Open Thread – 5 January 2017

Posted on January 5, 2017 by Pat Lang

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139 Responses to Open Thread – 5 January 2017

Babak Makkinejad says:

January 5, 2017 at 1:47 pm

For all the Global Warming Alarmists:
The following article from Nature:
http://www.nature.com/news/how-much-longer-can-antarctica-s-hostile-ocean-delay-global-warming-1.20978
suggest that the Southern Ocean is helping ameliorate the effects of the Global Warming.
I noticed that the same article, republished in Scientific American, carried the more alarmist title:
“Antarctica’s Southern Ocean May No Longer Help Delay Global Warming” – see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/antarctica-rsquo-s-southern-ocean-may-no-longer-help-delay-global-warming/
Furthermore, for those who insist on attributing all of this to the nefarious influence of man ( or the Perfidious Albion in certain parts of the Near East) – well, I have news for you:
http://phys.org/news/2016-12-ice-ages-linked-earth-orbitbut.html
Jonathan House says:

January 5, 2017 at 4:26 pm

Question for the committee
What is he significance of this development which I just read on South Front?
TURKEY QUESTIONS PRESENCE OF US-LED COALITION AT INCIRLIK AIR BASE AMID ‘CONFIDENCE CRISIS’
Is it to squeeze more money etc out of us or is it a meaningful threat to US use of the base? Or something else or simply to be ignored?
Jonathan
walrus says:

January 5, 2017 at 4:42 pm

Trump picks former Indiana Republcian Senator Dan Coats as his Director of National Intelligence.
Anyone know anything about this guy?
paul says:

January 5, 2017 at 4:44 pm

16 days till we find out if the president is in control of foreign policy.
Kooshy says:

January 5, 2017 at 5:01 pm

After partly watching Mc Caine’ senate (IC)show this morning,
Colonel Lang in over 40 years I have never seen or remember, US media, IC, and members of an incoming or a seating president’ own party accuse the legally elected president of US, siding with what they believe to be “the enemy” , have you? Has anybody else seen this degree of direct accusation to an incoming president. IMO this is not healthy, and is not to anyone’ benefit. I can’t believe that CNN, WP, and NYT are all out full force to get and delegitimize the incoming administration at all costs. IMO, At this time for majority of public PE Trump has more legitimacy then any western media, intelligent agency, think tanks, or discredited senator and political analyst.May the holly spirits of all men kinds save us all, in this coming 4 years.
euclidcreek says:

January 5, 2017 at 5:14 pm

Those who defend the four black punks accused of torturing the white man in Chicago have placed themselves on the side of evil. Anyone that calls for genocide of whites deserves to pay a severe price. Arise White Demon.
Matt says:

January 5, 2017 at 5:24 pm

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/5/glenn_greenwald_on_dearth_of_evidence
ex-PFC Chuck says:

January 5, 2017 at 5:46 pm

Russia Insider reports on SOHR’s casualty numbers for both sides in the Syrian conflict. The main take-away is that a substantial majority of the opposition fighters are/were of non-Syrian origin.
http://russia-insider.com/en/uk-based-monitor-more-half-syrian-rebels-are-foreigners/ri18390
Matt says:

January 5, 2017 at 5:48 pm

Part 2
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/5/glenn_greenwald_mainstream_us_media_is
Fred says:

January 5, 2017 at 6:11 pm

Kooshy,
My take is that McCain and the little old lady from SC were reelected due to Russian hacking. As DNI Clapper put it “we’ll never know……” or, as I told one of my democratic friends, “so Obama failed to defend the USA” I thought the guy would have a stroke sputtering out a response. Fun times are ahead.
gowithit says:

January 5, 2017 at 6:30 pm

In so many ways Trump continues to de-legitimize himself by his contradictory tweeks. He gives food for the media to salivate over. It seems Trump has the limited conscious stream that fits a tweek. The media a canyon to bounce echos of those tweets about. Damnation on both their domains!
Ingolf says:

January 5, 2017 at 6:59 pm

Babak,
Thanks, interesting articles but I’m puzzled why you think they run counter to the global warming hypothesis. After all, scientists concerned with climate change try to take account of all factors, including the Milankovitch cycles.
In any case, both articles present a mixed picture of how these factors (Southern Ocean effects and the above-mentioned cycles) are likely to play out in the future. From the phys.org article:
“So how can all this help us understand future climate? One idea is that small increases in greenhouse gases due to the expansion of agriculture that started 8,000 years ago have in fact delayed the next ice age. What’s more, if we continue emitting greenhouse gases at the same rate, we might have put off the next ice age for at least half a million years.
If we have merely delayed the next ice age, we will still be in the Quaternary Period – the last 2.58m years defined by the ice age cycles. But if we have stopped the ice ages, humans will have caused a much greater change and so have entered the Anthropocene period as some argue. If I had to put money on it, I’d say the Earth has experienced its last ice age for a very, very long time.”
Freudenschade says:

January 5, 2017 at 7:25 pm

No new bombshells, but still an “exclusive.” I’m sure there is more to come on the Russian hacking, but the WaPo’s reporting leaves me underwhelmed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-intercepts-capture-senior-russian-officials-celebrating-trump-win/2017/01/05/d7099406-d355-11e6-9cb0-54ab630851e8_story.html
Bobo says:

January 5, 2017 at 8:01 pm

The question that was not asked at the hearing was “what did the U.S. do to piss off the Russians to supposedly interfere with election”.
The other main problem is the IC should never have let this come to light and just put it on the shelf for the next payback game.
Your also seeing the Washington Elites Ship sinking with them tossing anything they can out there to stop the Draining of the Swamp.
Clonal Antibody says:

January 5, 2017 at 8:23 pm

Does anyone have any opinions on the Drone Papers?

The Intercept has obtained a cache of secret documents detailing the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia. The documents, provided by a whistleblower, offer an unprecedented glimpse into Obama’s drone wars.
different clue says:

January 5, 2017 at 9:06 pm

Fred,
Was this democratic friend a Clinton supporter ( which would be my guess) . . ? Or was this democratic friend a Sanders supporter ( which would surprise me) . . . ?
Cee says:

January 5, 2017 at 9:07 pm

All,
James Woolsey quit the Trump transition team. No loss, James blamed the 911 attacks on Iraq and Iran.
I still believe Binney who quit the NSA rather then spy on us vs Clapper who had no problem with it and lied about it
http://raymcgovern.com/2017/01/05/emails-were-leaked-not-hacked/
ann says:

January 5, 2017 at 9:15 pm

Would this be a NATO base. And there would be many nations planes and troops going through. So my question, is Turkey challenging NATO which it is a member of or just the US. And what are they going to do about it?? Your suggestion that it involves money is probably relevant.
Ann
ann says:

January 5, 2017 at 9:24 pm

How about the story on the Fars News 1/5/07 that the shooter in the Istanbul night club has arrived in Al Raqqa. Still a center for ISIL.
Peter AU says:

January 5, 2017 at 9:53 pm

Ann
To get some understanding of Edogan, look at his support base – the people that came out in the streets to prevent the coup. Anti US, pro Syrian “rebel” (my take from looking at twitter accounts of Erdogan supporters). I believe in the past Erdogan also made some noises about AQ not being terrorists.
Erdogan believes the US was behind the coup attempt so he now has to turn to Russia. This puts his family jewels in a vice as his support base are the people Russia is fighting in Syria. The attention of his support base must be turned elsewhere. Who better than the people who he believes were behind the coup attempt.
ked says:

January 5, 2017 at 10:12 pm

He appears to be a fairly typical career pol. From Wiki:
” In 2007, Coats served as co-chairman of a team of lobbyists for Cooper Industries, a Texas corporation that moved its principal place of business to Bermuda, where it would not be liable for U.S. taxes. In that role, he worked to block Senate legislation that would have closed a tax loophole, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Cooper Industries. ”
ked says:

January 5, 2017 at 10:21 pm

Any Strict Constructionists have a take on this bit of news?
” More than 50 Electoral College members who voted for Donald Trump were ineligible to serve as presidential electors because they did not live in the congressional districts they represented or held elective office in states legally barring dual officeholders.”
Via;
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/least-50-trump-electors-were-illegitimately-seated-electoral-college-members
Doug Colwell says:

January 5, 2017 at 10:53 pm

Thank you for those links, Babak. I am not among those who believe climate modellers can work with any degree of certainty. There are too many variables which no one how to value correctly, as well as potential “black swans”. Having said that I have no trouble imagining that 7 billion people using the atmosphere as an areal sewer could have consequences. After all, the dastardly algae appear to have managed it!
Wikipedia – Great Oxygenation Event
FB Ali says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:02 pm

Recently, I posted a piece on China’s One Belt, One Road (http://tinyurl.com/jjn4279).
There is a report out that China has commenced a freight train service from its Pacific coast, connecting 7,500 miles of rails to reach London in 16 days. The Yiwu-London train can carry only 200 containers, a small number when compared with the 20,000 a huge cargo ship can haul, but it can be cost-effective for certain goods: a rail shipment to London could take half as long as maritime routes and cost half as much as air shipments. Above all, it’s a symbolic milestone.
Details at: http://tinyurl.com/zlz9xw5
Sam Peralta says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:18 pm

“Furthermore, The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker reports, Woolsey resigned after being cut out of intelligence talks with Trump and his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-05/trump-transition-team-splits-senior-advisor-former-cia-chief-woolsey
Seems like Trump & Flynn decided to bench Woolsey and His Grand Highness couldn’t handle that. Very cool.
Laura says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:23 pm

Babak, Thank you.
FourthAndLong says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:24 pm

Seems to me there is no longer any question as to whether the climate is warming and are humans responsible. The answer is yes and yes.
What may be debated though, just maybe, is whether the consequences of the aforesaid are catastrophic.
My impression is that the scientists and other intellectuals think so. Are other outcomes possible? Might humanity loose present coastlines and coastal cities but gain something significant in other places? I don’t know and don’t see it discussed. But that does not mean it isn’t being or hasn’t been discussed.
Laura says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:25 pm

Well, at least no one asked to see his birth certificate. “Has anybody else seen this degree of direct accusation to an incoming president?” Yes, actually, we have seen this. And you are right…it was not healthy but it did seem to benefit Trump. Oh well.
Laura says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:26 pm

gowithit — I call it “stream of unconsciousness.”
FourthAndLong says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:26 pm

Probably but not necessarily Erdogan & Co setting out to test the new US President.
FourthAndLong says:

January 5, 2017 at 11:39 pm

That story seemed just too damn “good to be true” to me. Like it was crafted as a Goebbels era provocation to stir up something really nasty. I mean black teens torturing a white disabled kid while yelling “f**k white people” and “f**k Trump” ?? Not just black on white, but a poor defenseless impaired white youth?
But I do often veer off in a paranoid fashion. Was my instantaneous gut reaction, to think white supremacists carefully crafted something. Reichstag fire or Kirov murder conspiracy sort of thing.
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 12:13 am

Surprised our glorious media lets Trump’s claim that US Intel lied to and misled the public on Iraqi WMD stand unchallenged.
People are repeating that nonsense like it’s holy gospel or something other than utter BS. As anyone who payed attention during era or better, read the Colonel’s “drinking the Kool-aid” for a refresher course can recollect, US Intel manifestly did no such thing. Bush fils, Cheney, Libby and their neocon goons with the kind assistance of deceivers such as Judith Miller of the NY TImes fabricated the “Intel” out of thin air.
Since eventually the boss men honchos at CIA and even Powell sold out and went along with it I can see how the general public got the wrong impression. But the analytic departments of US Intelligence made no efforts to push the “Sadaam had WMD” fantasy that I was aware of. Nor did Hans Blix etcetera. Au contraire.
Not surprising actually.
YT says:

January 6, 2017 at 3:16 am

“Mr. Neff was a luminous writer and meticulous reporter.
From humble beginnings, he had reached the top ranks of American journalism.
When he then turned his formidable talents to writing books and articles about Palestine, his contracts with mainstream American publishers dried up, his income plummeted, and his fame faded.”
http://www.unz.com/article/donald-neff-a-journalist-erased-from-history-for-reporting-on-palestine/
Like most Westerners, Neff had arrived profoundly sympathetic to Israel.
However, he wrote, “As my tour extended into years, I could not ignore a disturbing blindness in some of even the most gentle Israelis.
They did not seem to see the Palestinians all around them…
In general, this was just as well because when most Israelis did notice Palestinians their reaction to them was one of loathing or fear that quickly could escalate into violence.”
Sam Peralta says:

January 6, 2017 at 3:27 am

Mike Shedlock has the right take on the WaPo hyperventilation.
https://mishtalk.com/2017/01/05/more-bullsht-non-news/
“Without realizing the irony, NBC offered this tidbit “Highly classified intercepts illustrate Russian government planning and direction of a multifaceted campaign by Moscow to undermine the integrity of the American political system,” said the official.
Apparently it’s OK for the US to hack Russia but not the other way around. Further adding to the irony, the source also noted, “communication intercepts are viewed with caution because they are subject to interpretation“.
So we have yet another bullsh*t story on Russia running rampant in at least four media organizations, started by the Washington Post, despite a caution the story is “subject to interpretation” and despite the fact it would have been major news if Russia didn’t cheer the election of Trump.”
English Outsider says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:38 am

Here’s what Dugin makes of the neo-cons:-
https://4threvolutionarywar.wordpress.com/2017/01/05/principles-and-strategy-of-coming-war-alexander-dugin/
Shorn of the apocalyptic trimmings Dugin’s message seems quite clear. “They’re coming to get our stuff and it’s going to be difficult to stop them.” He’s been reading his Brzezinski and doesn’t much like what he finds there.
Dugin’s position is more or less the Russian position set out on the various Russian or pro-Russian websites I come across. Russia on the defensive against the West. Quite often with some emphasis on Russia’s “Civilisational Mission”: the sturdy traditionalism of Russian society against the disintegrative decadence of the West.
It’s not a picture in accordance with the views of Russian friends – they see Putin as a sinister mafia boss, though I’m not sure how much this picture is coloured by memories of Russia in the 90’s, when Russia, like the Ukraine today, was according to writers like Orlov pure mafia. Nevertheless Dugin’s is a consistent picture and there’s no difficulty seeing our various neo-con enterprises in foreign parts as fitting in with this picture.
But what is our picture? What has the West got that matches the clarity and coherence of the Russian picture? The export of Freedom and Democracy? Half of us, both here and in the States, aren’t buying that any more and are more interested in getting a bit of Freedom and Democracy back home. Defence against Russian predation? Sounds good but the respective defence budgets and manpower tallies tell a different story.
How about “Our cronies are better than your cronies, so there.”? Most of us might have to fall into line behind that, if the anti-Russia hysteria can be stoked up a little more, but it’s not one to inspire enthusiasm. I think it’s true to say that irrespective of how valid Russia’s story is, we in the West haven’t got a story to match it.
The liberal values of the West, using “liberal” in the old pre-snowflake sense, were, in spite of all the mistakes and self-interest, at the root of what made our countries worthwhile. Can anyone see how those values are exemplified in our current foreign policy? As we tour the world visiting proxy mayhem on those who get in our way do we have any story at all to back it up with?
Sabun Penghilang Jerawat says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:57 am

Sabun Jerawat
Sabun Penghilang Jerawat
Cara Menghilangkan Jerawat
Poul says:

January 6, 2017 at 6:49 am

Battle of Benghazi finally ending?
https://www.libyaherald.com/2017/01/05/breaking-news-mass-breakouts-from-ganfouda-and-sabri/
Quote:
“At least 13 police and soldiers are reported to died in an overnight breakout from the besieged Benghazi terrorist enclaves of Ganfouda and Sabri.
A column of vehicles is reported to have bust out of Ganfouda and headed south towards Suluq. They are said to have included Wissam Ben Humaid, the militants’ leader. He is thought to have escaped.
A running battle, including airstrikes, then started nearby with at least one technical in the column destroyed.”
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:13 am

Walrus,
Bad choice. He voted against NSA reforms and supports spying on Americans.
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:17 am

