- Why Canada Defends Ukrainian Fascism
Authored by Michael Jabara Carley via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
Canada has a reputation for being a relatively progressive state with universal, single-payer health care, various other social benefits, and strict gun laws, similar to many European countries but quite unlike the United States. It has managed to stay out of some American wars, for example, Vietnam and Iraq, portrayed itself as a neutral “peace keeper”, pursuing a so-called policy of “multilateralism” and attempting from time to time to keep a little independent distance from the United States.
Behind this veneer of respectability lies a not so attractive reality of elite inattention to the defence of Canadian independence from the United States and intolerance toward the political and syndicalist left. Police repression against communist and left-wing unionists and other dissidents after World War I was widespread. Strong support for appeasement of Nazi Germany, overt or covert sympathy for fascism, especially in Québec, and hatred of the Soviet Union were widespread in Canada during the 1930s. The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany. Mackenzie King and many others of the Canadian elite saw communism as a greater threat to Canada than fascism. As in Europe, the Canadian elite—Liberal or Conservative did not matter—was worried by the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). In Québec French public opinion under the influence of the Catholic Church hoped for fascist victory and the eradication of communism. In 1937 a Papal encyclical whipped up the Red Scare amongst French Canadian Catholics. Rejection of Soviet offers of collective security against Hitler was the obverse side of appeasement. The fear of victory over Nazi Germany in alliance with the USSR was greater than the fear of defeat against fascism. Such thoughts were either openly expressed over dinner at the local gentleman’s club or kept more discrete by people who did not want to reveal the extent of their sympathy for fascism.
The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany
Even after the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the formation of the Grand Alliance against the Axis, there was strong reticence amongst the governing elite in Canada toward the Soviet Union. It was a shotgun marriage, a momentary arrangement with an undesirable partner, necessitated by the over-riding threat of the Nazi Wehrmacht.
“If Hitler invaded Hell,” Winston Churchill famously remarked, “I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” Once Hitler was beaten, however, it would be back to business as usual. The Grand Alliance was a “truce”, as some of my students have proposed to me, in a longer cold war between the west and the USSR. This struggle began in November 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd; it resumed after 1945 when the “truce”, or if you like, the Grand Alliance, came to a sudden end.
This was no more evident than in Canada where elite hatred of communism was a homegrown commodity and not simply an American imitation. So it should hardly be a surprise that after 1945 the Canadian government – Mackenzie King was still prime minister – should open its doors to the immigration of approximately 34,000 “displaced persons”, including thousands of Ukrainian fascists and Nazi collaborators, responsible for heinous war crimes in the Ukraine and Poland. These were veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Waffen SS Galicia and the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), all collaborators of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Chrystia Freeland, the current Canadian minister for external affairs
The most notorious of the Nazi collaborators who immigrated to Canada was Mykhailo Chomiak, a mid-level Nazi operative in Poland, who came under US protection at the end of the war and eventually made his way to Canada where he settled in Alberta. Had he been captured by the Red Army, he would quite likely have been hanged for collaboration with the enemy. In Canada however he prospered as a farmer. His grand-daughter is the “Ukrainian-Canadian” Chrystia Freeland, the present minister for external affairs. She is a well-known Russophobe, persona non grata in the Russian Federation, who long claimed her grandfather was a “victim” of World War II. Her claims to this effect have been demonstrated to be untrue by the Australian born journalist John Helmer, amongst many others.
In 1940 the Liberal government facilitated the creation of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC), one of many organisations used to fight or marginalise the left in Canada, in this case amongst Canadian Ukrainians. The UCC is still around and appears to dominate the Ukrainian-Canadian community. Approximately 1.4 million people living in Canada claim full or partial Ukrainian descent though generally the latter. Most “Ukrainian-Canadians” were born in Canada; well more than half live in the western provinces. The vast majority has certainly never set foot in the Ukraine. It is this constituency on which the UCC depends to pursue its political agenda in Ottawa.
The Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC) president Paul Grod
After the coup d’état in Kiev in February 2014 the UCC lobbied the then Conservative government under Stephen Harper to support the Ukrainian “regime change” operation which had been conducted by the United States and European Union. The UCC president, Paul Grod, took the lead in obtaining various advantages from the Harper government, including arms for the putschist regime in Kiev. It survives only through massive EU and US direct or indirect financial/political support and through armed backing from fascist militias who repress dissent by force and intimidation. Mr. Grod claims that Russia is pursuing a policy of “aggression” against the Ukraine. If that were true, the putschists in Kiev would have long ago disappeared. The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor, a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group, through two organisations in Canada including the UCC, and even accorded “charitable status” to one of them to facilitate their fund raising and arms buying. Harper also sent military “advisors” to train Ukrainian forces, the backbone of which are fascist militias. The Trudeau government has continued that policy. “Canada should prepare for Russian attempts to destabilize its democracy,” according to Minister Freeland: “Ukraine is a very important partner to Canada and we will continue to support its efforts for democracy and economic growth.” For a regime that celebrates violence and anti-Russian racism, represses political opposition, burns books, and outlaws the Russian language, “democracy” is an Orwellian portrayal of actual realities in the Ukraine. Nevertheless, late last year the Canadian government approved the sale of arms to Kiev and a so-called Magnitsky law imposing sanctions on Russian nationals.
