Guest Post by Chris Hedges
The assassination by the United States of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, near Baghdad’s airport will ignite widespread retaliatory attacks against U.S. targets from Shiites, who form the majority in Iraq. It will activate Iranian-backed militias and insurgents in Lebanon and Syria and throughout the Middle East. The existing mayhem, violence, failed states and war, the result of nearly two decades of U.S. blunders and miscalculations in the region, will become an even wider and more dangerous conflagration. The consequences are ominous. Not only will the U.S. swiftly find itself under siege in Iraq and perhaps driven out of the country—there is only a paltry force of 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, all U.S. citizens in Iraq have been told to leave the country “immediately” and the embassy and consular services have been closed—but the situation could also draw us into a war directly with Iran. The American Empire, it seems, will die not with a whimper but a bang.
The targeting of Soleimani, who was killed by a MQ-9 Reaper drone that fired missiles into his convoy as he was leaving the Baghdad airport, also took the life of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iran-backed militias in Iraq known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, along with other Iraqi Shiite militia leaders. The strike may temporarily bolster the political fortunes of the two beleaguered architects of the assassination, Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is an act of imperial suicide by the United States. There can be no positive outcome. It opens up the possibility of an Armageddon-type scenario relished by the lunatic fringes of the Christian right.
A war with Iran would see it use its Chinese-supplied anti-ship missiles, mines and coastal artillery to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which is the corridor for 20% of the world’s oil supply. Oil prices would double, perhaps triple, devastating the global economy. The retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel, as well as on American military installations in Iraq, would leave hundreds, maybe thousands, of dead. The Shiites in the region, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, would see an attack on Iran as a religious war against Shiism. The 2 million Shiites in Saudi Arabia, concentrated in the oil-rich Eastern province, the Shiite majority in Iraq and the Shiite communities in Bahrain, Pakistan and Turkey would turn in fury on us and our dwindling allies. There would be an increase in terrorist attacks, including on American soil, and widespread sabotage of oil production in the Persian Gulf. Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would renew attacks on northern Israel. War with Iran would trigger a long and widening regional conflict that, by the time it was done, would terminate the American Empire and leave in its wake mounds of corpses and smoldering ruins. Let us hope for a miracle to pull us back from this Dr. Strangelove self-immolation.
Iran, which has vowed “harsh retaliation,” is already reeling under the crippling economic sanctions imposed by the Trump administration when it unilaterally withdrew in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear arms deal. Tensions in Iraq between the U.S. and the Shiite majority, at the same time, have been escalating. On Dec. 27 Katyusha rockets were fired at a military base in Kirkuk where U.S. forces are stationed. An American civilian contractor was killed and several U.S. military personnel were wounded. The U.S. responded on Dec. 29 by bombing sites belonging to the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia. Two days later Iranian-backed militias attacked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, vandalizing and destroying parts of the building and causing its closure. But this attack will soon look like child’s play.
Iraq after our 2003 invasion and occupation has been destroyed as a unified country. Its once-modern infrastructure is in ruins. Electrical and water services are, at best, erratic. There is high unemployment and discontent over widespread government corruption that has led to bloody street protests. Warring militias and ethnic factions have carved out competing and antagonistic enclaves. At the same time, the war in Afghanistan is lost, as the Afghanistan Papers published by The Washington Post detail. Libya is a failed state. Yemen after five years of unrelenting Saudi airstrikes and a blockade is enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. The “moderate” rebels we funded and armed in Syria at a cost of $500 million, after instigating a lawless reign of terror, have been beaten and driven out of the country. The monetary cost for this military folly, the greatest strategic blunder in American history, is between $5 trillion and $7 trillion.
So why go to war with Iran? Why walk away from a nuclear agreement that Iran did not violate? Why demonize a government that is the mortal enemy of the Taliban, along with other jihadist groups, including al-Qaida and Islamic State? Why shatter the de facto alliance we have with Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why further destabilize a region already dangerously volatile?
The generals and politicians who launched and prosecuted these wars are not about to take the blame for the quagmires they created. They need a scapegoat. It is Iran. The hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed, including at least 200,000 civilians, and the millions driven from their homes into displacement and refugee camps cannot, they insist, be the result of our failed and misguided policies. The proliferation of radical jihadist groups and militias, many of which we initially trained and armed, along with the continued worldwide terrorist attacks, have to be someone else’s fault. The generals, the CIA, the private contractors and weapons manufacturers who have grown rich off these conflicts, the politicians such as George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, along with all the “experts” and celebrity pundits who serve as cheerleaders for endless war, have convinced themselves, and want to convince us, that Iran is responsible for our catastrophe.
The chaos and instability we unleashed in the Middle East, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, left Iran as the dominant country in the region. Washington empowered its nemesis. It has no idea how to reverse its mistake other than to attack Iran.
