put it very well when she wrote of both Johnson and Farage:
“Conviction politicians are so rare and are appreciated so much nowadays that they are accepted warts and all. And let’s face it, Farage and Johnson have more than their fair share of warts. The Tory grassroots are prepared to overlook them because they are so sick of Cameron and George Osborne making slick, calculated promises and then breaking them. The list of betrayals is too long to list here.”
and
“If voters back Farage’s party in huge numbers, it will not be because they think he is the heir to Thatcher. It will be because they think Cameron is not.”
(See: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/24/nigel-farage-thatcher-tory-jonathan-aitken-david-cameron )
It wasn’t the Conservative establishment that delivered a thrashing at the polls to Farage and his party it was grass roots Conservatives.
Which leaves Johnson:
Johnson’s always been at the heart of the Conservative establishment The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, Mayor of London, MP, and now campaigning for British Exit from the EU. He’s a viable alternative to Cameron and I suspect an even more viable one than either May or Osborne.
Johnson vs. Corbyn – that would be an interesting match. I wonder if Mr. Habbakuk could be persuaded to let us have his thoughts on that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8hGZoXWR70
I don’t quite know what I’m supposed to get used to, but I do know, the minute he opens his mouth, that Boris is establishment born and bred. Classmate of Cameron I believe.
In reply to cynic 17 April 2016 at 01:05 PM
No argument from me on any of that but I do have a question when you say they’re still going to trade. _What_ are they going to trade? British manufacturing is a shadow of its former self and I don’t see either the Germans or the French being helpful to the trade in Financial services.
I agree that the EU may collapse anyway – they should never have expanded East. I find myself wondering if the rejection of the EU-Ukraine association treaty by the normally _very_ pro-EU Dutch is the pebble that starts the avalanche.
Microbiologist,
We are risking nuclear war over Syria perhaps because our class-BigMoney elites are sensitive to Saudi desires against the SAR, and also very certainly because Obama wants to avenge his wounded narcisist self-image pride against Putin and Russia.
I think that in the cases of both Iraq and Syria, “Regime Change” was less important than the destruction of the State in general. As long as either existed as a coherent States, they posed some danger to Israel.
The fact that failed states are more of a danger to us (US) was unimportant to the neocons & neoliberals who seem to have completed their infiltration of several US bureaucracies (State & Treasury in particular). In this case, the prefix “neo” is thinly veiled code for “zio”.
I agree with DH’s first principle above (tail wags dog), but I’m skeptical of the second (Powerful Jews <> Smart Jews). I agree that the smart Zionists in the Cheney administration had planned on setting up a Chalabi Dynasty in Iraq, but what they really cared about was destroying the physical, technical, and social infrastructure of Iraq. In that, they succeeded masterfully.
I think the civil war in Syria was designed with the same purpose. It’s worked pretty well, but Russia had other ideas, and luckily, Obama went along with them – mostly, at least. Enough to (1) prevent us from bombing Syria over the poison-gas thing, and (2) cooperate with Russia against IS. I see Obama as tightly constrained but trying to resist the worst of the advice he’s getting.
I don’t blame HRC for lying (publicly, as Sec State) about Benghazi; but I do blame her for not rooting out the Neocons in State when she took over.
In reply to rjj 17 April 2016 at 02:41 PM
Thank you for making it crystal clear that puerility is the best you can do.
They’ll trade whatever is tradeable at the time. I think Britain still sells 40-50% of its exports to the EU,which is apparently a lower proportion than most of the rest of the countries in it.
Dr.Richard North has busily worked out a lot of details, and ways of being influential in the world standards bodies which are influential in setting standards for EU economic activities. His EU Referendum blog has gone into all this sort of thing in exhaustive detail for years.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
Other sources have pointed out that the collapse of the British steel industry because of subsidised undercutting by Chinese manufacturers and EU regulations was not resisted by the British government. The Americans imposed a compensating duty on such imports, and the EU might have allowed a similar effort had the British government even requested it. Free Trade may have been effective in the 19th c. but now it only plays into the hands of greedy globalists and cheating communists. The shock of having to make an international living on their own resources in a harsh environment, especially as the world is going deeper into recession, may wake up a lot of people and even their politicians.
