Exclusive: President Trump says much that is untrue, but he draws some of Official Washington’s greatest opprobrium when he speaks the truth, such as noting that senior U.S. officials have done a lot of killing, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Gaining acceptance in Official Washington is a lot like getting admittance into a secret society’s inner sanctum by uttering some nonsensical password. In Washington to show you belong, you must express views that are patently untrue or blatantly hypocritical.
Fox News’ anchor Bill O’Reilly interviewing President Donald Trump.
For instance, you might be called upon to say that “Iran is the principal source of terrorism” when that title clearly belongs to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf state allies that have funded Al Qaeda, the Taliban and the Islamic State. But truth has no particularly value in Official Washington; adherence to “group think” is what’s important.
Similarly, you might have to deny any “moral equivalence” between killings attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and killings authorized by U.S. presidents. In this context, the fact that the urbane Barack Obama scheduled time one day a week to check off people for targeted assassinations isn’t relevant. Nor is the reality that Donald Trump has joined this elite club of official killers by approving a botched and bloody raid in Yemen that slaughtered a number of women and children (and left one U.S. soldier dead, too).
You have to understand that “our killings” are always good or at least justifiable (innocent mistakes do happen from time to time), but Russian killings are always bad. Indeed, Official Washington has so demonized Putin that any untoward death in Russia can be blamed on him whether there is any evidence or not. To suggest that evidence is needed shows that you must be a “Moscow stooge.”
To violate these inviolable norms of Official Washington, in which participants must intuitively grasp the value of such “group think” and the truism of “American exceptionalism,” marks you as a dangerous outsider who must be marginalized or broken.
Currently, President Trump is experiencing this official opprobrium as he is widely denounced by Republicans, Democrats and “news” people because he didn’t react properly to a question from Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly terming Putin “a killer.”
“There are a lot of killers.” Trump responded. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent. You think our country’s so innocent?”
Aghast at Trump’s heresy, O’Reilly sputtered, “I don’t know of any government leaders that are killers.”
Trump: “Well — take a look at what we’ve done too. We made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”
O’Reilly: “But mistakes are different than —“
Trump: “A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.”
‘Moral Equivalence’
Though Trump is justly criticized for often making claims that aren’t true, here he was saying something that clearly was true. But it has drawn fierce condemnation from across Official Washington, not only from Democrats but from Trump’s fellow Republicans, too. Neoconservative Washington Post opinion writer Charles Krauthammer objected fiercely to Trump’s “moral equivalence,” and CNN’s Anderson Cooper chimed in. lamenting Trump’s deviation into “equivalence,” i.e. holding the U.S. government to the same ethical standards as the Russian government.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan Library)
This “moral equivalence” argument has been with us at least since the Reagan administration when human rights groups objected to President Reagan’s support for right-wing governments in Central America that engaged in “death squad” tactics against political dissidents, including the murders of priests and nuns and genocide against disaffected Indian tribes. To suggest that Reagan and his friends should be subjected to the same standards that he applied to left-wing authoritarian governments earned you the accusation of “moral equivalence.”
Declassified documents from Reagan’s White House show that this P.R. strategy was refined at National Security Council meetings led by U.S. intelligence propaganda experts. Now the “moral equivalence” theme is being revived to discredit a new Republican president who dares challenge this particular Official Washington “group think.”
Lots of Killing
The unpleasant truth is that all leaders of major countries and many leaders of smaller countries are “killers.” President Obama admitted that he had ordered military strikes in seven different countries to kill people. His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejoiced over the grisly murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with a clever twist on a famous Julius Caesar boast of conquest: “We came, we saw, he died,” Clinton chirped.
At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial assault on Baghdad, known as “shock and awe.”
President George W. Bush launched an illegal war against Iraq based on false pretenses, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them children and other civilians.
President Bill Clinton ordered a vicious bombing campaign against the Serbian capital of Belgrade, which included intentionally targeting the Serb TV building and killing 16 civilian employees because Clinton considered the station’s news reports to be “propaganda,” i.e., not in line with U.S. propaganda.
After the U.S. bombing in 1991 that incinerated more than 400 civilians, the Amiriyah Bunker in Baghdad was turned into a memorial to the victims. Since the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, the memorial was closed to the public.
President George H.W. Bush slaughtered scores of Panamanians who happened to live near the headquarters of the Panamanian Defense Forces and he killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, including incinerating a civilian bomb shelter in Baghdad, after he brushed aside proposals for resolving Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait peacefully. (Bush wanted a successful war as a way to rally the American people behind future foreign military operations, so, in his words, the country could kick “the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.”)
Other U.S. presidents have had more or less blood on their hands than these recent chief executives, but it is hard to identify any modern U.S. president who has not been a “killer” in some form, inflicting death upon innocents whether as part of some “justifiable” mission or not.
But the mainstream U.S. press corps routinely adopts double standards when assessing acts by a U.S. president and those of an “enemy.” When the U.S. kills people, the mainstream media bends over backwards to rationalize the violence, but does the opposite if the killing is authorized by some demonized foreign leader.
That is now the case with Putin. Any accusation against Putin – no matter how lacking in evidence – is treated as credible and any evidence of Putin’s innocence is ridiculed or suppressed.
That was the case with a documentary that debunked claims that hedge fund accountant Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in a Russian prison because he was a whistleblower when the documentary showed that he was a suspect in a massive money-laundering scheme and died of natural causes. Although produced by a documentarian who started out planning to do a sympathetic portrayal of Magnitsky, the facts led in a different direction that caused the documentary to be shunned by the European Union and given minimal distribution in the United States.
By contrast, the ease with which Putin is called a murderer – based on “mysterious deaths” inside Russia – is reminiscent of how American right-wing groups suggested that Bill and Hillary Clinton were murderers by distributing a long list of “mysterious deaths” somehow related to the Clinton “scandals” from their Arkansas days. While there was no specific evidence connecting the Clintons to any of these deaths, the sheer number created suspicions that were hard to knock down without making you a “Clinton apologist.” Similarly, a demand for actual evidence proving Putin’s guilt in a specific case makes you a “Putin apologist.”
However, as a leader of a powerful nation facing threats from terrorism and other national security dangers, Putin is surely a “killer,” much as U.S. presidents are killers. That appears to have been President Trump’s point, that the United States doesn’t have clean hands when it comes to shedding innocent blood.
But telling such an unpleasant albeit obvious truth is not the way to gain entrance into the inner sanctum of Official Washington’s Deep State. The passwords for admission require you to say a lot of things that are patently false. Any inconvenient truth-telling earns you the bum’s rush out into the alley, even if you’re President of the United States.
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).
Just as Poland had to accept and tolerate it’s Prussia in the center of that nation, so Putin must contend with his Prussian element in Russia. Follow the ever wandering blood lines in greater Europe and it may lead you to a few political truths. Putin, by his own admission, misses the directorates of the old Stalinist Soviet Union. He misses the order of it, he remains a good Communist at heart. He is well trained as a soldier and KGB agent. A dangerous man who, like all politicians in high office must content with his domestic militarists, in my view, the Prussian-Russians, he is not of this persuasion, as General Lebed was (so down his helicopter went) . Yes, it’s true that Putin has a grand Dasha in Russia’s warmest spot however it’s gilded opulence doesn’t lure him back often enough to persuade me that he belongs in the silver spoon crowd. The Dasha is an inadequate reimbursement for his grey hair and enormous worries. His western Occident opposite, Obama, has quite a mansion, newly constructed, in Washington DC and wow it’s gargantuan!
Robert Parry takes the bait. Even as Raimondo at antiwar.com shows major cracks in his support of Trump. Raimondo is now attempting to say that Trump is not US foreign policy and US foreign policy is not Trump. His diversion from the truth because of his stubborn support of Trump can’t last long now.
Parry involved himself in the same tactic, but with a twist. He didn’t stop to consider that Trump occassionally stumbles on the truth and then is corrected, which brings forth a statement from Trump that contradicts. Can’t Parry understand that anything Trump says that has to do with cooperation with Russia has only been Trump speaking from a position of ignorance. Or if not pure ignorance then attempting to capture the imaginations of the 10% or 15% of Americans who would give him their vote in hopes that he was serious?
Maybe both Raimondo and Parry can continue to keep their “Trumper” movement alive a little longer by gathering strength from the support of each other?
Right on. Recall Martin Luther King’s statement in 1968 that the US was “the greatest purveyor of death in the world”? That was certainly true then, and in light of our Government’s track record from 1968 to 2017 MLK’s statement has since proven even more accurate. No other government on earth has come close to our Government’s killing of human beings in the past 50 years.