The Harper government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor, a Ukrainian fascist paramilitary group
There is no political opposition in the House of Commons to these policies. Even the New Democratic Party (NDP), that burnt out shell of Canadian social democracy, supported the Harper government, at the behest of Mr. Grod, a Ukrainian lobbyist who knows his way around Ottawa. In 2015 the UCC put a list of questions to party leaders, one of which was the following: “Does your party support listing the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Donetsk People’s Republic as terrorist organizations?” The Lugansk and Donetsk republics are of course anti-fascist resistance movements that emerged in reaction to the violent coup d’état in Kiev. They are most certainly not “terrorist” organisations, although they are subjected to daily bombardments against civilian areas by Kiev putschist forces. Nevertheless, the then NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair, who would have agreed to almost anything to win power, answered in the affirmative. This must have been a moment of dismay for Canadians who still harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties. How could it support a US/EU installed putschist regime which governs by intimidation and violence? In fact, it was a Conservative electoral strategy to obtain the votes of people of Ukrainian and East European descent by backing putschist Kiev and denouncing Russia. Mulcair was trying to outflank Harper on his right, but that did not work for he himself was outflanked on his left.
Some Canadians harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties
In the 2015 federal elections the Liberals under Justin Trudeau, outwitted poor Mr. Mulcair and won the elections. The NDP suffered heavy electoral losses. Mulcair looked like someone who had made a Faustian bargain for nothing in return, and he lost a bid to remain as party leader. The Liberals campaigned on re-establishing better relations with the Russian Federation, but that promise did not hold up. The minister for external affairs, Stéphane Dion, tried to move forward on that line, but appears to have been stabbed in the back by Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland guiding his hand in the fatal blow. In early 2017 Dion was sacked and Freeland replaced him. That was the end of the Liberal promise to improve relations with the Russian government. Since then, under Freeland, Russian-Canadian relations have worsened.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket. There are photographs of him side by side with Mr. Harper and then with Mr. Trudeau, with Ms. Freeland on his left. Mr. Grod has been a great success in backing putschist Kiev. Last summer Mr. Trudeau even issued a traditional Ukrainian fascist salute, “SlavaUkraini!”, to celebrate the anniversary of Ukrainian independence. The prime minister is a great believer in identity politics.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket
The latest gesture of the Canadian government is to approve $1.4 million as a three year grant to promote a “Holodomor National Awareness Tour”. Ukrainian “nationalists” summon up the memory of the “Holodomor”, a famine in the Ukraine in 1932-1933, deliberately launched by Stalin, they say, in order to emphasise their victimisation by Russia. According to the latest Stalin biographer, Steven Kotkin, there was indeed a famine in the USSR that affected various parts of the country, the Ukraine amongst other regions. Kazakhstan, not the Ukraine suffered most. Between five and seven million people died. Ten millions starved. “Nonetheless, the famine was not intentional. It resulted from Stalin’s policies of forced collectivization…,” Kotkin writes, himself no advocate of the Soviet Union. Compulsion, peasant rebellion, bungling, mismanagement, drought, locust infestations, not targeting ethnicities, led to the catastrophe. “Similarly, there was no ‘Ukrainian’ famine,” according to Kotkin, “the famine was [a] Soviet[-wide disaster]” (Stalin, 2017, vol. 2, pp. 127-29). So the Liberal government is spending public funds to perpetuate a politically motivated myth to drum up hatred of Russia and to support putschist Kiev.
Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II
The Canadian government also recently renewed funding for a detachment of 200 “advisors” to train Ukrainian militias, along with twenty-three million dollars—it is true a pittance by American standards—for “non-lethal” military aid, justified by Ms. Freeland to defend Ukrainian “democracy”. Truly, we live in a dystopian world where reality is turned on its head. Fascism is democracy; resistance to fascism is terrorism. Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II. “Any country sending representatives to Russia’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of their victory against Adolf Hitler,” warned putschist Kiev in April 2015, “will be blacklisted by Ukraine.”
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“The further a society drifts from the truth,” George Orwell once said, “the more it will hate those that speak it.”
Well, here is one truth that Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland will not want to hear, hate it or not: 42,000 Canadian soldiers, not to mention 27 million Soviet citizens, died during the war against the Axis. Memories must be fading, for now we have come to this pass, where our government is supporting a violent, racist regime in Kiev directly descended from that very enemy against which Canada and its allies fought during World War II.
