Exclusive: R2Pers say America has a “responsibility to protect” endangered people around the world, but this R2P moral imperative is selective, often indistinguishable from neocons tolerating some slaughters and choosing to wage war against certain enemies — just dressed up in liberal rhetoric, reports Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Sometimes I’m challenged over my linking belligerent neoconservatives with “liberal interventionists” who justify U.S. military invasions under the “humanitarian” banner of “responsibility to protect” or R2P meaning to intervene in war-torn countries to stop the killing of civilians, like the 1994 slaughter in Rwanda.
And, most people would agree that there are extraordinary situations in which the timely arrival of an external military force might prevent genocide or other atrocities, which was one of the intended functions of the United Nations. But my overall impression of R2Pers is that many are careerist hypocrites who voice selective outrage that provides cover for the U.S. and its allies to do pretty much whatever they wish.
President Barack Obama talks with Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, following a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Sept. 12, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Though one can’t generalize about an entire group since some R2Pers act much more consistently than others many of the most prominent ones operate opportunistically, depending how the dominant narrative is going and where the power interests lie.
So, while many R2Pers were eager to seek war against the Syrian government when it cracked down on both peaceful and violent opponents in 2011 and especially after a mysterious Sarin gas attack in 2013 many of the star R2Pers went silent when Israel bombarded Gaza in 2008-09 and again in 2014.
The reason is obvious: There was no powerful lobby defending the Syrian government but there was one protecting the Israeli government. Additionally, the mainstream U.S. media is hostile to the Syrian government but almost universally supports the Israeli government. In other words, many R2Pers practice a double standard depending on who’s doing the killing of civilians.
In 2011, the neocons and the R2Pers teamed up for a war against Libya, which was sold to the United Nations Security Council as simply a limited intervention to protect civilians in the east whom Muammar Gaddafi had labeled “terrorists.” However, once the U.S.-orchestrated military operation got going, it quickly turned into a “regime change” war, killing Gaddafi and unleashing bloody chaos across Libya and neighboring African countries. It turns out that Gaddafi was right about many of his enemies being Islamic terrorists.
The Ukraine Case
We saw this neocon-R2P “chaos promotion” again in Ukraine where neoconservative officials and “liberal interventionist” activists rallied to the cause of the Maidan protesters when they challenged the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych in late 2013 and early 2014.
On Feb. 20, 2014, when unidentified snipers killed both police and protesters, the neocons and R2Pers along with the Western media blamed Yanukovych though he insisted that he had ordered the police NOT to use deadly force and later studies suggested the snipers were likely working for the anti-Yanukovych side and had fired from locations controlled by the Right Sektor, extremists associated with the Maidan’s neo-Nazi “self-defense” commandant Andriy Parubiy.
If indeed the sniper attack was a false-flag provocation, it worked, laying the bloody groundwork for the violent overthrow of Yanukovych two days later. Since then, the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev has dragged its feet on the sniper investigation, but independent field reports, including one from the BBC, indicated that the snipers likely were associated with the protesters, not the Yanukovych government. [Another worthwhile documentary on this mystery is “Maidan Massacre.”]
But the West favored a Ukraine narrative that made the Maidan coup-makers the good guys and Yanukovych’s supporters the bad guys. This was the view not only of neocons, like Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, but prominent R2Pers like New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. In April 2014, he returned to his family’s ancestral home in Karapchiv in western Ukraine to interview some of its residents and presented their views as the true voice of the people.
Kristof depicted his father’s old home town as an idyllic place where everyone loves the music of Taylor Swift and dreams of their place in a prosperous Europe if only President Barack Obama would send them weapons to kill Russians (or go “bear-hunting” as Kristof wrote in one column).
Pretty soon that desired outcome had become a reality. On May 2, 2014, pro-regime neo-Nazis massacred scores of ethnic Russians by the burning down of the Trade Union Building in Odessa. Amid the horror and reports of graffiti hailing the Galician SS, one of western Ukraine’s contributions to the Nazi war effort there was little protest from the R2P community or from the West in general. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Dr. Strangelove Reality.”]
