Chuck Spinney: When a KGB President Lectures the USA — And Holds the Moral High Ground…Say What?

06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Ethics, IO Deeds of Peace, Lessons, Officers Call

Chuck Spinney
Chuck Spinney
Who Benefits From America's State of Perpetual War?


Putin Lectures Obama

by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 12, 2013

That our Noble Peace Prize winning President and the Congress needed a rational lecture [also attached below] on the need for a little common sense in foreign policy, from a graduate of the KGB, says a lot about about the degraded nature of domestic politics in the United States.

Domestic politics do not end at the water’s edge, as the foreign policy elite would like us to believe. On the contrary, any nation’s foreign policy is always a reflection of its domestic politics. (see for example, Robert Dallek’s insightful history, The American Style of Foreign Policy: Cultural Politics and Foreign Affairs.) The political soap opera surrounding Obama’s quest to bomb Syria is a case in point. Two thirds of the American people opposed the war, yet elites have been debating how to ignore the will of the people. These domestic politics are the real subject of Putin’s lecture. Implicitly, his lecture is also about the democratic duty of American citizens to reign in the elites claiming falsely to be acting in their name.

Should a former KGB agent be giving advice to the people of a constitutional democracy?

Think about the pathway that ‘democracy’ has travelled on over the last twelve years: On September 11, 2001, the entire world was on the side of the United States. In fact one of the largest, if not the largest, of the world wide demonstrations in support of the United States was a mass vigil in Tehran, Iran — a country we promptly denounced as being part of an axis of evil. Twelve years later, America is increasingly isolated, its leadership elites having used 9-11 as a pretext to fabricate rationales for invading Afghanistan and Iraq and for bombing Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Now Syria is in the crosshairs for reasons that are questionable, to put it charitably, and once again, the elites are fabricating stories to get their way.

America is in a state of perpetual war with large parts of the Muslim world. America is viewed by more and more people around the world, including some of its non-Muslim allies, as a self-righteous, narcissistic super power that believes its exceptional status gives it the right to bomb and bully anyone it deems to be a ‘threat’ to its interests or moral values.

Putin’s subliminal message may well be: Look, we ended the Cold War; now, at long last, is it not time for America to undergo a national introspection of its own and end its state of perpetual war, before it further destabilizes even larger swathes of the world?

Perhaps we, as the owners of our government, should be asking ourselves questions like –

How did our country land itself in a state of perpetual war?

Is our President, a man who excited the world, including Syria,* with promises to change in America’s behaviour, the cause of the problem evoking Putin’s lecture? Or is Mr. Obama merely a front man presiding over a deeper, more profound set of domestic political distortions? Is he a protector of an increasingly dysfunctional, distinctly un-American status quo domestic political apparat that benefits the richest one percent at the expense of the masses?

How and why did the American people allow their elites and political representatives — Republicans and Democrats alike — to exploit 9-11 in an arbitrary way to place our nation on a grotesque moral pathway into a shameful state of mismatches between the (1) values we profess to uphold and others expect us to uphold, (2) those values we actually hold dear as demonstrated by our actions, and (3) the conditions in the world we have to contend with?

But most importantly, with respect to domestic politics of America’s state of perpetual war, Cui Bono?

———————

*I was in Levantine, Syria in the summer of 2008, and the excitement on the street over Obama’s possible election and the promise it held for the Middle East was palpable and infectious.

Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon and a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press.

——[Putin's Lecture below the line]—–

Continue reading “Chuck Spinney: When a KGB President Lectures the USA — And Holds the Moral High Ground…Say What?”

NIGHTWATCH: Russia-US-Syria – Link to Putin’s NYT Op-Ed

06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards

Russia-US: President Putin's opinion piece which was printed by the New York Times is well-written, well-reasoned and insufferable. After their invasion of Georgia in 2008 and operations in Chechnya, the Russians have no standing to lecture anyone about international law and the use of force.

However, Putin helped reset the discussion about the 21 August attack. He admitted that “poison gas” was used without specifying the agent. He wrote that there is reason to believe that the rebels executed the attack to provoke western intervention. He also said that the report of a rebel chemical attack against Israel cannot be ignored.