Trump and Netanyahu, as well as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, are mired in scandal. They believe a new war would divert attention from their foreign and domestic crises. But they have no more rational strategy for war with Iran than they did for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria. European allies, whom Trump alienated when he walked away from the Iranian nuclear agreement, will not cooperate with Washington if the U.S. goes to war with Iran. The Pentagon lacks the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to attack and occupy Iran. And the Trump administration’s view that the marginal and discredited Iranian resistance group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and is seen by most Iranians as composed of traitors, is a viable counterforce to the Iranian government is ludicrous.
International law, along with the rights of 80 million people in Iran, is ignored just as the rights of the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria were ignored. The Iranians, whatever they feel about their despotic regime, would not see the United States as allies or liberators. They do not want to be occupied. They would resist.
A war with Iran would be seen throughout the region as a war against Shiism. But these are calculations that the ideologues, who know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate, cannot fathom. Attacking Iran would be no more successful than the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon in 2006, which failed to break Hezbollah and united most Lebanese behind that militant group. The Israeli bombing did not pacify 4 million Lebanese. What will happen if we begin to pound a country of 80 million people whose land mass is three times the size of France?
The United States, like Israel, has become a pariah that shreds, violates or absents itself from international law. We launch preemptive wars, which under international law is defined as a “crime of aggression,” based on fabricated evidence. We, as citizens, must hold our government accountable for these crimes. If we do not, we will be complicit in the codification of a new world order, one that would have terrifying consequences. It would be a world without treaties, statutes and laws. It would be a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state to a great imperial power, would be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations to others. Such a new order would undo five decades of international cooperation—largely put in place by the United States—and thrust us into a Hobbesian nightmare. Diplomacy, broad cooperation, treaties and law, all the mechanisms designed to civilize the global community, would be replaced by savagery.
Chris Hedges, an Arabic speaker, is a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. He spent seven years covering the region, including Iran.
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Bravo!
Here is a hypothesis for your consideration – what if the objective here is not so much as throw the Middle East into chaos, but to throw the East Asian – and therefore Chinese economy – into chaos? Shutting down the Persian Gulf pretty much shuts off the supply of oil to China, shuts down their export capabilities, and allows the global supply chain to reconfigure its self.
Now – I’ve spent 27 years in the upstream E&P industry and the absolutely stupidest thing when considered by its self I have ever seen in those 27 years is shale oil. It loses money hand over fist, and the oil industry has accumulated about $240 Bln in debt that won’t ever be paid back. But what if the true purpose of shale oil was not profit, but supply self sufficiency? We have record oil production in the USA right now, and when combined with the surplus grains and idle bio-fuel production capacity could (eventually) cover most of the USA gasoline demand.
The timing is significant. We import little to no oil from the Middle East, and when we finally (almost) have gasoline self sufficiency we attack Iran. If the Persian Gulf is shut down, not too big a deal for us but an economic catastrophe for China. And this would have had to be in the works for years, at least since 2014 when the second round of the shale debt binge began. While the global supply chain re-configures and “Makes America Great Again”, we can start back up all out idle bio-fuel capacity and its boom time for farmers et cetera. Factories can’t move from China to Vietnam if the shipping companies can’t get bunker fuel.
So, maybe we’re not entirely (((their))) proxy this time? Suggestions?
That makes some sense. We shall see what happens.
From what I read, the Chinese economy is teetering on the edge of a crash any day now, so why go through the trouble of trying to hurry that along? Of course, everything we read concerning any gov’t statistics is a lie, the only question being how big of a lie.
The Russian pipeline was opened up just a week or so ago, so the Chinese have that energy supply to draw upon. Russian ships are also sending oil via the polar route but that may not be possible in winter unless their nuclear ice breakers are actually as good as they claim them to be.
If the shipping lanes were to get disrupted, the Chinese would definitely be hurt. The question is are they going to sit around and complain or are they going to do something about it? If their energy supply were to be cut due to a perceived US meddling, then I suspect the Chinese would do what the Japanese did early on during WW-II. They’re going to enter the conflict on the Iranian side along with the Russians. The Chinese have an investment in Iran and that part of the world in general and their country partners would be looking at China’s response to a US orchestrated cut. The Chinese are face saving people as part of their culture and I don’t see them just slinking off.
What about the Europeans? It’s winter there and their people wouldn’t look too kindly on a US inspired crisis that cuts off their heat and cripples their economy.
As far as grains is concerned, I’ve read that the US silos are depleted or nearly so and that the US is going to be forced to import grain. Again, who to believe. Biofuel is a rounding error so not worth considering in some self sufficiency scenario. If memory serves, one needs to put almost as much energy in as one gets out which is why it never took off except as some boutique concept.