Similarly, when Kiev’s coup regime announced its “anti-terrorist operation” to destroy the resistance in eastern Ukraine and again dispatched neo-Nazi militias to spearhead the killing the thousands of deaths, mostly among ethnic Russians, were blamed on “Russian aggression” and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The R2Pers showed very little outrage even when the Kiev forces began shelling cities and leveling towns. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Seeing No Neo-Nazi Militias in Ukraine.”]
Muted Outrage
A couple of human rights groups did take note of some outrages. Amnesty International reported abuses committed by Kiev’s far-right Aidar militia against civilians: “Members of the Aidar territorial defence battalion, operating in the north Luhansk region, have been involved in widespread abuses, including abductions, unlawful detention, ill-treatment, theft, extortion, and possible executions. Some of the abuses committed by members of the Aidar battalion amount to war crimes, for which both the perpetrators and, possibly, the commanders would bear responsibility under national and international law.”
Human Rights Watch said “Ukrainian government forces used cluster munitions in populated areas in Donetsk city” despite the fact that “the use of cluster munitions in populated areas violates the laws of war due to the indiscriminate nature of the weapon and may amount to war crimes.”
However, the language in these reports was relatively restrained, possibly because both groups receive large donations from billionaire George Soros, who has sided with the Kiev authorities and is supporting the crushing of the eastern Ukrainian resistance. The human rights complaints also drew scant notice in the mainstream U.S. news media, which has also taken sides against the ethnic Russians and in favor of the Kiev regime.
So, although more than 5,000 Ukrainians have been killed the vast majority ethnic Russians in the east there has been virtual silence among the R2Pers about the responsibility to protect the ethnic Russians. Indeed, when the Russian government has supplied these people with weapons to defend themselves, many “liberal interventionists” have joined with the neocons in condemning Moscow and Putin, fuming about a “Russian invasion.”
So, it’s apparently okay for the U.S.-backed government in Kiev to engage in the slaughter of an ethnic population in eastern Ukraine even employing neo-Nazis to do the dirtiest work with many R2Pers cheering what looks a lot like ethnic cleansing.
Bombing Yemen
A similar situation is now playing out in Yemen where a long-running civil war saw Houthi rebels capturing the capital Sanaa and other major cities. President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia seeking protection and encouraging the Saudi royal family to reinstall him.
The Saudis, citing alleged Iranian support for the Houthis, began a U.S.-backed bombing campaign that has apparently killed hundreds of civilians, prompting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to denounce the airstrikes as “a crime” and “a genocide.”
Though the Saudis are undeniably intervening in another nation’s civil war, the Obama administration supports this intervention and doesn’t seem too troubled by the large-scale civilian deaths being inflicted. Instead of restraining the Saudis, the United States is rushing military resupplies and providing logistical and intelligence support.
Rather than protest this Saudi “invasion,” Secretary of State John Kerry chastised the Iranians for supposedly helping the Houthis. In one of his most clueless and disingenuous remarks and there is plenty of competition Kerry told the PBS NewsHour on Wednesday that Washington was “not going to stand by while the region is destabilized.”
Kerry, of course, was one of the U.S. senators in 2002 to authorize President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, a conflict that not only killed hundreds of thousands of people but gave rise to the hyper-violent “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” which has since morphed into the “Islamic State,” which has spread its particularly savage brand of jihad across the Middle East and into Africa.
Another major breeder of Mideast destabilization has been the Saudi royal family, which spurred Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1980, reviving the ancient Sunni-Shiite rivalries which have escalated to the present day. Elements of the Saudi royal family also supported Saudi Osama bin Laden as he founded and built Al-Qaeda to engage in terrorism against the West. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Secret Saudi Ties to Terrorism.”]
For Kerry to present himself and the Saudis as the protectors of Middle East stability would be laughable if there weren’t so many dead and maimed innocents across the region. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What’s the Matter with John Kerry?”]
