Trump’s demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the “Day of Planes,” writes Max Blumenthal.
By Max Blumenthal
Special to Consortium News
As Donald Trump sharpens his re-election messaging, he has sought to make a foil out of freshman Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar, homing in on her identity as a black Muslim immigrant and her brazen defiance of what was once a bipartisan pro-Israel consensus. Trump’s most recent attack was the most inflammatory to date, implying through a characteristically dishonest Twitter video that Omar had played some role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Trump was referencing comments Omar made this month during a banquet of the Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR): “CAIR was founded after 9/11, because they recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” Omar said during a 20-minute-long denunciation of public bullying and violent attacks against Muslims living in the West. (CAIR was founded in 1994, contrary to Omar’s claim).
As innocuous as Omar’s comments might have seemed, they were easily spun by a right-wing bigot-sphere seeking to portray her as not merely insensitive to the deep wound Americans suffered on 9/11, but as a possible terror-sympathizer. As Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former NYPD commissioner and convicted felon, said of Omar on Fox News, “she’s infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, with Hezbollah.”
Omar: Outrage target. (Wikimedia)
For Trump, the manufactured outrage offered yet another opportunity to advance his rebranded version of the Southern Strategy, painting Omar as the face of a Democratic Party overrun by socialists, Muslims, MS13 and trans radicals – as a clear and present danger to the reactionary white exurbanites commonly referred to in mainstream media as “swing voters.”
Amid an onslaught of menacing condemnations and online death threats triggered by Trump’s tweet, prominent Democrats mobilized to defend Omar. However, many were too timid to mention her by name, apparently fearing that doing so would play into Trump’s cynical strategy. Some refused to defend her at all. And among those willing to speak up, most felt compelled to lead their defense by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. “The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence,” insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
In Washington, 9/11 is understood as an act of inexplicable evil that materialized out of a clear blue sky. “They hate us because we’re free,” Americans are still told in a semi-official drone, conveniently excising the attacks that took place on 9/11 from their historical context. This ruthlessly enforced interpretation has had the effect of displacing blame from those who bear direct or indirect responsibility for the attacks onto much more convenient scapegoats like the Islamic faith and its diverse mass of adherents.
In my new book, “The Management of Savagery,” I explain which people did what things to lay the groundwork for the worst terror attack on U.S. soil. Not all of those people were Muslim, and few have faced the kind of scrutiny Omar has for her seemingly benign comment about 9/11. As I illustrate, many of them maintained lustrous reputations well after the ash was cleared from Ground Zero. Today, some of their names – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, H.W. Bush – are prominently engraved on airports, federal offices, and library halls around the country. Others became the subject of rowdy bestsellers such as “Charlie Wilson’s War,” or saw their exploits dramatized in Cold War kitsch productions like “Rambo III.” And then there were those who waged America’s dirty wars from the shadows, and whose names will scarcely ever be known.
Reagan meeting with Mujahideen, 1983. (Wikimedia Commons)
While these figures lay claim to the mantle of “national security,” their true legacy was the callous abandonment of that concept in order to advance imperial objectives. During the Cold War, they forged partnerships with theocratic monarchies and armed Islamist militants, even distributing jihadist textbooks to children in the name of defeating the Soviet scourge. Today, as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard – the lone foreign policy dissenter within the Democratic presidential field – pointed out, they are doing it all over again through their protection of the world’s largest Al Qaeda franchise in Syria’s Idlib province, which came into being thanks in large part to U.S. intervention in the country.
Honor Bob Parry’s legacy.
Donate to our Spring Fund Drive.
To effectively puncture Trump’s demagogic ploys, the discussion of 9/11 must move beyond a superficial defense of Omar and into an exploration of a critical history that has been suppressed. This history begins at least 20 years before the attacks occurred, when “some people did something.” Many of those people served at the highest levels of U.S. government, and the things they did led to the establishment of Al Qaeda as an international network – and ultimately, to 9/11 itself.