Ann,
Is there any doubt that the US still supports the terrorists? I was just reading an article quoting John Kerry admitting it.
jonst says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:23 am

Well, for what it is worth, he strikes me as the classic inside the beltway moron. Albeit on the Right side of aisle. He is a Pence pick. And I think–on very little but a hunch-he will blindside Trump if and when he gets a chance.
Fred says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:31 am

DC,
Clinton, he’s a former staffer for Dingel. Quite the meltdown too.
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:02 am

They go against the “Man-made” Global Warming….
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:28 am

Yup, the real question that was not brought up, was that the bad, bad sneaky Russians also did this interference to A country’s scientific and industrial development.
“Stuxnet is a malicious computer worm believed to be a jointly built American-Israeli cyberweapon,[1]although no organization or state has officially admitted responsibility. Anonymous US officials speaking to The Washington Post claimed the worm was developed during the Bush administration to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program with what would seem like a long series of unfortunate accidents.”
paulmeli says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:30 am

How about this?
http://thebulletin.org/timeline-earths-average-temperature9894
Fred says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:06 am

FB Ali,
That’s an interesting article. I see they are already running lines within Europe too. It makes one wonder why the rail companies in Europe aren’t trying to compete.
Nancy K says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:06 am

No one in either party are defending their actions. Wherever you are getting this fake news, try looking for a better news site. Anyone who calls for genocide period deserves to pay a high price. Possibly the White Demon has already risen.
ISL says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:11 am

I love google, though it apparently is thought to be beyond the capability of American’s per the wapost:
Thanks for the wapost fake news meme from Dec 13
from the senate bipartisan committee report:
“Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community’s October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.”
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Report_on_Pre-war_Intelligence_on_Iraq
yes yes after that the koolaid was drunk and the rampage started. But Trump called Bush on that, as I vaguely recall during the campaign.
But lets imaging GWB had said I am starting a war with Saddam because I am president and I said so and I don’t need no stinkin’ reason, and what the heck lets blow up a few other ME countries? Would congress have stopped him? I see no historical evidence to the contrary.
Haralambos says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:15 am

The Trump team look to be sowing some more uncertainty into the diplomatic arena: http://tinyurl.com/hyy4u2g
ISL says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:21 am

FB Ali, sorry, but the first link doesn’t work:
do you mean:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/07/one-belt-one-road-fb-ali.html
J says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:29 am

Has the CIA hierarchy declared open war on incoming POTUS Trump, or are my eyes deceiving me? If that is the case, the CIA will loose big time as the citizenry, and other departments under the Executive will rally around the POTUS.
I say castrate the CIA hierarchy if they even think of declaring war on our POTUS Trump.
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:31 am

If you truly believe that the climate is warming largely due to human activity, I would like to know where and when I can start receiving my fat compensatory cheques for the damage caused by Euro-American industrialized countries to the rest of mankind?
I am not greed, a few thousand dollars per month would go along way…
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:47 am

IMO, every American should have a constitutional right to ask for an elected president’s proof of birth. And for other positions a certificate of citizenship. For taking a flight, using your credit card, etc. they ask for an ID, why not asking for an ID, when we are hiring someone to a powerful office.
Outrage Beyond says:

January 6, 2017 at 10:57 am

Excellent riddance to a neocon scumbag!
Woolsey is such a fervent Israel-firster that one has to wonder about his allegiance. Bribes or a honey trap?
Outrage Beyond says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:01 am

In an interview Tuesday with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Schumer said President-elect Donald Trump is “being really dumb” by taking on the intelligence community because if he does “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”
Source: http://whowhatwhy.org/2017/01/04/schumer-says-trump-dumb-cross-intelligence-community-payback-likely/
Talk about explicit threats!
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:32 am

Some people genuinely wondered how a 40 something YO editor of Harvard law review, became a south side Chicago community organizer, ran against a Paris night club womanizer to became a US senator, served only three years in US senate, and woom, three years later he took the highest job in the land becoming the first AA president. I don’t know about you, but I admit I did wonder, maybe you are too use to this. I hope it be as easy for my child, becoming 1st Iranian American president.
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:47 am

General Ali FYI, almost a year ago first direct Chinese cargo train from Zhejiang province arrived in Iran which means they can deliver cargo to the Iran’s persian gulf and indian ocean ports. This is part of same new silk road plan.
http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/first-direct-train-from-china-arrives-in-iran/
Edward Amame says:

January 6, 2017 at 12:06 pm

Bobo
“what did the U.S. do to piss off the Russians to supposedly interfere with election”.
If they’d asked, the answer might have been: “money.” US sanctions on Russian-affiliated banks have made it pretty difficult for them to raise money in international markets. Getting the sanctions lifted would allow them to better fuel Russia’s economy.
robt willmann says:

January 6, 2017 at 12:21 pm

This is getting interesting. The other day (2 Jan.) I was wondering where the “digital signatures” were that became the changed version of the Russian hacking story after the initial report that Russia “interfered with” the U.S. presidential election contained only conclusory statements. After the initial report got laughed out of town, the next version said there were digital signatures that proved the case, coming from computer keyboards that could produce characters from the Cyrillic alphabet. I asked whether the “digital signatures” were found on the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) hard drives.
Now, the very issue has popped up, as it seems to be the case that the DNC refused to allow the FBI to examine their computer hard drives–
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/817168818539757568
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/312962-trump-on-fbi-dnc-spat-what-is-going-on
The story changed again when Julian Assange (whatever the real status, structure, and background of Wikileaks is), kept saying that they did not get the info from Russia or a state entity. The story now is that an intermediary, acting for Russia, gave the material to Wikileaks.
Regardless, even if Russia did hack into the DNC computer servers or John Podesta’s e-mail account, or intercepted the traffic as it passed through the Internet, that does not mean that other persons or organizations did not.
In fact, what about Google itself? Former general and CIA director David Petraeus was using the Google gmail when he got clipped. So was John Podesta.
Gmail is free because the user is not the customer; the user is the product.
David Habakkuk says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:04 pm

‘English Outsider’
Dugin’s position is not ‘the Russian position’. It complete BS that he has any influence whatsoever on Putin, or indeed that their views of the world are close.
On all this, one useful source is a piece on ‘Putin Myths and Putin Ideology’ published by Dr Gordon M. Hahn in January 2015.
(See https://gordonhahn.com/2015/02/11/putin-myths-and-putin-ideology/ .)
Another are the writings of the Ottawa University professor, and former British Army Intelligence officer, Paul Robinson. As well as his ‘Irrussianality’ blog, you might read his April 2015 piece ‘The West’s new “Cold War” is with Dostoevsky’s Russia, not Stalin’s.’
(See http://www.c2cjournal.ca/2015/04/the-wests-new-cold-war-is-with-dostoevskys-russia-not-stalins/ .)
This does not, repeat not, mean that one should simply take Putin’s ideological professions at face value.
However, underlying both what he says and what he does is, quite patently, a reading of what happened in Russia in 1917, and what happened in the 1990s.
A critical point is that, while if ‘liberal’ political nostrums are introduced in societies where conditions are propitious, they can work wonders, in unpropitious conditions they can lead naturally to anarchic social collapse and despotism.
Accordingly, the contempt your ‘liberal’ friends have for Putin is fully reciprocated. He sees himself as the person who had to pick up the pieces, after precisely such people had plunged Russia into utter chaos as it attempted to find an escape route from the dead end into which the Bolsheviks had led it, just as their predecessors had created the conditions for the triumph of the Bolshevik triumph in the first place.
Of course, a corollary of this is that there is both a ‘light’ side and a ‘dark’ side to Putin, in that the reconstruction of the Russian state he has engineered has been achieved by the use of all kinds of ‘Machiavellian’ methods, which are in obvious tension with his ‘conservative’ insistence on the importance of traditional values.
But his political philosophy has some relevance to place like Ukraine and Syria. The messianic – and corrupt – form of liberalism now prevalent in Washington and London is as irrelevant to these as the messianic – and corrupt – Marxist utopianism against which Putin is reacting was.
And this is a central point. Contemporary Russia is a society with all kinds of problems – and, certainly, it has strong ‘kleptocratic’ elements. Precisely what it is not, however, is a revolutionary force attempting to disturb a stable ‘status quo’. It a profoundly conservative society. The revolutionaries are us.
FB Ali says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:13 pm