I don’t doubt your scenario has some merit and may in fact be a plan. It’s the entire worlds reaction to such a plan that I think makes it more trouble than it’s worth. But then the folks doing such planning have an agenda that I’m not privy to.
The US has had the evil eye on Iran for decades. I still think that the crazies want Iran for Iran’s sake and any collateral damage for the other invented enemies is a bonus.
China has two economies – their internal economy that operates on the Yuan and the other that operates outside of China and in a basket of foreign currencies.
I worked for the Chinese state oil company Sinopec International (via their acquisition of Addax Petroleum) for 6-1/2 years and this is what I learned. Note none of us Westerners had it figured out but we got to see enough of what was behind the curtain to get an idea of what was really going on.
First off, China seems to domicile its state debt into these government owned entities. Where we in the US talk about a $22 T Federal debt, there is no such thing in China – it is all pushed out to Peoples Bank of China, CNOOC, Baowu, et cetera. Within China, and when dealing with Yuan, it is up to these entities to make this debt disappear. It is all one gigantic fraud – fake valuations, no asset depreciation, no discounting cash flows from investment, liabilities that vanish. It can all be back-filled with money printing, and it all works so long as it is done within the borders of China and in Yuan. As long as everyone goes along and refuses to notice enything, the “system” works.
Internationally, this is different altogether. Sinopec must report actual profit and loss on its foreign petroleum licenses to the host governments and this is where it gets very strange. Now consider Sinopec an example of what many Chinese companies are doing in foreign countries. What we saw was their balance sheet was not only bad, it was gobsmacked bad. They had amassed 74 petroleum licenses around the world and only three generated a positive cash flow. Somehow, through the magic of Chinese accounting, these 74 petroleum licenses had accumulated over USD$700 Bln in debt. Yes, we went through the questions like, “are there extra zeros”, or “That’s Yuan, right?” but no – that much debt had been pushed down to this 4,100 employee division which begs the question how much cebt is hiding within the larger 1.2 MM employee parent company?
So if Sinopec International is an example of the larger Chinese pyramid scheme, this thing must me ready to crash at any momet, and the supply disruption of oil will force it out entirely into the world of USD and Euros where it can’t survive using the tricks it uses in China. What we may have is shale oil as a tool to insulate the US from a supply shock, which if the Middle East is shut off would be something of a ripple here but would crush China by draining it of US dollar reserves.
This is the only scenario I can reconcile with the utter stupidity of shale oil, a defensive supply cushion. The petro-dollar component is problematic though, but then maybe the TPTB have thrown in the towel on that one already.
I was somewhat knowledgeable about how the Chinese run their two sided Ponzi scheme. Because they run an internal command economy, much as the west does, they can keep up the scam for a very long time, again as the west does. Only the mechanisms are slightly different. The Fed is the supposed independent entity with oversight and the Chinese really don’t bother that much with the independence nonsense. Their approach is more honest in that their approach is blatantly dishonest.
The Chinese aren’t stupid people by any measure. What they’ve accomplished in record time is laudatory. That a lot of it is slipshod and lots of people are siphoning off money is a given, what else is new, but I’d say what they’ve built largely works as expected. The question then becomes why isn’t your particular example making money? Why, by extension, is their economy both internal and external a disaster as so many think?
Could it be that they are more willing to accept losses for much longer periods of time than the west? Could it be that their profit horizon is far extended past the next stock reporting quarter? The west has bullshit operations like Uber and Lyft that will never see a profit, airlines that are perennially on the brink of failure, the shale fraud, etc, etc, etc. Is there really that much difference between the two? They’re both a king size fraud.
The Chinese are building infrastructure all over the world and I’ve yet to hear it’s all falling down or doesn’t suit the purpose. This makes me think that the losses are part of the plan to buy foreign influence and make friends even while sustaining monetary losses with the expectation that the future pay off in actual profits and the good will generated will more than compensate for the early losses. When their foreign oil facilities produce fuel for the locals, the locals can only be tremendously grateful. I’ve driven on the road the Chinese built in Jamaica – beautiful.
Where the US bombs the shit out of people to gain compliance, the Chinese are using the more stealthy model of the ‘economic hitman’. The Chinese will repossess much of their construction down the road due to lack of debt service by the local gov’ts involved, much as the IMF, World Bank, etc do. That the low IQ Africans are being fleeced is to be expected, not condoned, but expected. That future repossession may be their current profit if by their accounting they’ve made up some nonsense like depreciation to account for it; nonsense in the sense that it’s just an accounting gimmick and isn’t tangibly real.
Getting back to your premise – it’s plausible, but I still lean more towards the more obvious.
BTW – I want to thank you for the pleasant conversation.
So, it is ok fir china to enter because they fear a national energy emergency but it is not ok for the usa to do the same and enter the ME….sounds about right as a prescription for TDS
Threading on this site is primitive and it took me some time to figure out you were replying to me.