- A Dire Warning From The "Doomsday Vault"
Climate change alarmists are taking full advantage of the “Sudden Stratospheric Warming” (SSW) event, which occurred above the Arctic in mid-February, as further evidence that the world’s unpredictable and sometimes chaotic weather is jeopardizing humanity’s food security.
The split of the polar vortex, otherwise known as an SSW event, shifted the Arctic airmass to most of Europe as well as Western parts of North America. Climate alarmist pointed out that massive snowstorms in Europe, dangerous weather patterns in the United States, and rain in the Arctic demonstrates how extreme weather is altering seasonal growing patterns.
Here is what Bloomberg said, “the world was upside down: it was raining in the Arctic Circle and snowing in Rome,” as explained above, the SSW event has been the primary driver of chaotic weather since mid-February.
Researchers, activists, executives and government officials gathered in Longyearbyen, a small coal-mining town on Spitsbergen Island, in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of what has become known as the “Doomsday Vault,” which is an underground bunker buried deep inside a mountain where the world stores its plant seeds from apocalyptic consequences of climate change and war, said Bloomberg.
Last month, we reported how the Norwegian government is planning to allocate 100 million kroner ($13 million) in technical improvements to enhance the facility after it sprung a leak from melting permafrost — officials warned that climate change could put the facility at risk.
“Biodiversity is the building block to develop new plants and because of climate change we’re in a terrible need to quickly develop new varieties,” said Aaslaug Marie Haga, executive director of Crop Trust, a group established to support gene banks. “The climate is changing quicker than the plants can handle.”
The “Doomsday Vault” is a secure seed bank buried deep inside a mountain on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The underground bunker is a long-term seed storage facility, built to keep its three vaults cool for 200-years — and can survive natural or human-made disasters.
The “Doomsday Vault” serves as a storage facility for more than 850,000 seed samples, according to the Bloomberg, which the three vault rooms are cooled to -18 °C (-3 °F).
Bloomberg describes the organizations behind the “Doomsday Vault:”
The vault is run by NordGen, the Nordic gene bank. A total of 74 institutes globally have deposits, and only those that send seeds have access. One notable exception is China, which has not signed the treaty, and is creating its own seed and gene banks outside the international cooperation. Participants say the real fight to preserve biodiversity is at the local level. Crop Trust is seeking to build an $850 million fund to finance its efforts, a long way to go from its current level of $285 million. Its largest donors are the U.S., Germany and Norway, but it’s now looking more to private business for funding.
“We have to be prepared for the unknown,” Jon Georg Dale, Norway’s food and agriculture minister, said in his hotel in Longyearbyen during the event, where he was stuck after canceling a snow-scooter trip because of the thaw gripping the Arctic.
Some researchers, activists, executives, and government officials at the conference said there are no signs that the United States is backing away from its enviormental commitments, but did stress, Trump’s climate skepticism is concerning.
Ann Tutwiler, a former Obama-administration official who’s now head of Bioversity International, a global research group backed by more than 50 governments said, “businesses are becoming more aware of the problems of losing biodiversity.”
“The narrative of the 20th century was that we have to produce more food and that was all about a very narrow range of crops,” said Tutwiler. “Now because we have other issues we are trying to solve, such as climate and nutrition there’s a recognition you can’t do that with just those crops.”
Patrick Mulvany, an agriculturalist and adviser on biodiversity and food sovereignty said, ” the real efforts aren’t being made where they are needed the most: on the ground with the farmers who are not getting adequately compensated.”
“Unless that happens our future food is very insecure,” he said. “You can have as many seeds as you want locked up in the vault here but they deteriorate a little bit over time and they aren’t adapting to climate and new social pressures.”
It the minds of a climate change alarmist, well, never let a serious crisis go to waste. With the recent wild swings in weather across Europe and the United States, alarmists have come out of the woodwork — pushing their fear-mongering rhetoric of impending climate doom. But why? Well, perhaps, in the case of the “Doomsday Vault,” officials are looking for more government handouts to fund operations.
And there it is, the ah-ha moment: climate change alarmist preying on fear [climate change] to extract money from governments.
- Fourth Turning's Neil Howe: "Today's Demographics Defy Conventional Wisdom"
John Mauldin interviewed Fourth Turning best-selling author and demographics expert, Neil Howe about generational changes and their effect on the markets, during a session at the Strategic Investment Conference 2018. Howe said that demographics and generational factors have a huge impact on equity prices in the long run. Not only that, he thinks that there’s now a generational shift in wealth distribution that could spark major political and economic disruption.
Today’s Demographics Defies Conventional Wisdom
The main example Howe shared is that people in the 75+ age bracket still dominate stock ownership by far. This defies conventional wisdom that people reduce risk as they retire and leave the workforce. Meanwhile, Millennials have lower income and stock ownership levels than previous generations did at the same age.