Taliban ‘Unimportant’
Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly. They put heavy weapons in the hands of Islamist warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, dispatched Salafi clerics such as “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman to the battlefield, and printed millions of dollars worth of textbooks for Afghan children that contained math equations encouraging them to commit acts of violent martyrdom against Soviet soldiers. They did anything they could to wreak havoc on the Soviet-backed government in Kabul.
Soviet soldier in Afghanistan. (Mikhail Evstafiev via Wikimedia Commons)
These people were so hellbent on smashing the Soviet Union that they made common cause with the Islamist dictatorship of Pakistan’s Zia-ul-Haq and the House of Saud. With direct assistance from the intelligence services of these U.S. allies, Osama bin Laden, the scion of Saudi wealth, set up his Services Bureau on the Afghan border as a waystation for foreign Islamist fighters.
These people even channeled funding to bin Laden so he could build training camps along the Afghan-Pakistan border for the so-called freedom fighters of the mujahideen. And they kept watch over a ratline that shepherded young Muslim men from the West to the front lines of the Afghan proxy war, using them as cannon fodder for a cold-blooded, imperial operation marketed by the Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia as a holy obligation.
These people were in the CIA, USAID, and the National Security Council. Others, with names like Charlie Wilson, Jesse Helms, Jack Murtha, and Joe Biden, held seats on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
Charlie Wilson with Afghan man. (Wikimedia Commons)
When they finally got what they wanted, dislodging a secular government that had provided Afghan women with unprecedented access to education, their proxies plunged Afghanistan into a war of the warlords that saw half of Kabul turned to rubble, paving the way for the rise of the Taliban. And these people remained totally unrepentant about the monster they had created.
“Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?” remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski, the former NSC director who sold President Jimmy Carter on the Afghan proxy war. “So yes, compared to the Soviet Union, and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant.”
To some in Washington, the Taliban were a historical footnote. To others, they were allies of convenience. As a top State Department diplomat commented to journalist Ahmed Rashid in February 1997, “The Taliban will probably develop like Saudi Arabia. There be [the Saudi-owned oil company] Aramco, pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.”
CIA Cover-ups and Blowback
Back in the U.S., some people fueled the blowback from the Afghan proxy war. The Blind Sheikh was given a special entry visa by the CIA as payback for the services he provided in Afghanistan, allowing him to take over the al-Kifah Center in New York City, which had functioned as the de facto U.S. arm of Al Qaeda’s Services Bureau. Under his watch and with help from bin Laden, some people and lots of aid were shuttled to the front lines of U.S. proxy wars in Bosnia and Chechnya while the Clinton administration generally looked the other way.
Though the Blind Sheikh was eventually convicted in a terror plot contrived by a paid informant for the FBI, some people in federal law enforcement had been reluctant to indict him. “There was a whole issue about [Abdel-Rahman] being given a visa to come into this country and what the circumstances were around that,” one of his defense lawyers, Abdeed Jabara told me. “The issue related to how much the government was involved with the jihadist enterprise when it suited their purposes in Afghanistan and whether or not they were afraid there would be exposure of that. Because there’s no question that the jihadists were using the Americans and the Americans were using the jihadists. There’s a symbiotic relationship.”
During the 1995 trial of members of the Blind Sheikh’s New York-based cell, another defense lawyer, Roger Stavis, referred to his clients before the jury as “Team America,” emphasizing the role they had played as proxy fighters for the U.S. in Afghanistan. When Stavis attempted to summon to the witness stand a jihadist operative named Ali Abdelsauod Mohammed who had trained his clients in firearms and combat, some people ordered Mohammed to refuse his subpoena. Those people, according to journalist Peter Lance, were federal prosecutors Andrew McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
The government lawyers were apparently fretting that Mohammed would be exposed as an active asset of both the CIA and FBI, and as a former Army sergeant who had spirited training manuals out of Fort Bragg while stationed there during the 1980s. So Mohammed remained a free man, helping Al Qaeda plan attacks on American consular facilities in Tanzania and Kenya while the “Day of the Planes” plot began to take form.