It seems that the Dutch vote against accepting Ukraine was sparked by a satirical magazine. Now another vote against trade concessions to America is coming up. People are voting out of loathing of the stasi state of the EU, not out of any deep and considered judgments on the merits of cases.
Many greedy sheeple are hoping the EU will continue to give them handouts, ignoring the fact that Britain is the second largest net contributor to EU funds, after Germany. Those funds could be better spent at home. Basically support for the EU comes from those who hope to be riding comfortably on the gravy train, and those who expect handouts; both at the expense of the productive part of the population.
In reply to Bill Herschel 17 April 2016 at 02:41 PM
I’s still like to know on what planet does a mainstream British Conservative politician whose been embedded in the British establishment from the moment he was born become, and I quote you direct, “The British Donald Trump”?
Or should I take it that you’re not willing to answer because calling him “The British Donald Trump” was an utterly ludicrous mischaracterisation? There’s always been a very large part of the British Conservative party – establishment and grassroots alike that are bitterly anti-EU. Johnson is currently campaigning for a political outcome earnestly desired by that wing of UK conservatism it’s about as far from being “The British Donald Trump” as it’s possible to get.
That it may centrally be about the financial services field is my suspicion too.
Whom is he alluding to with: “His Superciliousness”. Cameron?
If the Britons vote for Brexit, will they face another turn in Scots-exit?
I’ll join you on that suggestion:
“I wonder if Mr. Habbakuk could be persuaded to let us have his thoughts on that”
OM
The White House and State Department flat out lied about Ambassador Chris Steven’s death. You’ve spelled out why. There are a couple of additional observations. First, a 4-million-man army is never again going to be required to invade Russia. Atomic weapons made them obsolete. The hoi polloi to breed a mass army is no longer needed. We are simply here to be exploited. Lies don’t matter. Privatized justice, propaganda and surveillance keeps us in line. If we stop working, more migrants are imported. Second, military contractors, financiers and oligarchs have usurped the power of the state. David Cameron, Angela Merkel and Barrack Obama are puppets with contradictory controllers. Yet, Vladimir Putin called Barrack Obama a “decent,” “very responsible” man. The Syrian civil war continues to threaten to escalate even though American and Russian governments have apparently reached an agreement with each other. Fly over America is dying at a younger age. Western governments serve their corporate overlords not the people. Greece shows there is no alternative. Assad must go.
A quick response, Elkhern.
The assassination of Iraqi scientists started well prior to 2003, and escalated during the war. You are quite right the goal included the destruction of the technical and scientific capacity of the state, and in that they succeeded. (Why anyone thought Chalabi would be able to rule the ruins is well beyond me.)
Once the decision was made to actively oust Assad, then the destruction of Syria was a preliminary activity. Regime change and national degradation are, in almost all cases, different points on the same continuum (discovered again in Ukraine, Libya and Honduras). So I don’t think we have a serious argument.
State and Treasury have been Zio bastions for quite a while. Is that true, too, of Justice and Commerce?
I doubt if Obama played a courageous role in Syria, but I do not know for a fact. My hunch would be that it was the reluctance of the military to bomb Syria, the clear unpopularity of any such act, coupled with Obama’s belief he could get the same results another way.
I appreciate you blame HRC for not clearing out the Neocons in State, but her role, historically, has been to strengthen their position.
Castellio
You did not ask me but IMO State, Treasury, Commerce are all in Borgist hands. Justice is so filled with ambition driven lawyers that it is difficult to discern any other motivation there. pl
All in this sub thread -not convinced.
Cynic that business is against it means they know it spells less money for them, which equates to less jobs.
On trade – yes there will still be trade but not as much, we are a problem different currency, no-longer open borders, new customs problems.
Multi-nationals, when deciding where to set up shop for the European market, often came here. We were ‘in Europe’ and English speaking and had the financial infrastructure in the City. Now what? The Bundesbank and the Bourse must be salivating at the prospect and if you want a call centre Ireland or go Dutch and they probably speak German and French too – that is assuming it is not already in India.
Yes a lot of law comes from Europe but I don’t care who drafts it only what it says. The question is are they good laws and would our Parliament have written better ones – I am a little dubious. As Dubhaltach points out we have shed much of our industry. Thatcher, and then Blair, re positioned us as a services & financial services based economy. What manufacturing base we have will now have to abide by EU legislation and standardisations without any input in to the process, if we wish to export to the continent then we will have to design to EU specs regardless of any local laws or standards.