Kerry also reprised his infamous fact-free-rush-to-judgment style that he used in pushing the United States nearly into a war with Syria over his dubious charge that President Bashar al-Assad’s government was responsible for an Aug. 21, 2013 Sarin attack outside Damascus and in blaming Russia for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine on July 17, 2014. In both cases still unresolved subsequent information suggested a different conclusion. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Kerry’s Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment.”]
Regarding the Saudi bombing of Yemen, Kerry justified the attacks by blaming Iran: “There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran. There are a number of flights, every single week that have been flying in. We trace those flights, and we know this. We are well aware of the support that Iran has been giving to Yemen.”
Beyond the hypocrisy of Kerry’s protest given U.S. interference in dozens of civil wars there is the contrary analysis by many Yemen watchers that while Iran may have given the Houthis some money and possibly weapons Tehran exercises very little control over the Houthis who are Zaydi Shia, an offshoot of Shiite Islam considered relatively close to Sunni Islam.
The Houthis also are not anti-American — and they are anti-Al-Qaeda. They made overtures to the Obama administration, expressing a desire to press ahead with the war against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. But the Saudi intervention, with U.S. support, has damaged the Houthis’ ability to continue that fight and, indeed, has allowed Al-Qaeda to capture more territory and free scores of its imprisoned militants.
Yet, while this tangle of contradictions and hypocrisies may be expected from the U.S. State Department, one might think that the “principled” R2Pers would hold themselves to a higher standard and denounce the Saudi-led and U.S.-backed slaughter of innocents. But, again, the cries of humanitarian protests have been muffled.
High-Profile Hypocrite
Possibly the most high-profile R2P hypocrite is U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, who earned wide acclaim for developing R2P theories and scolding U.S. officials for not stopping the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
Power even got in trouble in 2002 when she responded to a hypothetical question about the possible need to dispatch U.S. troops to prevent Israel from committing genocide against the Palestinians. In her rambling and convoluted answer, she suggested that a military solution might have to be imposed on Israel:
“It may mean, more crucially, sacrificing, or investing I think more than sacrificing, literally billions of dollars, not in servicing Israel’s military but actually investing in the new state of Palestine; in investing billions of dollars it would probably take also to support I think what will have to be a mammoth a protection force, not of the old Srebrenica kind or of the Rwanda kind, but a meaningful military presence.
“Because it seems to me at this stage and this is true of actual genocides as well and not just major human rights abuses which we’re seeing there that is that you have to go in as if you’re serious, you have to put something on the line.
“And unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful, I mean it’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic, but sadly you know, we don’t just have a democracy here either, we have a liberal democracy, there are certain sets of principles that guide our policy, or they are meant to anyway, and there it’s essential that some set of principles becomes the benchmark, rather than a deference to people who are fundamentally, politically destined to destroy the lives of their own people.”
Power also did some of the political calculation involved, saying: “What we need is a willingness to actually put something on the line in the service of helping the situation. And putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import” an obvious reference to Jewish-American supporters of Israel.
However, when it became clear that her answer had upset that powerful constituency and thus threatened her future employment in government, she scurried away from it, disavowing her comments to an Israeli journalist.
Then, in a closed 2011 meeting with 40 Jewish leaders, Power reportedly broke down in tears showing what Rabbi Shmuley Boteach described as “her unabashed display of emotional attachment to the security of the Jewish people.” Boteach is a self-professed supporter of Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In other words, when her career was in danger, she pitched the Palestinian people and their human rights over the side. She also has been a staunch defender of the Kiev regime’s brutal “anti-terrorist operation” against the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, showing little regard for their lives and safety.
Clearly, Samantha Power and many other R2Pers fashion their responsibility to protect around protecting their own political and financial interests.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Another attempt to post this.. Yemen has for a long time been one of the favourite locations for Obama’s drone strikes. These have killed Al Qaida militants, as well as a large number of civilians.