This is a key change as senior adults once had the highest poverty rates. Younger people are now challenging that once-safe assumption.
Neil Howe Howe also pointed out striking differences between early and late Baby Boomers. Those born in the mid/late 1940s inherited some of the Silent Generation’s wealth and good fortune. Late-stage Boomers born in the early 1960s score lower in all kinds of metrics.
Major Political and Financial Disruption Is Ahead
Neil Howe ended with an update on his Fourth Turning generational theory. He thinks we are about midway through it. From an economic standpoint, he foresees inflation fear and Fed tightening, which will be followed by a painful recession.
Politically, Millennials desperately want civic re-engagement. They are seeking to completely restructure institutions. The right wing is a brick wall on this subject and numbers have let them hold off the pressure so far. This will change as Millennials grow older and Boomers die.
Howe also pointed out that generational wealth transfer is going to be highly concentrated, reflecting current wealth inequality. Boomer wealth will flow to younger generations but the vast majority of Generation X and Millennials will get very little.
As that happens, Howe anticipates major disruption, by which he means ugly inter generational conflict.
For this an more presentations tune in to the SIC 2018 live blog.
- Forbes Removes 10 Saudis From "100 Richest" List After MbS's "Corruption Crackdown"
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman reportedly extracted $100 billion late last year from a group of dozens of Saudi royals and businessmen – many of whom were his own cousins – in a “corruption crackdown” that had all the makings of a naked cash grab.
After confining his countrymen to the Ritz Carlton Riyadh for months – even torturing some of those who initially refused to cooperate – the Prince won plaudits from the New York Times, but has been vilified elsewhere for his willingness to commit egregious human rights abuses – all to fill a hole in the Saudi budget.
Given the Saudi government’s reticence about the crackdown, it’s impossible to tell how much money was taken from each individual prisoner, making external evaluations of their post-crackdown wealth nearly impossible.
So perhaps it’s unsurprising that Forbes Magazine has decided to exclude all Saudi Arabian businessmen from this year’s list of the world’s 100 richest people. Last year, 10 Saudi nationals made the cut.
Out of the 10 Saudi billionaires who made the Forbes list last year, at least four were detained – the most recognizable being Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, pictured above, whose net worth last year was close to $20 billion.
As Forbes explains, given the Saudi government’s reticence, it’s impossible to tell how much money and assets were expropriated from each individual businessman.
Alwaleed and many others have been released, but checking out of the Ritz-Carlton cost billions. (Sources also told Forbes that Alwaleed is now banned from granting media interviews.) The Saudi government’s reported goal was to gather $100 billion to plug a hole in the budget that’s been growing amid years of low oil prices.
There are a thousand and one stories about what precisely happened, making it impossible to know definitively who gave how much to whom when. Forbes learned that at least one tycoon who was not detained handed over assets to the government.
Given these shifting sands of truth, we’ve chosen to leave all ten Saudis off our billionaires list this year; none would comment. With greater clarity regarding their wealth, some might eventually return to the ranking.
Here’s the list of Saudis that Forbes removed from this year’s list, accompanied by their last confirmed net worth (courtesy of Forbes)
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Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
$18.7 billion
Chairs publicly traded Kingdom Holding, which has investments in Lyft, Twitter, Citigroup and the Four Seasons.
Mohammed Al Amoudi
$8.1 billion
Assets include a Swedish refinery, Saudi gas stations and an Ethiopian conglomerate (gold mining, farming, construction).
Prince Sultan bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Kabeer
$3.8 billion
His publicly traded Almarai dairy company is among the largest in the Middle East.
Mohammed Al Issa
$2.6 billion
His Assila Investments has stakes in a bank, a food processor and hotels.
Saleh Kamel
$2.3 billion
Founded Dallah Albaraka conglomerate (real estate, food, health care).
Abdullah Al Rajhi
$1.9 billion
With brothers, built Al Rajhi Bank, one of world’s largest Islamic banks.
Abdul Majeed Alhokair
$1.2 billion
Salman Alhokair
$1.2 billion
Fawaz Alhokair
$1.2 billion
The three brothers’ real estate empire includes 19 shopping malls.
Mohammed Serafi
$1.1 billion
Real estate investor.
- Peace In Our Time? Only If America Is "Agreement Capable"
Those who have followed this blog for the past year know that I feel Presidents Trump and Putin are working towards a Middle East Peace Agreement. Brick by brick, day by day, the foundation for this agreement is being built.
Last night’s nigh-historic statement by the South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong is another piece of that foundation. You can read the entire statement here, but I’ll highlight the important part:
“I told President Trump that in our meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is committed to denuclearization. Kim pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests; he understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue. And he expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.”