In early 2000, some people gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to prepare the most daring Al Qaeda operation to date. Two figures at the meeting, Saudi citizens named Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, were on their way to the United States. While in Kuala Lumpur, the duo’s hotel room was broken into by CIA agents, their passports were photographed, and their communications were recorded. And yet the pair of Al Qaeda operatives was able to travel together with multiple-entry visas on a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Los Angeles. That’s because for some reason, some people from the CIA failed to notify any people at the FBI about the terror summit that had just taken place. The “Day of Planes” plot was moving forward without a kink.
In Los Angeles, some people met Hazmi and Midhar at the airport, provided the two non-English speakers with a personal caretaker and rented them apartments, where neighbors said they were routinely visited each night by unknown figures in expensive cars with darkened windows. Those people were Saudi Arabian intelligence agents named Omar Bayoumi and Khaled al-Thumairy.
Crawford, Texas
It was not until August 2001 that Midhar was placed on a terrorist watch list. That month, some people met at a ranch in Crawford, Texas, and reviewed a classified document headlined, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the US.” The bulletin was a page-and-a-half long, with detailed intelligence on the “Day of Planes” plot provided by Ali Mohammed, the Al Qaeda-FBI-CIA triple agent now registered as “John Doe” and disappeared somewhere in the federal prison system. Those people reviewed the document for a few minutes before their boss, President George W. Bush, moved on to other matters.
According to The Washington Post, Bush exhibited an “expansive mood” that day, taking in a round of golf. “We are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the U.S.,” CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black warned days later. Bush did not meet with his cabinet heads again to discuss terrorism until Sept. 4.
A week later, on Sept. 11, some people did something.
They hijacked four civilian airliners and changed the course of American history with little more than box cutter blades in their hands. Fifteen of those 19 people, including Hazmi and Midhar, were citizens of Saudi Arabia. They were products of a Wahhabi school system and a politically stultifying society that had thrived under the protection of a special relationship with the U.S. Indeed, the U.S. had showered theocratic allies like Saudi Arabia with aid and weapons while threatening secular Arab states that resisted its hegemony with sanctions and invasion. The Saudis were the favorite Muslims of America’s national security elite not because they were moderate, which they absolutely were not, but because they were useful.
2004 Tribute in Light memorial. (Wikimedia)
In the days after 9/11, the FBI organized several flights to evacuate prominent Saudi families from the U.S., including relatives of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile, Islamophobia erupted across the country, with even mainstream personalities such as TV news anchor Dan Rather taking to the airwaves to claim without evidence that Arab-Americans had celebrated the 9/11 attacks.
Unable to find a single operational Al Qaeda cell in the country, the FBI turned to an army of paid snitches to haul in mentally unstable Muslims, dupes and idlers like the Lackawanna 6 in manufactured plots. Desperate for a high-profile bust to reinforce the “war on terror” narrative, the bureau hounded Palestinian Muslim activists and persecuted prominent Islamic charities like the Holy Land Foundation, sending its directors to prison for decades for the crime of sending aid to NGOs in the occupied Gaza Strip.
As America’s national security state cracked down on Muslim civil society at home, it turned to fanatical Islamist proxies abroad to bring down secular and politically independent Arab states. In Libya, the U.S. and UK helped arm the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a longtime affiliate of Al Qaeda, using it as a proxy to depose and murder Muammar Gaddafi. As that country transformed from a stable, prosperous state into an Afghanistan-style playground for rival militias, including a chapter of the Islamic State, the Obama administration moved to do the same to Damascus.