Were there not a number of people killed in USA on receiving letters with Anthrax before the invasion of Iraq ? Didn’t the powers that be try to frame some poor Arab? If I remember correctly that the investigation was closed without any arrests. Everything went hash..hash!
Antonia…Graeme MacQueen has authored “The 2001 Anthax Deception”, an excellent read.
Though I fully agree with you about how public officials and the media, including liberal media, have historically covered up and applied double standards to US violence abroad, the fact that Donald Trump brought this up in an interview does not make him a truth-teller. Everything that Trump says – every single word – is calculated to aggrandize him and, often, to belittle the person he is talking to, even a news anchor at a network sympathetic to Trump. In this case, the “we’re not so innocent” remark came in response to O’Reilly’s question about Trump’s professed admiration for Putin. This is toxic territory for Trump, who is supposedly being investigated by House and Senate bipartisan committees looking into potential ties between the Russian government and his campaign. He had to quash this line of questioning and he did so by creating a distraction – changing the subject to the US’s long and bloody history of covert assassinations. Trump was in no way distancing himself from this history. He simply wanted to rebuke O’Reilly and throw him off his game for venturing into this territory. In this he succeeded. It was pure one-upmanship. If he had the motive and the opportunity to do so, Trump would not hesitate to follow in his predecessors’ footsteps and send drones to kill anyone anywhere in the world – as in fact he has just done. However, as someone recently pointed out, he is not a pathological liar, but a strategic, or, as I would put it, an instrumental liar. He lies when it suits his purpose and – occasionally – also tells the truth when he can use it to needle or embarrass an opponent. But he is not the right vehicle for the message you are trying to get across.
Well said Susan! Cutting right to the chase and right through Parry’s attempts to turn Trump, the sow’s ear, into a silk purse. It’s just hard to believe that Parry still doesn’t understand the Trump con job on cooperation with Russia.
Parry’s intentions aren’t bad and neither are Raimondo’s at antiwar.com. They’re both clinging to the fading hope that Trump would actually do what he said he would do on improving relations with Russia. Indeed, if we think on the situation for long, we can only see the horrible endgame that could be the result of US aggression on Russia’s borders.
Castigating Trump
or conjugating verbs
which reality looms?
as IBM advertised;
THINK
http://www.trigtent.com/content/betsy-devos-why-american-democracy-broken
“US President Donald Trump’s executive order banning entry into the United States of citizens from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia was predicated on protecting the American people from what the order claimed were ‘terrorist attacks by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.’
“The order makes specific reference to the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington in which nearly 3,000 would die.
“However, the ban in fact omits literally every nation from which the alleged hijackers on September 11 hailed – 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, 2 from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), 1 from Egypt […]
“It is clear that terrorist organizations, including Al Qaeda and ISIS – cited by US President Donald Trump as the pretext for his recent executive order – are creations and perpetuations of joint US-Saudi collusion. They have jointly created a global mercenary force that can fight where their regular forces cannot, using tactics and methods on a scale that even their respective covert operations forces could never achieve.
“And while it could not be any clearer that these terrorist organizations draw from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – with US and European backing – the summation of their political, financial, and military resources, President Trump – despite vowing to fight and defeat terrorism – has doubled down on protecting this very source of their power.”
Trump Policy Continues Purposefully Fueling Terrorism
By Tony Cartalucci
http://journal-neo.org/2017/02/08/trump-policy-continues-purposefully-fueling-terrorism/
Once I’ve been there, (the killing fields),
I can always go back again.
Manifest Destiny
= American Exceptionalism,
Survival of the Fittest
= “Rule of law” by force of arms
American Hostility
even Against it’s own
Omen of present killing fields
lying in wait for Slaughter. …
Half-way through WJ Clinton’s tenure his Sec of State, in an interview, did not deny that half million deaths had been caused by his obedient maintenance of pappy Bush’s “economic sanctions” on Iraq up to that point. They were deemed “worth it.”
WJC’s sanctions continued for an equivalent period for an estimated 1 million non-combat deaths, half of them children.
Why does everyone “forget” this aspect of US atrocities?
I wish people would start getting that reference right.
She was NOT asked about the deaths of half a million people killed by the genocidal sanctions.
She was asked about the deaths of 500,000 children under the age of 5.
The total death toll was FAR larger.
Trump obviously never shook hands with the Grand Lizard or became a 32nd Degree Mason like .., well or had a Skull and the Bones tattooed on his bum like .., well or was never President of the Harvard Law Review so he’s having to learn on the job. Apparently the voting mob has elected a rather course man. Alexis de Tocqueville’s if transported into the TV Age tweeting ‘Democracy in America’ bit by bit would not have to alter the basic observations that were first published in 1831. An even older ‘truth’ is ” The story of Chicken Little”. I guess the Main Stream Corporate Media never heard this tale. They can’t keep up the Trump bashing for two years , the Public will lose interest and Trump is not going to change his basic personality. I doubt he ever read 1984 or Brave New World, except maybe in Cliffs notes but he seems to be experiencing a process akin to the kind of transformation that occurred in Animal Farm , 2 legs good 4 legs better. The Deep State is trying to teach him to walk or crawl correctly. Something tells me this will settle out after the first 100 days. After all so far Russian sanctions haven’t been removed, we are still bullying Iran, Safe Zones are on the table for Syria, the Supreme Court now has 8 Justices and the Immigration file is not changing . Seems a lot like Obama to me minus a couple cosmetic changes.
Succinct. On the mark. I like it.
Talk about expressing “views that are patently untrue or blatantly hypocritical”!?!
I suggest you edit the article to read: “For instance, you might be called upon to say that “Iran is the principal source of terrorism” when that title clearly belongs to” … “the USofA itself.”
This is another excellent comment, and it is profoundly depressing that things have degenerated to this level. We’ve reached the point where, unless Trump can somehow throw off the power structure, we are doomed to a slow (or may be not so slow) death by warfare. And, we are in for it if Trump, trying to give himself room, starts a war based on one of these lies, that Iran, not the Saudis and el qaeda, are the fount of terrorism. The only thing I don’t fully agree with in the post is that I suspect the Clintons had Seth Rich liquidated for leaking the DNC documentation, part of the reason, perhaps, for the intensity of the absurd effort to blame Russia for these leaks. I also suspect that they must have at least had a hand in some of the suspected killings since many of them had results so congenial to them, and, while the actual proof is lacking in most if not all instances, I think they are cynical enough and have the capacity to have gone that route.
The US, MI6 and Israel created ISIL. It was refreshing to hear a President to admit that the US gov is full of killers. Hillary would never have said that. That’s why preferred him to her. He’s not on script. Trump is not a politician and will shoot his mouth off.
He is also proof that whatever democracy we may have had is not dead.
https://therulingclassobserver.com/2017/02/05/the-anti-democratic-origins-of-capitalism-enclosure/
I just sent an email to one of our Connecticut senators, Chris Murphy. Says a lot that he was, according to the Wikileaks emails, on the “short list” of innocuous white men to join Hillary Clinton as vice presidential candidate during her recent, failed bid for the White House. But he’s recently been publicly feeding into the anti-Russia rhetoric. Sometimes I wonder whether they’re really just dumb and naive. Or do they all just care for nothing but money and power?
Yes, Robert, you are correct to a degree.
The us remains the greatest purveyor of violence and destroyer of democracy on Earth.
The two go together and Trump fully embraces the second half.
psychopathic delusion. not even a mirror and a gun to the head would shake these exceptional idiots out of their self-romantic delirium. i think it is called narcissism and there are tidal rivers of it that run through the d.c. cesspool. this is serious when i am agreeing with trump but i am grateful for robert parry’s work. it is on the mark. thank you.
Why have you not included the ILLEGAL occupation of Palestine by the israelis?
The fact that Trump is so inarticulate compounds the very real problem that the media tools of the establishment are plainly out to bring him down. Everything that Mr. Parry said about lack of logic and evidence, known facts surrounding American presidential actions resulting in far more deaths than attributable to the Russian state in our time, and the slanderous precedents against the Clintons immediately spring to my mind when Putin is glibly labelled a serial killer by the American media. Yet it is verboten in that same media for anyone to bring up any of these points, which is why Trump is being castigated for stating an obvious truth.
It’s like being a broken clock- right twice a day, except I don’t think President Opey quite meets that standard.
God help us.
I posted a rough comparison of the ‘collateral damage’ done by the USA and Russia on Daily Kos. http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/6/1630363/-Moral-Equivalence-as-to-Collateral-Damage?t=1486527850332
Here’s Roger Harris being brutally honest….