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I think you’ve constructed some kind of straw man but I’m not sure. Please elaborate.
To me, TDS mean Total Dissolved Solids as it relates to water testing.
Uhhhhhhhhh…. when we last did this to Japan, many, many moons ago–they went to war with us.
If you’re a rapture-retard, armageddon-jack-off, bible-babble type, then this makes a lot of sense.
Worked out real well for us when we effectively did the same thing to Japan pre-WW2, right?
EDIT: Oops, see above post.
I don’t understand, I thought they switched sides because we sided with Russia against their interests.
The US choked off Japan’s fuel supplies and rubber coming out of SE Asia long before Pearl Harbor. That was an existential threat to Japan and they had to do something or wither on the vine. The US knew this and thus they also knew there would be a response. That response was what the US wanted.
The more modern weapon of economic sanctions essentially does the same thing – restrict resources – but isn’t as in your face obvious as a string of ships blocking waterways. It’s also why various gov’ts are working around the US dollar and inventing a Swift system alternative. In the long run these sanctions are going to help tremendously to ruin the Dollar.
Okay, I’m really deep into this Women’s Horndog Fiction hole… rabbit hole, elmer.
However, I was putting together my end run on 400 over on the America is Doomed Channel and reading some really trashy women’s fiction that used to make me drool and read it again and again, wondering what in the world it was that made it seem
I just made that up myself… Anyone could write the crap. It is just that until Larry Flynn did an end run on the 1st Amendment with Prurient Interest and Community Standards (sound like community organizing before its time?
In case you don’t remember?
“The self-described “smut peddler”; former jailbird, amphetamine addict and bootlegger; nemesis of feminists like Gloria Steinem (who called him “the Goebbels of the war against women”); multimillionaire; thorn in the side of the arch-right; and historic defender of free speech has a lot to think about.
It has been 25 years almost to the day since the Supreme Court made “this old pornographer,” as he calls himself, part of history when it handed down a key First Amendment verdict.
In the late ’80s, televangelist Jerry Falwell sued Flynt (I left Flynn to make you feel smart for a second) for libel and the infliction of emotional distress caused by a Hustler cartoon implying Falwell’s first sexual encounter was with his mother. He won in a lower court. But on Feb. 24, 1988, the Supreme Court deemed that if a public figure could receive damages for distress, any kind of satire or parody was dead in the water.
The case, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, now is taught in law schools.
“Garry Trudeau said Larry Flynt gave him a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Flynt says, a smile suddenly breaking through his curiously expressionless face — a bonanza for poker but strangely intimidating during even the most basic of conversations — revealing an unexpected warmth.
Less known is that shortly after the verdict, “I was sitting in my office and my secretary called me and said, ‘Reverend Jerry Falwell is in the lobby.’ I said, ‘Send him in.’ So he walked in the door and he held up both hands and said, ‘I surrender!’ He sat down and we talked for about an hour, and then he asked me to go on a couple of speaking engagements with him, where we debated one another.” He wasn’t surprised: “Falwell was a salesman. You know, if he’d been selling peanut butter or beer, he would’ve sold it the same way he sold his religion.”
Let me repeat something: The case, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, now is taught in law schools.
So, I came across a lot of really, really, really interesting comments, succinct and well written with few typos, but several misuses of homonyms (where for wear, e.g.) by a new, improved Nobody.
Have you seen a new sort of Nobody who seems to know more than the average Nobody around the place? Who wants to know? Nobody, in particular.
They’ll banish us, you know.
hyperborean,
you’re so full of shite you can’t think straight–
everybody who is anybody knows we Never do anything in our own interest,only ((((((((theirs!!!))))))))-
I think you must be mistaken. The comment section you are looking for is at zerohedge.com. You can fight with the Mossad psyops people there.
But low iq, non informed full TDS commenters just want to blame trump……
It will get worse, the closer we get to Nov..
Well said Chris
Everyone of those idiots in Washington need to have this article given to them. Not that they would know anything about the truth.
Uh huh. Thanks for squeezing Armageddon in there twice. Im buggin out!
He was a deep state piece, getting ready to play the move and he got knocked the fuck off the board.
I can tell by the confusion and anger in their voices, squealing again, I hear this tune a lot lately, must have been a pretty important piece, bigger than Baghdadi even.
What the fuck was he doing in Iraq? Helping Iraqis? Yeah, Im sure he was.
So now all the Iranians are going ape shit, wait for it, in Iraq.
Huh?
“What the fuck was he doing in Iraq? Helping Iraqis? Yeah, Im sure he was”
I imagine he was there for same reasons our generals, etc. are there. To bring them freedom and democracy; Yeah, I’m sure they are.