In Syria, the CIA armed an outfit of supposedly “moderate rebels” called the Free Syrian Army that turned out to be nothing more than a political front and weapons farm for an array of extremist insurgent factions including Al Qaeda’s local affiliate and the Islamic State. The latter two groups were, of course, products of the sectarian chaos of Iraq, which had been ruled by a secular government until the U.S. came knocking after 9/11.
The blowback from Iraq, Libya and Syria arrived in the form of the worst refugee crises the world has experienced since World War II. And then came the bloodiest terror attack to hit the UK in history – in Manchester. There, the son of a Libyan Islamic Fighting Group member, who traveled to Libya and Syria on an MI6 ratline, slaughtered concert-goers with a nail bomb.
Cataclysmic social disruptions like these were like steroids for right-wing Islamophobes, electrifying Trump’s victorious 2016 presidential campaign, a wing of the Brexit “Leave” campaign in the UK, and far-right parties across Europe. But as I explain in “The Management of Savagery,” these terrifying trends were byproducts of decisions undertaken by national security elites more closely aligned with the political center – figures who today attempt to position themselves as leaders of the anti-Trump resistance.
Which people did which things to drag us into the political nightmare we’re living through? For those willing to cut through the campaign season bluster, Ilhan Omar’s comments dare us to name names.
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling “Republican Gomorrah,” “Goliath,” “The Fifty One Day War” and “The Management of Savagery,” published in March 2019 by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including “Killing Gaza” and “Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie.” Blumenthal founded the Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
Please honor the legacy of Bob Parry with
a donation to our Spring Fund Drive.
Those who control the energy control the people. Those who control their perception control everything…
How to Disappear Completely – A Short Film About Dustification
https://youtu.be/cuTp7HkpW7U
Good for you Thomas Potter; you made a reference to Dr. Judy Wood! It seems like my 2 posts here that mentioned Dr. Wood were taken down. God forbid that CN is censoring Dr. Wood’s research, “Where did the towers go?” an important piece of evidence which makes Blumenthal’s ideas much clearer since if we have a directed energy weapon, that technology would have to come from corporations (military contractors) in the United States (like SAIC, Bell labs, Martin Marietta etc) and Israel—ah there’s that name again, Israel. In Judy Wood’s book, a man from SAIC approached John Hutchinson (as told by Hutchinson) and mentioned that they (SAIC) were working on similar technology related to John Hutchinson’s experiments, prior to 911. By the way, I have contributed to CN, however modest my amount.
Good for you Thomas Potter; you made a reference to Dr. Judy Wood! It seems like my 2 posts here that mentioned Dr. Wood were taken down. God forbid that CN is censoring Dr. Wood’s research, “Where did the towers go?” an important piece of evidence which makes Blumenthal’s ideas much clearer since if we have a directed energy weapon, that technology would have to come from corporations (military contractors) in the United States (like SAIC, Bell labs, Martin Marietta etc) and Israel—ah there’s that name again, Israel. In Judy Wood’s book, a man from SAIC approached John Hutchinson (as told by Hutchinson) and mentioned that they (SAIC) were working on similar technology related to John Hutchinson’s experiments, prior to 911.
The question I have is why Blumethal, as an investigative journalist has not investigated Dr. Wood’s research, or people like Noam Chomsky, or VIPS (the list would be too big). John Lear, a highly decorated ex CIA pilot who has flown everything in his career acknowledged Dr. Wood’s research as well as Paul Hellyer, former Defense Minister of Canada.
The video “Panama Deception” narrated by the late Elizabeth Montgomery shows that the U.S. used “space-age” weapons during the invasion.
This of course , was before the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Yes, the spaceage weapon used there adds to the body of evidence.
It all happened in a vacuum? Until Trump was elected? Before Trump there was no outrage (however misguided)against Islamic peoples? Why then do all the members of the power elite hate Trump, and have conspired to prevent his nomination and then his election?
So smart, so blind, so childish.