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/07/trump-in-the-white-house-what-you-see-is-what-you-get/
Here’s something fromThierry Meyssen who makes no apologies for sticking up for Trump….
http://www.voltairenet.org/en
Joe – thanks for posting that article. Very good read.
Here’s something from Wayne Madsen which flips everything over upon it’s head….
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/02/05/trump-alt-right-movement-joins-soros-russia-bashing.html
I love Madsen. This time, not sure I follow him all the way.
Not sure I agree with his characterization of the Pizzagate thing.
He might be missing something, or misstating something in a distorted, ridiculous direction.
See discussions at the Unz Review.
Madsen often takes us to a place we weren’t prepared to go. Although in and about a year from now you and I will casually recall what Madsen had written about, and say, oh yeah Madsen said that. Maybe you don’t agree, but he is Wayne Madsen, and that is sometimes controversial in and of itself.
I can’t get over the volume of varied opinions about the Trump Adminstration. I don’t have statistics to know if all this news is anymore overwhelming than any other early days of a new presidents term, but there seems to be a large amount of 24/7 coverage being available for a even larger vacuum to be filled for a divided public consumption.
Madsen so far with this story has stretched the envelope of deep state deceit to an old meme, but a good one when employed. Sqeeze the center from both ends. Having a alt. Right running parallel to the alt. Left is where the cattle are led to slaughter. Maybe that’s what John Lennon meant when he said, ‘and nothing is real’.
Thanks for the reply Litchfield. One more thing, why did these creeps have to pick on pizza? non va bene!
Madsen is essentially saying that Bannon is an operator, playing his own political game, to some unknown ends. I’ve concluded the same thing – based on completely different sets of observations. Madsen thinks Bannon is loyal to some sort of true “alt right” cause. I think he’s loyal to some Spook agenda – FBI or CIA. If he is pushing for more money & more power for the domestic Security State then he is not alt-right. So eventually, we will have a better take on who is correct.
It’s interesting that you should bring up Steve Bannon’s name, Josh Stern. Have you taken the time to stop and wonder at all to how Trump’s Immigration “Ban” got rolled out? Yesterday I watched an interview of James Baker, and Secretary Baker made a comment to the effect of what I have been thinking ever since this whole Muslim Ban controversy took over the news 24/7, and that was to how amateur and sloppy the whole thing went down. What Baker said, was that it’s all about process, process, and more process, before a new policy gets unveiled. He went on to say how a business CEO works under a different set of rules than their government counter equals. Whereas in business it may be common for a CEO to directly order a physical working department to follow his directive, that this sort of short circuiting doesn’t work the same for a government leader. He went on to say how a government leader must run their ideas through different various agencies, and departments, before implementing any new directive. Baker also added that the word ‘ban’ should have never been used, instead a ‘vetting extension’ wordage would have been received much better, since there are those in America who fear that a terrorist could come through via our country’s accepting them as refugees, against the opinion of those Americans who feel obligated to helping these poor refugees which our wars have created.
So, with all of that, should we be looking into more of where Bannon was in regard to the quick negating of the process Baker referred too? Is it important to know just exactly where Bannon was when it came to all of that White House ignoring of the process, and was the rapid roll out of the extended vetting program the reason why this new program received such bad press? As a side note; taking into consideration my last two questions about Bannon’s involvement, should we also acknowledge Bannon’s media experience, and how Bannon could have made such a stupid mistake?
I’m not sure of anything of what is really going on with this President and his Administration, and the reason I posted the three links, where each link has a different take on the Trump White House, was because I’m trying to share with you all the different varieties of opinion that are floating around out here to when it comes to our evaluating the Trump presidency.
Today, between the headlines this morning over at HuffPo, and the local guy on our talk radio here in our city, coupled with a couple of other stories I have come across, it now appears that we should all bone up on the 25th Amendment and article 4 of this amendment, because White House ‘leakers’ are claiming how Trump maybe mentally ill….oh boy already the crew is saying the boss is loco. Can you say impeachment, and will you by this time next year be saying President Mike Pence?
Re: your 25th amendment thoughts, Joe.
I don’t think Trump is any more crazy than any of our other recent presidents. In fact, based on his stated objectives, he may have a firmer grip on reality than the dishonest satyrs, money grubbers and war mongers that have dominated over the past few decades. It just comes down to the fact that Robert Parry is right about the total saturation of “group think” throughout the government, irrespective of rank, party, position or manner of appointment or election to office.
Trump still quaintly thinks that the president is the wellspring of executive power under the constitution and that the buck not only stops with him but that he places the bets with that buck. The entire menagerie that comprises the Deep State sorely disagrees with him that they should not be calling the shots and rather think that he should simply be fronting their decisions like a nice compliant news anchor–just like Slick Willy, Dubya and Obomber served the interests of the MIC and the oligarchs at every turn. H.W. Bush WAS the MIC and also the guy who pulled “Dutch’s” strings for those same overlords.
Trump doesn’t realise any of this. He ran against and got elected over the efforts of both major parties. He thinks his reward should be to decide American national policies both foreign and domestic, especially when he recognises the catastrophe that they have become–with our government’s dedication to total spectrum dominance and complete military hegemony over the entire globe to the detriment of the general welfare and domestic budgets and services. I’m sure he was elected because he discerned those problems and presented, in his clumsy limited inarticulate way, solutions that enough people agreed with to get him past the warmongering tool of Wall Street and proven liar Hillary Clinton.
Turns out that Hillary was obviously deeply embedded in the Deep State herself and was their almost unanimous choice to fill the presidency and continue their policies–which worked well for them but not so much for everyone else. They took it as a personal affront that she lost the election and subsequently lost the recount, lost the court challenges, lost the attempt at stealing away electors, failed at the demonization of Putin, could not gain leverage through the accusations by the American Intelligence agencies, and did not gain from the threats of civil disobedience by Michael Moore and the radical left, and basically failed at all the other extraordinary hijinks presently being played out in the congress and the courts to ridicule and obstruct all of Trumps announced policies and appointments. It has, in essence, been an ongoing low grade coup against Trump that has never stopped but merely shifted from one mechanism to another. And now you tell us that there are moles and rats within the White House walls, Joe.
The “elites” are bound and determined to punish Trump for daring to win and replace him with a more malleable politician quite familiar and compliant with the immoral practices that pervade the system. (That may be Mike Pence, but if you remember Nixon’s VP Spiro Agnew never succeeded him because of his own forced resignation, so it may be Paul Ryan. Who knows?) If you’ve noticed, it remains a total spectrum attack with the full force of all the media, all the government (except for Trump’s small cadre of outsiders), all the agencies, all the legal profession, and all the business establishment (who did I leave out?) in spite of the fact that, for the most part, Trump’s policies have yet to deviate much from those of Obomber and his predecessors. Even the widely attacked “Muslim ban” (which does not specify “Muslims” and only affects about 15% of the entire Muslim world) was based on precedents formulated in Obomber’s White House. Trump comes down on Iran, Syria and other unfortunates while Saudi, Pakistan, and other favorites get a pass on this terrorism business basically because that’s what the real “deciders” decided under Puppet Obama. Ask Putin if he’s feeling any of the “love” promised by his putative puppet Trump. Nikki Haley wants Crimea back. The sanctions are still in place. Somebody seems to be provoking Ukraine to military action. Trump now talks of the same “safe zones” in Syria that Hillary proposed. Iran and China are being pressed even harder than under Obomber. What don’t the Deep State warmongers like?
All that said, does not imply that I am convinced that Trump is the best man for the job, though he certainly was the best choice among the candidates, other than Bernie Sanders, offered to the public in the last round of elections. Plus he’s a better choice than Mike Pence. As bad as he may turn out to be, I contend that Hillary would have been infinitely worse (for reasons covered ad nauseum during the campaign). The country chose him, we have a right to succeed or fail under him. It should not be the prerogative of a coterie of entrenched power brokers to negate our choice. The media should stop trying so transparently to destroy his image with every line of script or text they spin–it quite blatantly makes the system seemed to be rigged.
We all may end up condemning him as roundly as we did Obomber and Dubya. But he was the public’s choice, the public should own his destiny not some behind the scenes power structure. That TPTB hate him is probably a good thing. It means he is resisting their control. If he did “get his mind right” and learn the advantages of doing all things their way, it will probably just remain a slow ride to World War III and the destruction of civilisation, which may happen anyway based on some of his misconceptions about Iran and China.
Washington D.C.–where hope perennially goes to die. No wonder Trump doesn’t want his wife and young son to live there.