The recent US-supported Saudi attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen are now helping that same Al Qaida group that the USA has been trying to weaken. This could turn Yemen into the latest country, after Libya, Syria and Iraq, to be overrun by Islamist extremists, thanks to intervention by West and its allies in that region.
In the Independent, Patrick Cockburn writes :
“The ghost of Osama bin Laden will have been chuckling this month as he watches the movements he inspired conquer swathes of the Middle East. He will be particularly gratified to see fighters from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) storm into Al Mukalla, the capital of Yemen’s eastern province of Hadhramaut from which the bin Laden family originated before making their fortune in Saudi Arabia.
As happened in Mosul, Iraq last summer when the Iraqi army fled before a jihadi attack, Yemeni government soldiers abandoned their bases in Al Mukalla leaving US Humvees and other military equipment. Earlier, AQAP had seized the central prison in the city and freed 300 prisoners, including Khaled Batarfi, one of the most important jihadi leaders in Yemen.
It is a measure of the severity of the multiple crises engulfing the region that AQAP, previously said by the United States to be the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda, can capture a provincial capital without attracting more than cursory attention in the outside world.”
Patrick Cockburn goes on to describe how the US Defense Secretary effectively admitted the uselessness of the drone war:
““It’s always easier to conduct counter-terrorism when there’s a stable government in place,†said the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, rather plaintively, last week. “That circumstance obviously doesn’t exist in Yemen.â€
You can say that again. Mr Carter sounded a little put out that “terrorists†have not chosen well-ordered countries such as Denmark or Canada in which to base themselves, and are instead operating in anarchic places like Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia, where there is no government to stop them. Suddenly, the drone war supposedly targeting leaders and supporters of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia is exposed as the politically convenient irrelevance it always was.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/in-the-middle-east-our-enemys-enemy-must-be-our-friend-10169984.html
I wonder how a great nation with great people can elect such a bunch of war criminals to office and fund their salaries and their atrocities with their hard earned tax Dollars.
Americans have the power to kick these war criminals like McCain out of office and have the obligation to their future generations to stop bankrupting this great nation by making wars in the interest of the defence industry and the rich. Inequalities at best!!
For a long time Yemen has been one of the favourite locations for Obama’s drone strikes. These have killed Al Qaida militants, as well as a large number of civilians.
The recent U.S.-backed Saudi attacks on the Houthi rebels in Yemen are now helping that same Al Qaida group that the USA has been trying to weaken. This could turn Yemen into the latest country, after Libya, Syria and Iraq, to be overrun by Islamist extremists, thanks to intervention by the West and its allies in that region.
Patrick Cockburn writes in the Independent:
“The ghost of Osama bin Laden will have been chuckling this month as he watches the movements he inspired conquer swathes of the Middle East. He will be particularly gratified to see fighters from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) storm into Al Mukalla, the capital of Yemen’s eastern province of Hadhramaut from which the bin Laden family originated before making their fortune in Saudi Arabia.
As happened in Mosul, Iraq last summer when the Iraqi army fled before a jihadi attack, Yemeni government soldiers abandoned their bases in Al Mukalla leaving US Humvees and other military equipment. Earlier, AQAP had seized the central prison in the city and freed 300 prisoners, including Khaled Batarfi, one of the most important jihadi leaders in Yemen.
It is a measure of the severity of the multiple crises engulfing the region that AQAP, previously said by the United States to be the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda, can capture a provincial capital without attracting more than cursory attention in the outside world.”