“President Trump appreciated the briefing and said he would meet Kim Jong-un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.”
This is the breakthrough that everyone was waiting for. Once Trump gets involved in the negotiations, a deal will be made. That’s his wheelhouse, making deals. Everyone walks away a winner in their minds.
We can argue about the effectiveness of Trump’s sanctions until we are blue in the face. But the reality is that 1) Koreans no longer want separation and 2) North Korea is not the economic basket case we are constantly told it is in the media.
I remember meeting with Jim Rogers in 2015 at a conference and the two areas of the world he was most bullish on were Kazakhstan and North Korea.
Because North Korea, under Kim Jong-Un, is moving towards a more open society, not a closed one. The sincere desire for reunification of the Korean peninsula, if only symbolically through a more open border, is the animating principle here.
And that only happens with a North Korea entering the modern world economy.
More Neocon Dreams Dashed
Neoconservative pipe dreams of encirclement of Russia and China to dominate and destroy them are ending.
Over the weekend chief Neocon “man-baby’ Lindsay Graham had his Madeline Albright moment saying that war with North Korea would be worth it to rid it of nuclear weapons. The millions of dead Chinese, Japanese and Koreans that would result don’t matter because Americans wouldn’t die.
“All the damage that would come from a war would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security.”
And they say Kim Jong-Un is crazy.
Now the good news is that Trump is far more rational than either Albright or Graham.
Solving North Korea’s drive towards nuclear weapons would be a major feather in Trump’s cap. It would stop the braying of Democrats about his incompetence, or at least make their cries of such less resonant with rational people, i.e. most voters.
The neocons are waging global war against Russia, China and Iran, but primarily Russia. Some believe it is the only way to secure Israel’s future. Others are simply playing a bad game of RISK.
But, the reality is that Israel’s security is a secondary benefit (which is why it goes along with this) of the larger plan of global geopolitical and economic domination that begins and ends with subjugating Russia.
Peace in the Middle East that begins with ending a nuclear weapons threat from North Korea would get Israel’s attention. If Trump pulls this off, along with his firm commitment to Israel, Israel can calm down as it would feel far more secure.
Now you know why Trump is moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. The goal is to break deadlocks which are all open wounds designed to create future flashpoints.
The Iran/Israel Reality Show
But, would also solve another problem. As I’ve talked about multiple times, North Korea’s nuclear program is also Iran’s nuclear program.
As is the case with Iran’s ballistic missile program.
We’re not the only country that engages in outsourcing, by the way.
This is why solving North Korea helps to solve the Middle East. Israel simply wants a secure future. It can’t have that with a nuclear-armed Iran. But, Iran wants to survive as well.
And it can’t do so with American troops building bases all around it and U.S. ships patrolling its coasts.
Taking North Korea’s nukes off the table, takes them off of Iran’s table as well. The neocons have been in charge of foreign policy for months and it has resulted in more troops in both Syria and Afghanistan.
As well, it has brought us into direct conflict with Russia on multiple occasions and only Putin’s prudence and patience has kept us out of a full-fledged shooting war with Russia.
This is something that no sane person wants.
So, first you solve North Korean nukes and, by extension, you solve Iran’s nukes. Assad’s forces continue winning in Syria, ousting ISIS from eastern Ghouta and near Deir Ezzor.
The Turks are straining the U.S./Kurdish relationship in the northern part of Syria. And Putin has Netanyahu cowed thanks to Syria shooting down an F-16I. Do the math.
The neocon rodeo is becoming a clown show.
Are We Agreement Capable?
I always come back to Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who have said on multiple occasions that the U.S. is ‘not agreement capable.’ In diplomatic terms it means that negotiating with us is pointless because we do not keep to the agreements we sign.
And instead use the agreement as a stalling tactic to launch a new offensive in the near future.
By agreeing to talks with Kin Jong-Un Trump is doing what was always in the cards, backing off on direct conflict. We were never going to attack North Korea. Despite Lindsay Graham’s insanity, the cost would definitely outweigh the benefits.
The potential for war there to go global would be too high for any serious person to contemplate. And Trump is no crazed war-monger.
Remember what Putin just unveiled at his State of the Union address. Weapons that can nullify our military logistical superiority around the world. The U.S. military power is in logistics.
So, don’t think for a moment that Trump is acting here out of strength. Most of our military assets are, as of right now, sitting ducks. Yes, they can do damage, but the risks of wipe out are incredibly high.
That’s the theatre part of this. The reality is the neocon game is almost lost.
And humanity would be the winner.
Putin is happy to let Trump take the credit here, even though it is his hard work which brought us to this point. By allowing Trump to take the lead Trump can firm up his domestic political support and marginalize the neocons in both parties.
But, that said, are we going to give up our drive to encircle China and Russia? Does Trump have enough control over his intelligence and military command structure to abide by any agreement he signs?
