The U.S. secretary of state is a Christian zealot who sees the U.S. as incapable of doing ill, writes Lawrence Davidson.
By Lawrence Davidson
TothePointAnalysis.com
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started out the new year—the date was Jan. 10—preaching “the truth” about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, and for reasons we will get to below, he chose to do so at the American University in Cairo. He implied that he was particularly capable of discerning the truth because he is “an evangelical Christian” who keeps a “Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and His Word, and The Truth.” This confession indicates that Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world, much less the Middle East, in an objective fashion. We can assume that the decidedly unthinking and amoral president he serves has no problem with this prophet in the State Department because Pompeo is one of the few cabinet ministers whom President Donald Trump has not fired.
So what are Pompeo’s versions of foreign policy truth? In terms of his Cairo pronouncements, they are twofold. First, as is to be expected of a man of his temperament (he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point), he has identified the true enemy of the civilized world. And, again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry, the enemy is of Muslim origin. It is the “tenacious and vicious” cabal of “radical Islamism, a debauched strain of the faith that seeks to upend every other form of worship or governance.”
Pompeo with traveling press on Middle East trip, Jan. 7, 2019. (State Department photo by Ron Pryzsucha)
Notable Omissions
This initial “truth” is noteworthy for what it does not take into consideration, such as traditional U.S. alliances with brutal and corrupt military or monarchical dictatorships. Any move to reduce support for such regimes in the Middle East is, in Pompeo’s view, a “misjudgment” that must have “dire results.” As long as these dictatorships oppose what Pompeo opposes, their brutality and corrupt nature can be judged acceptable. For example, Pompeo praised his host, the military dictator of Egypt, Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler. He praised El-Sisi exactly because he has joined the U.S. in the suppression of “Islamists.” The Egyptian dictator, in Pompeo’s words, is “a man of courage.”
Pompeo’s second “truth” is the self-evident fact of American exceptionalism. He told his listeners that “America is a force for good in the Middle East.” Pompeo does not articulate the reference, but his claim taps into the Christian image of the U.S. as “a shining city on the hill”—a God-blessed light unto the nations. This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes.
As proof of American’s alleged beneficence, Pompeo makes a series of dubious claims about the behavior of the United States government. Here are a few. Comments within brackets are those of this author:
“For those who fret about the use of American power, remember this: (No.1) America has always been, and always will be, a liberating force.” [Since World War II we have been liberating dictators from their own rebelling people.] (No.2) “We assembled a coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein.” [The subsequent two Gulf Wars plus the U.S. imposed sanctions regime killed at least half-a-million Iraqis.] (No.3) “And when the mission is over, when the job is complete, America leaves.” [Unless the “liberated” countries’ government wants Washington to establish bases which, it seems, they almost always do. The U.S. now has some 800 military bases in 70 countries around the world.] (No. 4) The U.S. and its allies helped destroy most of ISIS, and in the process “saved thousands of lives.”[There is no official number for the civilians killed in the so-called war on terror, of which the campaign against ISIS is but a part. However, there is no doubt that, to date, it is at least in the high hundreds of thousands. ] (No.5) “Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.” [Unless you have a really perverse definition of “normal,” this is a total fantasy.]
Rescuing Foreign Policy
According to Pompeo, achievements No. 4 and No. 5 are due to the “fact” that President Donald Trump rescued U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Rescued? Rescued from what? From the foreign policy of Barack Obama, of course.
Pompeo visits Cathedral of the Nativity , Jan. 10, 2019. (State Department)
“America, your long-time friend, was absent too much. Why? Because our leaders gravely misread our history, and your historical moment. These fundamental misunderstandings, were set forth in this city in 2009.”
That claim was a direct reference to former President Obama’s speech calling for a “new relationship with the Muslim world” delivered on June 4, 2009, at nearby Cairo University. That is why Pompeo came to Egypt to make his speech, which is in essence, an indictment of Obama’s foreign policy.
In brief, in 2009 Obama, who also claimed in his Cairo talk to be speaking the truth, had referenced the negative impact of Western imperial and colonial history toward the Middle East, and then took a pro-democracy stance that, if carried into policy, would have weakened support for traditional dictatorships in places like Egypt. Obama saw a connection between the brutality of such dictatorships and the spread of religious fanaticism—a connection that was stronger than “radical Islamist” ideology alone. Obama also implied that President George W. Bush’s post 9/11 policy, which led not only to the unnecessary invasion of Iraq, but also to a policy of official torture, resulted in the United States “acting contrary to our ideals.” In addition, Obama was ready to negotiate with those seen as enemies by Pompeo, as symbolized by his willingness to make a deal with Iran.
Obama at Cairo American University, June 4, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Pompeo, the Christian zealot who sees the U.S. as incapable of doing ill, cannot objectively consider or perhaps even understand Obama’s positions. He dismisses them as a “misreading” of history. Obama’s brief and, in truth, largely ineffective, wavering from traditional Middle East foreign policy had, in Pompeo’s view, introduced “the age of self-inflicted American shame.” If Pompeo is short on historical understanding, he is long on hyperbole.
Retreat and Chaos
One of Pompeo’s more disquieting propositions is that “when America retreats, chaos often follows.”
Alas, at least in the Middle East, the exact opposite is true—chaos comes from invasion. This can be demonstrated by the consequences of the actions of President George W. Bush. It was Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the results of which were predictable, that opened the region to chaos, including the growth of ISIS. The Iraq invasion also opened the flood gates of an ongoing refugee crisis (which the Syrian civil war—arguably prolonged by U.S. involvement—made even worse). Subsequent intervention in Libya, under Obama’s watch, only intensified the turmoil. However, none of these actions, or the misery they inflicted, seems have bothered the Christian sensibilities of Pompeo.
Examining the history of events can give us guides, albeit imperfect ones, for present policies and behaviors. A necessary precondition to making the most of this examination is the ability to do so as objectively as possible. Otherwise, to use Pompeo’s phrasing, we end up “making bad mistakes.” Part of the process is to be able to recognize the actual causes of events and to know when to discard traditional practices that no longer take you where you want to go.
Yet here is Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisting, on the one hand, on maintaining outworn policies that support dictators. These policies have not produced the stability he thinks they have, but have rather helped bring about the very chaos he attributes to Obama. On the other hand, his Christian fundamentalism has blinded him to any objective understanding of Middle East history and America’s role in that region. That is why he ends up stating contradictions. For instance, toward the end of his talk he tells us (No. 1) “the Trump administration will also continue to press for a real and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” and (No. 2) “we’ve adhered to our word. President Trump campaigned on the promise to recognize Jerusalem—the seat of Israel’s government—as the nation’s capital. In May, we moved our embassy there.” Those two statements are in direct contradiction to each other. However, Pompeo misses this fact entirely. This is a product of ideology compounded by ignorance.
Pompeo visits Al Fattah Al Alim Mosque in Cairo, Jan. 10, 2019. (State Department)
This being the case, Mike Pompeo and Donald Trump make for strange bedfellows. Of course, both are ignorant. But, the nearest thing Trump has to an ideology is his egotism and that infamous “gut” of his that ostensibly tells him what is right and wrong. He certainly is not a believing Christian nor even an American chauvinist, but rather he is a personal chauvinist who thinks of himself as a personification of the U.S.
If Pompeo and Trump share anything (besides ignorance), it seems to be a firm dislike for everything connected to Obama. We know that Trump may well be obsessed with Obama, perhaps for racist reasons. As one Democratic Party adviser has noted, “His [Trump’s] only guiding principle seems to be to undo what Obama did. His driving motivation seems to be his animosity towards Obama.” Mike Pompeo seems in lockstep with his boss in this regard. After all, Pompeo went out of the way to indict Obama, blaming him for the death of thousands, and doing so in the same city where Obama gave his most promising Middle East initiative. Pompeo’s actions in this regard were personal and spiteful.
So here we have it. What motivates Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: (No. 1) Christian zealotry (No. 2) American exceptionalism and (No. 3) a personal dislike of the first black president of the United States. In terms of the position he holds in the government, this is a losing combination for the rest of us. Personally, I would not trust this man to guide the ongoing relationships between my own neighbors and me, so you can imagine my horror at having to put up with him as secretary of state.
Lawrence Davidson is professor of history emeritus at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He has been publishing his analyses of topics in U.S. domestic and foreign policy, international and humanitarian law and Israel/Zionist practices and policies since 2010.
I owe the reader’s an apology. I made a glaring omission. Malcolm X.
JFK was murdered out of fear and spite, absolute hate. The hate the Deep Stater’s developed because they felt threatened.
Martin’s death was a Deep State warning. Bobby’s death to ensure that his story never saw the light of day. And Malcolm X another Deep State message was being sent. Something CIA likely learned from the Mossad.
Hate as expressed by John Wilkes Booth was behind all these killings. The fear was generated because the super wealthy elitists , the SWETS, fear someone getting some of their “pie” and the hate generated because of the audacity that anyone would challenge the “SWETS” rule. They all had to “punished” to serve as a lesson for all others.