Have the British public thought it through? I have siblings all over Europe and, thankfully, they are all nationals of the countries they now call home. But what of those that are not and have been working there for years what will their position be? – likewise for all those integrated into our society.
Even the holiday visitors who stream to the continent won’t like having to wait in the queue as ‘a foreigner’ while the ‘EU citizens’ sail through. Now I will have to take medical insurance – when I needed a hospital in Spain they just scanned my European health card and treated me. Again customs due on EU purchases when you return – I had almost forgotten those days. Will I need a Visa?
rjj – what’s wrong with insignificance? I would like to have some say on the decisions that have influence on me and if I am viewed, by those making the decisions, as insignificant then my wishes will not be taken into account. I assume that applies to countries too. The ‘big boys’ are making the rules we are all going to have to play by – that is assuming you want to play in the global economy, and the UK cannot survive otherwise.
rjj – which choice is irreversible? None. We could stay, leave later or leave now. However I would hate to have to try and re-negotiate my way back in. They would lord it over us and it would be on their terms. That is assuming things were not as rosy as some think after the divorce and we asked for a re-marriage. Unless you are thinking they would come grovelling back to us suing for terms – can’t really picture that.
Decidedly off topic, I’m afraid, but in reply to Dubaltach who states:_”British manufacturing is a shadow of its former self and I don’t see either the Germans or the French being helpful to the trade in Financial services.”
A shadow,true, but not a corpse. We still have the engineering expertise and the infrastructure. What we lack is the common sense to make use of it. We’re going to have to rebuild at some stage anyway – it’s foolish to expect foreigners to support us indefinitely – and when we do, that rebuilding could only take place outside the EU.
As for the City, there’s a reason why it’s so large. It’s not all inflated bankers salaries and Lamborghinis for the traders. Underneath the froth we have the most efficient Financial Services Industry in Europe. Yes, the continentals can refuse to make use of it. Just as we can find alternatives to BMW’s.
I don’t know whether the Scots really wanted independence or not, but if they did it was timidity and defeatism in the face of obviously unrealistic threats that lost them the chance. They bottled out. I hope we don’t. Timidity and defeatism has characterised English politics for most of my lifetime. Brexit is only a small step away from that but it’s an essential one.
Peter J A Wright
,
cynic
Which is why the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision must be overturned . One such oligarch billionaire is Shel Adelsen . His money comes from the cash cow of the Macau Gambling Resorts – in that former Portugese colony . Mr Adelsen once stated we should set off a hydrogen bomb in the desert of Iran as a way to make a statement about the US ‘s unwavering support for Israel .
Faut pas vous enerver comme ça. I believe the problem lies in accurately describing who the Republicans are who support Trump. If you read the New York Times for example, they are uneducated, rural troglodytes, but I don’t believe that’s so. What is more, the grassroots of the Conservative party may very well contain a lot of lads who are not more educated than the least of Trump supporters, who may even read the Sun for all I know. As for Donald’s establishment credentials, until he upset the Republican Party apple cart, I think he was about as establishment as it gets.
Thank you! Appreciated.
Boris Johnson is a clown with a clown job (mayor of London) In that he looks like the Donald. But The Donald plays it strait while breaking all the rules but Johnson makes fun while keeping all the rules
All-Would it really have been possible to keep it secret for two months that this was not a planned attack? Were the Republicans on the intelligence committee in on the cover up and also trying to protect Obama so he could get re-elected? Also, anyone have any luck opening and reading the emails on the Judicial Watch site? Cant get them to open.
Thanks, Croesus, you finally made me look at the last topic in context. Why do you put it here? Wrong tread. Well at least both topics circle around Ms Clinton, the hawk. I like the idea of putting the NATO/Israel comments sections twice at the end, although it first confused me. Starting 1:18+
I have to agree with Ms Lang, the “We are proud of that”-shouter sounds female.
“Terrible” could be another shout-in when Clinton suggests ‘terrorists’ hiding among humans, to deal with Sander’s position of a ‘disproportionate’ response by Israel in Gaza. Never mind the larger Gaza context and how it came about. An experiment in how to best nurture terrorism?
Sanders, absolutely appreciated:
“you keep referring to Obama all night long”.