In my true/real life – I claim to be an FBI/CIA victim – criminally, painfully attacked every day, for some accidental knowledge of a CIA black ops program related to media/Operation Mockingbird that they support. They of course claim I am a crazy lunatic and, of course, they would say none of that is true (but you shouldn’t believe it if you know what’s good for you…) This reality gives me a different perspective on the magnitude of the role U.S. Spook takes in criminally manipulating current events and lying about it to the bitter end. I can’t expect other people to simply believe my witness story without a pile of hard evidence. So I have taken to arguing about other things where either huge evidence has been forgotten/list (e.g. Vietnam War) or a current event like the phony claims about Russia hacking the election where I see the Deep State at play. It’s true that Spook wanted HRC to win, and that Trump is more of a loose cannon. He didn’t actually expect to win the election. He probably wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did if he wasn’t someone Spook thought they were somewhat comfortable with and could manipulate. Putting people like Manafort and Bannon close to him is one way to accomplish them. Filling his ear with secret nonsense he can’t get a public rebuttal on is another. U.S. Spook is the most powerful force on the planet. I’m not a Trump fan on a personal or political level, but I’ll staunchly defend his right/bravery to not listen to Spook and not become a false flag victim on account of that.
Realist, with this current comment of yours I must say your name Realist does befit you. Your confronting the truth in a such a great chronologically blow by blow way is right on the money.
After thinking more about what Madsen wrote I have come to recall that there have been many, and almost all to none in high leadership all through out human history who did not have a mole working from withinside their court. You mentioned everything there is to mention, and with your comment as a good reference point for all that that is working against our Twitter President, it makes one wonder to how quantitatively outnumbered is Trump up against his secret mole destroyers?
At this moment, and after reading Tony Cartalucci over at …
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/02/trump-policy-continues-purposefully.html
where Cartalucci is reporting that the Trump Pentagon has send the USS Cole all alone without an escort into Yeman Waters as this decoy mission that was assigned to the Cole bothers me to a great deal. It’s stuff like this that makes the USS Liberty such an important story for all Americans to hear, but there go I.
So much within a time span of 21 days since the inauguration…amazing!
So, it’s to be “Remember the Cole!” is it, Joe? Wouldn’t at all surprise me. We know that the Houthis possess and have already tried to use Chinese anti-ship missiles. The Cole may well be intended to serve as a stalking horse to draw Houthi missile fire. The ship is undoubtedly bristling with anti-missile technology and will be tracked constantly via satellite and probably drones that will immediately zero in on the launch sites to take them out. Of course, just like Israel reacts to the Roman candles that the Palestinians occasionally launch out of Gaza, America will launch a blitzkrieg against Yemen. Besides, Trump now has some face to save after the special forces fiasco of last week. But an additional outcome will be to accuse Iran of providing those missiles and thereby justify abrogating any and all treaties with that country and possibly carrying out military attacks upon it, which many elements within the American government fervently want. Hell, there may not even be any missile attack on that ship which will still be claimed–your classic false flag gambit. When America wants a war, it generally gets what it wants.
Yeah, but Realist even with all of the concern I have over the mission given to the USS Cole I am still labeled a conspiracy nut…grandpa conspiracy nut to be definitely described. I’m not even sure this USS Cole story has been covered in the MSM, so what’s that tell you? Let’s both hope by this time next month the Cole will be tied up in some port enjoying a Liberty run, and I will have been nothing but a worrywart for the better of it.
Good article on the prevailing belligerent militarism in this country – – – at least among the ‘powers that be’ (and too much of the general populace, I fear).
I’m also reminded of Noam Chomsky’s statements that (I paraphrase), since the start of the 2nd half of the 20th century, the US has been the world’s biggest international killer in sheer numbers (ie; add up the deaths we’ve caused in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Indonesia, Chile, Central America, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc, and it’s no-contest with anyone else since 1950), and that IF US presidents since 1950 were held to the same standards as those used at the Nuremberg Trials, they’d all be hung. Easy to see why telling those kinds of truths/opinions don’t get you invited to ‘Meet The Press’ or ‘Face The Nation’ or any of those other oh-SO-serious discussions of national/international politics.
Folks ….. follow agenda……Agenda means profit plus market share…..The push for territory and USA $$$….The Donald want’s legal American citizens to prosper….Now what could be wrong with that??……immigration legal or not means the large corps…..fill in the blank….continue to make massive profits…..most of which are hidden from your vision by the MSM……Why because the MSM is owned by the BIG MONEY……..really…are you that thick…..Don’t delete my comment…..
I agree & would go further: in the time period since WWII – in any of those decades – it is the United States that has been the #1 state sponsor of terrorism. No other nation comes close. On the other hand, I do think it helpful to both sides to draw a distinction between a nation’s criminal aggression towards outsiders and it’s level of freedom domestically. While domestic repression in the U.S. has also been covert (hello FBI/COINTELPRO, etc.), the U.S. has historically allowed more dissent and free expression than Russia. It is better not to equivocate between those two distinct columns. They are different. Both are important.
Bait and Switch, must have been a quite the class at Trump University.
It’s all about the bankers. They decide who must go next, the intelligence agencies develop the rationale and the official narrative for the propaganda press and the paid off puppets carry out their orders.
Any prospective president must of course display psychopathic tendencies to make it to the final round. That Trump uttered a rare truism shows that sometimes the control freaks lose control of the process. No doubt they’ll find a way to regain it fast. Without war, the phony money system collapses.
All this bantering back and forth re who supposedly is the most dangerous psychopath/sociopath, etc. The fact is that both of these men, leaders with powerful positions in large, nuclear weapons laden countries. Both are being pushed into corners by the press and Deep State influences. Both are proud, narcissistic people and what will at some point do what anyone, that is anyone, will do when isolated from their network and bullied. They will fight back to try and regain whatever self respect they feel they deserve. Putin gave Obama a way out of this type of predicament in his red line in the sand he had foolishly drawn in Syria. Putin/Russia 1 – Trump/US 0. It is insane to cage powerful, political figures with the ability to destroy the world at their beck and call.
The trick is apparently to have somebody like O’Reilly with the reputation of tough guy who for the last twenty years has held belligerent screaming shows somewhat like a barker getting the customers into the lion-taming tent with repeat repeat repeat “killer” with no qualifications, no evidence, no examination. Have we already forgotten, as Trump might have mentioned, Obama’s “I’m good at killing folks?” As with blowing away Anwar al-Awlaki’s son and several of his friends as they were snacking and talking? O’Reilly’s audience then foams at the mouth, cheers, and as with a child and its rote lessons repeats Official Washington Speak without examination.
But if not this “killer” charge at Putin it’s very common to hear “nasty piece of work,” even from Matt Taibbi, whom I usually respect. So let me ask what IS the case for Putin as ruthless killer, specifically of journalists, so that we can get beyond the drum-beats and the whirling dwarfs on the road for war? Seriously, I’m inviting to be informed on this. Putin=killer because yyy. Let me have it. I’m ready. I have tried to research the topic and so far come up with nothing, so I am indeed ready to peruse the evidence.
“Another source relied on by Western media are assertions made by exiled Russians like the late Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko claimed that Putin ordered the killing of journalist Politkovskaya and also accused Putin of poisoning himself before Litvinenko died in 2006. Living in exile in Britain and working commercially as a «Putin critic», Litvinenko had plenty of self-serving reasons to make such claims. But, again, where is the evidence?
Alternatively, there are substantial grounds to believe that Litvinenko, as with Politkovskaya, may have been the victims of vendettas carried out by criminal gangs.
The point is that there is a dearth of facts but lots of innuendo in the Western narrative imputing crimes to Russian President Putin. Indeed, one can argue the case that this is just part of the Western propaganda campaign of Russophobia and demonization to project Washington’s geopolitical agenda of undermining Moscow.”
https://counterinformation.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/trumps-apology-for-killer-putin-is-wrongheaded/
Putin is the “push-back” against the City/Wall Street/DC war criminals’ attempted regime change under Yeltsin. Putin pushed back against his own “smash-n-grab” billionaire criminal oligarchs, backing them into a corner, warning them not to come out and play politics. Putin is a sort of “Huey Long” folk hero for Russians.
I saw an interview with Christiane Amanpour/Marine le Pen where the interviewer insisted that Putin was a criminal whose “big country invaded a small country, a crime against international law” as if this was not the US regular behavior. Marine did not mention the obvious link, but explained that the Ukraine govt was overthrown in a coup, and that Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, but Amanpour pityingly regarded her with horror. Putin is actually, if anything, loath to rush into action and certainly to encourage violence, but all we hear is negative statements with no evidence, while our own leaders relish the manliness of murder.