Yes, that is the one I was referring to.
Laura says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:28 pm

Kooshy–…and tax returns. Should we care about those?
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:29 pm

FourthAndLong,
I also think warfare is a factor that harms to planet. Bombings and the resulting earthquakes in Afghanistan and Iran are indicators, to me.
I’ve also read a book titled Clouds of Secrecy about what was done to experiment on us and the environmental harm.
Laura says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:30 pm

Kooshy–I hope your child will be as well-qualified as Obama! That way we KNOW she will be more qualified and more Presidential than Trump!
I would LOVE to vote for the first Iranian-American President!
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:32 pm

jonst,
Pence has bugged me ever since he spoke of who HIS running mate would be before the election. Setting the stage? WTH?
That pick was Cheney or someone like him.
jld says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:45 pm

Under the denomination “lefties going bonkers” I submit this gem to the SST audience:
https://heteromeles.com/2017/01/05/2017-predictions-piled-higher-and-deeper/
(he is a Science-Fiction author, may be some profession induced bias 🙂 )
Edward Amame says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Yeah, but what about tax returns? You didn’t answer Laura’s question.
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:47 pm

Freudenschade,
Well my smart TV has me doing the same thing even prior to the election results. I may have even had a drone in my backyard.
I flipped from the Discovery channel to the gasbags like Maddow and Matthews just to see their faces as the returns were coming in.
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:50 pm

Sam,
I remember how the US helped the drunk, criminal Yeltsin who sold everything that wasn’t nailed down.
I remember reading about the orphans in the streets.
There was NO hacking by a STATE party. Karma is a bitch!
Cee says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:51 pm

Sam,
Thank you. I’m glad.
Croesus says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:52 pm

Serious questions:
1. Do you know for a fact that “Goebbels set up provocations” ? I thought his forte was posters and pamphlets to shape the news to keep up German morale in the face of Allied firebombing raids, and, of course, to lie to the German people about German military successes. Goebbels was a pedant and needy, but he did demand that NS propaganda meet high aesthetic standards. Capra’s “Why we fight” series, and a great deal of US anti-German propaganda, on the other hand, was crude and ham-handed by comparison. That’s the reality, conceded by Capra himself: he knew he could not compete with Riefenstahl (who was raped & for her role in creating German Triumph of the Will & other German propaganda).
2. One of the most intriguing details of the Reichstag fire is that it was Ernst (Putzy) Hanfstaengl that alerted Hitler and Goebbels to the event. Putzy was a close friend of Franklin Roosevelt’s – they dined together at Harvard. Putzy was impressed w/ the budding NS movement and joined the party early on; he provided shelter and solace to Hitler after the failed Beer Hall putsch. It was Putzy who encouraged Hitler to write Mein Kampf and financed its publisher; Putzy who brought Hitler to the attention of his friend FDR; Putzy who informed AH and Goebbels of the Reichstag fire; Putzy who continued to finance the party; then Putzy who ‘defected’ to USA and functioned as informer to FDR’s administration, until he had outlasted his usefulness and was either ignored or sent back to Germany (I forget which).
In other words, there’s a lot more to that era than is conveyed in knee-jerk attributions to “Hitler, Goebbels and nazees” of all that is evil.
My dander is up just now — I just listened to the introductory lecture of a series of on “Shakespeare’s Art,” presented by Hillsdale College. Larry Arnn, college president, delivered the lecture. Arnn is an unabashed devotee of W. Churchill — who can do no wrong, and, of course, a zealous proponent of the thesis that Hitler and nazeeism are the paragons of evil, for all time, in all of history.
Arnn’s discourse in this lecture is irrational: in the context of lecturing that “people must try to make the best decisions they can, because while art provides the opportunity to achieve a correction of mistakes, life often does not,” he argues that Churchill has unquestioned, Christian, moral authority, though he alone urged that Britain go to war with Germany; Churchill partnered with Stalin, who had slaughtered millions (while Hitler had killed about 200 in the Night of Long Knives); Hitler was dead & gone within five or six years, but over the next forty years the world engaged in a war with Stalin’s Communist Soviet that cost the lives of more millions, one way or the other.
I just think it’s important to get off the knee-jerk “Hitler & nazees = evil” bandwagon and start to assess the history objectively and critically. Historian Thomas Fleming has cautioned that it takes fifty years or more for the emotional narratives of historical events to burn themselves out, making room for the necessary, more objective, critical analysis to take place.
The fact that nearly every evil that is perpetrated in this world is likened to “Hitler and the nazees”, on dubious factual basis, and on an increasing scale the farther we are removed from the events, suggests to me there are tremendous efforts in place to sustain the emotion-laden narrative and wall off critical assessment of the events.
If we expect history to serve us as a teacher and guide to correct our future actions, we d%$n well better get the history straight. Said another way: If we mean Never Again when we say Never Again, we need to know with exquisite clarity what happened in the first instance.
Kunuri says:

January 6, 2017 at 1:54 pm

Grandstanding and playing tough guy to his base to distract from the failures of past foreign policy mistakes and current security failures. They lap it all up.
He can not move a finger, but bark until his breath runs out, as wrapped up as he is around Putin’s finger and binding ties of the whole ship of Republic of Turkey established way before him to the Western alliance. His threats regarding to the Incirlik airbase, if one reads carefully, are coming from his cronies, not him directly. And even those are not direct, but just hints, little tentative taunts to get a reaction. Yes, something to be ignored.
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 2:11 pm

Well, you can ask what you wish, but we all understood there is no legal prerequisite to present tax return for running for president of US, frankly i don’t think anybody asked Washington, Jefferson, or Lincoln to show their income tax returns when running for the office. Trump was asked why he took a big right off that was legally his, IMO he correctly replied if you don’t like law (write off), you should have changed it, this also applies to asking for Tax returns. IMO it’s much better than having a non-profit weeding reception.
Tyler says:

January 6, 2017 at 2:14 pm

Laura,
And here we see why the liberals are currently in a death spiral encapsulated in one comment: identity politics above all other considerations.
Dabbler says:

January 6, 2017 at 2:48 pm

Unnecessarily putting contaminants and other pollutants into the atmosphere, i.e. using it as a sewer noted above, is a bad and primitive practice. That said, most people I’ve shown the following information to who are concerned about warning find said information annoying and of setting:
Link to graph of earth’s temperature over past 5 million years:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.png#/search
Link to graph of earth’s temperature over past 65 million years (post-dinosaur)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png
Link to graph of earth’s temperature over past 500 million years (since roughly the time we are thought to have first emerged from the oceans):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/media/File%3AAll_palaeotemps.svg
Perhaps we should view our species as a crude vehicle for solving the planet’s recent chill…
Sorry, I couldn’t seem to provide live links.
ex-PFC Chuck says:

January 6, 2017 at 3:07 pm

If Putin/Russia did meddle in the recent USA election, aside from the gander following in the goose’s footsteps, one factor in the decision must have been the same reason I didn’t consider voting for Hilary. He was very concerned about the increased likelihood of an inadvertent stumble into nuclear war given that she was very explicit about doubling down on the confrontation with Russia.
On another matter I found the lengthy introduction to a re-post linked below at The Saker’s place about a week ago quite helpful in understanding the Russian mindset.
http://thesaker.is/could-there-be-a-grain-of-truth-in-the-ukrainian-propaganda-repost-with-new-introduction/
euclidcreek says:

January 6, 2017 at 3:48 pm

“All I want for Christmas is White Genocide”
George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor of politics at Philadelphia’s Drexel University.
Jov says:

January 6, 2017 at 3:51 pm

Colonel, may I ask, why do,at least according to videos from Yemen, Houthi soldiers rarely wear boots?
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 6, 2017 at 4:11 pm

Thanks; yes, that is what I have been saying.
I recall 27 years ago this physics professor advising his students to get into the global change band-wagon since “there are no jobs in physics.”
Some one is making money out of this fear; no one is going to make money by trying to debunk the lies that sustain that fear.
Kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 4:18 pm