The General was en-route to attend the funeral of those 30 or so Iranians we killed… and he arrived on a commercial flight at Baghdad airport and was admitted into the country by Iraqi officials.
Talk about some chicken shit attack!
Of course, a funeral, not to plan more attacks on US targets in Iraq.
Chicken shit attack. Wake up. Look at the attacks soleimani procured. Take about being a complete pussy
“Armageddon!?”
Huh?!
BTW–this is the rapture-retards and bible-babble types wet dream.
Try learning about the Twelver sect and its religious perspective. It’s quite similar to Apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism, but with a distinctly Islamic bent.
Shinman after the rapture
Here’s a photo of the back of Nancy Neoconye’s station wagon–of course it’s ‘Murican’ made, by fat, lazy, communist-unionized workers…
And another of Nancy being cure (by her faith) of her incurable STD…
https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.2Dd_DYj5nZsvNAlw5OfjLwHaEK&pid=Api&P=0&w=346&h=195
One more time Shinmen…
I wish you and your family the very best as we head into this storm…and I mean it…as we are all going into ‘tribulation’ a time like no other…make your secular points, many, if not most that I agree with, but stop spraying your vicious, mocking spittle at God and His Believers, for your sake…as it will all come back on you one day, and it won’t be karma…it will be judgement. I know at this point you don’t believe that, but I’m just trying to warn you.
All your Christen hate evokes from me, and I suspect all other Christians is a subtraction, a sad, hollow, lost, rage. Many of us understand it…we were once there.
Your arms are too short to box with God buddy…and your rabid words will one day be put down…remember this…
Galatians 6:7: Do not be deceived: God is not to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he will reap in return.
MOCKERS: Don’t take revenge on them but always be prepared to give an answer.
Proverbs 19:11 A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.
Proverbs 29:11 A fool gives full vent to his spirit, but a wise man quietly holds it
1 Peter 3:15-16 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
Galatians 6:7: Stop being deceived; God is not to be ridiculed. A person harvests whatever he plants:
Isaiah 28:22 Now stop your mocking, or your chains will become heavier; the Lord, the LORD Almighty, has told me of the destruction decreed against the whole land.
MOCKERS HATE CORRECTION
Proverbs 9:4-12 “Whoever is naive, let him turn in here,” she says to those who lack understanding. “Come, eat some of my food, and drink some of the wine I have mixed. Abandon your foolish ways so that you may live, and proceed in the way of understanding.”
Whoever corrects a mocker is asking for insult; whoever reproves a wicked person receives abuse.
Do not reprove a mocker or he will hate you; reprove a wise person and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise person, and he will become wiser still; teach a righteous person and he will add to his learning. The beginning of wisdom is to fear the Lord, and acknowledging the Holy One is understanding. For because of me your days will be many, and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage, but if you are a mocker, you alone must bear it.
Proverbs 14:6-9: The scorner seeks wisdom but finds none, but understanding is easy for a discerning person. Leave the presence of a foolish person, or you will not understand wise counsel. The wisdom of the shrewd person is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deception. Fools mock at reparation, but among the upright there is favor.
ON JUDGEMENT DAYTHEIR LUCK WILL RUN OUT
Proverbs 19:28-30 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and the wicked person feeds on iniquity. Condemnation is appropriate for mockers, just as beatings are for the backs of fools.
Matthew 12:35-37 A good person brings good things out of a good treasure house, and an evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure house. I tell you, on Judgment Day people will give an account for every thoughtless word they have uttered, because by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Mark “Your arms are too short to box with God buddy…and your rabid words will one day be put down…remember this…” kinda what trump just did to iran….these same people dont get that either
John,
I have become so jaded, unbelieving, mistrustful, and deeply sad over our endless wars, and the endless false flags, and the endless stream of power hungry Neocons, and cowardly chicken hawks, plus the fat cat banksters playing god while leaving nothing but death, destruction, and graveyards in their wake…I am reminded of this poem…altered from the original for a modern day lament.
Here is my respectful Ode to Siegfried Sassoon and a disrespectful slap to all the flying monkey NeoCons and Chicken Hawks who eat peanuts out of the Bankster’s hands, while rubbing their paws together singing the Star Spangled Banner.
SUICIDE IN THE FIGHTING HOLE
I knew a simple teenage Soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy…
He slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In a desert fighting hole, bleeding fleeting hope
With mortar crumps so close he could no longer cope
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced NeoCons and Chicken Hawks with narrow eyes
Who cheer when Soldier Boys march by,
Sneak home at night and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
Mark, thank you for this. Poignant.
AoC,
Thanks, I tend to talk in poems sometimes.
Past all the geopolitics, the 4D chess, the black gold and those who are bold, with other’s lives…there is always a fresh generation who if they even survive…will come home from hell’s rim…missing a limb…or two.