Cockburn goes on to describe how the US Defense Secretary effectively admitted the uselessness of the drone war:
““It’s always easier to conduct counter-terrorism when there’s a stable government in place,†said the US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, rather plaintively, last week. “That circumstance obviously doesn’t exist in Yemen.â€
You can say that again. Mr Carter sounded a little put out that “terrorists†have not chosen well-ordered countries such as Denmark or Canada in which to base themselves, and are instead operating in anarchic places like Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Somalia, where there is no government to stop them. Suddenly, the drone war supposedly targeting leaders and supporters of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia is exposed as the politically convenient irrelevance it always was.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/in-the-middle-east-our-enemys-enemy-must-be-our-friend-10169984.html
Speaking of the seven steps of highly effective manipulators, “White Helmets”, Avaaz, Nicholas Kristof, the Syria No Fly Zone, Soros’ funding and how the liberal R2P interventionists run such highly effective PR campaigns, take at look at some of the connections: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/04/seven-steps-of-highly-effective-manipulators/ Last time I checked the Avaaz petition push begun only about a week ago for the US to launch another “no fly zone,” this time over Syria, has already fooled nearly one million people into signing on for more US “humanitarian” war.
Thanks for pointing up the Avaaz connection. I cancelled my Avaaz ‘membership’ a year ago after it became clear that Avaaz was avoiding some of the big issues. I complained but to no effect. It’s unfortunately probably true that other big campaign sites are just as selective i.e. biased as Avaaz.
Coups are always promoted and sponsored. Just take a look to this documentary about Venezuela Coup against Hugo Chavez and he standed alone after this. Just check The Revolution Will Not Be Televised as a reference and share!
BTW, it is neo-fascist not neoconservative.
Which, contrary to popular belief, was a US/UK operation from start to finish, to both roll back the influence of France/Belgium, but mainly to replenish the just depleted stocks of coltan, after the first Gulf War. So if it was a ‘tribal war’, you could say it was a war between the Anglo-Saxons and the Gauls.
More from prof. Allan Stam, political science professor at U. of Michigan, and former Special Forces (after serving as the head of Ugandan military intelligence, RPF leader and now president Paul Kagame had been training at the Command and General Staff College, at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. with full knowledge of the Clinton Administration, from 09:35 to 10:12):
Allan Stam: Understanding the Rwanda Genocide
I have a very long thread on it here, from when Al-Jazeera was trying to sell the war in the Eastern DRC and the Rwandan occupation of the Eastern DRC as ‘a rape crisis’.
The way to understand the neocolonial American/British mindset, is that they are pouring the racism onto Africans, the way they can no longer do on African Americans, and keep their jobs.
Man, I hope somebody will send some money your way.
Have you, Gregory? :)
This makes me reminded of Market-Garden when the equivalent of neo-con/R2P’s (Montgomery, etc.) felt that they just had to have an adventure (those paratroopers were just dying for battle), and so ignored all the evidence that it would be a disaster, which it was. But was Montgomery demoted? Was Eisenhower replaced?
Thanks again Robert Parry. We see again the same incompetence we have seen now for decades. The assumption that a good metaphor can stand in for good policy. It goes back at least to the domino theory in Vietnam, which was simply propaganda in place of good judgment.
Now it’s responsibility to protect. If these actions were responsibly discussed in a public forum and it was decided that action should be taken, then we might find a basis for support. The fact that the American people are never consulted, renders them invalid on the surface. Good call Robert.
Auden and Yeats are two of my favorite poets, but I think a (fellow-Canadian) poster has them confused.
WAR AS A QUICK EASY FIX..
Agreed that Robert Parry’s summary is eloquent.
I should like to present some additional perspectives:
1. Gabriel Kolko observed that belligerents ALWAYS claim that wars
in which they intend to be engaged are in some sense quick and easy.
For many possible reasons they feature their own military and tech-
nological superiority, the superiority of themselves as a group as opposed
to the invariable inferiority of the “enemy”/”other”. Of course, war
is always pictured as harmless to their own citizens. (Few will die, suffer, etc.)
These components are invariably combined with a misplaced claim
of their own altruism .