EA, I did answer that question, like I wrote, the man legally was not required to show me and you his Tax return, and he didn’t, and he got the counting majority vote and he won fair and square, what’s so difficult to understand, why would he need to give you his tax return now, what difference dose it make? Isn’t this like complaining why the other side was asking BHO’ birth certificate after he won. Are you trying to do a service for your party, or for your country, you need make up your mind?
Kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 4:34 pm

From, personal conversational experience, almost all Iranians before the revolution believed what ever happened or was going on in Iran’ pre revolution armed forces was by,
or with permission and order of the Americans, this included the military brass including the late relative, Texas trained AF lutienet general in charge of Tabriz AFB. He told me we were directly told by Americans, that all we had to do, was to held up aginst soviets for one week, before AMERICAN forces arrive. Therefore I can assume, being a military member of NATO, in first line of defense against Russia, the Turks, and thier leaders, wouldn’t feel any different then the Iranians before 79. So, true or not, it could be natural to blame US for the coup.
turcopolier says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:16 pm

kooshy
All that is crap. Iran and Turkey entered into voluntary relationships with US in order to be defended against the USSR. Turkey’s armed forces were integrated for operational control into Allied Command Europe (ACE)in the event of Soviet attacks. I worked in this in Turkey. The US in no way dominated Turkey. It was altogether a collegial relationship. If you ME people want to think you were pissed on, well to hell with you. pl
turcopolier says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:19 pm

Jov
In my experience Yemeni tribesmen do not wear boots. pl
Edward Amame says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:39 pm

Kooshy
what’s so difficult to understand, why would he need to give you his tax return now
To avoid a possible crisis of legitimacy down the road. His tax filings have a lot of info that could be important re: determining how/whether his business overseas might affect his decision-making as president. Foreign business ties aren’t on his campaign financial disclosure.
Croesus says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:45 pm

Berlin-Baghdad Railway was one of the points of conflict that erupted into WWI
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos139.htm
While China is pressing forward with One Belt One Road, USA firms and elites are partnering with the binLaden family to bridge the Red Sea and develop Djibouti and Yemen
http://tinyurl.com/zlh5vhq
Madeleine Albright’s firm, in which social worker Wendy Sherman, US negotiator on Iran deal, is a partner, has an interest in Bridge of the Horns project.
Edward Amame says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:46 pm

euclidcreek
You fell for the faux outrage. The prof is a white guy who made a dumb, easily exploitable, joke. White supremacists use that the term to refer to interracial relationships and diversity programs, not an actual genocide.
kooshy says:

January 6, 2017 at 5:49 pm

Colonel I don’t I don’t take issue with this, I am just telling explaining what goes true the ME minds, this same conspiratorial thinking is even older and lauder against the UK. IMO this mistrust will not gona go away as easily as one wishes.
Tyler says:

January 6, 2017 at 6:20 pm

Nancy,
LMBO your friend fourth up there is trying to blame Russian hackers working with KKK frog Nazis for conspiring to make noble urban yoof look bad, and you claim that nonsense. Jeeze.
Akira says:

January 6, 2017 at 6:54 pm

You can read THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOPOLITICS by Dugin via Yandex here:
https://z5h64q92x9.net/proxy_u/ru-en.en/arctogaia.com/public/osnovygeo/geopol0.htm
Download the PDF in Russian:
http://ratnikjournal.narod.ru/zip/Dugin.Geopolitika.pdf
English Outsider says:

January 6, 2017 at 6:54 pm

1. I agree with your statement “Dugin’s position is not ‘the Russian position’. It complete BS that he has any influence whatsoever on Putin, or indeed that their views of the world are close.”
Strip away the wilder elements of what Dugin writes. That’s a lot of work given that Dugin’s pretty wild most of the time, and given that in the source I quoted you will on occasion find Dugin sounding as bad as Senator McCain. But strip away all that and it’s clear that Dugin believes that the West is out to get Russia. That’s a general Russian view, repeated often by Russian and pro-Russian outlets.
President Putin stated unequivocally in his 2007 Munich Speech “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have any relation with the modernisation of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” He also stated “… countries that forbid the death penalty even for murderers and other, dangerous criminals are airily participating in military operations that are difficult to consider legitimate. And as a matter of fact, these conflicts are killing people – hundreds and thousands of civilians!”
That was in 2007. In my view, and I think yours, what President Putin said in that Munich speech was true then and is truer now.
The fact that Dugin thinks much the same does not of course mean that Putin and Dugin are as one – it’s just the general Russian view.
2. On “liberal” used in the modern sense you and I are in complete agreement, if I am to judge from comments you post on this site. We both think “Liberal Progressivism” is a foolish and self-defeating philosophy. I think I’ve misled you by using a much older usage of the word “liberal”. That older usage does not have such negative connotations.
3. I don’t believe Western foreign policy derives from any revolutionary ideology. I suspect it’s just a hand to mouth improvisation, deriving from opportunism, bureaucratic inertia, short termism and political incompetence. Whatever it derives from I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a vicious foreign policy, with results quite as tragic as those set out in the second Putin quote cited above.
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:07 pm

Babak Makkinejad,
You have lived in the industrial west for some decades at least, I assume. If I am correct in my assumption, then I further assume you have been enjoying all the material fruits and benefits of industrial western civilization. Those fruits all move on turning wheels and those wheels are all turned by coal and oil. So you have been carbon skydumping along with the rest of us and skydumping your share of the carbon along with the rest of us. Therefore, you don’t get a check.
Oh! But. . . but . . . you are ethnoculturally Iranian-descended? And therefore somehow “Third World”? Well . . . Iran has made its big money over the last few decades by selling oil to the West and Japan and maybe others. All those customers took that oil and burned it, and skydumped the carbon. And Iran still sells oil unto this very day and hopes to sell more in the future . . for customers to burn it all and skydump the carbon. Iran makes its living off the skydumped carbon of its customers. Therefore, no check for Iran and no check for you.
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:14 pm

Dabbler,
If we can solve the planet’s recent chill to a perfect goldilocks level of just-right perfection, we may all be happy. But if we oversolve it, and keep oversolving it; we will end up hotter than we would like and possibly hotter than some of us can survive.
A separate parallel problem is the ocean acidation from some of the excess skycarbon dissolving into the ocean and making more difficult the flourishing and eventually the survival of many ocean organisms which depend on a not-too-acid ocean to process the calcium carbonate they use in some of their survival activities. And compromising their survival compromises the survival of bigger ocean life-forms up the food chain . . . such as all our best and most tasty food-fishes. Quite apart from the artificial heat retention driven by artificial greenhouse gas skydumping.
If I am wrong, you can laugh last at me all you like. If I am right, perhaps those people who stockpiled cans of canned fish in cans would be willing to sell you a can or three for only a thousand dollars per can.
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:26 pm

Dingell is kind of a throwback to the New Deal era. The Democratic Party really meant something back then. He would also believe in disciplined-solidarity among all the different DemParty factions. Which made him near-infinitely abusable and exploitable by the New Yuppie Scumocrats of the DLC . . . such as Bill Clinton.
So even though he was very anti-NAFTA and etc., he was always pro-Pelosi for Minority Leader or Speaker because ‘Party solidarity must be preserved so that some small shreds of the New Deal Legacy may be saved’. I really wish he had chosen to not forgive Pelosi for “Impeachment is off the table”.
And yet I voted for our beloved Dingelsaurus paleocraticus. Such was the legacy-inertial loyalty he inspired. And I voted for his wife too, just recently. We will see what the future holds.
One wonders whether the staffer is a true-believing Clintonite or is just steeped in the Dingel tradition of Party Solidarity. If he had quite a meltdown, this makes me think he is a true-believing Clintonite. This just shows how deep the metastatic clintonoma has spread throughout the Democratic Party.
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:30 pm

euclidcreek,
Has someone actually defended it?
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:36 pm

FB Ali,
Well, there you go. COBOR-CPS in the making.
(Chinese One Belt One Road Co-Prosperity Sphere).
different clue says:

January 6, 2017 at 8:42 pm

J,
The Clintonites and the Obamacrats will all rally around the CIA against the POTUS. It may come down to which group can defeat the other group, hopefully bloodlessly, in the halls and attics and basements of power.
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:22 pm

Were it not for his WW 2 record Churchill might only be remembered as adepraved colonialist who blundered into Gallipoli. But people are also remembered for their positive achievements and in his case, courage. I’m well aware of his very troubling personality, nonetheless he stands as a giant for the ages. And I said “G’s era” cognizant of some of your objections. I was thinking more of some of the deviously clever German movies made in the thirties to promote their euthenasia/sterilization/gassing the handicapped as well as Nuremberg racial laws. Yes, I agree, more sophisticated than Capra. Comrade Stalin could put on some pretty fancy parades and spectacles himself. Gee, my mom despised the Nazis, some of her best friends we’re shot down dead I’m the Ardennes, but she acknowledged that their marching music was excellent; she used to hum Lili Marlene while cooking, maybe even the Horst Wessel song. But from the nation of Bach and Beethoven, howsomever else? We all have our private little Nazis inside to a degree.
Recent media events of the last decade have been so especially manipulative that I’m on edge too. And thus my knee jerk suspicion. Trumps election has disgusted me, I despise him as an obvious sociopathic racist, while disliking Hilary quite nearly as much. Some of Trump’s policies of rethinking alliances are probably timely. Tweeting may appear louche and low rent to the Borg, but it’s a clever resource worthy of use but in measure I would say. And he’s an infantile vindictive narcissist. I could go on, but I’m sure you get it. You are incensed at listening to another two dimensional self righteous account of WW2, leaving out nearly everything. But it’s vital to keep in mind that most people haven’t the time or capacity to devote much energy to such scholarship. Giving them a rough outline mentioning German war crimes is essential to any account of that history IMO. But do not omit the fire bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are excrescent blemishes to add to the ageless catalogue of such. Point out the demented lunacy of Versailles which Thorstein Veblen, nearly alone, saw was crafted to impel a return match in service of offing the Communists. And especially the main lesson. Do not disarm!
Believe me, you will not find an apologist for gangsta-ghettoe behaviour here, not by a mile. But not for indiscriminate genocide either.
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:26 pm

Maybe the poor spoiled princeling prez had a guilty conscience hiding out somewhere on one of his vast ranches. But I doubt it. He was a brazenly criminal idiot. And is.
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:34 pm

Yes, Dugin is a representative of unreconstructed fringe far right Russian chauvinism, shades of days of the Black Hundreds. Useful for Putin to tolerate tho, as an object lesson for those who are ignorant of alternatives to Putin who are far worse.
euclidcreek says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:38 pm

Genocide is not a joke.
euclidcreek says:

January 6, 2017 at 9:51 pm

“Calm down my white friends… your white privilege is showing. y’all carry on,” wrote Twitter user Aisha. “Hmmm…lets see what white people are fake outraged over this morning #BLMKidnapping,” wrote Chad Burnham.
Another person claimed that the abduction and torture of a young man happened “because none of you racists understand that black lives matter.”
“You’re acting like white folks haven’t been doing this to [People of Color] throughout history, but now a Caucasian man gets attacked and it’s suddenly wahala. You can’t pick and choose like that,” wrote a user who has the Black Lives Matter abbreviation in their Twitter handle.
Heat Street
You ought to put down your NYT or whatever MSM you’re reading take a ride on the bus through Oakland CA and see and hear what is being said on “the street” None so blind as those who won’t open their eyes.
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:23 pm

I remember that. Good book.
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:31 pm

I am Beige and I am entitled to my fair share compensations for the Crimes of the White Man against the Environment.
As fr enjoying all the material fruits and benefits of industrial western civilization, but of course; I am entitled to more funds to enjoy more of them.
Specifically, I have my eyes on a South-facing flat in the Dakota, from where I could quickly catch an opera at the Met.
As I said, I am not greedy…
FourthAndLong says:

January 6, 2017 at 11:31 pm

Hmm,not bad. That the evil Rooskies hacked Facebook video streams didn’t even occur to me 🙂
Tyler says:

January 7, 2017 at 1:05 am

Eddie,
Horsesh*t, like you he’s another self hating white who for some reason lives in a whitopia versus with the noble urban yoof he claims to love.
And you’re still banging on about tax returns. You LOST. No one cares. Enjoy the next eight years of Trump’s America, you and the rest of the Red Legion here.
Brunswick says:

January 7, 2017 at 1:34 am

Exxon funds denialists to the tune of $2.3 million dollars a year,
Has since 1975 when Exxon funded studies “discovered” Global Warming.
The Koch Brothers spend millions a year too.
I can provide contact info for you if you want.
Much more profitable that being a Global Warming studying scientist, ( no need for the fancy degrees or peer review), much more job security.
jld says:

January 7, 2017 at 2:37 am

This below is not “faux outrage”, this is no joke either, this is the means of the so-called “genocide”:
https://www.change.org/p/500-nazi-scalps
Calling in the Soviets against the Nazis, yeah! great and interesting times…
LondonBob says:

January 7, 2017 at 4:32 am

Perhaps they put up a plaque for him like they did James Angleton.
Of course Israel is such an integral part of the Military Industrial Complex it is hard to tell who is the pulling the strings of the likes of ‘Hanoi’ John McCain and Graham.
Trump must be wondering who can rid him of these two troublesome politicians, maybe old age will do the job, perhaps an FBI investigation? Dr Kelli Ward came so close in the primary, a Trump endorsement might have ensured she defeated McCain. Still Trump seems to have learnt his lesson, always fight back. I feel the same way about Trump as Lincoln did about the General in the photo, he fights!
Croesus says:

January 7, 2017 at 7:55 am

“the deviously clever German movies made in the thirties to promote their euthenasia/sterilization/gassing the handicapped as well as Nuremberg racial laws.”
I’m not acquainted with these movies. Can you name a few of the titles that you have viewed and are basing your judgment upon? Are they available online?
re: “But it’s vital to keep in mind that most people haven’t the time or capacity to devote much energy to such scholarship.
oh dear. In a representative form of government, it’s not an option, it’s an obligation to develop the “capacity” and “devote as much time as it takes” to gathering the information to make well-informed decisions.
Giving them a rough outline mentioning German war crimes is essential to any account of that history IMO. ”
That’s more of the same — reinforcing an emotion-loaded conclusion before a balanced argument is made. It’s the same pattern as “mentioning Saddam’s war crimes” to wage war on Iraq; and “mentioning Assad’s war crimes” to wreck Syria; and “mentioning Russia’s war crimes” to wreck Russia’s economy.
IMO what is “essential to any account of that history” is an objective presentation of all of the evidence BEFORE conclusions, judgment, culpability are assigned, punishment delivered, and righteous outrage indulged.
Edward Amame says:

January 7, 2017 at 9:15 am

euclidcreek
Again. The way “genocide” is being referred to is how white supremacists use it to describe interracial relationships and diversity programs.
Edward Amame says:

January 7, 2017 at 9:19 am

Tyler
Really. I’m a self hating white because I, what, voted with the women and minorities. Go $%^& yourself.
English Outsider says:

January 7, 2017 at 10:14 am

Putin’s a very impressive figure. When you see him effortlessly coping with three or four hour question and answer sessions, and reflect that our Western establishment politicians can only manage a bit of lame PR with a teleprompter, then you can’t help being envious. When it comes to knowing what he’s ultimately about though, he’s as much a mystery as our own lot. If he’s genuine, just getting on with rebuilding his country and keeping it safe from outside interference, then all you can say is lucky for the Russians and lets hope the West comes up with someone of that calibre.
But whatever he’s about he is, as you say, far better than any alternative. The Atlanticists would inevitably take Russia back to the 90’s. The ultra-nationalists are as unattractive, and I think fully as dangerous, as our own neo-cons. You’ll have noticed that Dugin, for example, talks quite casually of destabilising countries opposed to Russian interests. His sort are into the Grand Chessboard too.
I don’t know how the specialists on this site view things, but an outsider’s view is that Putin is therefore the safest pair of hands going and we should hope he remains in power. I forget who the American politician was who said he wanted Putin killed, but the fact that that politician wasn’t instantly disowned illustrates just how seriously our Western political establishment is on the wrong track.
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 7, 2017 at 10:21 am