Gary-
I’ve been in continuous “moderation” for over 3 weeks now. I think it’s called being on the “watch list”. I’ve also emailed them asking for an explanation to no avail. I love this site, but the comment section administration leaves much to be desired.
Since this comment will also be moderated, it will be interesting to see if it gets posted at all.
Chalk it up to “suppressed history”.
There was a column over at Truthdig by Chris Hedges, “Israel’s Stranglehold on American Politics”
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/israels-stranglehold-on-american-politics/
which drew a sustained attack in the comments from a team of Israelis, a lot of attention. And after a day or so, some anti-Israel comments, which had already been up for a day or more, started disappearing. They had been accepted for two days, and then snip! gone. So it looked like the Israels wanted them gone for future readers of that column. And from its title it will be a widely read article, so they REALLY wanted to knock it down. Truthdig uses Disqus to handle the discussion forum, as does the PBS Newshour, which has also had similar occurances. Posts that get deleted typically stand out for their rationality and facts about Israel, often with links to especially rational and informative articles and videos. So CN could be targeted. Jake Morphonios on YouTube reports on when he is targeted, which is another strategy. Not saying I know this is happening here, but the Israelis do a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff to disrupt the facts from getting out.
Its getting hard to imagine anyone that is dumb enough to believe in the official story.
Trade tower 1993 did not kill enough so we got kansas city and legislation was passed.TThe call 4 new pearl harbor,clash of civilizations book and new amrican century was the screed.
If we fail to go from this geopolitical,global spectrum dominance to a global biosphere mindset billions will die and the planet will enter the 6th species extinction.There is no efficiency or sustainability in our infinite growth,built in obsolescent capitalist free for all. The gap of haves and have-nots is increasing exponentially.Mark zuckerburg in recent speech said 99% of people are unneccesary.TEd turner called us useless breeders and feeders.We have all the science and technologies we need to create an abundant,sustainable culture but we are stuck on a closed tribal loop.To attack us would be national suicide, so we invent enemies.Based on results,sociopaths and psychos are running things.Because they learned it at Harvard it must be right!IT looks bad now,i.e. the future.I am having trouble accepting the prospect that the human species is an evolutionary cul-de-sac,like 99% of all species ever lived here.Tulsi gabbard 2020 will be blocked by our MIC and the war profiteers.TO the globalist new world order folks i say enjoy your collective if you survive the purge.docs I recommend-Thrive,culture in decline,Zeitgeist,Paradise or oblivion.
“we are stuck on a closed tribal loop.”
It is always wise to define terms of reference: in your case “we”.
If you dispense with projections of your expectations/prejudgements, your definition of we and your opportunities and those of others will likely be illuminated.
““we are stuck on a closed tribal loop.”
“If you dispense with projections of your expectations/prejudgements, your definition of we and your opportunities and those of others will likely be illuminated.”
Consistently the opponents seek to deny time including the perception of what is, what can be and the significance that “should” be assigned to these.
Through the link below perhaps the illumination of your opportunities and those of others may be illuminated:
https://www.rt.com/shows/renegade-inc/457195-fossil-fuels-renewable-energy/
and give some limited perception of why the Russian Federation did not “hack” the US presidential election of 2016, or recruit Mr. Assange as an authorised/directed agent.
Further considerations of beliefs surrounding relationships with Mr. Assange can be found in the recent thread including comments.
The Multinationals Hate Us for our Freedom.
Doesn’t this all come down to the CIA and multinationals dismantling economies and then ultimately controlling/owning governments (since the multinationals have the money, should it be multi-nationally owned CIA). Forty-some years ago, there were 3 main superpowers: US, USSR and China.
Then, in the ‘70s, Poppy went to China and not too long after that the Chinese economy/commerce became a deregulated version of capitalism (globalization capitalism).