2. One can analyze the Ukrainian situation based on its own merits,
but I often see the entire Russia-US-Ukraine “crisis” as an intended
distraction from Israel’s horrific crimes against the Palestinian people
(with US support both in word and deed). Thus the silence on the
many agressions and war crimes by Israel involving Palestinians is
a must for Israel and its lobbies internationally. One must also
acknowledge that these crimes continue dail. They are not limited to
major invasions and massive terrorism. Homes are demolished every
day. The blockade continues. Palestinians are forced from their homes
(which are then demolished) to live in the shadows of newly built
“settlements” for Jews only. There are direct links from the US to the
establishment of these”settlements” via so-called “philanthropic” gifts”,
“tax deductions” etc. As Professor Lawrence Davidson has pointed out
in past years, the number of “Jewish votes” in the US is small. The significance
of “Jewish votes” in certain constituencies (such as New York State) is significant.
The power of Jewish financial resources for candidates of both parties is
vast.
(Note: The US has a long history of contrived and “controlled” perpetual crises
such as the Korean War and others. The result was to extract funding for Europe
from a reluctant US Congress.)
The “neocons” you refer to are basically not of any particular US political party.
In fact, they can and do function in both major parties.
3. Mr. Parry’s cogent points about coverage of the above events is absolutely
on target. To wit, the silence in the West is nearly complete on vital areas. This
is not due to the number of “Jewish votes” but the influence of “Jewish” money
in US electoral extravaganzas (elections), (Hawks like Victoria Nuland and Samantha
Power could just as easily work for Administrations of the other party and if
another party is elected may indeed do so.)
6. It is imcumbent for those in other part of the world to make sure that photos
of the hell which has resulted from Israeli-US “humanitarianism” be seen by
politicians and the general public. Such photos were shown if only for an instant
in the US and have since disappeared from view as though they are part of a story of long, long ago instead of an integral part of life as lived now and planned by Israel and
others (US, EU corporations etc) for the future of Palestine.
We are all dependent on the analyses of Robert Parry and colleagues at Consortium.
Thanks!
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
WAR AS A QUICK EASY FIX..
Agreed that Robert Parry’s summary is eloquent.
I should like to present some additional perspectives:
1. Gabriel Kolko observed that belligerents ALWAYS claim that wars
in which they intend to be engaged are in some sense quick and easy.
For many possible reasons they feature their own military and tech-
nological superiority, the superiority of themselves as a group as opposed
to the invariable inferiority of the “enemy”/”other”. Of course, war
is always pictured as harmless to their own citizens. (Few will die, suffer, etc.)
These components are invariably combined with a misplaced claim
of their own altruism .
2. One can analyze the Ukrainian situation based on its own merits,
but I often see the entire Russia-US-Ukraine “crisis” as an intended
distraction from Israel’s horrific crimes against the Palestinian people
(with US support both in word and deed). Thus the silence on the
many agressions and war crimes by Israel involving Palestinians is
a must for Israel and its lobbies internationally. One must also
acknowledge that these crimes continue dail. They are not limited to
major invasions and massive terrorism. Homes are demolished every
day. The blockade continues. Palestinians are forced from their homes
(which are then demolished) to live in the shadows of newly built
“settlements” for Jews only. There are direct links from the US to the
establishment of these”settlements” via so-called “philanthropic” gifts”,
“tax deductions” etc. As Professor Lawrence Davidson has pointed out
in past years, the number of “Jewish votes” in the US is small. The significance
of “Jewish votes” in certain constituencies (such as New York State) is significant.
The power of Jewish financial resources for candidates of both parties is
vast.
(Note: The US has a long history of contrived and “controlled” perpetual crises
such as the Korean War and others. The result was to extract funding for Europe
from a reluctant US Congress.)
The “neocons” you refer to are basically not of any particular US political party.
In fact, they can and do function in both major parties.
3. Mr. Parry’s cogent points about coverage of the above events is absolutely
on target. To wit, the silence in the West is nearly complete on vital areas. This
is not due to the number of “Jewish votes” but the influence of “Jewish” money
in US electoral extravaganzas (elections), (Hawks like Victoria Nuland and Samantha
Power could just as easily work for Administrations of the other party and if
another party is elected may indeed do so.)