I never received a dime. Where do I sign up?
Fred says:

January 7, 2017 at 11:26 am

DC,
There are plenty of true-believing Clintonites in this town.
kooshy says:

January 7, 2017 at 12:45 pm

EA, IMO either we are and want to be a country of laws, or a country of everybody else’s precedents and principles. Again personally IMO it can’t be managed both ways laws should govern instead of you’ or mine principles, traditions. In this everybody understands, that the democrats have lost big on this last elections, IMO, being an x democrat voter, it’s time to rethink,review and reorganize ( dismiss all currently expired democratic leaders down to E Warren ) and come up with a new plan, introduce a new younger energy to the base, throw away all the phony progressive/liberal facade, stop childishly ridiculing Trump and the Nation, with ineffective delegitimization which in effect, is pisssing of the public more than democrats can anymore afford.
English Outsider says:

January 7, 2017 at 1:38 pm

Thanks very much. A most instructive read, though I’m afraid I was only able to skim it.
A long time ago a famous English conductor, Thomas Beecham, is said to have advised “Try everything once except incest and Morris dancing.” I suppose you might call that the basic minimum, if you’d been looking for rules to live by in those days. Had Aleksandr Dugin got his magnum opus off his chest several decades earlier I think Sir Thomas would have had little difficulty squeezing in in a third prohibition.
But seriously, it does give an insight into a side of Russian nationalism and that in easily accessible form, though Yandex baulks at some of it. Thanks for linking to it.
Babak Makkinejad says:

January 7, 2017 at 2:01 pm

Andrei Kozyrev, in the same Munich Conference but several years earlier, warned the NATO states about the Russian reaction; it fell on deaf ears.
different clue says:

January 7, 2017 at 2:37 pm

Cee,
It may have been the “US” in general, but it was President Clinton and his Clintonites who did that in particular. The Russians haven’t forgotten.
BraveNewWorld says:

January 7, 2017 at 3:11 pm

We now know what Netanyahu is being investigated for and it reads like bad pulp fiction.
Allegedly the short of it is this.
Israeli Jewish Hollywood producer gets denied new 10 year American visa. Probably for going on TV and saying he was a former Israeli spy that helped get nuclear material and Patriot missiles from the US for Israel. (NPT???) Producer greases Netanyahu. Netanyahu leans on Kerry. Producer suddenly gets visa renewed.
You cant make this stuff up!
“Film mogul, power broker, ex-spy, Arnon Milchan is central to Netanyahu graft probe”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/film-mogul-power-broker-ex-spy-arnon-milchan-is-central-to-netanyahu-graft-probe/
“‘Billionaire gave Netanyahus cigars, champagne worth hundreds of thousands’
According to leak from corruption investigation, acclaimed producer Arnon Milchan financed the couple’s lavish habits for years”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-said-to-have-received-cigars-and-champagne-said-to-be-focus-of-netanyahu-fraud-probe/
“‘Netanyahu asked Kerry 3 times to help his benefactor Arnon Milchan with US visa’”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-asked-kerry-3-times-to-help-his-benefactor-arnon-milchan-with-us-visa/
BraveNewWorld says:

January 7, 2017 at 3:15 pm

“More Americans support UN resolution on Israel than oppose it — poll”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/more-americans-support-un-resolution-on-israel-than-oppose-it-poll/
“US House passes motion repudiating UN resolution on Israel
Approved with vote of 342-80, House Resolution 11 calls Security Council’s anti-settlements measure a ‘one-sided’ obstacle to peace”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-house-passes-repudiation-of-un-security-council-resolution-on-israel/
FourthAndLong says:

January 7, 2017 at 8:58 pm

Yes I prefer your proposal to ‘rough outlines.’ No question.
Never saw the particular German film I was thinking of. Read about years ago it in either “War On the Weak” by Edwin Black or Lombardo’s “Three Generations of Imbeciles,” which cover US and German programs to cull out the hopelessly impaired.
Accepted what seemed a lucid enough description of a tear jerking German movie in which a young couple were tried for the “humane” killing of a grievously disabled child by an understanding Doctor. In the film as I recall they were found guilty, and received harsh sentences.
It was said to have been shown throughout Germany, and cleverly without advertising or attaching any agenda to the film whatsoever. The actors were very talented and popular. It was said to have had a very strong effect on German public opinion in service of the regime’s ends,according to the author.
I’m skeptical of that stuff, writers like that can make lots of money. They are as likely to be mercenary as idealistic IMO.
There is a rather unappealing movie titled “The Black Stork” from 1917 featuring a US Dr. Hazlitt who was an advocate of cleaning out the gene pool. I couldn’t watch more than the first few seconds as images of very severely disabled infants and children turn my stomach. Personally I would be considered rather callous regarding those issues. The German butchers gassed mental patients, revealing their hideously grotesque inclinations IMO. Gassing?? Good God.
Overdose with some cocktail or other maybe. But FAR MORE preferable to me would be Intra Utero scanning with abortion, obviating the entire grisly business. And no smoking, drinking, drug use or thalidomide during pregnancy. There go my points with the Mike Pence crowd. Darn it.
You certainly sound like a strict task master. Teacher?
FourthAndLong says:

January 7, 2017 at 9:17 pm

Yes, Putin is enigmatic, and I agree we are not generally well served by the “soulless ex-KGB thug meme.” Not at all. Kleptocratic state versus this oligarchical plutocracy. And we have all sorts of scholarship available proving that the Russians are understandably sensitive about invasion given their history.
Compare a Serebro concerts in present day Russia with gulags of the Stalin era, or Bill & Hilary’s American Gulag archipelago, now for profit:
Serebro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpLvF1vf0mc
Or this video by Vremya I Steklo (Time and Glass), an immensely popular Ukrainian group, who are also top of the charts in Russia.
Vremya I Steklo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Go8ub9a1k
Evil Vlad is really putting the skrews to them as you can see. (Sarcasm alert).
When I compare such things to the Soviet Union of the thirties and forties I can only rejoice to see Russian people celebrating in relative freedom, safety and happiness. Vlad could threaten to air that stuff broadly on RT and REALLY destabilize the USA IMHO.
Tyler says:

January 7, 2017 at 10:47 pm

Eddie,
Because you’re another anti white agitator spitting on the blood and treasure spent to secure your freedom cause you want to virtue signal.
Your Trump derangement is making you more insensible than usual.
Tyler says:

January 7, 2017 at 11:38 pm

Nancy,
The NYT didn’t get your memo:
http://www.unz.com/isteve/nyt-chicago-hate-crime-isnt-anti-white-or-anti-trump-its-anti-intellectually-disabled
I’m sure they’ll get around to reclassifying Dylan Roof as having a Christian hatred and like they said Omar Mateen was a gay hate crime.
Serge says:

January 7, 2017 at 11:39 pm

There have been many news articles in the past couple weeks detailing ISIS use of drones in the Mosul battle, along with footage trickling down from the front once in a while of said drone use in action. I’m always reminded of this great thread last spring:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/04/httpwwwmarinecorpstimescomstorymilitarytech20160417islamic-state-drones-target-american-coalition-forces83096864.html
Here is a piece today from Rudaw, with accompanying drone footage. Unfortunately the full video showing the iraqis scrambling for cover as the bomb comes down has been truncated by the editors:http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/070120174
I’m completely fascinated by these new developments in asymmetrical warfare. Can we expect a cheaper, more mass produced version of such technologies in the very near future? Certainly. At this point the explicit combat role of such technology is dwarfed by their role in recon, as can be seen by the flood of ISIS footage being released of VBIEDs coming out of mosul garages and side alleys, guided to ambush armored Iraqi colums through the use of high flying, high image resolution capable drones
optimax says:

January 8, 2017 at 12:10 am

“You can’t pick and choose like that,” wrote a user who has the Black Lives Matter abbreviation in their Twitter handle.” Heat Street is blind to his own hypocrisy since BLM doesn’t acknowledge that more whites are killed by cops than blacks and imagines cops are hunting them down. It’s black racial hysteria caused by biased news, academia and entertainment which always portray blacks as noble and whites as melanin deficient.
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg says:

January 8, 2017 at 2:00 am

Turkey has a more recent tradition of military success (to a degree). I’m not sure they just sit around waiting for the Americans to take care of everything. They seem to feel confident enough to make incursions into neighboring countries.
Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg says:

January 8, 2017 at 2:09 am

Actually the prof clarified in an interview that he meant it seriously. Still, though, academia is full of strident types of all stripes.
johnf says:

January 8, 2017 at 2:56 am

And a massive hit to Israeli power within the UK, too.
The Daily Mail has video-taped an Israeli “diplomat” talking to the chief aide of a pro-Israel Tory Minister about how he plans to “hit” pro-Palestinian Tory Number 2 minister at the Foreign Office, Alan Duncan, with an unnamed scandal, and how he wants to do the same with the pro-Arab Chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt. He also talks about his work within the Labour Party undermining its pro-Palestinian leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
The BBC is leading with the story, too.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098082/Astonishing-undercover-video-captures-diplomat-conspiring-rival-MP-s-aide-smear-Deputy-Foreign-Secretary.html#ixzz4V9aelm8t
LondonBob says:

January 8, 2017 at 5:08 am

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098082/Astonishing-undercover-video-captures-diplomat-conspiring-rival-MP-s-aide-smear-Deputy-Foreign-Secretary.html
Israelis caught red handed attempting to influence British politics, planning a campaign to bring down the Deputy Foreign Secretary. Awkward timing for some, presumably this is an act of war?
hans says:

January 8, 2017 at 5:38 am

Interesting report of the Deir Ezzor “mistaken” strike by Gareth Porter at truthdig.com
“Inquiry Points Toward a Pentagon Plot to Subvert Obama’s Syria Policy” Posted on Jan 5, 2017
I suspect Trump will sweep more than a few from military ranks into retirement. If they were insubordinate once, it won’t do to let it become a habit.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/report_points_to_a_pentagon_plot_to_subvert_obamas_syria_policy_20170105
Frank W. McCullough says:

January 8, 2017 at 4:29 pm

Tidewater replies,
I ran into an old friend from the City the other day here in the Ville on the Downtown Mall. She told me that her shrink said she had Nunavut Syndrome. We talked about it over a double latte with dollops of whip cream sprinkled with absinthe (the Latrousse Latrec) at a new bistro.
Her shrink said it was NS associated with Arctic Syndrome (AS) and Glacial (GPF) predisposing factors. He told her he had been hoping for a mild “tourner au nord” or perhaps something Cyclothemic, which of course he might have interpreted as mild Bipolar(BP).
We always knew she wasn’t neurasthenic. This glacial business was new to me but made a lot of sense. As Vassar she was known to be fast. The grass did not grow under her feet. She was always on the move. Going places in a hurry. One day you would see her around, and the next she’d have disappeared.
And, of course, AS is very fashionable now, and brand new in the DSM. But I could have told you about Arctic Syndrome thirty years ago. She was always going off somewhere and you never knew where she was going next. Most often south. Her aura was definitely programmed into the red, usually a very nice “rouge-cerise.” Bipolar is always a bit on the uptick, but for a long time it can be very nice to be around. Bipolar is so very stable. Still, there can be separation anxiety down the road. She was like reading Rod McKuen’s “Listen to the Warm”. I have never seen a woman so polarizing. She’d walk into a party and the whole place would light off; the whole room would warm up from one end to the other.
Babak, I think we gotta Listen to the Warm.
BraveNewWorld says:

January 8, 2017 at 5:48 pm

This is how you do an investigation of a foreign country interfering in your politics. You catch them on camera.
“Israeli diplomat caught on camera plotting to ‘take down’ UK MPs”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/07/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-caught-on-camera-plotting-to-take-down-uk-mps
Any one doubt Israel does the same in the US?
BraveNewWorld says:

January 8, 2017 at 5:55 pm

And the other thing Netanyahu is being invetigated for. Ever wonder how news outlets end up as infomercials for certain politicians? Wonder no more.
“The editor of Israel’s biggest-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth said Sunday he had no idea his publisher had discussed providing more favorable coverage of Benjamin Netanyahu in return for the prime minister reducing the impact of Yedioth’s pro-Netanyahu rival, Israel Hayom. ”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/newspaper-editor-had-no-idea-his-publisher-was-cooking-up-deal-with-netanyahu/
I have been saying it for a decade. Every thing that is wrong with the US has been importd from Israel.
Edward Amame says:

January 8, 2017 at 7:06 pm

kooshy
either we are and want to be a country of laws, or a country of everybody else’s precedents and principles.
Not sure why it’s an either/or choice, esp when business overseas could affect presidential decision-making. However, some constitutional attorneys actually think his various hotels and biz deals in foreign countries will put him in direct violation of the Constitution on day 1 when he takes office. Count on it. There will be reporters who’ll be on this issue 24/7 in anticipation og being the next Woodward/Bernstein. Not releasing those returns now could eventually come back to bite him in the ass.
Edward Amame says:

January 8, 2017 at 7:17 pm

Tyler
Now I call horsesh*t. Just say it. You think I’m self-hating because I did’t vote with my tribe. ±Well, I voted the way I did out of my perceived self-interest. Trump’s a wild card, but I know exactly where Paul Ryan (and possibly Mitch McConnell) stand on Medicare, Soc Security and the ACA and I don’t like it. If I were $$$ and living in Palm Beach, I might have voted very differently.
Tidewater says:

January 8, 2017 at 8:56 pm

Tidewater replies,
“Depraved colonialist”?
What is Israel? Isn’t Israel a colonial dependency? Some sort of colony? It’s a colony innit? Right? Doesn’t that make colonies good? Inevitable?
Is not Israel the ultimate outgrowth of the American spirit? America’s great sacrifice to God? Might not Israel be the reason for the miracle at Philadelphia? That Israel is behind God’s inscrutable creation of the United States? The reason why Columbus discovered America! The offshore colony that has been and will be America’s deepest, most emotional preoccupation, even while industrial civilization is collapsing, even while low intensity religious wars simmer on into the looming Final Emergency.
And, oh yes, the reason why Americans must return NOW to conscription?
Wait. You’re going to say that Israel is not a colony?
And how much time is left? Ten years?
Dabbler says:

January 9, 2017 at 2:14 pm

We as a species aren’t trying to solve the problem of the planet’s recent chill. Given the Gaia hypothesis, we could be viewed as a crude vehicle for solving the recent 3 million year cold spell.
And it has been cold. We’ve had glaciers most of the time for the last 3 million years. Absent the recent warming, there would be no reason to believe that we’re not near the end of another interglacial period.
Mindlessly dump in contaminants into the atmosphere, using it as a sewer, is wrong, primitive, foolish. Most people concerned about global warming him appear to have the goal of restoring/preserving the climatic conditions of the last 100 years as a steady state. Climatic conditions, however, are not static over time, even a part from human influence.
The data shows that in the past the planet has almost always been warmer than it has been during the last 3 million years and that CO2 in the atmosphere has almost always been higher. We’re at the extreme low-end of the range for both.
We need to reduce/eliminate the release of contaminants to the atmosphere, but in doing so we need to acknowledge the dynamic nature of the climate in our relative position and climatic history. As you note, we should also halt our contribution to acidification of the oceans (my descendants and I love fish), but we should not pretend that the climatic conditions of the last hundred or the last 10,000 years represent a steady state.
Fred says:

January 9, 2017 at 4:01 pm

Croesus,
Curiouser still. Thanks for the links. A cynic would ask how do they expect to keep poor Somalis from marching North to participate in the economic boom that is promised. But it is an interesting idea. They could probably achieve a simpler short term solution by buying up a few of the excess containerships out there and making their own ferry service operation.
trinlae says:

January 9, 2017 at 9:54 pm

New Syria article published in The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Respite-not-reconciliation/article17013994.ece?homepage=true

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