In the late ‘70s and ‘80s, US legislatures started deregulating Wall Street and outsourcing US labor to China and other countries (yes, our so called arch enemy, China). Meanwhile Poppy and Bzezinski (CIA) went after the USSR’s economy with the Afghan war (“Russia’s Vietnam”). With all their war expenditures it took about a decade for the USSR’s economy to collapse, then the multinationals moved in with their puppet government.
In the ‘90s, US outsourcing grew exponentially while the Bush and Clinton administrations continued to deregulate the economy and corporate/government liability.
In the ’00s, 9/11 started the US’s nearly 2 decade Middle East wars (a neocon wet “Pearl Harbor” dream). These wars helped the MBS CDSs (and several other factors) to create the Great Recession and an insurmountable US debt.
And now in the late ‘10s, the US has a multi-nationally owned duopoly government (a triopoly if you count Trump) and a mainstream media that is continually trying to con us into thinking that the phony recovery (Tarp, QE…) had worked (don’t worry about all those other silly indicators; the stock market is “strong”). So is the US economy already out on its feet waiting for the right time (before or after next election? I say after) for the multinationals to drop the hammer?
So what about China? While the US and Russia play (scripted-distraction) wars, is China’s government working with or for the multinationals? For the past 4 decades the multinationals have been building up the Chinese economy while dismantling the USs. Maybe in a decade, or two, the last remaining superpower from yester-decades ago will be marching through the Middle East (Afghan first) protecting their own interests (hehehe, same o’ song and dance).
By George, I think you’ve got it!!!
Pelosi rambling about how the memory of 911 must be spoken of with reverence rings hollow to me. A politically safe message to send, okay, but heart felt. B.S. The U.S. has needed to do something about the relationship between the Saudi’s and the Deep State for years but the fix has been in and still is.
Anyone interested enough to check has known about the Saudi head of General Intelligence from 1979 till Sept 1, 2001 and should have known about Omar al-Bayoumi who helped get two of the 911 hijackers set up in Dan Diego proir to the 911 attacks.
Everyone could show a considerably more genuine reverence to the Attack on 9/11/2001 by holding FBI, CIA, and a lying, threatening president 43 and his families friends the Saudi Royal family accountable for their misdeeds.
Seems to be way too much sensitivity to some aspects of what I have written. The truth can cause that at times. And the U.S. super wealthy elite weening themselves off Saudi money shouldn’t cost U.S. taxpayers it should cost the people and organizations that have benefited from this perverse relationship between the Deep State, the U.S. government and the Saudis.
Thanks to the greedy the U.S. relationship with the Saudis will be a very painful separation. Just as with any other vice quitting will be painful.
The Intercept not burying the lede:
“A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.
“Omar quoted rap lyrics — ‘It’s all about the Benjamins baby’ — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, ‘AIPAC!’
“The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated the Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.
“In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.
“In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism.”
Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington
By Ryan Grim
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/11/ilhan-omar-israel-lobby-documentary/
if I recall Macgyver was also in Afghanistan for some reason
Robert Parry not burying the lede:
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/04/20/why-not-a-probe-of-israel-gate/
Who wouldn’t have guessed by now?
And yet it receives no publicity, other than Julian Assange being arrested and forcibly removed from a once-impregnable Embassy for spurious crimes.
Go figure.
Having read Bob Baer’s 2003, “Sleeping With the Devil” in Oct of 2003 and witnessing the Deep State run a Washington D.C. – Saudi Arabian circle-jerk ever since I will be glad to get a copy of Max’s “The Management of Savagery” and see how things match up.
Considering Baer had to deal with CIA sensors I’m expecting some pretty drastic differences depending of the time frame Max addresses. It might be fun if the topic wasn’t so dogdamned serious.
Make no mistake Bob has some “different ideas”, including his belief there is no such thing as a “Deep State”, still I find it very interesting that he blasted Saudis and D.C.’s relationship with them at every turn in his book so soon after 911. But then he did work for CIA and likely wishes to enjoy his retirement such as it is.