6. It is imcumbent for those in other part of the world to make sure that photos
of the hell which has resulted from Israeli-US “humanitarianism” be seen by
politicians and the general public. Such photos were shown if only for an instant
in the US and have since disappeared from view as though they are part of a story of long, long ago instead of an integral part of life as lived now and planned by Israel and
others (US, EU corporations etc) for the future of Palestine.
We are all dependent on the analyses of Robert Parry and colleagues at Consortium.
Thanks!
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Peter Loeb you take the words out of my mouth.
The problem is also that US economy needs WARS to survive too many interests and too much money involved. It also proves that US defence industry is used for AGGRESSION while Russia uses it to defend its borders and people. A BIG Difference. And now they can add Ukraine to clean up US ‘OLD’ war material like illegal cluster and phosphor bombs to Ukraine. And supporting/financing the re-birth of Nazism and fascism in Europe against which the Allies fought so hard in WW II. Apparently the millions of soldiers who lost their lives all in vain.
UN Resolution of 11/21/2014 to Combat the GLORIFICATION of NAZI ideology 115 UN Member States voted YES, 55 abstained (incl. all 28 EU vassals of USA) and only 3 voted NO: USA, Canada and of course Ukraine. This is an insult to the free world and shows that Washington has lost it!!!
I visited the library a month ago and picked up the book “Clinton, Inc”. When I saw the author was with the Weekly Standard, I braced myself for an unreadable cut-job.
But not so. He showed the relentless vindictiveness of the Clintons and how, while Bill was romancing Bush the elder, the missus was at it with Republicans in general. The employment of Victoria Nuland came about not despite the fact that she was a neocon, but because she was a neocon, to the end of quelling criticism from the Kagan wing of Republican foreign policy. [Which didn’t much help in the uproar over Benghazi.]
Obama turned Mrs. Clinton loose on the world, and in turn she loosed Nuland on eastern Europe.
The result is a nation half-shredded, thus far, and the possibility of a nuclear showdown with Putin in the future… because Hillary Clinton contrived to preemptively limit pushback from a can of goddamn nuts. And the majority of cowardly lyin’ Democrats are pleased to promote her candidacy.
Funk.
The players in current Western political society are by necessity, and by choice, hypocrites. Take their boss, as an example. After that tale of lies, hypocrisy and double-dealing spun to get himself elected, what thoughtful, honest human being would take a position working in the Obama regime? They’re all the same: Repub, Dem alike — In fact, Ms. Hillary and Mr. John apparently don’t distinguish between the two parties since the State Department continues to be in the hands of neocon wackos who should be in jail for life rather than running the country’s foreign policy. These vicious and incompetent gangsters, identified by Ray McGovern as crazies when they flocked (back) to work for the Shrub and soon brought us 9/11 and an unending War on Terror, have, in fact, been more or less running the show for the better part of forty years. Do we need a point-by-point reminder of what’s happened to this country under their direction? We have become a phantom democracy, a failed state, the most hypocritical nation on the face of the planet.
Obama, despite his Nobel Peace Prize (or maybe because of it), never intended to abrogate the wars, fully approved of them, all the while thinking he was talking to fools, all of us easily fooled. He is just the new king of the crazies who have permanently taken over for good the capitol and Washington DC.
We citizens need to wake up and throw the whole sick bunch out on the streets. And stop deluding ourselves that we live in a democracy and that our vote matters. We don’t; it doesn’t.
Here’s something to think about; the 2016 U.S. Presidential election will becoming due, and I for the life of me can’t seem to find any candidate who may change our countries direction. Especially, changing out all the R2Per’s along with our NeoCon Dual Citizens. Seriously, let’s not even throw in all those legislators. It’s getting late, and maybe I’m just not thinking…but really where is our messiah? (Sorry, just using the religious phraseology for effect) you all get the idea though…right?