Pretty much straight forward tyranny!
“God-blessed light unto the nations”, my arse.
For a developed nation that boasts itself as such, there’s a lot of things it fails miserably that other developed nations, including Russia, have succeeded in. Two of the most prominent of these are 1) healthcare, and 2) paid maternity leave. If Pompeo really believes that America is that special, then he and his ilk should focus on these two internal issues and tens if not hundreds more instead of poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. It’s disgraceful.
You are so very correct Mr. Chuckman.
The fact is that at this point in time if there was a second coming any attempt by J.C. to fix the U.S. government would be tantamount to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The DOJ IS compromised by the CIA/NSA at the behest of the Deep State. If it is not reorganized in a fashion to prevent the out side meddling by these radicalized, extremist evangelical Christians nothing will change.
Barr’s presence in D.C. shows the Deep State is ready for another “RESET” of the government. Very similar to what happened Barr’s first time through the AG’s Office. They’ve done it every time they get caught with their pants down, every 20 years or so.. 1947-1963
The mess in 63 needed intense attention to pull it off and the upheaval at the federal level lasted until around 1976. 1976-1993 Reagan and the Contras, BCCI, and the DOJ Bill Hamilton PROMIS / Inslaw Scandal, 911 & the Patriot Act, and now this Trump fiasco.
If I was any young dimocrap vying for high office I would be studying the deaths of Abraham,Martin, John and Bobby very closely.
But then what do I know?
“Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy”
Yes, it is deranged, and it is quite dangerous.
But it is not specifically Pompeo’s.
And not even Bolton’s or Haspel’s.
It is Trump’s foreign policy.
It is Nancy Pelosi’s foreign policy.
It is Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy.
It is Elizabeth Warren’s foreign policy.
It is Obama’s foreign policy.
It is even, very much, Bernie Sander’s foreign policy.
I just cannot agree with any version of the often-expressed idea that “if only we could get rid of this or that bad guy in Washington, everything would be fine and back to normal.”
America’s entire power establishment supports this ugly stuff.
It is the stuff of a global empire, not of men in frock coats speaking in high-toned words in the 1790s.
America’s power establishment is corrupted by money in politics, arrogant in their imperial assumptions, and they effectively display little concern for their own people, let alone any others.
Exceptionalism, that most dangerous notion, is firmly implanted in the consciousness of all of them, likely with many of them not even fully realizing the fact. It is the air they breathe.
“Back to the drawing board” would the only real answer were the United States any other kind of enterprise.
But I think we can agree that’s about as likely as the Second Coming.
Some of the comments call the writer to task for seeking to resurrect Obama as enlightened. Yes his speeches were, his actions were not. It is unfortunate that so many very good writers cannot stay away from name calling and factionalism. Jefferson saw factionalism as a problem but couldn’t do anything about it. Factionalism and name calling corrupt otherwise perceptive comments. It is unfortunate that Trump’s instincts about foreign policy are negated not by logic but by personal attacks for which he is admittedly vulnerable. But would a more competent statesman fared any better if he sought détente with Russia or something seldom mentioned, the parents right to choose the school for their kids.
It is always good to read comments which don’t deal political parties, labels and name calling and address the issues. There are many.
Yes, Obama was a very dark figure.
He just happened to have a boyish smile and a baritone voice and he enjoyed the indulgence of people happy at the idea of America’s first black president.
But his arrogance at times was insufferable. People forget that or somehow never noticed. There are many pictures of him with his finger pointed up in some other leader’s face while he lectured. His body language has him sometimes leaning into other people’s personal space in a vaguely aggressive posture. His dismissive words about Russia and some others were in appallingly bad judgment.
He bombed every day of his eight years.
He created the CIA’s industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program. He created a dangerous and destructive coup in Ukraine. He ran tanks up to Russia’s borders. He destroyed modern Libya. He tried to destroy Syria.
His really nasty sidekick, Hillary Clinton, did some extremely dirty stuff in Libya and Syria, including the secret transport of weapons and cutthroats. Seymour Hersh told us she even sent samples of Gaddafi’s chemical weapon stocks to be used for Obama’s “red line” threat in Syria.
As for Jefferson and factionalism, there was a man whose words on almost anything cannot be taken at face value.
He was a founding father of factionalism.
As Secretary of State he hired a scoundrel to edit his faction’s newspaper in attacking the policies of his boss, George Washington.
Washington was hurt by some of this activity, but it just continued.
Earlier, Jefferson, as a governor, came pretty close to openly advocating secession for his state, long before the Confederacy. When he opposed a policy, he was ruthless.
When he was President, he ruthlessly hunted down Aaron Burr in a vendetta. He hated the man for almost winning the election as president under the goofy Electoral College system, even worse then than now.
When Napoleon invaded its revolting colony of Haiti, Jefferson gave them all the assistance he could. So much for all those PR lines about freedom and rights.
I think all of the inhabitants of ‘the swamp’ are deranged.
The exceptional nation that stand above all international law, as USA and Zionist regime who also has the right to interfere in other nation’s internal affairs for whatever reason the exceptional country wish to do so.
Democracy? … in a society that proudly & vociferously claims to be dominated
by the clearly totalitarian institutions of religion, military and corporations?!?
He is talking about religion! Religion teaches to be human being first. From which angle his policy has any humanity?
Yes, Obama was a very dark figure.
He just happened to have a boyish smile and a baritone voice and he enjoyed the indulgence of people happy at the idea of America’s first black president.
But his arrogance at times was insufferable. People forget that or somehow never noticed. There are many pictures of him with his finger pointed up in some other leader’s face while he lectured. His body language has him sometimes leaning into other people’s personal space in a rather aggressive posture. His dismissive words about Russia and some others were in appallingly bad judgment.
He bombed every day of his eight years.
He created the CIA’s industrial-scale extrajudicial killing program. He created a dangerous and destructive coup in Ukraine. He ran tanks up to Russia’s borders. He destroyed modern Libya. He tried to destroy Syria.
His really nasty sidekick, Hillary Clinton, did some extremely dirty stuff in Libya and Syria, including the secret transport of weapons and cutthroats. Seymour Hersh told us she even sent samples of Gaddafi’s chemical weapon stocks to be used for Obama’s “red line” threat in Syria.
As for Jefferson and factionalism, there was a man whose words on almost anything cannot be taken at face value.
He was a founding father of factionalism.
As Secretary of State he hired a scoundrel to edit his faction’s newspaper in attacking the policies of his boss, George Washington.
Washington was hurt by some of this activity, but it just continued.
Earlier, Jefferson, as a governor, came pretty close to openly advocating secession for his state, long before the Confederacy. When he opposed a policy, he was ruthless.
When he was President, he literally hunted down Aaron Burr in a vendetta. He hated the man for almost winning the election as president under the goofy Electoral College system, even worse then than now.
When Napoleon invaded France’s revolting colony of Haiti, Jefferson gave them all the assistance he could. So much for all those PR lines about freedom and rights.
NOTE: I included in my original “not so in depth search”, William Pelham Barr.
I feared my comments would suffer if I tried to include the info I found about Barr. Barr is no different from, Pomeo, Pence, or GHWBush.
I sincerely hope I am not violating the comment rules of this site but here goes.
commondreams.org/views/2019/01/16/william-barrs-deeps-state-resume-cover-ups-covert-ops-and-pardons
Google the story “Willaim Barr’s Deeps Stat e Resume: Coverups, Covert Ops, and Pardons”, you get more than one source for this story because it is solid as a rock!!
The material here should be required reading for every American. Iran contra, Iraq-gate, BCCI and maybe the Inslaw / PROMIS scandal. And the Democrats ask nothing but soft ball questions. This should be a national outrage, “Incoming President Bill Clinton
had no interest in investigating the CIA. And believe me he had his reasons for feeling that way. Ask Danny Casolaro, oh wait he is dead, well ask Gary Web, no wait he is dead also, well maybe Vince Forster, oh yes he is dead too.
Yes I know what y0u are thinking but, I got this one. Think bigger folks, much bigger!!!
Radicalized fanatical evangelical Christians, sure it has worked for them so far. But ti’s the money. What is it they all say “follow the money”! Barr would not go there because his co-conspirators didn’t want him to go there.
My friends these people operated in plain site (remember my wiki search, in plain site) and so far they have gotten away with it.
It is time to force the democrats to come clean and help clean up this mess!! They need to lead or follow, but what ever, they should get out of the way!!
“Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil El-Sisi, who is an archetypical example of this murderous breed of ruler.”
While you’re on the subject of murderous rulers, Prof, why not mention Erdo?an, Khamenei and Mohammed bin Salman, who have each murdered far more people than Sisi? Erdo?an, while imprisoning and torturing his fellow Islamists of the Gülen persuasion (who used to be his allies until they had a falling out on 2013) is now the patron and financier of Sisi’s sworn foes the Muslim Brotherhood refugees from Egypt, who were also oppressing and torturing people until they got thrown out in 2013.
This concentrated hypocrisy is truly pukesome.