And all their mirror will ever see…is a lifetime of PTSD.
Aggressive foreign policy is always harder…on the teenaged cannon fodder.
Said the old man…who can relate…to their torment and their fate.
I was chatting with ec above regarding nobody in particular and wonder if you’ve noticed nobody or if you think it’s just somebody acting like nobody.
That was fun. You could read Spy vs. spy for years and not come up with that without the right sort of training in thoughtspeak.
Hope you enjoy the link about Monty Python and the Holy Grail… they really did have an impact on our generation!
Neo-con, bible-babble USA, USA, USA church chanting rapture retards.
bibble babble works better… still suggests bible.
And yet everyone I know at work and outside of work just continues to ignore reality.
What to do. ….
Vote for me asshole, I’ll set the earth on fire!
For your freedom of course.
Do you think Trump set the fires in CA?
How about Australia?
Do you think they were set?
It was the jews. It’s ALWAYS the jews. /s
Who said anything about fires in CA and Australia?
I was just wondering…do you think they were set? You indicated Trump was going to set fire to the world, and it was a logical place to start as there are big and recent fires?
Or were you being hyperbolic again? Like with North Korea, and Syria, and Syria again, and probably North Korea again, and now Iraq, or is it Iran? Both? All? Armageddon?
The pic is indicative of a scorched earth via nuclear war. See the mushroom cloud?
Thank God there’s no such thing as nuclear weapons.
The best way to find out if there’s nuclear weapons is to re-elect Trump.
Where is .22 when you really…really need him???
Would not surprise this observer if Winnie has been back here for a while already, under a different, new alias, and a different IP address.
SAO sounds suspiciously as cynical, arrogant, and alienating as the rimfire small caliber who supposedly took his ball and departed from the platform playground about 3-4 months ago.
Is he baaa-aaack?
If I recall Winne left after admitting to being Jewish.
Would make sense with Vomit Harder’s overt anti-semitism that it would be him.
and shinzen tak-whatever-the-fuck too.
Hi winnie!
Hmmmm, I thought he was Mormon?
Winnie is no SAO
Actually, since we have not seen that convoluted organizational chart he was always throwing up there, SAO is probably NO Winnie.
It wasn’t that long ago… and he commented as Blaine a time or two…
People who want to disguise IP addresses do so.
I’m not winnie, in my opinion he was run off by the Q lady in a classic case of hell hath no fury like a women scorned. Nursey didn’t come right out and say it though the implication was crystal clear as she threatened to drop a dime and red flag his ass. Has not been seen since. He mentioned some legal troubles and may be serving a sentence.
In the past I have commented as Barney, Social Credits, F-, Girraftard, Hellhound, Silver Linings, Major Appliance, Real Deal,Not a Racist, and lots of other fake bullshit.
Damn. Goes to show you what happens when you focus on working outside while the weather’s reasonable. I missed some interesting times.
I heard Confucius suggested it was a curse to see those.
carry on… is good to have deep background cover… God bless you, soldier…
Ahhh, has one pondering now
SOA lacks a calm esteem. Winchester with tagline cut to the chase and opened up in one of MC’s articles.
Are you talking about the Motherhood Abandoned article that have brought on the plague of algorithms wanting to edit for TBPers?
That article brought a swarm of loonies to the place, didn’t it? I’m not exactly suggesting Mary Christine attracts them, but… well, that’s how you suggest something without actually doing so.
I remember that but Winnie was around for a long time posting his charts and memes.
Then HSF kindly suggested he re-evaluated his methodology and presentation and WIP flatout told him to lose the posterboards on his moniker or die and he became winnie-no-tag for a bit, then posted as blaine and went on a walk-a-bout.
Here’s my two cents about Winnie and you can take this with a grain of salt and shove it where it will burn worst.
Winnie has rethought some or all of his positions because being part of this group of thinkers and communicators profoundly changes the way one thinks. Like it or not, people come here to opine and get their ideas out there and they stay for the shitfests.
Some people here thrive on the shitfests, like Stucky, who is the doublingdownest Nick of a man I ever met since my own. He’s the “you think you don’t like me now just wait until I get done with you” type
Others, like Uncola, like to be diplomatic and cajoling, preferring to avoid direct conflict because, well, other readers have a right to their opinions and Admin likes to encourage debate as long as it doesn’t cross the line.
HSF is a bit of a wildcard because while he has obviously revised and rewritten his own narrative so well he can surprise us with a bit of street savvy insight which reminds us he was 82nd Airborne and he dropped into Grenada. If you misspell his name, you find a weird mirror image in the work of a maron.
I’m dropping this here because it made me remember when Finnegan’s Wake “outed” Shock Jock Jim Quinn (there really IS one).
Life doesn’t necessarily rhyme. Does it?