I watched the interview this morning rosemerry. Marine le Pen strikes me as interesting:
http://youtu.be/p_XeQs5n5js
Thanks to both of you (rosemerry and Gregory Herr) for making that connection so very easy. Clearly Marine le Pen was speaking truthfully and Christian Amanpour was insisting on some other reality. This is a perfect example of how “fake news” is managed. I had a rather negative view of Marine le Pen, but now I will reconsider my judgment… Thanks.
1. I never expected Marine le Pen to make such good sense!
2. Amanpour is such a pompous gas bag. She likes to hardball interviewees who go against the establishment grain, but always throws marshmallow questions and otherwise kisses asterisk when interviewing the elite.
The Washington Post’s editorial board had a revealing take on all this yesterday. Arguing that Putin’s Russia was motivated by a base “cynicism”, it was posited that “American exceptionalism” was instead based on serving as “a beacon of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.” The shocking and “false” equivocation, according to the Post editorial board, does not reside in what either state may actually do, but what it allegedly stands for. Therefore, while America makes “mistakes” and may be “far from perfect”, since America has “elevated aspirations” and a supposed “capacity to reverse its errors through democratic reform”, all should be forgiven. That is, lofty and hypocritical rhetoric should be the standard by which to judge action, and the absence of such rhetoric must necessarily reveal “the naked pursuit of narrow interests and disregard for legality and morality” – which of course America’s elites can never be accused of.
Whereas “pay attention to what I do and not what I say” should be simply common wisdom on our little planet, it’s amazing how many of the professional opinion makers in the USA believe the opposite. Almost like their jobs depend on it.
The American rind of self-righteousness is indeed thick. The “exceptionalist” baloney means we can do no wrong because we’re Americans, and our truth is always THE truth. It was deeply irresponsible of Obama to posit this condition and bear it about like a trophy, along with his peace prize. We are Americans and have but slenderly known ourselves is more like it, if I may somewhat misquote from King Lear, a good model for our deluded power structure.
From the Russian Constitution:
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Chapter 2. Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen
Article 17
1. In the Russian Federation recognition and guarantees shall be provided for the rights and freedoms of man and citizen according to the universally recognized principles and norms of international law and according to the present Constitution.
2. Fundamental human rights and freedoms are inalienable and shall be enjoyed by everyone since the day of birth.
3. The exercise of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall not violate the rights and freedoms of other people.
Article 18
The rights and freedoms of man and citizen shall be directly operative. They determine the essence, meaning and implementation of laws, the activities of the legislative and executive authorities, local self-government and shall be ensured by the administration of justice.
Article 19
1. All people shall be equal before the law and court.
2. The State shall guarantee the equality of rights and freedoms of man and citizen, regardless of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, property and official status, place of residence, religion, convictions, membership of public associations, and also of other circumstances. All forms of limitations of human rights on social, racial, national, linguistic or religious grounds shall be banned.
3. Man and woman shall enjoy equal rights and freedoms and have equal possibilities to exercise them.
Article 20
1. Everyone shall have the right to life.
2. Capital punishment until its complete elimination may be envisaged by a federal law as an exclusive penalty for especially grave crimes against life, and the accused shall be granted the right to have his case examined by jurytrial.
Article 21
1. Human dignity shall be protected by the State. Nothing may serve as a basis for its derogation.
2. No one shall be subject to torture, violence or other severe or humiliating treatment or punishment. No one may be subject to medical, scientific and other experiments without voluntary consent.
Article 22
1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom and personal immunity.
2. Arrest, detention and remanding in custody shall be allowed only by court decision. Without the court’s decision a person may be detained for a term more than 48 hours.
(End of clip)
There is more at link. Sounds very “elevated” and “subject to reform” to me. In fact, It seems
very “progressive” to me.
The point is that it’s just words. Just like our Constitution. If Trump (or Obama, or Bush, or Clinton, or the other Bush, or Reagan, Nixon, LBJ etc) doesn’t want to play by the rules, he just does what he wants and justifies it with legal bs and cranks out the propaganda. Same with Putin or any other leader. Almost every country has a noble-sounding founding document.
If all governments simply abided by their constitution, we would have a very peaceful world.
http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-03.htm
That is a very good point and I thank you for a look at this document.
Thanks, very interesting, especially your comment at the end.
Interesting, that in spite of the “elevated” words, which sound great, they don’t include discrimination against the LGBT community and from what I have observed that community has taken a beating from state sponsored terrorism.
And that makes me wonder whether that particular vulnerable community is a convenient target to try to assert authoritarian fear – just like what took place for decades here in the good ole USA, as recently as the liberal Clinton’s supporting DOMA.
whew….
As you say there’s the words and then there’s the reality.
“…And also of other circumstances”
Keep in mind that nowhere in the US Constitution is the queer community mentioned either. In more than half of US States, it is still legal to fire someone or kick them out of their apartment for being queer.
In Russia, rather than list what it is forbidden to discriminate on, Russian law instead lists what one can be fired or evicted for. Sexuality and gender identity are not amongst them.
The much hyped “gay propaganda” law in Russia is misreported by the mainstream. To fall afoul of it, one must give factually incorrect information to a minor who has not asked for it. The consequences should a Russian citizen break the law is a rather small fine, but if it is someone acting on behalf of a foreign corporation, it is a large fine and also that corporation can do no business at all in Russia for 90 days. Considering the consolidation of American Media, it seems rather obvious why the Corporate Media demonized this with fake news.
https://www.scribd.com/mobile/document/203356052/Russian-LGBT-Law-White-Paper
Hate Crimes against the queer community in Russia happen about 1/1,100th as many times per year as they happen in Russia.
Here in the US, there are still places where police, in plain clothes, approach men in parks, proposition them for sex, and arrest them for “public indecency” if the men they approach do not react in a homophobic manner. The men arrested then have their names and pictures sent out in press releases. I have first hand knowledge of this in Illinois, a solid Blue State, with a Democratic Prosecutor pushing convictions.
In NYC, a Trans person can be arrested for prostitution if Stop and Frisk finds that they have a condom in their possession.
The whole “Russia mistreats gays” thing is no different than “we have to go to war in Afghanistan for women’s rights”
If you want to sabre rattle, dont use us queers as your excuse. Especially when us queers are legally discriminated against and victimized by State Sponsored hate crimes in the US.
People in the West seem to be obsessed with who f.cks whom. You just do NOT mention the f.cking in the constitution. It says “and also of other circumstances”. Isn’t that enough? Should the Constitution also mention “and regardless of weather they prefer cats or dogs, apples or oranges, blue or red, summer or winter, Lannisters or Starks, etc.” God, you are SO weird!
The war criminals of the Washington consensus “groupthink” had better watch their step. I begin to understand the “strongman” phenomena, as sometimes a response to a dangerous and threatening group within a nation (often a group that our war criminals had sponsored in the first place, to effect “regime change”). It’s what Assad has to respond to, what the Turkish Prez has to respond to, what the Egyptian coup generals had to respond to, as their own Muslim Brotherhood were gearing up to join in war against their own Syrian ally Assad. Strongmen sometimes step in to put an end to a dangerous internal threat. Lincoln had his fire-breathing Gen. Sherman, and undaunted Gen. Grant, to break the back of the rebellion, without whose exertions, the war would have dragged on for years, probably without a successful conclusion, guaranteeing endless “Balkan Wars”, stretching on, into a bloody future.
Unfortunately, Trump has no debating skills. He should have said, “Unless those charges are proven, that is hearsay” (as to veracity of claims of Putin killing). Obama was a good debater as well as prevaricator.
This is truly an Orwellian age, just as Winston Smith’s job in 1984 was to edit published events so as to conceal truth, this goes on daily. Whoever commented that it’s worse since the Bush administration is right, although it’s been going on since the founding of the republic. All governments produce propaganda, but the USA is at the top, that’s its exceptionalism.
I’m rereading T. C. McLuhans’ great book, “Touch the Earth: A Self Portrait of Indian Existence”. The native Americans were constantly calling out the lies of the whites but we see what happened to them, and now the same greedy, rapacious tactics are today applied worldwide. And excused in the name of “Morality”?!
This may have already been noted:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/4/obama-brag-new-book-im-really-good-killing-drones/
Obama: “I’m really good at killing folks.”
Why do his wife and daughters still love him?
Who says “still”????
He is a fake.
If an individual person made a habit of denying reality in a way similar to Official Washington would a psychiatrist not diagnose that as a mental disease? So, what is the diagnosis for the many denizens of Official Washington?
The current demonizing of Democrats for obstruction in the senate doesn’t seem to phase Republicans who engaged, for the better part of eight years, in obstructing Obama’s agenda.
Great question!
We should have a mental health test for all presidents.