Mr. Davidson, Thank you for letting see the part of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that rarely makes the news. Yes, he is a very intelligent, qualified and articulate debater hailing from West Point and Harvard, which is part of what makes him so dangerous. But let us make no mistake, he is a very effective spokesman for “American interests”, which is code for who represents the corporate/military/intelligence complex which simultaneously owns, and is owned by, the imperial corporate bulwark putting American interests ahead of the rest of the world. We either invade or subvert (or both) them to the detriment of the actual people of these “little countries.” We all know the long list that could begin with Iran in 1953, and continues through Chile, and on to Iraq, Libya, Syria and next on the block, Venezuela. It is like watching the proverbial bull loose in the china shop, and these regime changes (often “civil wars”) inevitably leave huge civilian populations uprooted, devastated, and driven to refugee status which then destabilize their neighbors and make new enemies for tomorrow’s war. Quite a foreign policy we have going here, right? Why do we continue in this direction? Maybe the people don’t have a whole to say about it in our form of democracy?
QUESTION: Wanna know what non sequitur looks like? Or what is the non sequitur’s M.O.? Or if readers have been non sequiturized?
ANSWER: Whenever a sentence starts off with, then veers off from, a meaningless, if seemingly self-evident truth-claim of a line like: (1) “with this prophet in the State Department”; (2) “again not unexpectedly given his Christian zealotry”; (3) “the Christian image of the U.S. as’a shining city on the hill’—a God-blessed light unto the nations … was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite themes”; (4) “Christian zealotry [or] Christian zealot … sees the U.S. as incapable of doing ill”; or (5) “Christian fundamentalism … ends up stating contradictions”.
I wouldn’t necesarily conclude that “Pompeo is wearing ideological glasses through which he cannot possibly see the world” because he has an open bible on his desk. We don’t know what it’s opened to but it pretty clearly is not the succinct summary of the Gospel we see in Luke 6:27-38 which tellingly opens with the line, “But I say to you that listen…” And therein lies the problem with Pompeo-et.al-American Christianity. They do not listen.
Surely U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s latest statement in Cairo, qualifies him for
the Joseph Goebbels medal for propaganda, hypocrisy and hyperbole!
He says the U.S. “will use diplomacy and work with our partners to expel every last Iranian boot from Syria and bolster efforts
to bring peace and stability to the long-suffering Syrian people”.
The whole World now knows that the main responsibility for the Deaths, Destruction and massive Refugee crisis in Syria is
down to the U.S. together with it’s crazy Gulf allies!
Having spent billions of U.S. Taxpayers money on a brutal and unnecessary War in Syria, the people of the U.S. deserves better, more
balanced political officials!
Noting all and any bogus excuse used by the U.S., the peoples of the Middle East have witnessed the destruction of any Arab state
which opposes the continued expansion of Israel into Palestine.
Mr. Pompeo’s comments in Cairo, are as bogus, vacuous and disingenuous as former President Obama’s speech in the
same capital city in 2009!
‘Joseph Goebbels medal for propaganda, hypocrisy and hyperbole!’ He did not tote the Bible around and
was intelligent, unlike this pompous, uneducated arse.
Pompeo, oh dear, what do we have here? A little crusader, Pompeo the lion heart. The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions ok. I am not even sure about the ‘good’.
What lion heart? Mouse heart, more likely. Easily frightened!
Fat f**k should be dancing the piano wire room at the Hague.
Wishful thinking.
(he declared: “I am a military man” who learned his “basic code of integrity” at West Point)
Typical of what has become of Christianity in the USA…abandoned for pagan soldier worship. The same disease afflicted Brit Anglicans during their Empire.
I doubt he even reads or understands the Gospel.
Yeah, really, like why didn’t he learn his basic code of integrity from the Bible?
He learned his basic point of integrity at West Point? That was too late, whether real or not. The learning starts at home!
Re: Syrian war, not a civil war, mercenaries for hire paid and armed by US SA and the zionists. Re: zionists, that is the exact reason for Iraqx2 Libya Syria and ‘up next’ Iran. This is simply the zionist agenda utilizing US blood and treasure because heaven forbid the ‘shitty little apartheid state’ can’t defeat the country it illegally attacks – think Hezbollah in Lebanon. Any entity that resists zionist hegemony has to be divided and conquered, and US taxpayers get to do all the work to protect the perpetual zionist victims. Crap. Sorry to get off topic from delusional Pompey but simply put – peace is not profitable.
“We know that Trump may well be obsessed with Obama, perhaps for racist reasons.” – Lawrence Davidson
I know full well that it is difficult to suppress these speculative afterthoughts when writing, but the author only damages his central point by adding them, especially in an article in which the personal bias of the main subject (Pompeo) plays a central role.
If Mr. Davidson feels that our highest office-holders are guided by the dangerous cocktail of ego, ignorance, and religious zealotry, I would think that the playing field of ideas and examples would be wide open. And in our current climate of politically motivated smears there is no need to drag speculative racism into the mix when there is an abundance of available facts perfectly adequate for the job.
Does it follow then that all religions are reality, or is it that only Christianity is reality, or do you draw the line on monotheism?
I dont know anyone who has made the journey back so I am a little unclear on these matters.
Deniz, it’s not clear to me how your question relates to my comment, but I will do my best to give you an answer, for we are all creeping in the darkness on hands and knees looking for light.
It’s my opinion that at one time each of the major religions were once ‘living’ and useful for the development of men, but have since been corrupted and dogmatized, so that they are only dead corpses without beating hearts. Like flypaper, they attract truth seekers, who once indoctrinated find it hard to escape. Those few who succeed in surviving this gauntlet of competing isms, and are determined to push forward, stand a good chance of finding that narrow path that leads to a deeper understanding of life’s purpose.
Maxwell, egads my apologies, it appears that i replied to the wrong poster. However, I did appreciate reading your thoughtful response. You are certainly not one in need of being prodded into thinking through your philosphical contradictions.
No worries, Deniz. I’m also of the opinion that there are no ‘accidents’, so there must have been some purpose for this turn in the conversation. Keep on truckin’!
That was exactly my feeling when toward the end of the article the author claims racism may drive Trump’s actions and then quotes a Democrat apparatchik. It was a good article that focused on facts until the author injects democrat SJW propaganda. There is so much actual evidence to fault the Trump administration that makes it unnecessary to bring claims of racism into the discussion. I’m surprised that the author didn’t claim that Pompeo is a Putin tool. Unfortunately, the Democrats central issue the last two years has been divisive identity politics . They know what they are against (Trump and the wall) but have no positive, optimistic policies. Only the radical left are promoting issues that may resonate with the public but the corporate Democrat leadership will surely mute them or primary them as has recently been suggested.
As an aside, I don’t believe ignorance drives Pompeo; sadly it is likely true for Trump. I have no doubt Pompeo knows all the facts stated by the author, it’s the radical evangelical indoctrination that drives his perspective, actions and lack of authentic Christian compassion. It’s not unlike Jim Jones and Jonestown.
Thanks for your response, Chet. I certainly felt uneasy after submitting my criticism yesterday. Like sending a dish back at a fine restaurant, I was not sure if the cook would come out of the kitchen with an apology or a meat cleaver. Like you, I was moving along quite nicely in the article when near the end I experienced the mental equivalent of biting down a cherry pit, thinking “Well, that doesn’t belong in here.”
Yes, it seems that the purpose of our government reps is to keep the people distracted with nonsense, while their masters go about the business of war and wealth extraction. Frank Zappa said it best, that “Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.”
I think you are correct about Trump, in that he is more often preoccupied about his personal “brand” rather than leading the country out of its domestic death spiral – a job, by the way, which no one person is capable of doing. Those that surround him, however, like Pompeo, are driven by their ideologies of superiority and religious elitism, where the ends always justify the means.
“We know that Trump may well be obsessed with Obama, perhaps for racist reasons.”
…the author only damages his central point by adding them…’
No he doesn’t damage his point. He is correct.
The race card is just a ‘tell’ that the author is a DNC supporter.
A real problem Trump has is that he lacks nuance and prefers to charge through red tape. The moving of the American embassy to Jerusalem cited in the article is a good example. Congress made a Law in 1995 moving the embassy to Jerusalem (adopted by the Senate (93–5), and the House (374–37); obviously bipartisan and veto proof). Bill Clinton came up with a game allowing him to submit a waiver for “National Security” reasons every six months to avoid moving the embassy. Baby Bush and Obama played the same game. Trump signed the waiver his first time, but “On June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions.On December 6, 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.” (From wikipedia.) From a politician’s point of view this was just a grand game to play. From Trump’s narrow view, this was a Law that had been passed with bipartisan support but was not being enforced. He saw no “national security” issues (that’s only at the Border) and his friends in Israel get recognition.
Trump is easily manipulated with praise, but it is political suicide to work with him, or even, it appears, to just wait his term out. It must be difficult for Trump to understand how DACA, an Executive Order is treated like a law two years after Obama is out of office. Or how the question of citizenship can be stricken from the Census, whose major constitution-described role is to apportion the 435 Representatives in the House (and thus the Electoral votes). Our politicians and activist judges know it is all a game and there are no repercussions for their instituting illegal actions; Trump has difficulty with these nuances.