Not only that, she also refers to her husband who together with Barak would have established a Palestinian state more then 15 years ago, hadn’t there been Arafat. Not that it matters much that he is dead now.
I fear though she made it for the vast majority of Americans. You see she is the one promising continuity all the way from her husband via Obama to herself the vainglorious warrior queen.
If the NATO members don’t pay up. Never mind, she’ll find ways: “we’ll look for missions they can support”.
If you wouldn’t mind expanding a touch…. why is it that the “rebuilding can only take place outside the EU”.
Thanks in advance…
As you plainly still don’t get it I’ll give you a very large hint:
Not everything is about America or Americans.
As to the rest of your response – you’re floundering and you know it. I don’t know what things are like on planet Herschel but here on Terra Firma the grassroots of the British Conservative Party are overwhelmingly lower middle class – they’re the ones who join the conservative clubs, run the constituency associations, and generally keep the show rolling.
There are and always have been working class conservative voters more in rural constituencies than urban but some in urban constituencies as well, no doubt quite a few of them are Sun readers but I think you’ll find if you visit conservative clubs that what the grassroots read is The Express, and the Daily Mail, for the tabloid readers and the Telegraph for the broadsheet readers – what you’re not likely to find in great numbers are Sun readers. There’s a lengthy British joke about who who reads which newspaper that starts with:
The Times is read by those who run the country
The Financial Times is read by those who own the country
it proceeds through the list of major British newspaper titles ending with the Sun as follows:
The Sun is read by those who don’t care who runs the country as long as she’s got big tits.
There’s many a true word spoken in jest to coin a phrase.
Most of the grass roots British conservatives are also in or approaching middle age or older which means that they’re a hell of a lot better educated than Trump’s supporters. I wouldn’t say that by comparison to tabloid reading British conservative voters that Trump’s supporters are, to use your expression, “uneducated, rural troglodytes” but that’s because Trumps supporters are ill-educated rather than uneducated and he has a lot of support in urban areas as well as rural ones.
No he hasn’t been part of the Republican party establishment he’s always been part of the American economic elite but that’s not the same as being part of the political establishment as I’m quite sure you know.
The anti-free trade positions which he’s been expounding since the 1980s have ensured that he always had outsider status in the Republican party. A question for you – Since when do Republican insiders run as Reform party candidates? Another question – since when do Republican insiders consistently donate more to Democrats than to Republicans?
In reply to LeaNder 17 April 2016 at 03:46 PM
Try re-reading his paragraph:
The fact that His Superciliousness is threatening to leave the White House to come and tell us to vote to remain in the EU does not enhance the popularity of either the EU or himself, except perhaps among the lefties who can’t seem to get enough of him.
It’s very plainly referring to the current occupant of the White House and not Cameron.
In reply to LeaNder 17 April 2016 at 03:46 PM
The Conservatives under Thatcher followed by Major wreaked havoc on British manufacturing putting their faith in services particularly financial services. (Labour under first Blair and then Brown were just as bad in this respect).
There’s an English proverb which warns against puttin all your eggs in one basket which is what they’ve done.
I think that Frankfurt would dearly love to take a chunk out of Londn’s business as would the Paris bourse. Schauble specifically warned in the weekend just gone that if Britain leaves that Germany would adopt a very tough attitude in any post exit negotiations. I’m sure you’re entirely capable of finding information about that in your native language. For those who don’t have German here’s the key paragraphs from a Financial Times story:
“Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, has warned British chancellor George Osborne that Berlin would be a tough negotiator if the UK votes to leave the EU.
[snip]
His confirmation that Germany would not readily agree to an easy trading relationship with Britain after Brexit undermines the Leave campaign’s argument that the UK would be able to secure preferential EU trade deals without freedom of movement of people or the need for Britain to contribute to the EU budget.
The German finance minister, who is known for his unyielding negotiating positions, told German media that he wanted the UK to remain in the EU and did not want to inflame the British debate. But he added that if Britain were to leave, the process would not be easy.
The Treasury confirmed that Mr Schäuble told Mr Osborne just how tough negotiations would be after Brexit during a bilateral meeting this weekend
[snip]
Many European officials and ministers have tried to avoid the subject of how they would negotiate with the UK after Brexit, saying instead that they hoped the British people would vote to remain.