In attempting to manipulate the US leadership, he spotlighted the unsettling prospect that the Syrian opposition groups are doing the same. The other side of the story that the Russians credit more than US is that the Syrian opposition groups are not gallant freedom fighters in any civilized sense.

Russia-US-Syria: For the record. Russian news agencies quoted a Russian source as saying: “We handed over to the Americans a plan to place chemical weapons in Syria under international control. We expect to discuss it in Geneva.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry and their delegations are scheduled to meet in Geneva on 12 September to discuss the proposal.

Comment: The Russians evidently do have a plan. Meanwhile, the UN Secretary General said the UN report of findings on the 21 August attack would be available next Monday, the 16th.

If the Syrian government judged it needed chemical weapons to defeat the opposition groups, it would seem unwise to agree to place them under international control pending destruction. Asad's advisors apparently judge they can win without these weapons provided the US does not intervene. Hmm…

NIGHTWATCH: Astounding Syrian Concessions Protect Israel — US Analysts Dull [Ignorant] — World Edges Away from Brink of WWIII — NIGHTWATCH Tutorial for Dull Analysts

03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

Syria: Update. Opposition sources say government forces attacked the hills around Ma'aloula village early on Monday under the cover of heavy shelling. The Christian village is reported to be almost empty after most of its residents fled following the arrival of the foreign-backed militants last week. According to a resident, who left the area in the past days, only around 50 people remain there.

Militants from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and the Qalamun Liberation Front are reported to be in control of some parts of the historic village, which is located about 70 kilometers northeast of Damascus.

Comment: Since 1999 this village has been on UNESCO's Tentative List of World Heritage sites.

Politics. The Syrian government has accepted a Russian proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control to avoid a possible U.S. military strike, Interfax news agency quoted Syria's foreign minister as saying on Tuesday.

Syrian Foreign Minister Mu'allim said, “We held a very fruitful round of talks with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday, and he proposed an initiative relating to chemical weapons. And in the evening we agreed to the Russian initiative.” He said Syria had agreed because this would “remove the grounds for American aggression.”

Before leaving Moscow, the Foreign Minister made several astounding announcements reported by Russian media. He said,

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Astounding Syrian Concessions Protect Israel — US Analysts Dull [Ignorant] — World Edges Away from Brink of WWIII — NIGHTWATCH Tutorial for Dull Analysts”

Owl: Dark Days in America — Mid-November?

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Iran, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Media, Military, Officers Call, Peace Intelligence
Who?  Who?
Who? Who?

“There are very dark storm clouds gathering around the country and North America as a whole. Things are about to get dark, very dark in just a few short weeks. In just over two months, on November 13-14, 2013, the lights are about to go out. Will the lights come back on? It depends on who you ask. Given the past behavior of those in power, it would behoove all of us to prepare for the fact that we could be living for an extended time with no electricity…The working scenario that has emerged is that World War III is on the horizon. Syria was to be the flash point. However, with American and international sentiment running so high against American involvement in the Syrian conflict, Obama needs a Plan B in order to get America into war, because it does not appear that Congress is going to give him the authorization that he needs to force our way in Syria culminating in a military stand off between the Russians and the Chinese and the United States. Subsequently, if Obama fails to obtain Congressional support to attack Syria, he could very well turn his attention to the take down of the power grid and he could still achieve his goals in under two months.

Continue reading “Owl: Dark Days in America — Mid-November?”

NIGHTWATCH: Russia, Syria, Lebanon — and Adana, Turkey [US Air Base]

05 Iran, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, Peace Intelligence

Russia: Russia will send another large landing ship, the Nikolai Filchenkov, toward Syria's coast, a Russian navy source said Sept. 6, Reuters reported, citing Interfax. The ship will take special cargo on board in Novorossiysk before heading to Syria. No details about the cargo were provided.

Comment: This is the sixth large landing ship that Russia has deployed to the Syrian coast. That makes nine ships mentioned by name since 4 September and moving to Syria. Russia does not want a naval engagement with the US, but might not be averse to a non-shooting confrontation.