If a Maroon, a Moran and a Maron met on the Moon, would a Moron emerge from the Madness or would you?
http://marcmeetsobama.com/index
YOU get that little riddle don’t you?
HSF did his level best to channel him.
I think .22 just changed names.
Look for posts that quote Miles Mathis.
I actually posted a reply to his criticism of an essay I shared from the guy traveling around southern california and Mexico in his camper.
It seems that Miles Mathis is probably/possibly a Limited Hangout.
From what I’ve gathered, that is a persona that pretends to be a single voice with a team of researchers when, in fact, it is a team of voices trying to control a message. Some people might call that a narrative.
Now, the link I shared was about Miles and Winnie said he’d read it and I said it wasn’t that the term doesn’t mean there IS NOT a Miles Mathis. It just means that everything Miles Mathis SAYS is not necessarily something Miles Mathis believes.
I thought Blaine showing up was Winnie making a way to adjust, as I did when I decided initials were better than personal nicknames. Now, I’m wondering if Blaine knows where Left a Comment ended up and if he can support my claim that I did NOT insult the looney tune.
Yes and i too am thankful money still grows on trees ?
Is that what you think is going to happen?
He’s a one trick anti-Trump pony, of course that’s what he claims will happen.
You’re a brainwashed statist, government worshiping, cognitive dissonant, Stockholm syndrome suffering, learned helplessness victim, ADHD, automaton, robot, android, main stream media popcorn eater, genetically modified, I-phone and television addicted, one trick fictitious character in George Orwells 1984.
You never answered my question about the fires, do you think they were set?
Your question didn’t get answered because it is 100% OFF TOPIC!
Do you not have permission? Because that response was 100% off topic and you mustered that gem out.
His troll master was sleeping
Snowflake
By golly, you made that up on your own? I’d be impressed except all you did was word salad. Now, go bash Trump…it’s your one and only forte.
Yea VH hitlery would have been sooo much better, like benghazi what matter does it make anyway….your tds is overriding your senses bro. I mostly upvote your comments.
After Jerusalem becomes a glowing ashtray, all those who have converted to churchianity instead of obeying Jesus will be walking around like zombies.
Dispensationalism has misidentified the players. If you give aid and comfort to those that will not have Him rule over them, you make yourself an enemy and share their punishment.
The Master will return. It is foretold.
His arrival and anger will not spare contemporary Jews who might see themselves as “The Chosen People”. As a matter of fact, they will suffer as much as their Muslim neighbors.
First casualty of war is the truth.
Next will be literally thousands,not hundreds of American youths.Cannon fodder sold a bill of goods on TV commercials.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will pay the price very very soon.
Then the real evil behind US department of WAR will find out how ugly it can get.
ISREAL is Trump’s master.Many presidents had Christmas parties.Here is Trump’s salute to Sheldon Addelson,Wilbur Ross who bought him in the 1990s and Bibi aka Shiva.
A very good article, but “We, as citizens, must hold our government accountable for these crimes.” How does that work? Vote for Biden?
No Dan. Stop voting.
But, Trump, Like Owe’Bomber, said he was going to get us out of these wars. And, The Shrub also ran as an ‘isolationist,’ not a nation builder (or, wrecker as it were).
Uniparty.
Judas Goat In Chief
100% factually correct.
YOU THINK THATS SOMETHING, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!
https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=61071
Upvoted
You ever wonder if they just did this without telling Trump? And when he starts asking WTF? they just stare him down. His only options are to admit he’s not in charge or take credit for whatever they do and hope it works out.
I just don’t get the impression he’s in charge of anything.
Trump gave the order, not the tooth fairy.
Probably, but I think other’s point is … you don’t ACTUALLY KNOW THAT. We don’t actually.
How do you know? Anyone further up the chain of command than the guy who threw the kill switch could have given the order.
You’re kidding? It’s a known fact just google it. He is also commander in chief. That’s what a commander in chief does.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/03/qasem-soleimani-death-how-trump-arrived-order-kill-iran-general/2786880001/
I know how chain of command works, that wasn’t my point.
If the Epstein thing could get pulled off while in custody in this country, they could easily pull something off out of sight.
Once again, I don’t get the impression he’s in charge of anything beyond his twitter account. I could be way off base, but nothing that’s happened since he got elected has turned out the way it should have if he was the man in charge.
or maybe he just told us what we wanted to hear in 2016 to get elected.
I always said something is a little fishy with djt…sounds great but actions are not verifying
I actually do not think he is in charge of his twitter account. 100% managed psyop.
When that UN helicopter got shot down during Desert Storm, I was working Evaluation Records while pregnant. We pulled every single set of records for every single weapons controller on that crew to send to the Pentagon. Records that had problems got fixed and others got disappeared.
A Captain Senior Director named Wang got blamed.