Small point, but I think MOST people would see Trump as US personified. You cannot imagine a more quintessential American! Roughly half of Americans are proud when they see this caricature of themselves, and the other half is ashamed.
As for Pompeo, I see all zealots as similar to the bloke who can hit his mother in law at 300 paces. – We must learn the difference between a good shot and a good person.
‘Trump as US personified.” What a fantastic comment. Thanks.
It’s a pathetically cheap shot to label every xenophobic war starved imbecile as a Christian. Wearing a cloke of Christianity to justify anything not based in scripture makes them pervertedly religious, and that is not Christianity. It is religion that makes traditions and doctrines to fit their own needs, mostly to mislead the unwary and biblically illiterate. Things like Easter, the Rapture, a snake and an apple in Eden, the earth is 6K yrs old. All lies of religion, perpetrated by the ungodly and unquestioned by cowards and the ignorant. Christianity is not a religion it is a reality.
Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy
DERANGED ???
Focus on VP Dick Chaney’s PERMANENT WAR Dialectic /
Blueprint for EVERLASTING CORPORATE PROFITS
(AKA War Profiteering) Gained from NEVER ENDING WARS,
Made Up and Designed according to the OVERTHROW
Of Democratically Elected, Sovereign Governments that
Righteously Care for the Well Being of all it’s citizens. ???
www.https://larouchepub.com/other/2005/3237cheney_perwar.html
If Evangelical Christianity is the Guiding force behind Mike Pompeo, one can only imagine where our foreign policy will be if Trump is ousted and replaced by Mike Pence. Is it OK to say, God help us?
Please erase this as / in conjunction with the prior Removal …
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/10/10/soros-color-revolution-in-syria.html
https://larouchepub.com/other/2005/3237cheney_permwar.html
my apologies. It did not come up until I hit another button. Also my apologies to Mike Pompeo; Mike Pompous was a cheap shot.
I have an MA in Christian studies, and I do not recognize anything of Mike Pompus’ ideology that resonates with the teachings of Christ. No wonder the church is hemorrhaging members. For one brief shining moment of perhaps three centuries, Jesus established an APOLITICAL people, not affiliated with any political movement, until we fell in with Constantine. For the last seventeen centuries the movement of the “people of the way (of Christ)” departed from him and has become the people of multiplied Caesar’s, like Trump. Gandhi supposedly said something like, “The West does not know Christ”. The Hindu understood Christ better than we Christians.
Luke warm “Christians”…?
Their fate has been declared.
They’ve been justly characterized as spittle.
Ditto. Too many US evangelicals are now worshippers of Mars dressed as Jesus.
The murderous war pig in the pink pussy hat who is reconsidering another run in 2020 was also trying to become a pastor in the United Methodist Church. Of course, that too failed when Shillady, her spiritual mentor and sponsor, had his books withdrawn from the market for plagiarism.
Christianity, fake or real, may help our Secretaries of State sleep better at night.
I recently did a very quick not so in depth search on Paul Manafort’s history of employment. All my efforts stem from reading about Paul Manafort, of Manafort, Black and Stone in John Kerry’s 1982 report from the investigation of his Special Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations, of the Committee on foreign Relations Untied States Senate, printed and released 1989.
Manafort was in the Bahamas hanging with CIA tyjpes and drug runner types 1980 working consulting the Bahamian government.
I will remind everyone interested that I’m an far from a pro at this type of thing. In this case however I think my shortcomings may embellish my point.
I searched the wiki entries for: Manafort, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, GHW Bush and of all things the Overseas Investment Corporation.
We all should know that GHWB served in congress 1967-1971, then lost his senate bid and Nixon rewarded him by appointing him Ambassador to the UN 1971-73, Then Nixon appointed him to Head the Republican National Committee,1973-74. Ford then appointed him to the U.S. Liaison Office in China, 1974-75. 1976-77 Ford names Bush head of CIA. !977-79 Bush was Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 1980 Reagan ran and GHWB became VP. Then 41 got his turn.
1966 Congress established The Foreign Investments Advisory council and in 1969 the Overseas Private Investment Corporations was launched by amending the Foreign Assistance Act and began operations in 1971
In 1976 Manafort worked for the Ford reelection campaign as a delegate hunter in 8 southern states and never left.
!980 after Reagan’s election Manafort was appointed to the Associate Director of Personnel as the White House, and 1981 he was appointed to the board of directors for the Overseas Private Investment corporation. He also advised presidential election campaigns of GHWB in 1988 and Bob Dole in 1996.
Manafort was also heavily involved in the fiasco in Angola from his initial $600,000 contract he signed in 1985, (was he still on the board of directors for OPIC?) with Jonas Savimbi until his death in 2002.
So Professor Davidson my question is this. Why should be expect anything different from CIA. Why be surprised that an evangelical Christian would act this way. GHW Bush was no different , or Helms or Angleton. They all are radicalized extremist christians who claim they and only they know what is best for the U.S.. It’s all a charade, a lie so they can grab power.
PLEASE. Write something about how Paul Manafort, GHW Bush and CIA were all bonded at the hip. And how this story relates a tale about how the Deep State and CIA run U.S. foreign policy into the ground for personal gain.
Nothing new here.
America’s Foreign Policy & its abject failures can be explained quiet simply? When a Empire collapses, there is a sudden venting & lashing out at its opponents before the end comes? America is at this point in its History! Unwilling to face the reality that it’s unipolar time in the sun is over & desperate to hang on to its waning influence, its now openly orchestrating coups to steal other Countries resources, waging economic warfare & sanctions against China & its Companies trying to stop its advancements & sanctioning World powers such as Russia due to its Military advances! And if they can’t overthrow or stop by these common means they weaponise the Swift Banking system with the US Dollar & Petrodollar system to strangle disobedient actors who don’t abide by US Imperialism demands? Trump is stupidly accelerating America’s decline thanks to his egotistical ignorance by farming out Foreign Policy to the 3 Amigoes of Coups, lunatics such as Mike Pompeo, John Bolton & Elliot Abrams, the troika of tyranny & Regime change psychotics known for previous American interventions & known War criminals! This confirms that the Neocon crazies now rule the US Empire! America is now fighting economic & open Warfare in multiple Countries around the Globe in a massive Imperial overreach that is unsustainable & will be its downfall? Russia, China & others are quietly building up their Military powers, establishing alliances, de-dollarising their Economies & dummping US Bonds & trading in other Currencies to bypass US Sanctions & formulating alternatives to Swift & Western Banks. The accumulation of Gold by these Countries is also a major sign that de-dollarisation & the collapse of the US Empire is planned & imminent & waiting in the wings are those Countries whose economies will be hedged with a security such as gold & not the worthless US Dollar & its fiat currency! The final straw will be when the US Petrodollar system of exchanging oil for US dollars is replaced with other Currencies & when that happens, that’s the end of the US Empire, once & for all!
So what will it take for the vassal leaders like May, macron Morrison and the truly execrable Trudeau (did the Canadians really change anything with the defeat of Harper?) to realise that the USA is the single most existentail threat to life on earth? Will it take WW3 if we survive?
## Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy ##
(HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF )
http://www.fair.org/extra/scandal-what-scandal/
Scandal? What Scandal?
11/ 1/ 2001
Terry J. Allen
ELLIOT ABRAMS – { THE DEEP STATE’S MAN IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF REGIME CHANGE / VENEZUELA }
But with a few admirable exceptions, news stories about Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte and Otto Reich have largely relied on past reporting and he-said, she-said soundbites by the usual supporters and critics, rather than in-depth investigations into their complicity in one of the bloodiest scandals of the past 20 years. And their guilt is based not on speculation or gossip, but on hard evidence that they aided torturers and death squads,circumvented Congress and the Constitution, and deceived the American people.
“President Bush,” the Washington Post reported on March 25, “is quietly building the most conservative administration in modern times, surpassing even Ronald Reagan in the ideological commitment of his appointments, White House officials and prominent conservatives say.”
It’s not that Bush is whispering the names of nominees too softly for the press to hear. Rather, the reporting itself is, for the most part, quiet.
Three nominations that should have raised a noisy clatter from the nation’s presses are:
John Negroponte, as ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, covered up human rights abuses by the CIA-trained Battalion 316. He is Bush’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and, as Extra! went to press, was expected to clear Senate confirmation hearings.
Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National Security Council as director of its office for democracy, human rights and international operations. The post requires no Senate approval.
Otto Reich’s nomination as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, the top post for Latin America, was predicted to draw the most congressional fire. Reich was head of the now-defunct Office for Public Diplomacy (OPD), which the House Committee on Foreign Affairs censured for “prohibited, covert propaganda activities” (Washington Post, 10/11/87).