As for Pelosi, her statement about the ” 911 memory” being held in reverence, I think she must be speaking to those “exceptionalized Americans” who ever they are. I’ll be Dogdamned if will let myself be held to a different standard that those who lie or remain silent when they know the truth about what happened. AKA the Bushies, James Backer, BCCI and Carlyle Group officials. “Sleeping With the Devil pages 48-52. Read it and get really really pissed.
Bill Mack, Bob Baer makes a reference to the U. S. Visa situation in his book on pages 31-32, 35, and 125. Read it and get really really pissed.
A very bizarre situation indeed.
Have and am… Thanks
I don’t know exactly what really happened on 9/11 but I know for sure it is not what our politicians from both parties, our corporate media and our three letter deep state institutions tells us.
Mike Springman was in charge of visas at the US consulate in Jeddah, S.A. He recounts as having denied 15 “middle-eastern” men (not Saudi citizens , dupes actually ) permits to enter the US. He was overruled by the State Dept.
Prior to the events of Sept.11,2001 , does anyone recall utility knives being widely referred to as “box-cutters”. Me neither .
No mention of all the Mossad agents arrested in the days after 9/11?
Or the dancing Israeli’s who confessed they were sent only to record the event.
The US doesn’t seem to have the ability to see ourselves as others see us. This explains why we don’t understand why other countries/peoples react badly towards us. This will get worse as we move into a more imperialistic mode. We continue to use the anachronistic phrase “leader of the free world” all the while missing out on the fact that the rest of the world has, in essence, become free and they, for the most part, don’t want us leading them.
everyone who has not examined ALL THE EVIDENCE of 9/11 WITH AN OPEN MIND is imo simply whistling in the wind
I suppose, then, that that would mean going back to the earliest days of the 20th century, when the British leadership, considering that its future navy, a main pillar of its empire, would have to be fueled with oil instead of coal, and that there was a lot of oil in the Middle East, began its imperial projects there, which of course involved wars, police, spies, economic blackmail, and other tools of empire. The US seized or wangled or inherited the imperial system from the British and thus acquired the associated regional, ethnic, and religious hostilities as well. Since the Arabs and other Muslims were weak compared with the Great Powers, resistance meant terrorism and guerrilla warfare on one side and massive intervention and the support of local strongmen, Mafia bosses, dictators, and so on on the other.
After 9/11. mentioning this important fact became ‘justifying bin Laden’ or ‘spitting on the graves of the dead’ so you couldn’t talk about it.
But, yes, ‘somebody did something’. You don’t need a conspiracy theory, because a conspiracy is a secret agreement to commit a crime, and this crime is right out in the open. Millions of people killed for fun and profit. Not that there weren’t other conspiracies as well.
i really like her and support her but if she just had the good sense to have simply said “some people did something terrible” none of the present chapter of “islamophobia” would be acted out..no matter how much we think we know about the real truth(?) what happened that day did not blow up the white house, congress or the ruling class of america but nearly three thousand pretty ordinary folks…yes, just like what “we” do repeatedly, but nevertheless, and considering the overwhelming mind fuck that went on with replaying the tragedy on tv for days so that millions across the nation were put in shock, we need to be just a little more considerate and possibly understanding both about how many people might feel and how some people might use any opportunity to perform this second rate islamophobia, which is a tiny fractional form of the original monstrous behavior that has destroyed nations, governments and millions of people in the islamic world..that is islamophobia, not the reactionary crap that passes for it which should be as understandable – under the circumstances – as terrorism!
The claim that Omar married her brother to facilitate his immigration to the US is risible. US immigration policies give preference to the unification of families, including siblings, parents and children. Omar’s entire sibling group was raised by her father and grandfather in Minneapolis. If there had been a long lost younger brother, he would have had preferred status for immigration to unify the family without the necessity of a fraudulent marriage. CAIR is no more a terrorist organization than AIPAC. If it were it would have been shut down years ago, but US attorneys are taking no action regarding either of those slanders.