Are the neocons on the run? Or just playing ‘Possum?
Encirclement is why we still have troops in Japan and South Korea. So, to be honest, I don’t know how far these talks go if the U.S. isn’t ready to pull the Seventh Fleet back from the South China Sea and/or remove our troops from the Korean Peninsula.
Because that’s exactly what Kim Jong-Un will want as a starting point for any discussions of giving up his nuclear weapons.
Given our recent history, if I was him I wouldn’t sign anything until I see troops packing up in the DMZ. Then I’ll know Trump can deliver on whatever he promises.
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- "We Will Not Sit Idly By" – Here's How China Might Retaliate Against US Tariffs
As we highlighted last night, China has threatened to respond to President Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs with unspecified actions that Chinese officials said could “seriously hurt the international trade order.”
And as Axios warned in a piece published Friday, investors shouldn’t interpret their lack of details as a sign of an empty threat: Rather, China actually has far more leverage with which to retaliate against the Trump tariffs than it did when George W Bush briefly imposed tariffs on imported steel in the early aughts. Back then, Bush rescinded the tariffs, it’s widely believed, because the European Union threatened targeted sanctions that would hurt swing states like Michigan and Florida – states that Bush needed to carry during his 2004 campaign. Unsurprisingly, the EU is embracing a similar strategy this time around.
But today, China’s ability to retaliate now rivals that of the entire European Union – which means this could be the last time the US can “set the agenda” in terms of its relationship with its largest economic rival.
Back in 2002, China produced less than 200 million tons of steel. As of 2016, China could churn out 1 billion tons, forcing Beijing to pare back production or risk a destabilizing glut.
Given President Xi Jinping’s decision to abolish term limits, effectively clearing the way for him to serve as dictator for life, the country has the wherewithal and the political will to strike back. Mark Wu, a professor of international trade law at Harvard, said the country needs to do something – if only to save face.
“China has to do something [in response to Trump’s tariffs] just to signal its own resolve,” Wu said.
However, as Wu said, they likely won’t retaliate with the full brunt of their capability, as China would probably be content with watching the Westerners fight it out among themselves.
Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Zhang Yesui, a top diplomat and former ambassador to the U.S., said:
“China does not want a trade war with the US … [But] we will not sit idly by and will take necessary measures if the US hurts China’s interests.”
Since the earliest days of his campaign, Trump has bashed China, citing the US’s massive trade deficit with China as a sign that naive leaders and the “free trade” globalist establishment were allowing the US to be ripped off…all to benefit the coffers of wealthy elites. Meanwhile, in a sign that the US could be softening its stance, the Trump administration has reportedly asked China for a plan to shave $100 billion off the US’s trade deficit with the No. 2 economy (also known as China’s trade surplus).
As Axios sees it, there are two routes China can take: 1) it could retaliate by acting against US projects in China, denying US companies permits to operate in China, essentially blocking US companies from one of the world’s most lucrative growth markets…2) it could engage in tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs against specific US industries and products – much like the EU has threatened to do.
However, not everybody is convinced that China will follow through with a response beyond mere rhetoric: Nathan Chow, a strategist at DBS Group, wrote in a March 9 report that he doesn’t expect the US’s steel and aluminum tariffs to spark a “trade war” with China. Steel and aluminum account for only 3% of China’s total exports (though this figure masks the rampant trans-shipping whereby Chinese steel is dumped into other countries to mask its origins) and 0.6% of its GDP. Chow also argued that Chinese steel exports to the US are much smaller than the country’s top three steel export destinations: South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines.
But one key difference between the Bush tariffs and the Trump tariffs is that Trump invoked Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act – the so-called “national security” justification, which leaves the door open for other WTO members to use a similar argument to justify retaliatory tariffs that COULD escalate into a trade war…
- The FBI Now Admits It Could Have Prevented The Florida High School Shooting
Authored by Carey Wedler via TheAntiMedia.org,
Amid the fallout from the February 14 school shooting in Parkland, FL, that left 17 dead, the FBI and local law enforcement received widespread criticism for their inability to prevent the shooting despite multiple warning signs and opportunities.
On Tuesday, the FBI admitted these failures to the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing focused on how the bureau handled tips about Nikolas Cruz prior to the massacre.
FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich met with members of the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, acknowledging that, as the House Judiciary Committee’s press release put it, “opportunities were missed.”
That release summarized the takeaways, which have already been highlighted in media reports:
“In September 2017, the FBI received an Internet tip from a video blogger about a threatening comment posted to a YouTube video the blogger had posted. The comment stated, ‘I am going to be a professional school shooter,’ and was posted under the username ‘nikolas cruz.’”
According to the hearing, an FBI office in Mississippi received that tip, but after officials investigated it, they closed the case because “it lacked personal identifiable information on the user who posted the threatening comment” (the username “nikolas cruz” was evidently not enough for the agents to go on).