Iran-Contra redux
Washington spent more than $4 billion on El Salvador in the ’80s, backing wildly brutal regimes and their death squads against a leftist insurgency. The 12-year civil war left 75,000 Salvadorans dead–overwhelmingly civilians killed by U.S.-supported forces. As Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, and later for inter-American affairs, Elliott Abrams, in his own words, “supervised U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean” (Ethics and Public Policy Center). He helped cover up one of the worst atrocities of the war: a Salvadoran army massacre in El Mozote that left 800 to 1000 civilians dead.
In Nicaragua, after the leftist Sandinistas overthrew the U.S.-supported dictator in 1979, Washington created and funded the Contras, a guerrilla army that concentrated its fire on civilians. The Reagan administration escalated the civil war after the leftist Sandinista party won an election endorsed as free and fair by international monitoring agencies. In a campaign to tarnish the Sandinistas and gild the Contras, Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy pressured U.S. media and planted ghostwritten articles and editorials. The comptroller-general of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that the OPD had violated a ban on domestic propaganda.
Under Ambassador John Negroponte, neighboring Honduras grew so crammed with U.S. bases and weapons that it was dubbed the U.S.S. Honduras, as if it were simply an off-shore staging ground for the Contra war. While poverty raged, U.S. military aid jumped from $3.9 million in 1980 to $77.4 million by 1984. The Honduran army, especially the U.S.-trained Battalion 316, engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and assassination. Negroponte worked closely with the perpetrators and covered up their crimes, according to Ambassador Jack Binns, his predecessor in the post (In These Times, 2/28/01).
Spurred on by media reports and popular protests against U.S. intervention in Central America, Congress passed the Boland amendment, which cut off most military aid to the Contras. Undaunted, the Reagan administration circumvented Congress and popular outrage by waging a covert war and raising money for the Contras from private and foreign sources. One of the “neat ideas” Oliver North and his cronies concocted was to funnel profits to the Contras from the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran–which was under embargo after seizing Americans as hostages. The discovery of this and other illegal schemes led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Negroponte, Abrams and Reich played key roles.
Writing for history
With the 1990s, aside from the occasional hurricane or bus plunge, the media spotlight shifted away from Central America. Still, a few investigative reports took advantage of new evidence and time-loosened tongues. Mark Danner revisited the El Mozote massacre for the New Yorker (12/6/93), documenting as well Washington’s success in trashing the original reporting on the slaughter by Raymond Bonner and Alma Guillermopietro.
In 1995, the Baltimore Sun undertook a months-long investigation into the U.S. role in Honduras, implicating Negroponte. Under editor John Carroll, Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson reported (6/27/95) that members of the U.S.-trained Battalion 316 used “shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.” Cohn and Thompson showed that despite insistent denials, Negroponte had to have known.
In his independent magazines the Consortium and iF, Bob Parry relentlessly investigated the period, while many reporters and scholars drew on the documentation accumulated by Tom Blanton and Peter Kornbluh at the National Security Archive. The importance of all this work is evidenced by how often it is cited–not always with credit–in reporting on the nominations of Abrams, Negroponte and Reich.
Condensed soup reporting
Most of the media have not been as diligent. For months after Negroponte’s name was floated for U.N. ambassador, virtually the only mention of his Honduras record in the New York Times was a paragraph inside Jane Perlez’s May 27 piece on how Sen. James Jefford’s defection would impact Bush’s foreign policy. Perlez noted “obstacles” to Negroponte’s confirmation, “largely over his role as ambassador in Nicaragua [sic] in the Reagan administration, when he carried out the covert strategy to crush the leftist Sandinista government.” As Ronald Reagan said after a 1982 trip to Latin America, “You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries” down there. (… fake news; c.1980’s,??? )
( P.S. — I Loved Robert Parry’s journalism in this decades’ space – he was and is ‘my hero’ who/that Exposed the Truth against the lies&cover-ups that continue to exist within the facade of “America-the-Beautiful” BullSpit that Manipulates / Controls “The News”).
THIS THE USA – WHERE AN ELLIOT ABRAMS CAN EMERGE FROM THE SLIME PIT OF HIS HISTORY —- TO OVERSEE THE OVERTHROW OF ANOTHER LATIN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BY NEWLY ORDAINED CORPORATE OLIGARCHS, [Forth Reich Fascist], who’ve now assumed Subversive Power in South America.
Stupendous Gratitude & Thanks to the editors/moderators of Consortium news for reproducing this timely ORIGINAL piece from the Truth Seeking Robert Parry. Not only does in introduce Truths concerning United States DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES in the past, concerning Central America —- but also introduces/ insinuates current U S Economic/Political MANIPULATION of affairs in the whole of South America … which seem to be leading to (a new) South American Right Wing Fascism ?? — Such as the GHW Bush led/authorized overthrow of democratically elected Salvatore Allende and a massacre/imprisonment and brutal torture of innocent civilians/citizens – based, essentially on their apparent votes for the ‘PEOPLE FIRST’ – President Allente over the Corporate Sponsored Capitalist Sponsored rule by Wealth (Capitalism), as preferred by the AMERICAN WORLD OLIGARCHY.
(the-last-empire..? )
Mike Pompeo, Elliot Abrams and that other “behind the scene”
list of Permanent War neo-con/secret fascist
– RESOURCE WAR PROFITEERS whom / that prefer
Complete Dis-Placement of Entire People Groups in
Approval of Forced and Enforced Migration / REMOVAL
Out of TheirNative Ancestral Lands of Habitation into
New ‘gardens of eden’ declared by White Strangers …
Who had Murdered the peoples in Gov’t Sponsored
Massacres of Federal Bullets v. arrows & tomahawks
Along with Gov’tment provided Winchester Rifles /
Ammunition Provided and Forts of Re- Supply as\
As wagon trains WHITE, FREE Immigrants attained/
Supplies and US Government Military protection\
While traversing through NATIVE AMERICAN /
HISTORIC LANDS and FIELDS, Grazing WATERS\
Which now, indeed, are “owned’ by The State
And “State Supported” OIL COMPANIES !!!!
These are They/\ same as Those/
The Usurpers
Of Native Lands ThruOut The World
Which Plunder, Destroy peaceful People
In Villages Of
Cultural Families/of Blood Line Years
Of Affinity, Place,Heritage and Family
That which you /
In your White Power
Sense-of-Self in
Nationalistic embrace of
White Greatness\
Under Scandalous
Trump, your hero
will be your down fall
even as former Reich /
Exists thru Trump’s
WHITE NATIONALISM.
-=-=-=-= Historically Important Link Below,
vis-a-vis Trump and White Nationalism
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/how-the-turner-changer-white-nationalism/500039/
Mike Pompeo’s Deranged
The 1st 3 words of your lede says it all.
However, you may give Pompous more credit than he deserves. The State Dept. was castrated a long time ago. When Pappy Bush installed the CIA in the Oval Office, State was on the skids and the foreign policy powers were under the direct control of the CIA. Not that the CIA made the decisions overtly, but as our almost exclusive intelligence source they advised both State and the administrations of what in their view the reality was in all foreign countries. In other words, if State and the White House and Congress have no information but the CIA’s, the CIA’s conclusions would be America’s foreign policy.
Until the Dulles brothers took over State and the CIA there were full time trained foreign service officers who made those assessments. That collective wisdom was slowly ceded to the CIA. The first result was the Korean war. From then to the Vietnam debacle the CIA provided the base information for administrative decisions. By the time Bush took over it was CIA all the way. By the time Pappy’s little boy stood in for him, State openly became a shambles and the CIA (like the FBI) became political.
Personally, I have zero doubt that the MIC and CIA determined the Democrats’ presidential candidates from then until Trump, an unexpected renegade, beat their choice. They seem to have half-retrained Trump. Like the Mafia, they have ways and means to waterboard any mind, even without water.
A friend whose husband was the State’s Director in a number of countries told me that her husband knew that the bulk of the people on the State’s employee registers where they served were actually CIA employees.
So, back to Pomeo, he may babble and gesticulate a lot. He may may be a fanatic in many ways, but my suspicion is that far more focused, evil and effective people point out the directions of his “policies” just as they have consistently and continually since 1988. They are not given to babble. They hear the political mind set of Deep State and convert it to action.
## Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy ##
(HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF )
http://www.fair.org/extra/scandal-what-scandal/
Scandal? What Scandal?
11/ 1/ 2001
Terry J. Allen
ELLIOT ABRAMS – { THE DEEP STATE’S MAN IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF REGIME CHANGE / VENEZUELA }
But with a few admirable exceptions, news stories about Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte and Otto Reich have largely relied on past reporting and he-said, she-said soundbites by the usual supporters and critics, rather than in-depth investigations into their complicity in one of the bloodiest scandals of the past 20 years. And their guilt is based not on speculation or gossip, but on hard evidence that they aided torturers and death squads,circumvented Congress and the Constitution, and deceived the American people.
“President Bush,” the Washington Post reported on March 25, “is quietly building the most conservative administration in modern times, surpassing even Ronald Reagan in the ideological commitment of his appointments, White House officials and prominent conservatives say.”
It’s not that Bush is whispering the names of nominees too softly for the press to hear. Rather, the reporting itself is, for the most part, quiet.