Finally, I use to fall for the rhetoric of the Samantha Powers type, but now ‘not so much’. Am I wrong? I don’t feel wrong after being lied to so many times from our nations past. I mean for the love of mike, we prosecuted a president all about a bj. Yet, nothing ever happened to make any difference after lying our country into war. I’m sorry to many died for this to be just let go, but that’s what it is. Nothing!
Don’t worry, be Happy!
On the other hand… who cares?
Who CARES about the mendacity and hypocrisy of this group in Washington at this point really? Their hubris, their karma, is about to serve them up a real come-comeuppance in the world. Why? For the same reason that many Americans are going through this “paradigm shift” at last themselves. The rest of the world–you know, those beyond the risible “international community” of patsies and coerced that Washington keeps harping on in its pronunciations–have twigged onto Washington lies and propaganda, their choke-hold on their corporate media notwithstanding… WE had our “paradigm shift” long ago: some of us as early as the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq… some of us earlier, some of us later. At this point it’s a grotesque tragedy unfolding, and events have over-taken the hegemon at this point, this “indispensible” power that has revealed itself to be nothing more than an inebriated bully out to punch out the nearest dwarf on the dance floor–your emperor has no clothes.
As Lincoln said: “The bottom is out of the tub.”
We’re tired of you!
Your media is a tissue of lies!
Wake up!
You’ve overthrown countless governments since WW II, supported dictators and fascists as we see now in Ukraine. You’ve killed millions in your immoral wars. Your karma is really BAD.
Notice I can’t even bring myself to comment on Power and Obama… these sock puppets have nothing to do but act out their show. The dogs bark and the caravan continues on it’s way towards perpetual war, and it’s no oasis I assure you. It is the hell Americans have been dishing out to countries they tag as enemies for decades. It’s going to be your turn eventually and you won’t like it.
Mark this well: the paradigm shift has happened. Even the average Joe in your “international community” is turning to alternate news on the net to get at the truth, so fetid are the servings you offer at this point. “Russian aggression”!? Russia, not another third world decrepit midget, has given you enough rope to hang yourselves with and most of us wish you will! Most of us applaud Russia standing up to your egregious assault. You want to wreck the Euro-Russia economic links, you don’t give a damn about Ukraine… you underestimate people out here at this point–we SEE your sickening game–blare it out loud in your controlled media as much as you want. You’ve already lost the match.
Your great dream has devolved into a police state… a war-mongering rogue state. It’s not just tragic… it’s pathetic.
Auden said it best:
” The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Wake up or get out of the way–the world has bigger problems to deal with than your jejune dreams of global power.
DR
PS–fine article R. Parry. I always read your articles with interest.
Auden said it best:
†The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.â€
Sorry to be pedantic but I think the above was penned by W.B.Yeats, The Second Coming.
Auden said it best:
†The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.â€
Sorry to be pedantic but I think the above was penned by W.B.Yeats, The Second Coming.
Bob, Thanks for another excellent article.
A comment or two about Samantha Power and her egregious misuse of R2P. She earned her ticket to Washington based on her book on genocide, though it is revealing that she included not a peep in it about the ‘ethnic cleansing of Palestine’, and that she did a hatchet job on Serbia without looking further.
If memory serves me correctly, it was reported prior to her appointment as US Ambassador to the UN that she tentatively raised the issue of Israeli abuses, before being told to shut up because the issue was off limits- and what do you know? she has.
Now when we hear her at the UNSC using false narratives to fulminate against Syria and Russia, she comes off as a rabid dog (and brings to mind the Grade Z gangster hitman film from the early 1960’s, “Mad Dog Coll”). It doesn’t help that she is as bad as her boss John Kerry in the ‘blatant lies’ category, or that her law professor husband would not only muzzle, but, worse, prosecute those who would question the neocon narrative of 9/11, or that she lacks basic dignity, experience, or professionalism for the job.
Sorry, Bob if this may come off as too ‘ad hominem’, but the woman is an embarrassment- though, unfortunately, she is only one of many- and deserves every rotten egg, moldy pie, or shoe that is tossed her way.