Better still, a public accounting from each candidate to try to understand their psychological makeup.
most of them have taken us to wars not because they are STRONG as they would have us believe but because they are weak and fearful and don’t know how to stand up to their political rivals without bluster, saber rattling and aggression.
”most of them have taken us to wars not because they are STRONG as they would have us believe but because they are weak and fearful and don’t know how to stand up to their political rivals without bluster, saber rattling and aggression.”
thereis rather more to it than that….
you forgot the ”pledge”, the bribery, blackmail, campaign contributions and
the constant need to get re-elected, in order to stay on the gravy train.
Speaking of the US outright endorsing killers, the White Helmets ruse that is being pushed upon the American people is a great example of blatant propaganda in support of nefarious murderous terrorists. John McCain and Rep. Adam Klininger have led the way on supporting these murderous terrorists. It would be a great service if Consortium News presented an fresh update on their previous White Helmets story from back in October. Myself and other have gathered a large amount of new evidence that supports the fact the White Helmets are actually terrorists. It is located at the following links. https://twitter.com/WhiteHelmetsEXP
Due to Dennis Kucinch and Tulsi Gabbard’s recent trip to Syria, plus the fact that George Clooney has announced he plans to make a tribute film to them, and they are being considered for an Oscar for their fake performances, I would think this is a story that is definitely waiting to be fully told. One that blows the lied off US Deep State propaganda and ruses used to foment war and atrocities.
Additional important links:
https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/01/30/white-helmets-exposed-numerous-videos-and-photo-evidence-link-white-helmets-to-fsa-terrorists-torture-and-atrocities/
https://clarityofsignal.com/2017/01/27/white-helmets-exposed-as-an-arm-of-isis-two-al-nusra-front-leader-videos-link-the-white-helmets-to-terrorist-group/
I agree with most of this article, and I don’t think Parry is making out that either Trump or Putin are saints.
I do wonder about this though: “Any inconvenient truth-telling earns you the bum’s rush out into the alley, even if you’re President of the United States.”
A little exaggerated at the very least – he’s still the so-called president, isn’t he?
And, I fear, it may be wide of the mark altogether. How much does he need the silver-tongued hypocrites of official Washington? He wastes little time venting his spleen against any who fail to obey.
At worst, it could herald a proud and open embracing of violence as a US value, much as fascists of the last century worshipped the purifying virtues of war. Waterboarding? He loves it, whether it works or not.
Killing? Trust me, I’m gonna kill bigly, trust me.
Do we live in interesting times?
Interesting link below
—————————————————————–
Oliver Stone Calls on President Trump To “Declassify” All Secret Documents on Ukraine Conflict
By Alex Christoforou
Global Research, February 07, 2017
The Duran 6 February 2017
http://www.globalresearch.ca/oliver-stone-calls-on-president-trump-to-declassify-all-secret-documents-on-ukraine-conflict/5573424
Good for Oliver Stone!!!
Thanks for posting this, Stephen!
I watched the video posted above from eastern Ukraine.
We have no conscience.
Yes, thank you Stephen.
As someone on the “left,” as a Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein supporter, I have to say that I am so tired of all the fear and hyperventilating emanating from the liberal leaning corporate media. It’s as though people are protesting Trump’s very existence, and it’s not only tiresome, but it’s dangerous. He’s barely been in office for 3 weeks, and the incessant barrage of negativity is too much for the spirit and the soul, not only of the individual, but of the country. We owe President Trump the same respect that we expected for President Obama. At this point, if any article has a negative-about-Trump-title, I don’t even read sit, because I cannot afford to live in a state of fear. thank you, Mr. Parry, for continuing to expose the astounding hypocrisy of the media and the Deep State.
Again–thank you Robert. I have been trying to suppress my gag reflex all morning after hearing Rachel Maddow do her usual felating of the military on her show last night. I can see what you say about “everybody does it” when it comes to national leaders, but when Maddow is so hypocritical, it’s something else again. She’s an opinion maker who flouts her purity by nestling up to the Queer Movement–a group the nearly always tells the truth. And with her patented blend of snark and fear, always seems to be speaking for Liberals. Esp since she NEVER criticized Obusha or KIllary. But now, when we really need a new path forward, her soulless defense of the worst of the neoliberal agenda is just puke worthy, to say the least. Thank YOU for giving me someplace to go.
She has displayed that love of war and war machinery from the beginning, and it’s what made me skeptical from the beginning. I’m sure that Keith Olbermann regrets supporting her. The final straw was when she told Bill Moyers that she can say whatever she wants to on her show. Yes, as long as it isn’t something her bosses object to, and as long as what she wants to say is always something her bosses want her to say. She is sickening.
Don’t forget Viet Nam, the war that taught our rulers to stop drafting young men due to resistance from those not wanting to die for a criminal mistake. The war that keeps giving as Viet Namese continue to lose limbs from mines and succumb to Agent Orange.
And Nagasaki and Hiroshima!
Remember Japan started that war, not us.
Excellent article at link below:
———————————————–
“All the News That Fits the Agenda
Mainstream journalists have betrayed their calling”
Philip Giraldi
February 7, 2017
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/all-the-news-that-fits-the-agenda/
Excellent piece. Robert makes a lot of important points to think about.
Here, however, sounds like Parry applies the term “terrorism” only to violence from Muslim nations. Terrorism isn’t a religion; it’s an abomination! Of course, Robert may have been speaking DC-group think.
Thank you! No one in the media nor in politics seems to remember that the Iraq invasion was an “American led” illegal invasion! Just this morning we were discussing this very omission.
The United States has a lot of soul searching to do. If we truly wish to live in a peaceful, productive, egalitarian and sustainable world, Empire America must become peaceful, productive, egalitarian and sustainable!
P.S. Meant to add that Robert may be too kind to say, “Trump’s point, that the United States doesn’t have clean hands”. My take on Trump is that he wouldn’t consider killing and “enemy” or their wives, children or grandparents something that dirties ones hands. He’s a full-blown sociopath!
The corporate media is a total farce. Yet, their war on Trump continues daily. This could be called:
“The Ganging Up On Donald Trump”
More Info at link below:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/01/the-ganging-up-on-donald-trump.html
Is anyone paying attention to the context in which this ‘honest reflection’ was made? Given the unknown and perhaps unknowable truth of the relationship between Trump and Putin, it seems more like a ‘well, we’re like that too’ excuse rather than a morally inspired admission of the unsavory history of the United States’ actions in the name of being a World Power.
Let’s not get distracted by an anomaly.
Question is – how to access morality if it is permanently decoupled from the doctrine of American exceptionalism?
How to know which wars/ killings are moral once we shed the standard that all of “our” wars/killings are moral?
This is the knowledge we need to seek.
Great article. Thank you.
You didn’t mention the US citizens on the okay to kill with a drone strike list of President Obama (or whatever the hell they called it). We used to have an anti-assassination stance which is all but forgotten, along with a neutral foreign policy and a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Thanks Stephen. At 71 I remember cheering when first Pres Ford and then Pres Carter signed Executive Orders preventing the assassination of foreign leaders. It is time for the International Criminal Court to prosecute those that commit this crime for what it is; MURDER.
Trump’s occasional sort-of-true statements — the one about “killers” could and should have been phrased somewhat more correctly — hardly justify Mr. Parry’s tone and approach. This piece verges on excusing all of his terrible falsehoods by citing one sort-of truth. Iran is NOT the worst state supporter of terrorism. The travel ban WAS a Muslim ban. There were NOT millions of illegal voters. The media did NOT mis- or under-report terrorist attacks. On and on.
Thomas, don’t be willfully dense.
Parry starts the piece with these words:
“President Trump says much that is untrue, but he draws some of Official Washington’s greatest opprobrium when he speaks the truth, such as noting that senior U.S. officials have done a lot of killing”
Parry does not justify anyone’s falsehoods but does call out official lies.
Parry is showing. I believe, how the habitual dishonesty of official Washington is actually worse than any specific piece of nonsense uttered by Trump. As Parry points out, it is Washington’s systemically and institutionalized dishonest “group think” that is actually more dangerous than any specific falsehood or weird Tweet from Trump. Becuase it is official pressure to continue with official lies. Bill Reilly stands in for the DC establishment that is trying to force Trump onto their own lying reservation and maintain the Deep State status quo. Surely that is obvious.
I found the focus of this piece more a castigation of delusional Washington Speak than giving credit to Donald Trump as a truth teller. Trump serves Trump not TRUTH. Delusional Washington serves the Deep State not TRUTH.
The irony of the situation is when on the rare occasion Trump says something that makes sense – e.g. we’re all better off if Russia and the U.S. find a way to cooperate to avoid more endless war – which doesn’t fit within the Washington Speak, Deep State agenda, he then gets attacked by them for lying.