Three nominations that should have raised a noisy clatter from the nation’s presses are:
John Negroponte, as ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, covered up human rights abuses by the CIA-trained Battalion 316. He is Bush’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and, as Extra! went to press, was expected to clear Senate confirmation hearings.
Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National Security Council as director of its office for democracy, human rights and international operations. The post requires no Senate approval.
Otto Reich’s nomination as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, the top post for Latin America, was predicted to draw the most congressional fire. Reich was head of the now-defunct Office for Public Diplomacy (OPD), which the House Committee on Foreign Affairs censured for “prohibited, covert propaganda activities” (Washington Post, 10/11/87).
Iran-Contra redux
Washington spent more than $4 billion on El Salvador in the ’80s, backing wildly brutal regimes and their death squads against a leftist insurgency. The 12-year civil war left 75,000 Salvadorans dead–overwhelmingly civilians killed by U.S.-supported forces. As Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, and later for inter-American affairs, Elliott Abrams, in his own words, “supervised U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean” (Ethics and Public Policy Center). He helped cover up one of the worst atrocities of the war: a Salvadoran army massacre in El Mozote that left 800 to 1000 civilians dead.
In Nicaragua, after the leftist Sandinistas overthrew the U.S.-supported dictator in 1979, Washington created and funded the Contras, a guerrilla army that concentrated its fire on civilians. The Reagan administration escalated the civil war after the leftist Sandinista party won an election endorsed as free and fair by international monitoring agencies. In a campaign to tarnish the Sandinistas and gild the Contras, Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy pressured U.S. media and planted ghostwritten articles and editorials. The comptroller-general of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that the OPD had violated a ban on domestic propaganda.
Under Ambassador John Negroponte, neighboring Honduras grew so crammed with U.S. bases and weapons that it was dubbed the U.S.S. Honduras, as if it were simply an off-shore staging ground for the Contra war. While poverty raged, U.S. military aid jumped from $3.9 million in 1980 to $77.4 million by 1984. The Honduran army, especially the U.S.-trained Battalion 316, engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and assassination. Negroponte worked closely with the perpetrators and covered up their crimes, according to Ambassador Jack Binns, his predecessor in the post (In These Times, 2/28/01).
Spurred on by media reports and popular protests against U.S. intervention in Central America, Congress passed the Boland amendment, which cut off most military aid to the Contras. Undaunted, the Reagan administration circumvented Congress and popular outrage by waging a covert war and raising money for the Contras from private and foreign sources. One of the “neat ideas” Oliver North and his cronies concocted was to funnel profits to the Contras from the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran–which was under embargo after seizing Americans as hostages. The discovery of this and other illegal schemes led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Negroponte, Abrams and Reich played key roles.
Writing for history
With the 1990s, aside from the occasional hurricane or bus plunge, the media spotlight shifted away from Central America. Still, a few investigative reports took advantage of new evidence and time-loosened tongues. Mark Danner revisited the El Mozote massacre for the New Yorker (12/6/93), documenting as well Washington’s success in trashing the original reporting on the slaughter by Raymond Bonner and Alma Guillermopietro.
In 1995, the Baltimore Sun undertook a months-long investigation into the U.S. role in Honduras, implicating Negroponte. Under editor John Carroll, Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson reported (6/27/95) that members of the U.S.-trained Battalion 316 used “shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.” Cohn and Thompson showed that despite insistent denials, Negroponte had to have known.
In his independent magazines the Consortium and iF, Bob Parry relentlessly investigated the period, while many reporters and scholars drew on the documentation accumulated by Tom Blanton and Peter Kornbluh at the National Security Archive. The importance of all this work is evidenced by how often it is cited–not always with credit–in reporting on the nominations of Abrams, Negroponte and Reich.
Condensed soup reporting
Most of the media have not been as diligent. For months after Negroponte’s name was floated for U.N. ambassador, virtually the only mention of his Honduras record in the New York Times was a paragraph inside Jane Perlez’s May 27 piece on how Sen. James Jefford’s defection would impact Bush’s foreign policy. Perlez noted “obstacles” to Negroponte’s confirmation, “largely over his role as ambassador in Nicaragua [sic] in the Reagan administration, when he carried out the covert strategy to crush the leftist Sandinista government.” As Ronald Reagan said after a 1982 trip to Latin America, “You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries” down there. (… fake news; c.1980’s,??? )
( P.S. — I Loved Robert Parry’s journalism in this decades’ space – he was and is ‘my hero’ who/that Exposed the Truth against the lies&cover-ups that continue to exist within the facade of “America-the-Beautiful” BullSpit that Manipulates / Controls “The News”).
THIS THE USA – WHERE AN ELLIOT ABRAMS CAN EMERGE FROM THE SLIME PIT OF HIS HISTORY —- TO OVERSEE THE OVERTHROW OF ANOTHER LATIN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BY NEWLY ORDAINED CORPORATE OLIGARCHS, [Forth Reich Fascist], who’ve now assumed Subversive Power in South America.
Stupendous Gratitude & Thanks to the editors/moderators of Consortium news for reproducing this timely ORIGINAL piece from the Truth Seeking Robert Parry. Not only does in introduce Truths concerning United States DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES in the past, concerning Central America —- but also introduces/ insinuates current U S Economic/Political MANIPULATION of affairs in the whole of South America … which seem to be leading to (a new) South American Right Wing Fascism ?? — Such as the GHW Bush led/authorized overthrow of democratically elected Salvatore Allende and a massacre/imprisonment and brutal torture of innocent civilians/citizens – based, essentially on their apparent votes for the ‘PEOPLE FIRST’ – President Allente over the Corporate Sponsored Capitalist Sponsored rule by Wealth (Capitalism), as preferred by the AMERICAN WORLD OLIGARCHY.
(the-last-empire..? )
Mike Pompeo, Elliot Abrams and that other “behind the scene”
list of Permanent War neo-con/secret fascist
– RESOURCE WAR PROFITEERS whom / that prefer
Complete Dis-Placement of Entire People Groups in
Approval of Forced and Enforced Migration / REMOVAL
Out of TheirNative Ancestral Lands of Habitation into
New ‘gardens of eden’ declared by White Strangers …
Who had Murdered the peoples in Gov’t Sponsored
Massacres of Federal Bullets v. arrows & tomahawks
Along with Gov’tment provided Winchester Rifles /
Ammunition Provided and Forts of Re- Supply as\
As wagon trains WHITE, FREE Immigrants attained/
Supplies and US Government Military protection\
While traversing through NATIVE AMERICAN /
HISTORIC LANDS and FIELDS, Grazing WATERS\
Which now, indeed, are “owned’ by The State
And “State Supported” OIL COMPANIES !!!!
These are They/\ same as Those/
The Usurpers
Of Native Lands ThruOut The World
Which Plunder, Destroy peaceful People
In Villages Of
Cultural Families/of Blood Line Years
Of Affinity, Place,Heritage and Family
That which you /
In your White Power
Sense-of-Self in
Nationalistic embrace of
White Greatness\
Under Scandalous
Trump, your hero
will be your down fall
even as former Reich /
Exists thru Trump’s
WHITE NATIONALISM.
-=-=-=-= Historically Important Link Below,
vis-a-vis Trump and White Nationalism
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/how-the-turner-changer-white-nationalism/500039/
Thanks, good info.
I have been in disbelief at pompeo’s statements since he was appointed secstate, swagger, force for good, etc.
But I am still reeling with the appointment of abrams, bringimg back from under some rock. This site will add further to his activities:
https://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/elliott-abrams/
Wikipedia has a page on one of the massecres: El Mozote
To my mind, pompeo has given a gigantic middle finger to the sane part of America and to the rest of the world. It is almost universal that abrams is an evil thug but pompeo says, F U, I’m bringing on board, what are you going to do about it.
Sick!
Besides the other mismatches, Pompass seems not to notice that Iran’s form of Islam is firmly opposed to the “islamist terrorists” and Iran is one of the main fighters against ISIS. I suppose he sees Hezbollah as a terror group, when it too is fighting against ISIS, which the USA, as we notice, often helps.
Quite. Is it that the US establishment, ruling corporate-capitalist-imperialist elites, refuse to acknowledge, to recognize that ISIS, like Al Qaeda, et al were Sunni and the Iranians, Hizbullah (and Assad – an Alawite, i.e. of one branch of Shi-ism) are Shia, that it is the Sunnis who are the “terrorists,” not the Shia? Well, they clearly seem to so refuse. Or they are more interested in destabilizing the ME all but for a small handful of countries, including two of the most brutal and violent: Saudia and Israel. And these two countries have a lot of influence – far too much – on US policy and action.