How could that be when there were four officers on board who outranked him, up to and including two Lt Colonels? And two Majors? A Captain was responsible?
They held the whole crew in Turkey for 90 days investigating. When they got back, an enlisted surveillance guy told me what happened.
He had just handed off the UN helicopter and they’d handed control to ground, going silent on IFF to avoid triggering enemy fire.
An overeager weapons guy picked up the track, tagged it and announced it hostile. The fighters overreacted and went to investigate and INCORRECTLY identified the chopper as enemy! They check with AWACS, at that moment Command and Control in Theater, and get the okay from the ranking dude on that E-3 and shot it down.
(trust me… Captain Wang did not authorize that shootdown on his own… poor guy. It ruined his career. He was a really decent fall guy but fall he did. In a strange coincidence? one of the LtCol on the Aircraft? Last name? SNOWDEN… Life may or may not repeat, but it definitely echoes.)
See? Echoes. Maron/Maroon… Snowden/Snowden
Life is full of coincidental names, it truly is. Did you know Lincoln’s secretary was Ms. Kennedy and Kennedy’s secretary was Ms. Lincoln?
True story, dat.
What are the odds? I don’t know. Probably good, if you believe the Narrative. If you believe They have to plant clues like some maniacal Author and Finisher trying to cover every single one of the “what-ifs” then the conspiracy idea works too.
Six of one.
https://sputniknews.com/us/202001051077947251-top-pentagon-brass-stunned-by-trump-decision-to-assassinate-irgc-commander-soleimani—report/
Sputnik news? What next? Sorcha Faal?
Long and interesting piece about how things worked in 2015 under a different president (see link below to Assassination Complex).
I question the labeling of the death as “assassination”. Take the politics out of it and is it more of a “targeted killing”, like it was often referred to before Trump arrived? Wordsmithing with a bias, sort of like: If Trump did it it is called “rape”-if Clinton did it it is called “romantic dalliance”.
Why is it not called “assassination” when one of America’s military dies similarly?
If Hillary were president and took the guy out would it would it be called “assassination”?
If Hillary took the guy out, it would be another unfortunate suicide to another one of hers and Bill’s friends.
Yawn.
I look at this two ways. First, either you give the bully your lunch money everyday in front of the school or, you kick him in the balls and then jump on top of him and beat him to a bloody pulp. Second, if Iran (Russia, China also) want to really push the big red button we’re all going home. I think they’re all crazy but, not stupid. MAD
It appears to me Putin/Russia has had a better run with Trump than with any other president in my lifetime. So there is that.
So, who’s the bully?
If you have not or can not by now figure that out your iq is too low to even comment. Seriously
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In retrospect, this will be viewed as the opening salvo of what must become the second crusade. It is time for western, white Christians to realize that you cannot negotiate with the likes of Kim Jong, our home grown libtards, gun grabbers or muslims – iranians or saudi. They never come to the table with “good faith”, they believe that because you are not a “true believer” that their lies are perfectly acceptable.
You area nutjob.
Tell us more.
Lot of truth and correlation to that
please, let’s cut to the chase. we fight in the middle east as an unpaid mercenary force for israel. and they want iran next. PNAC boys in action. no more epiphany than that is necessary.
Hedges is a pussy. Take a breath Chris. The Don’s got this.
Fancy Nancy Neo Conye, how does your garden grow?
Cool name.
Now, if that is your REAL birth certificate name and your gender is “X” then i will just back away slowly now…
Not just a pussy but a very predictable toe tag punk..As soon as I saw the title and his name I knew the sorry anti-USA diatribe that was to follow..Hey, PunkHedges, why don’t you hang out around the same shithole airport?!
here’s what our new boots on the ground will look like–
4 minute video that will surprise the hell out of you–
“There can be no positive outcome. It opens up the possibility of an Armageddon-type scenario relished by the lunatic fringes of the Christian right.”
Another tds author blaming the victim. Hey jackass we were attacked at our embassy. Our response is not at fault. Like blaming the victim, a mugger attacks a woman beats her senseless. As she bleeds profusely she rubs her blood on attacker’s shoes purposefully, as attacker turns to run away his slick blood soaked shoes slips he hits head on the curb and dies. Yup, that damned woman is a murderer for sure. You fucktards are stupid.
“Trump and Netanyahu, as well as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, are mired in scandal. They believe a new war would divert attention from their foreign and domestic crises.”
ha ha ha … merely for diversion, the Bolshevik sez.
Again, well written, apparently knowledgeable, anti western and… failing to see the forest for the trees.
In what year was the first western oil infrastructure in the Middle East nationalized by the state in which it was located?
That could be said to be the year the current battle of the mohommadens against all, directed at the west, began.
It seems either ignorance or lack of respect for the enemy illuminates our late tactics and strategy against them.