As I read the piece i found it focused on how a bizarre reality show host with a conflicting set of foolish “policies” happens to have ONE idea that makes sense but immediately gets trashed by a delusional Deep State filled with Cold War Neocons and their side kicks Neoliberals for “lying” about Russia.
You couldn’t make this up……
But I agree that Trump should never have become president and one good idea does not excuse his failures to seek out a policy agenda that tries to get this country on a sustainable path. No evidence that that’s on his radar.
I intend to watch CNN tonight for the BERNIE VS CRUZ match hoping to find some sanity amidst the horror of it all.
I am finding Bernie’s book filled with policy positions and critiques of the status quo.
This is the first book written by a political candidate that I tried to read – so far so good…
I am grateful to the court system so far standing up to Trumps horrific immigration orders.
His remarks were beautiful. I disagree that his statement “about killers could and should have been phrased somewhat more correctly.” You’re partisanship is showing! Give credit where it is due. He nailled it. Genius. And, he did not ban muslims at all–his order applied to [W. Clark’s] 7 countries. Plenty of Muslim countries not affected, get real. Trump-bashers are forcing me to like the guy…
Re: “He did not ban Muslims at all”
I think he tried to be a little tooooo clever. During the election he preyed on people’s fear about what he/WashingtonSpeak like to call Islamic Terrorists. 9/11 was extremely convenient for the forces in DC that wanted to go after the 7 countries that you mention and Wes Clark warned us were on the Neocon radar to be invaded.
Trump appealed to some people who trusted him to “save them” from the “terrurists”. Trump is still playing those voters, IMO.
But if we step back and consider who carried out the attacks on 9/11 we are told that 16 of the 19 were from Saudi Arabia. So it’s surprising that Saudi Arabia is not one of the countries Trump is targeting if he is really worried about those “who wish to do us harm”.
So Trump is playing political games IMO trying to conflate peoples’ fear of their real or imagined enemies while pursuing his REAL agenda, which is not clear to me but seems to be based on his view that unfettered capitalism driven by the billionaire class will solve everything.
Here I’m drawing on his comment during the campaign that the country is just like a huge business and if he wins he intends to hand things over to his kids and say “here kids, handle it like it’s another business”.
I really wish we would stop identifying the war crimes going on in the Middle aeast with the ID “terror” to try to confuse us.
President Trump is IMO continuing to play to the room – trying to pretend that he is not targeting Muslims, but in fact trying to “prove” to his fearful base that he’s really doing something to stop “terrorism” defined by him as “Islamic Terrorism”
He, along with the Neocons and Neoliberals who tag along with these dark policies of aggression want us to believe that our wars of aggression in the oil rich Middle East are about “fighting terrorists” – although he conveniently conflates the enemies with the specific countries he has picked out as targets. Iran seems to be one of them for the moment……
Nice bait and switch from reality.
In fact our aggression has helped destabilize countries and create groups who practice savage acts of terror with our weapons that they capture on the battlefield.
The whole thing is a never ending cycle that’s making the weapons makers verrry rich.
The trick is IMO to try to tease out the contradictions in Trumps rhetoric.
Bernie is the only politician who has run for president recently IMO – who you may not agree with – but whose policy positions are non contradictory with each other and have been consistent for decades. I’m reading his book and he’s been against these wars of aggression all along.
He does not believe that just because someone happens to be Muslim that they are a threat to people of other religions.
The clue here is that Trump has singled out Christians as victims and Muslims as perpetrators. So he’s making religion a marker rhetorically for himself. He’s pandering IMO.
It all becomes pretty clear for me when I think about the guy who committed the “terrorist” act in Oklahoma City, blowing up the Murrah building.
He was a very young non Muslim veteran who was horrified by what Bill Clinton and his AG did to the religious camp outside Waco, TX – sending in tanks and killing women and children and the leader of their cult.
The veteran tragically killed a lot of innocent people. But there is no doubt in my mind that he considered himself a martyr protesting an equally vile act by the Clinton government.
Bottom line for me is that violence begets violence and as long as Washington DC is determined to have wars of aggression to feed the MIC Eisenhower warned us about, our treasury will be robbed, our young people will be put in harms way most unfairly and the world will be a more dangerous place.
Robert
We all know the American Empire is a murderous, predatory empire.
If only Muslim countries could ban American military from entering their countries.
The false equivalence that PVL Trash is pushing is that Pootin/FSB murdering domestic journalists, opposition, etc is OK because the Pootin/FSB equivalent of US Pres/FBI/CIA also murders domestic opposition.
Wow! This hits the nail right on the head… America, the world’s number one hypocrite, whose exceptionalism refers mainly to her leaders’ exceptional right to carry on acts of gruesome terror everywhere and be excepted from any kind of moral responsibility therefrom. America is a sick, sick, sick place; its leaders and cheerleaders should be hauled before a 21st century Nuremberg War Crimes Court and hung, provided we can find enough honest people to honestly judge the multitudinous horrors for which we are responsible.
We will not BEGIN to get over this fatal illness until we stand with Trump and start calling these fatuous cowards out for what they really are: Hypocrites, warmongers and liars — in addition to numerous other categories of deceitful behaviors which will remain unnamed.
Moral self-reflection… Does anyone remember what that means?
Great post, Knomore. You reminded me of my mis-spent youth when we on the Left were loudly calling for our most moral leader of the century to oppose the Vietanm War. And when King did, and gave a blistering speech about the US’ s role in all the military misery in the world, they finally plotted against and shot him. Those boys in the “Washington Consensus” don’t mess around. Fortunately, while they killed his body, they cant kill his voice.
“… his soul goes marching on.”
Thank you Jessejean, have you seen William Pepper’s new book?
http://williampepper.com/books.html
https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Kill-King-Behind-Assassination/dp/1510702172/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486512809&sr=8-1&keywords=william+pepper+books#customerReviews
Thanks for the link. Did not know he had a sequel to An Act of State, which I thought described as well as one can expect how such an act takes place, so that we can assume a similar model for other events such as the murders of the Kennedy brothers.
It appears that if it cannot either censor (call it fake-news), or shout-over (call it names such as “moral equivalence”) then the Washington morality police kills. One more strike for knocking off Trump, unless he is the next big pretender (after Obomba) and this is just a show for the masses.
Yes. The nail right on the head. Parry, you’re a justice-apologist! r
Actually only a revolutionary court could prosecute US warmongers. Our judiciary are almost 100% corrupt, as I know from broad experience with them. Certainly we could not “find enough honest people to honestly judge the multitudinous horrors for which we are responsible” in the federal judiciary, as they are willing accomplices serving at the pleasure of the warmongers. And we cannot prosecute at the international court ICC, because the US refuses to sign the treaty to permit that, and in fact is the only country which has threatened to militarily attack the Hague if it tries US personnel.
“Moral equivalence” is a badge I wear proudly.
Curious to read about O’Reilly lecturing on proper behavior and morality. Here is an excerpt from O’Reilly’ bio (wikipedia)
“Domestic violence accusation from daughter: In May 2015, court transcripts from O’Reilly’s custody trial with ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy revealed signs of domestic violence within the household—O’Reilly’s daughter testified to a forensic examiner that she witnessed O’Reilly choking McPhilmy and dragging her down the stairs of their home by her neck, apparently unaware that the daughter was watching. In light of the allegation, O’Reilly issued a statement through his attorney describing the account as “100% false” .. In February 2016, O’Reilly lost a bid for custody of both of his children.”
Power, privilege, disrespect, harassment, and abuse of women appear to be the common thread among these angry old take-no-prisoners throwbacks. “Do as I say, not as I do,” only if I tell you to. Trump, O’Reilly and Putin…three heads on the same coin.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/putin-approves-change-to-law-decriminalising-domestic-violence
Sorry, that Guardian article is a great example of the mix of moral non-equivalence and lack of even willingness to try to understand others (the typical Western know-it-alls who know nothing).
The Russians themselves wrote about this new “Putin” law and explained WHY. It is because of how their society operates (how anyone dare be different than We the Exceptional?). To get the police to enforce this law they needed to decriminalise. The Russian police does not like to arrest people (for various reasons, most of all because of the bureaucratic work they would have to do), but truly love fining people because it is a quick paper slip and money for the service, sometimes even for the personal pocket. If you make the law severe it gets implemented less and thus protects women and children from domestic violence less. You make a law easier to enforce and with a direct benefit to the enforcer and, surprise, surprise, it gets implemented more often and protects potential victims much, much better.