Interestingly or not, while Iranian-American journalist, Marzhieh Hashemi was held in prison for no crime, was stripped of her head-covering and denied halal or vegan substitute foods (may even have been given pork), NPR, stalwart of the ruling elite consensus, relayed three times (in my hearing) a long interview with an American-Iranian journalist who had been imprisoned in Iran under unpleasant circumstances. Meanwhile, I do not recall a whisper on the same station about Hashemi’s arrest (as a “material witness”) and detention. And while we hear boosted the rather trivial modernizing moves made by MBS – allowing women to drive etc. – we are supposed to believe that women (and minorities) have it far worse in Iran. Yet women in Iran can go to university, have been driving for years, and there are women members of Parliament (Majlis)…. Saudia doesn’t even hold elections of any kind, let alone have a parliament.
No, Iran isn’t perfect – what country is? But Saudia is a damned sight worse – and it funds terrorists: Al Qaeda and ISIS spring to mind (not that I’m forgetting US support of such and kindred groups).
Neither Iran nor Hizbullah of Lebanon are terrorist – they simply want to protect themselves and their countries from Israeli depradations in particular.
Of course, Iran and Lebanon (at least the Muslim sectors therein) refuse to accept what Israelis have been doing to Palestinians since 1947. And that – along with the US never forgiving Iran’s overthrow of their puppet dictator in 1979 – lies behind so much of what goes on in this region.
You are spot-on with this AnneR. I think it somehow ties into the history of our relationship with the house of Saud. I can’t help but think what a different world we would live in if we hadn’t ousted Mossadegh in the 50’s, and had Iran as our ally instead of Saudi Arabia. It is also telling as to the ignorance of the general public that our politicians can repeatedly say that Iran is the greatest sponsor of terrorism worldwide and have it go unchallenged in the MSM. I am reminded of Karl Rove’s statement regarding “creating reality”.
This description of pompeo’s beliefs comes out to be even worse than I initially believed of an Evangelist, if that were possible!
This is horrifying and is a serious threat to the world.
Jeez, where do we go from here-pomp just keeps piling in the crazies and evil psychopaths: abrams, hook, who is next?
Here is your sign folks. Aug 8, 2016 “I want to scare Assad” Mike Morell (Aug 8, 2016) | Charlie Rose
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, discusses the need to put pressure on Syria and Russia. The full conversation airs on PBS on August 8th, 2016.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ivt2NmbyGg&autoplay=1
Brian James, your comment and link is of great significance.
The link below ought to be of ‘great significance’ to you and all who’re / or may be aliened with or in pursuit of the culprits behind the
Military Industrial Complex design of/for Permanent War camouflaged under the rubric of Militarized Corporate/ Industrial PROFITEERING — That which Eisenhower Pre-casted / Forenamed , the Military Industrial Complex. …
The War Industry, if surmised in according to all it’s Profitable parts, is a densely fertile and luxuriantly proficient Profit Making Business for the “Defense” industry / The Military/Weapons industry — the Ratheons/ Boeings/ Fuel,Iron,Steel / Mining Industries — National Or International war materials mined world wide — used upon Every People, in modes of SPONTANEOUS DEATH visited upon UBIQUITOUS innocent humans/’people’ on any day in any hour they, he – she – or them/they could be Blown to Bits,mmmm, in any instant, as if a god reigning judgment as a capricious Punishment upon some totally innocent group of worshipers whom were only Innocent VICTIMS of a misdirected US Military Drone — Some Bomb Droppers from- hundreds- of- miles- away- who acts as if he/she’s
merely stepping on roaches, or ants, or beetles on a hike thru Strawberry Fields !!! (MAY THE DEATHS OF THOSE INNOCENTS YOU’VE MURDERED, WITHOUT THE BLINKING OF AN EYE — VISIT YOU AND YOU CHILDREN THROUGHOUT THE DESTINIES OF YOUR LIVES AND OF THOSE REPRODUCED BY YOU — ALL OF YOU GUILTY MASS MURDERS AND VISITORS FROM HELL WHO EXTINGUISH THE LIVES OF INNOCENT HUMAN BEINGS IN THE NAME OF US CORPORATE M I C STOCK&BOND HOLDERS who smile, grin and cheer as their stock prices increase at the Cost of Human Blood
What is my back-up, what propels my heartfelt indignation toward this Ease of Wealth Creation at the Cost of HUMAN LIFE !!! ?????
It’s the entire deadly/deathly Profit Motive promulgated by Dick Cheney in his Deathly Economic/ Military M.I.C. concept of
PERMANENT WAR !
— War for the sake of Munitions ! for Rebuilding and the profit making gained from rebuilding cities cities blown apart by wars / bombs / assassinations / people turning against their neighbors /wars for water and water rights / wars for land and/or minerals ,, wars, wars, wars — permanent war and profits for arms manufactures / bullet makers, spies, turncoats, paid assassins, corrupt politicians (like trump… )
What Cheney set forth in 1998, and his Self Appointment as the GWB
Vice President is make radiantly clear in the below volume of facts. …
https://larouchepub.com/other/2005/3237cheney_permwar.htlm
Religion is a very effective and important means to dehumanize one’s victim.
Can you imagine how much consternation it would cause our leaders to steal Venezuela’s oil if everyone thought of them as fathers and brothers, rather then Brown enemies who might steal Hilary’s chances of winning in 2020? The whole system would shut down.
This society is getting crazier by the minutes and its all due to serving the ruling class.
https://therulingclassobserver.com/2019/01/26/the-insanity-of-healthy-ruling-class-society/
The war in Syria wasn’t made worse by US involvement, it existed because of US involvement.
## Mike Pompeo’s Deranged Foreign Policy ##
(HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF )
http://www.fair.org/extra/scandal-what-scandal/
Scandal? What Scandal?
11/ 1/ 2001
Terry J. Allen
ELLIOT ABRAMS – { THE DEEP STATE’S MAN IN THE ENFORCEMENT OF REGIME CHANGE / VENEZUELA }
But with a few admirable exceptions, news stories about Elliot Abrams, John Negroponte and Otto Reich have largely relied on past reporting and he-said, she-said soundbites by the usual supporters and critics, rather than in-depth investigations into their complicity in one of the bloodiest scandals of the past 20 years. And their guilt is based not on speculation or gossip, but on hard evidence that they aided torturers and death squads,circumvented Congress and the Constitution, and deceived the American people.
“President Bush,” the Washington Post reported on March 25, “is quietly building the most conservative administration in modern times, surpassing even Ronald Reagan in the ideological commitment of his appointments, White House officials and prominent conservatives say.”
It’s not that Bush is whispering the names of nominees too softly for the press to hear. Rather, the reporting itself is, for the most part, quiet.
Three nominations that should have raised a noisy clatter from the nation’s presses are:
John Negroponte, as ambassador to Honduras from 1981-85, covered up human rights abuses by the CIA-trained Battalion 316. He is Bush’s choice for U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and, as Extra! went to press, was expected to clear Senate confirmation hearings.
Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National Security Council as director of its office for democracy, human rights and international operations. The post requires no Senate approval.
Otto Reich’s nomination as assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, the top post for Latin America, was predicted to draw the most congressional fire. Reich was head of the now-defunct Office for Public Diplomacy (OPD), which the House Committee on Foreign Affairs censured for “prohibited, covert propaganda activities” (Washington Post, 10/11/87).
Iran-Contra redux
Washington spent more than $4 billion on El Salvador in the ’80s, backing wildly brutal regimes and their death squads against a leftist insurgency. The 12-year civil war left 75,000 Salvadorans dead–overwhelmingly civilians killed by U.S.-supported forces. As Reagan’s assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, and later for inter-American affairs, Elliott Abrams, in his own words, “supervised U.S. policy in Latin America and the Caribbean” (Ethics and Public Policy Center). He helped cover up one of the worst atrocities of the war: a Salvadoran army massacre in El Mozote that left 800 to 1000 civilians dead.
In Nicaragua, after the leftist Sandinistas overthrew the U.S.-supported dictator in 1979, Washington created and funded the Contras, a guerrilla army that concentrated its fire on civilians. The Reagan administration escalated the civil war after the leftist Sandinista party won an election endorsed as free and fair by international monitoring agencies. In a campaign to tarnish the Sandinistas and gild the Contras, Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy pressured U.S. media and planted ghostwritten articles and editorials. The comptroller-general of the U.S., a Republican appointee, found that the OPD had violated a ban on domestic propaganda.
Under Ambassador John Negroponte, neighboring Honduras grew so crammed with U.S. bases and weapons that it was dubbed the U.S.S. Honduras, as if it were simply an off-shore staging ground for the Contra war. While poverty raged, U.S. military aid jumped from $3.9 million in 1980 to $77.4 million by 1984. The Honduran army, especially the U.S.-trained Battalion 316, engaged in widespread human rights abuses, including kidnapping, torture and assassination. Negroponte worked closely with the perpetrators and covered up their crimes, according to Ambassador Jack Binns, his predecessor in the post (In These Times, 2/28/01).
Spurred on by media reports and popular protests against U.S. intervention in Central America, Congress passed the Boland amendment, which cut off most military aid to the Contras. Undaunted, the Reagan administration circumvented Congress and popular outrage by waging a covert war and raising money for the Contras from private and foreign sources. One of the “neat ideas” Oliver North and his cronies concocted was to funnel profits to the Contras from the secret sale of U.S. arms to Iran–which was under embargo after seizing Americans as hostages. The discovery of this and other illegal schemes led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which Negroponte, Abrams and Reich played key roles.