Apparently, however, the agents could have done more:
“The agents tasked with the case could have requested assistance from YouTube to attempt to identify the user who left the comment, but determined that the United States Attorney’s Office in that region was unlikely to agree to such a request.”
On another occasion, a friend of the Cruz family called the FBI tip line and, according to Bowdich, provided sufficient information for the bureau to follow up. But as the press release noted, “the call taker did not ask any standard investigative probing questions during the call” despite the caller saying she worried Cruz “going to explode” and that she feared him “getting into a school and just shooting the place up.”
The agent who took the call spoke to their supervisor, but that conversation was not documented. Worse, as the press release summarized:
“At the time, the call taker was able to connect information about Nikolas Cruz to the September 2017 tip about the threatening YouTube comment. Despite these connected dots, the call taker and supervisor decided to not pursue the matter further and the case was closed.”
They also declined to contact local authorities even though the caller told them Parkland police were also aware of the threat Cruz posed. “Better information sharing between federal and local law enforcement may have prevented the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” the summary of the hearing noted.
Bowdich admitted “there were failures and that corrective actions will be taken,” including conducting separate reviews of the two above instances and providing better training for call takers working the tip line.
Though the FBI is often glorified in entertainment and has received increased support in recent months thanks to its its pursuit of potential corruption within the Trump administration, the government agency has a long history of nefariousness.
Though it is successful in using informants to instigate potential terror attacks, then foiling them and taking credit for keeping the public safe, it appears that despite its tip line, widespread surveillance methods, and immense manpower, the agency continues to fail to live up to its reputation.
- Stormy Daniels Tapes "60 Minutes" Interview With Anderson Cooper
Ever since news broke that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen won an arbitration hearing meant to stop Stephanie Clifford – aka Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who reportedly had a brief affair with Donald Trump after meeting him at a golf tournament in 2006 – it’s been nonstop Daniels news, as the White House announced that President Trump has hired a lawyer exclusively to handle Daniels-related matters (like enforcing an NDA that she’s claiming is invalid because President Trump never signed it, even though his lawyer paid her the agreed-upon $130,000).
Daniels has also claimed that, by admitting to the payoff during public testimony, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had violated the NDA, and that it is no longer binding.
CNN, meanwhile, has been all over the Daniels beat, with White House reporter Jim Acosta reporting that Trump is displeased with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ handling of a reporter’s question during a Wednesday press conference where she acknowledged that Trump had won the arbitration proceeding against Daniels.
Indeed, it appears that, instead of fading away, like most scandals involving the White House, the Trump-Daniels affair is about as persistent as a case of herpes.
Case in point: Today, CNN is reporting that Daniels has filmed a segment for ’60 Minutes’ with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who is also a regular contributor to ’60 Minutes.’
In January, Daniels appeared on Jimmy Kimmel live, where she shockingly appeared to deny sleeping with Trump, before later denying her denial.
As of Friday, the 60 Minutes feature didn’t have an air date for the segment, saying only that it’d be “soon.”
Cohen has said that “the payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,” but several election watchdogs have filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission, arguing that the Daniels payment could constitute an unreported campaign expense.
Daniels has shared intimate details of her affair with Trump – which lasted roughly 18 months and ended after he failed to secure a spot on “The Apprentice” for the adult film actress (it was network TV, after all). During an interview with “In Touch”, she dished that the sex was “textbook generic” and that Trump once confided in her that he hates sharks, and would never donate to a charity that helps them.
Meanwhile, the president’s supporters in the evangelical community continue to have his back, arguing that whether or not Daniels’ allegations or true makes no difference to them, per the Hill…
“Evangelicals know they’re not compromising their beliefs in order to support this great president,” Pastor Robert Jeffress said on Fox News Thursday. “And let’s be clear, evangelicals still believe in the commandment ‘thou shalt not have sex with a porn star.’”
“However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him,” he continued.
Jeffress said evangelicals knew they “weren’t voting for an altar boy” when they voted for Trump and maintained they supported Trump for his “policies and strong leadership.”
The pastor, who runs the First Baptist Church in Dallas, reminded reporters that evangelicals understand “the concept of sin and forgiveness…”
…Oh, and let’s not forget their appreciation for his Supreme Court picks.
- "The Parasites Must Be Stopped" – A Letter From Ukraine To 'All Good People Of America'
Authored by Russell “Texas” Bentley,
To My Family and Friends, and All Good People of the USA,
You may not know it yet, but the world changed on March 1st, 2018, an old era was ended, and a new era begun. In very great part, the meaning of this new era is up to you.