How dumb or intentionally misleading do you have to be to not understand this? But in the perverted West the primary goal of such laws is a revenge of one sex over another, not protection of the potential victims (e.g. rape as a political tool, the case of Jullian Assange). Therefore, by the Western warped legal standards only an arrest will do. As usual, you can structure your society any way you like (that is as nutty as you are), but refrain from imposing your models on other societies. Besides, the British could never let such good opportunity for propaganda bashing of Putin and Russia pass by. This is why I say that propaganda always says more about its audience than about its object.
I wonder if anyone from the Exceptional Nation would want to criticise the Russian police when in his/her nation, in most states, the highway robbers as well as the police can just appropriate cash from any individual solely on some non-specific suspicion of wrong-doing: cash is the suspect which gets arrested and spent on cocktail making machines for the selfless public servants.
Something like throwing stones from glass castles? Funny thing that I never heard of Russian propaganda making fun of such “country of laws”, they worry more about their own country.
“How dumb or intentionally misleading do you have to be to not understand this?”
Kiza – I understand this, regardless of culture; this is personal. That quote gives me a glimpse of what I need to know about YOU. If you intend to reply to any of my comments in the future, Ditch the Personal Insults.
What you call a personal insult was not intended against you personally, but since you recognised yourself in my post then maybe it was. You post some propaganda rubbish here again, I will counter it. The level of intelligence at consortiumnews.com is a bit higher than in the MSM where you appear to pick up and bring such rubbish from. And, BTW, Putin and Trump are far from angels but what your partisans accuse them of is an endless source of amusement for me and my friends – because it shows how little you understand.
“…the typical Western know-it-alls who know nothing.”
Kiza – I see a pattern. Perhaps you should start taking your own advice.
Does the title “the greatest source of terrorism” really belong to Saudi Arabia or does it belong to the United States? One should ask people who live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and other states to which the U.S. has brought “democracy”.
Terrorism is more noble than what we do. We don’t have “political goals.” Ours are more “pillage and plunder.”
“Terrorism is more noble than what we do. We don’t have “political goals.” Ours are more “pillage and plunder.””
Agree with you wholeheartedly. And thank you, Robert Parry, for continuing to be a voice of sanity amid the chaos.
Fascinating to learn that the ‘moral equivalence’ line came out of propaganda experts working in US intelligence. I noticed its rise to prominence as a propaganda line during the George W. Bush presidency.
Its first use goes back thousands of years, actually. An anthropologist recorded a tribal chief’s traditional understanding of how to distinguish a good war from a bad war. A good war is when our tribe steals the other tribe’s women and cattle. A bad war is when the other tribe steal ours. Already here we see set out plainly the case for the absence of moral equivalency between these clearly incomparable cases .
President Carter spoke of the “moral equivalent of war” meaning the equivalent of war in the domain of morally defensible activities, such as the foreign aid that his foundation has since advanced. A global war on poverty would be more effective in improving security than our “global war on terror” but as comedian Tom Lehrer noted in the 60s, the Repub “war on poverty” meant throwing hand grenades at beggars, as the Dems perhaps now agree.
William James 1910 speech, as you probably know, stated:
“So long as antimilitarists propose no substitute for war’s disciplinary function, no moral equivalent of war, analogous, as one might say, to the mechanical equivalent of heat, so long they fail to realize the full inwardness of the situation. And as a rule they do fail. The duties, penalties, and sanctions pictured in the utopias they paint are all too weak and tame to touch the military-minded.”
So we still have the prospect of a “war on poverty” run by the military with a re-purposed budget. Heavy equipment building infrastructure and hospitals and schools; ships and cranes and trucks to command the respect of those emasculated by bad fathers.
What is missing in that vision is a truly democratic mass media, preventing primitive demagogues from whipping up war fever with lies. We don’t have that because we don’t have a democracy, because the emerging middle class was not vigilant as growing economic concentrations captured mass media and election budgets and Congress itself.
So the moral equivalent of war awaits another war of independence from economic colonialism.
Very astute, the question being the form of that moral equivalent in case it might be achieved non-violently. The war you speak of is already underway.
Yes, there are other means, but apparently they are not enough. Contact sports can divert tribalism and bullying, but are now used to encourage them. Heavy industry without foreign aid has also served as the “moral equivalent” after wars, and the resulting trade dependencies weaken the appeal of demagogic warmongers among the bullies of industry. But not when a large fraction of industry produces weapons.
The MIC/WallSt/Israel/KSA continue to incite war via controlled mass media and elections. Congress refuses to debate measures to free democratic institutions and mass media from economic powers. Education has had little effect in freeing the population from mass media deception, even among college educated people.
If a non-violent path exists, it is not primarily by ordinary social and moral education. I have wondered whether a Trump win would move us away from foreign wars, followed by domestic policy disasters that might elect a true reformer. But I see none but half-conscious inadequate reformers on offer, with little or no chance of election. So I expect that a catalysm will be needed, probably after generations of economic decline.
If there isn’t a nuclear cataclysm first, and all the signs say this is all too likely.
Pinhead O’Reilly has his equivalents in the govt and others “advising” (read pressuring) Trump, without doubt. How about a petition signed by as many former govt officials as possible insisting on peaceful relations with Russia and all that entails, namely a reasonable treatment of the Ukraine issue, MH17, “hacking,” and of course Syria. That could all be conflated into one issue: Get along with Russia! We already know what the military-industrial-intelligence-MSM-Establishment (Rep/Dem) think of that. But we need this “war” before the hot war starts, which may be our last.
Good idea, Michael. It might take a few months to put together the thousands of contacts, find intermediaries with the more famous, and verify their responses, but it would be well worth it. It should be bipartisan, focusing on Repubs to influence Trump, and Dems to influence the dark state Obombers. I am busy preparing civil rights litigation, so I must leave it to others.
Very well put. Some historical background for this situation is in “War Profiteers and the Roots of the War on Terror”, for readers who haven’t seen it.
http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
It is good to see that Trump is able to call out the obvious hypocrisy and propaganda of the mass media, having been its target. Whether he can extend that to a generally productive and peaceful foreign policy remains to be seen.
Now I would like to see him balance the protectionism desired by his supporters, by suggesting an import tax to bring all imported products up to their US-source wholesale values, that would be spent solely on development assistance to the source nation, administered carefully by US entities. This would be adjusted depending upon the quality of life of the particular supplier.
“US-NATO attempts to bolster Ukrainian forces and covert attempts to degrade eastern Ukrainian rebel forces ahead of renewed hostilities has only accelerated under the presidency of Donald Trump, not subsided.
“For geopolitical analysts, understanding the actual interests driving hostilities and confrontation between Washington, London and Brussels vis-a-vis Moscow, unfolding directly and indirectly, helps sift through political rhetoric and identify the actual motivations and special interests behind them moving this war forward regardless of who sits in the White House.
“By all actual metrics, the war in Ukraine appears set only to expand, not in spite of US efforts under President Trump to the contrary, but precisely because US special interests plan to use Trump’s intentionally misleading and empty rhetoric as cover to reignite hostilities more drastically than before the ceasefire was struck.
“Just like the US feigned rapprochement with Iran in an attempt to paint Tehran as unreasonably aggressive and ungrateful for American sympathy ahead of hostilities always meant to expand, Trump’s feigned affinity for Russia and its political leadership will be quickly converted into ‘regret’ as Russia is portrayed as taking advantage of American ‘good-will,’ ‘forcing’ America to become more heavily involved in a Ukrainian crisis it itself ignited between 2013-2014.”
US-NATO War Continues to Creep East
By Ulson Gunnar
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/02/us-nato-war-continues-to-creeps-east.html
Skip to 1:10 to hear Senator Graham rally Ukrainian forces “Your fight is our fight.”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Eds-8P0VfA
What mindless dribble. You think Trump has been feigning a desire for detente this whole time? And the purpose is “to provide cover”? WTF does that even mean? From whom does he need “cover”? And why would he expend so much political capital, and take on so many vested interests, for such an ethereal purpose?
Honestly, people need to step back and think rationally more often before publishing such claims.
Another conveniently forgotten fact is that Monsanto has bought up hundreds of thousands of acres of prime Ukrainian farmland and that Joe Biden´s son sits on the board of Monsanto, ergo, the democratically elected President of The Ukraine had to go because he leaned towards Russia. Why does anyone think that every one of Joe Biden´s visits to Kiev have been accompanied by the most vicious rhetoric against Russia and the Russian speaking population of The Ukraine? And he is like Hillary in craving for war against Russia.
Current intervention as seen through the eyes of a little girl. https://rtd.rt.com/films/trapped-donetsk/
Mike, Thank You for the link!