[snip]
The tough stance European officials and ministers take when confronted with the possibility of Brexit undermines with the optimism of Leave campaigners that a new relationship with the EU would be easy to agree.
Source: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4a365a04-03fe-11e6-9b51-0fb5e65703ce.html#axzz46A8P8TZD
Don’t know about Scotland voting to exit the UK if the UK exits the EU – it seems entirely likely to me BUT don’t forget the hostility of the Spanish government to Scottish membership – perfectly logical when one remembers their fears about Catalonia seceding from Spain. I’m Assuming that the Spanish government continue to intend to veto Scottish membership should another referendum lead to Scotland quitting the EU.
In reply to cynic 17 April 2016 at 03:34 PM
I take it you’ve never met any residents of the former DDR or citizens of any of the former Soviet bloc countries now in the EU or if you have met them that you haven’t even remotely comprehended their descriptions of what it was like to live under a tyrannical police state. Do you really think that hyperbole such as “stasi state of the EU” strenghtens your case?
“They’ll trade whatever is tradeable at the time.”
And what will that be? Do you know? I’ll grant you that UK non-EU trade is rising and that it consists mostly of services but is that enough to compensate for British exporters to the EU being given a hard time if Britain leaves. What will the UK do when recession hits its export markets? How will the UK avoid becoming even more of an American-owned outpost than it already is?
“I think Britain still sells 40-50% of its exports to the EU,which is apparently a lower proportion than most of the rest of the countries in it.”
Around 45%. How does that strengthen your case? Post exit the UK’s exporters will need the EU far more than the EU needs them, at present the EU taken as a whole accounts for 45% of UK exports but EU exports to the UK – again taken as a whole account for a mere 3% of EU trade.
“The Americans imposed a compensating duty on such imports, and the EU might have allowed a similar effort had the British government even requested it.”
In other words the doctrinaire free traders who make up the British government didn’t bother to make even the slightest effort to protect their own industry. Again how does this help your case?
There are many good arguments for leaving the EU – and the content of the treaty that the Dutch rejected and the supine EU stance to TTIP are amongst them but to try to pretend as the exit supporters are doing that if Britain leaves that its exporters won’t take a massive hit is flat out wrong and arguably dishonest.
As I see it the question for the UK boils down to are the gains whatever they may be going to be worth the massive economic and social costs involved in leaving. Have you put yourselves in the situation where to paraphrase Belloc if you let go of nurse you’ll find something worse?
In reply to cynic 17 April 2016 at 01:05 PM
“forcing the Muslim invaders into Britain.”
How exactly did the EU or Soros force the elected British government under Tony Blair from carrying out their own home-grown immigration policy?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3466485/How-Blair-cynically-let-two-million-migrants-Explosive-biography-reveals-PM-s-conspiracy-silence-immigration-debate.html
In reply to Peter J A Wright 17 April 2016 at 06:37 PM
Alright fair enough. Those are all reasonable replies.
In case I gave the impression of being anti-brexit I’m not being Danish I’m tend more to being anti-EU as it’s developed than being pro. It’s just that to my mind many of the pro-brexit arguments such as those adduced by cynic above just won’t wash.
Brexit followed by a conscious reinvestment in making things and export drive sounds like a good idea to me. I hope you make a go of it.
As to Scotland – well from I can make out it was a generational thing the Scots who caved – or bottled it if you prefer were the ones who are either of pensionable age now or soon will be. If I were them and my sole source of income were to be threatened as theirs was I’d most probably do as they did and take counsel from my fears as well.
I think as things stand you’re probably better out than in and that that will increasingly apply to us as well. Either way as I say I hope you make a go of it. I’ve been doin a fair bit of travelling and business in the UK over the last few years and it could be a fabuluously wealthy place if you could start by giving your kids a proper education (I’m still reeling from the very bright and enthusiastic apprenticeship applicant who told me and I quote “I can’t read joined up writing”) and then get them jobs designing and making things. If we can do it and the German mittelstand can do it … Oh well I am probably talking to the already converted.
In reply to charly 17 April 2016 at 08:36 PM
“Boris Johnson is a clown with a clown job (mayor of London)”
Oh boy
Housing
Strategic planning
Transport planning
Passenger transport
Highways
Fire
The provisional grand total to be spent this year is £16.7 billion. Split between the split between the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the four functional bodies that carry out its and the mayor’s main responsibilities.