On that historic day, Vladimir Putin revealed to the world that the US military is now obsolete, and no longer capable of “projecting power”, committing war crimes, or intimidating and destroying smaller nations around the world. That day has ended forever, one way or another. The US military is still completely capable of the mission it needs and deserves to do, which is to defend the territory and people of the United States of America. You are safe. There is no threat. But the days of your government threatening and destroying other countries is over. I hope you understand this.
Putin’s revelation of Russia’s game-changing weapons, against which the US military is literally defenseless, is not a threat or a bluff. Only liars and fools speak of “Russian aggression”, and the stupidity of anyone who says or believes “Putin is bluffing” is beyond measure. Russia’s weapons are real, and the US military industrial complex (that Dwight Eisenhower warned about 57 years ago) has absolutely no defense against them. In spite of plundering and squandering literally trillions of dollars from the US treasury and the American People in the name of “defense”, they are defenseless.
Russia’s new weapons present no threat to the American People, unless you allow the people who own and control your government to to start a world war and force the Russians to use them. But if you do allow that to happen, the American people will get exactly what the “good Germans” got in 1945. And you will deserve it, just as much as they did. For the exact same reasons.
Russia is not your enemy. We seek only cooperation for the mutual benefit of all Mankind. But since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990, 28 years ago, the USA, NATO and the EU have sought to plunder and rule the world. They have been the enemies, the enslavers, the destroyers of the world. No reality based person can dispute that fact. There is no place that the US or NATO has gone into in the last 4 decades that is better off. Not one. In fact, there is no place that NATO or the US have intervened, (usually against international law) that hasn’t become a failed state, hell on Earth for the citizens, and a genuine danger to the surrounding regions and the world. It is the US government and NATO, and the people who own and control them, who are the threats and the enemies to the future of Humanity. But their days of disregarding international law and destroying weaker nations with impunity are now over, as of March 1st, 2018.
The good people of America now have a huge opportunity, and a huge challenge. Russia spends less than one tenth what the USA spends on military and defense, but their military and weapons are superior in every measurable way. The waste, corruption and abject venality of the US military industrial complex has wasted trillions on weapon systems that are now literally useless, and which have left the US military (and by extension the American people) defenseless before the power of Russia’s weapons, which are designed and produced to be effective rather than profitable. The opportunity is this – the USA can now reduce its military spending (the highest in the world) by 90% and still be safer than you are right now, spending almost a trillion dollars a year on useless weapons and a defenseless military. Safer, because as soon as the American People take control of their government enough to reduce your spending to ONLY as much as Russia spends, Russia will stop having reason to see the USA as an existential threat. The less you spend, the safer you will be. The more you spend, the more likely World War Three, which will see you as the instigators and the losers. This gives the USA, starting as soon as you want, an extra $800 billion, per year, to spend on things that have actual worth, things you really need. Health care, free college education, fixing the rotting economy and infrastructure that are daily becoming more of a threat to the American people than Russia has ever been.
Your challenge is that you must root out an entrenched and ruthless kleptocracy, built on deceit and oppression, and which is bent on war, and will stop at nothing to cling to its power. It is a huge task, an historic task, but in it lies your only hope. These parasites must be stopped, and if the American People are not up to the challenge, if they fail in their historic mission, they will leave it to the armies of the world, led by Russia, who will no longer tolerate those who want to rule the world. Your rulers are leading you to a war you cannot win, a war from which you, your families and your nation, and perhaps the world, will never recover. If the American People do not prevent their rulers from starting World War Three, there will be war. Peace and prosperity or death and desolation. These are your only choices, and now is the time to make your choice and act accordingly.
An annual windfall of $800 billion is yours for the taking, if you have the wisdom, courage and determination to take it back from the charlatans and scammers who have been robbing and wasting your trillions for years. Already these vermin claim the only possible solution is to give them even more money, as if those who fail when they out-spend their competitors ten to one might succeed by spending twenty to one. At some point, the host must rid itself of its parasites, or risk being bled dry.
When the American People stand up to their oppressors, rid themselves of their parasites, the people of Russia and of the world will stand with you, will applaud and support you. All good people in the world are on the same side. Those who oppress and exploit you do the same to us. Your enemies are our enemies, and ours are yours. Stand up, as we have, throw off your chains and illusions, see for yourself who your real enemies are, and together let’s defeat them, before they destroy the world and all that is good in it. Only you can stop them without a global war. If you don’t, there will be war, and we will stop them. But those who live in the USA will suffer the fate of those who start and lose a world war. It is not a fate to be desired.
America, that time has now come for you. The choice is stark and clear, and you must make it soon.
Either bring your rulers to heel, stop the war they are bent on starting, and reap the benefits of stopping the most egregious and wasteful scam in history, or do nothing, allow your parasites to consume you, and let them lead you and your children and your nation to Armageddon and a fiery death in a war that you now know you can never win. The choice is yours. And so is the responsibility.
* * *
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