Writing for history
With the 1990s, aside from the occasional hurricane or bus plunge, the media spotlight shifted away from Central America. Still, a few investigative reports took advantage of new evidence and time-loosened tongues. Mark Danner revisited the El Mozote massacre for the New Yorker (12/6/93), documenting as well Washington’s success in trashing the original reporting on the slaughter by Raymond Bonner and Alma Guillermopietro.
In 1995, the Baltimore Sun undertook a months-long investigation into the U.S. role in Honduras, implicating Negroponte. Under editor John Carroll, Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson reported (6/27/95) that members of the U.S.-trained Battalion 316 used “shock and suffocation devices in interrogations. Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.” Cohn and Thompson showed that despite insistent denials, Negroponte had to have known.
In his independent magazines the Consortium and iF, Bob Parry relentlessly investigated the period, while many reporters and scholars drew on the documentation accumulated by Tom Blanton and Peter Kornbluh at the National Security Archive. The importance of all this work is evidenced by how often it is cited–not always with credit–in reporting on the nominations of Abrams, Negroponte and Reich.
Condensed soup reporting
Most of the media have not been as diligent. For months after Negroponte’s name was floated for U.N. ambassador, virtually the only mention of his Honduras record in the New York Times was a paragraph inside Jane Perlez’s May 27 piece on how Sen. James Jefford’s defection would impact Bush’s foreign policy. Perlez noted “obstacles” to Negroponte’s confirmation, “largely over his role as ambassador in Nicaragua [sic] in the Reagan administration, when he carried out the covert strategy to crush the leftist Sandinista government.” As Ronald Reagan said after a 1982 trip to Latin America, “You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries” down there. (… fake news; c.1980’s,??? )
( P.S. — I Loved Robert Parry’s journalism in this decades’ space – he was and is ‘my hero’ who/that Exposed the Truth against the lies&cover-ups that continue to exist within the facade of “America-the-Beautiful” BullSpit that Manipulates / Controls “The News”).
THIS THE USA – WHERE AN ELLIOT ABRAMS CAN EMERGE FROM THE SLIME PIT OF HIS HISTORY —- TO OVERSEE THE OVERTHROW OF ANOTHER LATIN AMERICAN GOVERNMENT BY NEWLY ORDAINED CORPORATE OLIGARCHS, [Forth Reich Fascist], who’ve now assumed Subversive Power in South America.
Stupendous Gratitude & Thanks to the editors/moderators of Consortium news for reproducing this timely ORIGINAL piece from the Truth Seeking Robert Parry. Not only does in introduce Truths concerning United States DESTRUCTIVE POLICIES in the past, concerning Central America —- but also introduces/ insinuates current U S Economic/Political MANIPULATION of affairs in the whole of South America … which seem to be leading to (a new) South American Right Wing Fascism ?? — Such as the GHW Bush led/authorized overthrow of democratically elected Salvatore Allende and a massacre/imprisonment and brutal torture of innocent civilians/citizens – based, essentially on their apparent votes for the ‘PEOPLE FIRST’ – President Allente over the Corporate Sponsored Capitalist Sponsored rule by Wealth (Capitalism), as preferred by the AMERICAN WORLD OLIGARCHY.
(the-last-empire..? )
Mike Pompeo, Elliot Abrams and that other “behind the scene”
list of Permanent War neo-con/secret fascist
– RESOURCE WAR PROFITEERS whom / that prefer
Complete Dis-Placement of Entire People Groups in
Approval of Forced and Enforced Migration / REMOVAL
Out of TheirNative Ancestral Lands of Habitation into
New ‘gardens of eden’ declared by White Strangers …
Who had Murdered the peoples in Gov’t Sponsored
Massacres of Federal Bullets v. arrows & tomahawks
Along with Gov’tment provided Winchester Rifles /
Ammunition Provided and Forts of Re- Supply as\
As wagon trains WHITE, FREE Immigrants attained/
Supplies and US Government Military protection\
While traversing through NATIVE AMERICAN /
HISTORIC LANDS and FIELDS, Grazing WATERS\
Which now, indeed, are “owned’ by The State
And “State Supported” OIL COMPANIES !!!!
These are They/\ same as Those/
The Usurpers
Of Native Lands ThruOut The World
Which Plunder, Destroy peaceful People
In Villages Of
Cultural Families/of Blood Line Years
Of Affinity, Place,Heritage and Family
That which you /
In your White Power
Sense-of-Self in
Nationalistic embrace of
White Greatness\
Under Scandalous
Trump, your hero
will be your down fall
even as former Reich /
Exists thru Trump’s
WHITE NATIONALISM.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/how-the-turned-changer-white-nationalism/500039/
A crucial point.
Also, it was Obama’s doing, wasn’t it?
Only if you believe that the US president is in charge of something. And not just a mouthpiece for his foreign and corporate sponsors. Among others.
To be more clear:
Joe Joy Knight makes a crucial point when pointing out that the war in Syria was set about by US involvement, and that Mr Davidson for some strange reason avoids stating this basic truth.
As I understand it, Mr Davidson sets Trump’s/Pompeo’s foreign policy in contrast to that of Obama and his Cairo speech. On the whole, the results of US foreign policy were worse under Obama than they have been under Trump so far, not least considering the Syrian and Libyan wars. One measure could be in terms of killed, wounded and displaced human beings per year of rule. I think it is fair to question how Obama’s policy is described and contrasted with the present one.
Sorcery, I mostly agree, as I understand you mean, that the influence of capital, the MIC, the “swamp” etc is huge, as so vitally keeps being described on this site. Yet, is the president completely powerless? This article implies that there is a difference between the Obama administration and the present one regarding foreign policy, so at least there should be a difference in the power base, fractions of the set of sponsors and “swamp” (and voters?), between them. Then there is struggle about these differences and debate and this article are meaningful. At the least, any president and his administration represent a certain subset of interests. But, on top of that, don’t also the personal actions of presidents and the members of their administrations matter, after all? It seems to me, the answers to how the decisions are made are not simple, but to create and spread an understanding of the subtleties of the mechanics is what is needed in order for the people to influence through those mechanisms and be in power (as does CN).
“Yet, is the president completely powerless?” In a word, yes. Or very nearly so. Remember Obama’s order to share intelligence with the Russians regarding fighting ISIS in Syria, and how that agreement was immediately sabotaged at Deir Ez-zor? No one was court marshaled or disciplined in any way. It was a moment of complete humiliation for our supposed “Commander in Chief” that was immediately flushed down the memory hole. There is very little wiggle room when it comes to foreign policy for any US president, and it has been that way since Nov.22, 1963.
Martin-Swedish, I was thinking the same as I read this piece. Instead of contrasting Obama’s and Trump’s foreign policies (both disgusting), a more relevant analysis would be how the actions of Obama and his minions (Clinton, Ash Carter, Nuland, Rice, Power, Clapper, Brennan…….) spread the havoc that we have now for Trump and his minions to react upon, IMO some good (out of Syria) but mostly bad (Iran, Venezuela, …).
The physical actions taken by the Obama/Clinton gang were bad, (and could have been far worse under McCain), but their success in neutering the anti-war, anti-imperialist narrative has resulted in democrats and even “progressives” being in favor of interventionist war and “regime-change” operations much greater than Republicans (read recent Greenwald and Blumenthal with polling statistics from Pew). My very intelligent friends who were in the streets during the Bush years now advance Russiagate crap and staying in Syria, while Tucker Carlson on Fox seems to be the only MSM voice that questions it!
Strange times indeed.
Indeed. I also noticed this:
“(No.5) ‘Life is returning to normal for millions of Iraqis and Syrians.’ [Unless you have a really perverse definition of ‘normal,’ this is a total fantasy.]”
It is indisputably true that life is returning to normal for millions of Syrians, thanks to the near-complete victory of the Syrian state and its allies over the barbaric forces ranged against them, among which the U.S. earned its boastful self-appellation as the “world’s indispensable nation”.
The recovery process must still contend with continuing Western sanctions, though. Perhaps Prof. Davidson thinks recovery must be denied and obstructed in the name of “Assad must go”?
Yes indeed. The Syrian tragedy’s initiation lies at our doorstep (likewise what is going on in Venezuela), and under Obama’s watch. Interesting that Mr Davidson avoided this reality. And from what I have read, life has taken a turn for the better for those Syrians (the majority still in their country) who are not living in the Idlib/Al Tanf region.
Also strange, I thought, that Mr Davidson appears to go along with the notion that it was the US which has all but defeated ISIS and its allies (known in the MSM as those “moderate rebels”). Hmm – and there was I under the impression that Russia and the Syrian army (plus Hizbullah and Iranians) who had largely achieved this. That in fact the US (with Israel, Saudia and the UAE) was supporting and supplying ISIS and like proxies… Also not mentioned.