Transport for London (TfL) about £10.8b in all in 2015-16.
The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), which oversees and sets the budget for the Metropolitan Police about £3.5b.
GLA itself will get about £1.4b, almost all of it controlled by the mayor.
London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) will get £480m
The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC), responsible for developing the Olympic Park and its surroundings, £175m.
To give just one rather small example of his ‘clown job’ he’s directly responsible for the £1 billion of investment in infrastructure to make cycling safer in London.
Clown job my *ss.
It would incidentally have taken you a lot less than a minute to find all of that out. There’s this thing called the internet you can search it for information.
Colonel,
If this is too off topic please ignore it. I wanted to take up a couple of points from this comment section.
In reply to Dubhaltach, yes, already converted. But there’s more than that. I spoke recently to a specialist welder who, at 63, was the youngest in his line of work that he knew of. Hadn’t seen an apprentice in years, literate or not. There are plenty of similar examples. We are rapidly losing skills without which, even in this age of automation, re-industrialisation would be far more difficult. Hence the urgency of making a start now.
The current orthodoxy is that we don’t need to bother with re-industrialisation since high tech, IT and the like can take up the slack. That’s essentially a racist economic orthodoxy deriving from the 19th century. We Europeans, and at the very start we English, were the only ones up to making railway engines and the rest of the world, properly supervised, could do the easy stuff like extracting raw materials or growing bananas. Translated into modern terms, we do high tech and the rest of the world can concentrate on basic industrial goods. So rooted is this orthodoxy that we’ve been calling ourselves a “post industrial society”, ignoring the fact that at no time in history has there been a greater demand for industrial goods of all sorts. The trouble is that the rest of the world isn’t working to racist economic orthodoxy. They are quite capable of doing high tech too and as they develop in this field, and in IT and Financial Services and the rest, we are left with producing less and less of the goods and services that they can buy only from us.
We may add to this the disparity in the cost of labour that Donald Trump is at present drawing our attention to when he talks of offshoring. Currency imbalances, radically different costs of living and equally radical differences in expectation mean that “Free Trade” is no longer to our advantage, or rather it is no longer to the advantage of most of us. Add unequal regulatory and compliance costs and it’s a wonder that we can do more than niche marketing. We do, of course, and very much more than that but it’s becoming an increasingly difficult act to keep up, particularly in this country. Look at our balance of trade.
Eventually we will be forced to re-industrialise. The rest of the world is beginning to realise that there’s not much point in sending us stuff if we don’t send back stuff in return. There’s no reason why they should support us indefinitely. We can postpone that moment of truth by issuing increasingly suspect promises to send stuff at some future time. We can also hang on to America’s coat tails as America attempts to resolve its similarly intractable problems by military means. But our promises to pay aren’t what they were and the American Imperium isn’t what it was. Eventually, if we want to get hold of manhole covers or buy a washing machine we’re going to have to make them ourselves because no one else is going to give us them for free.
I see few signs that any of this is getting much attention in this country. The Americans, as usual, are well ahead of us and the politicians there are starting to worry about the problem. Let’s hope it’s catching. It would be far better if we re-industrialised now, when we still have the ability to do so, than if we waited until we are forced to. By then that ability will be decayed and the process of re-industrialisation more difficult.
(In answer to Castellio.) Hoping that we will rebuild now is admittedly a long shot. We probably will indeed wait until we’re forced to and it’ll be a mess. But just maybe we’ll realise that keeping a skilled work force on the dole or under-employed, while we buy on tick from abroad stuff that we are quite capable of making for ourselves, isn’t that sensible a long term bet. If that ‘just maybe’ were to come off then it is quite clear we’d have to be outside the EU. The EU couldn’t allow the trade agreements we’d need for rebuilding to work.
Peter J A Wright
Michael Morell devotes a full chapter to the origin and dissemination of those “talking points” in his memoir The Great War of our Time.
He goes into great detail about the internal workings within the CIA that led to those points.
I read that a while back, and don’t have total memory over what he said, but my recollection is that he dismissed politics as a reason for the erroneous descriptions, chalking it up to innocent mistakes.
OTOH, he explicitly describes groups within the CIA who stepped out of the normal lanes to shape the description.
In any case, I think his assertions deserve consideration and, as necessary, rebuttal.