Russia is evacuating by air Russian passport holders who wish to leave. An aircraft arrived at Latakia for that purpose on 8 September.

Comment: In August Russia sent two flights to evacuate 116 Russians and citizens from ex-Soviet states. The large landing ships would be essential for a large scale evacuation, which Russia denies it has ordered.

Lebanon: The US ordered the evacuation of non-emergency official personnel and families from Beirut and offered to evacuate Americans from Adana, Turkey on Friday. It advised against travel to Lebanon and southeastern Turkey and for residents to be alert for violence in light of tensions in the region..

Comment: This evacuation aims to put the most vulnerable Americans beyond the reach of Hizballah which vows retaliation for any US attack against Syria. It also supposedly is a safety precaution before the anniversary of 9/11.  Senior American officials have argued in public that Syria, Iran and Hizballah will not retaliate. On the other hand, spokesmen from each entity have vowed they will.

The inclusion of Adana in the order provides a little insight into the US war plan. Americans in Adana will be a risk from US operations. apparently. That implies that more than cruise missile launches will be involved.

Reassurances are fine as political science theory, but the vows of retaliation are real threats because they are backed up by capability. More evacuations and many more precautions will be necessary.

Owl: Why Has Qatar Spent $3B on Syrian Rebels? And Saudi Arabia? And Why Does Russia Want Syria to Stick “As Is”? Natural Gas!

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 05 Energy, 06 Russia, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Proliferation, 08 Wild Cards, Commercial Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Officers Call

Who?  Who?
Who? Who?
“Why has the little nation of Qatar spent 3 billion dollars to support the rebels in Syria? Could it be because Qatar is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas in the world and Assad won't let them build a natural gas pipeline through Syria? Of course. Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline which will enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe. Why is Saudi Arabia spending huge amounts of money to help the rebels and why has Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan been “jetting from covert command centers near the Syrian front lines to the Élysée Palace in Paris and the Kremlin in Moscow, seeking to undermine the Assad regime”? Well, it turns out that Saudi Arabia intends to install their own puppet government in Syria which will allow the Saudis to control the flow of energy through the region.

On the other side, Russia very much prefers the Assad regime for a whole bunch of reasons. One of those reasons is that Assad is helping to block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe, thus ensuring higher profits for Gazprom. Now the United States is getting directly involved in the conflict. If the U.S. is successful in getting rid of the Assad regime, it will be good for either the Saudis or Qatar (and possibly for both), and it will be really bad for Russia. This is a strategic geopolitical conflict about natural resources, religion and money, and it really has nothing to do with chemical weapons at all.”

…there were two proposed routes for the pipeline. Unfortunately for Qatar, Saudi Arabia said no to the first route and Syria said no to the second route. The following is from an absolutely outstanding article in the Guardian…

Continue reading “Owl: Why Has Qatar Spent $3B on Syrian Rebels? And Saudi Arabia? And Why Does Russia Want Syria to Stick “As Is”? Natural Gas!”

4th Media Et Al: Syria Round-Up 3.0

05 Iran, 06 Russia, 08 Wild Cards, IO Deeds of Peace, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

4th media cropped4th Media:  Syria Will Never Give in Even If There is World War III : Taken Every Measure to Retaliate, If hit by US-led Military Strike

Berto Jongman:  Meet the Syrian Islamist Organization Controlling Senator McCain’s Agenda

Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Berto Jongman:  Syria: wish you were here

Berto Jongman:  The Human Cost of the Syrian Civil War

David Swanson:  Congressman Robert Hurt (R., Va.) Not Convinced by Case to Attack Syria

Jon Rappaport:  War in Syria: Evidence? We don’t need no stinkin’ evidence

Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius:  U.S. Considering Using Military To Train Syria Rebels

Paul Craig Roberts:  How to Stop Obama's Military Aggression Against Syria

Paul Craig Roberts:  Pat Buchanan asks: Just Whose War Is This?

Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts:  US Government Stands Revealed to the World as a Collection of War Criminals and Liars

See Also:

Berto Jongman Et Al: Syria Round-Up 2.0