You have succeeded only in proving that Islamophobia does exist and demonstrating what Omar says she must deal with “every day.”
Well said im with you I’ve spent years reading past history in past centuries about these evil people…
It should have been obvious that our government had made enemies around the world & that some would attempt revenge some day. Instead, we all thought that what we did to other people could never happen to us.
This is a must read for the skeptics who doubt any questioning of the official 9/11 Commission Report. This investigative reporting by Max Blumenthal is another good reason to read the Consortium.
It may be relevant to note that the only thing that was lost from the USSR is the UNION. Russia is still there. This will happen with some of the other unions as well. England, perhaps even Britain, as well as Europe, will still be there but without the union structures. Even the American Union is being sorely tested.
You didn’t mention bin Laden’s motives. There is a Wikipedia entry just for that, mentioning his Letter to America.
The biggest mistake that Omar made was that she should have said “SOME SAUDI’S DID SOMETHING “,instead of the vague, someone did something? You have to state things in a simplistic, black & white, good vs bad context that American’s can understand? The majority of Plane Hyjackers were Saudi Nationals, financed by Saudi Arabia! But you didn’t see America invading & Regime changing Saudi Arabia, did you? The American Govt then enabled Saudi National’s to be spirited out of the US shortly after the attacks, providing cover for them from investigation? Then they shifted the blame to Saddam Hussein & Iraq who had nothing to do with it, holding them responsible & even today they are trying to pin the blame on Iran, ridiculously saying that Iran is the main Terrorist Nation, when it is really Saudi Arabia! If anyone is to blame for 9/11, the Americans need only to look in the mirror & blame themselves for their meddling in the Middle East & the blowback that resulted? They armed the Mujahidin back in the 1980’s, who morphed into Al Qaeda, who recruited the Saudi Terrorists who flew those hyjacked planes into those buildings! Yes , someone did something alright? It was the Saudi’s, in a blowback revenge operation to attack America for attacking their people!
Max Blumenthal’s emphasis on “somebody did something” in echo to Ilhan Omar’s comments, plus his emphasis on what has been “suppressed,” will hopefully lead on to further disclosures of what took place for the 9/11 event.
Anyone who watches the Omar video will see she is mainly emphasizing a disgraceful demonizing of Muslims in general. Additionally, what has brought on all the hatred to her, she did not speak with the “quasi-theological understanding” that demands the official narrative, with hushed tones, while speaking of the event:
Max Blumenthal above:
“. . . by reinforcing the quasi-theological understanding of 9/11 that leaves anti-Muslim narratives unchallenged. “The memory of 9/11 is sacred ground, and any discussion of it must be done with reverence,” insisted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”
It would be a fine thing for CN, despite Mr. Parry’s former reservations, to open up enquiry into further discussion of what has been “suppressed”–or at the very least to the very serious questions that have not yet been answered on that horrible day.
I know lots of Muslims. They are not much different from Baptists. Your slurs sound like mental illness, frankly.
“Trump’s demagogic ploy with the freshman lawmaker raises the more serious question of who and what led to the “Day of Planes,” writes Max Blumenthal.”
All processes of suppression tend to spread that which is being suppresed facilitating de-suppression of much that is being suppressed leaving a residual.
Framing and access to sources may continue the lack of perception of this residual and hence facilitate misrepresentation through ommission.
“Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly.”
Restriction of frame is a tool of obfuscation and choice of point of initiation a tool of misrepresentation.
During the early 1970’s due to internal factors primarily but not wholly in the period of 1964 to 1970, the Politburo of the Soviet Union agreed detente on the bases of spheres of influence with the United States of America facilitating the creation of a greater assay of and reliance upon the US dollar fiat currency, further butressed by commodity arrangements including but not restricted to the petro-dollar, in part to underpin the United States of America economic recovery including recovering their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.
In reaction/attempt at circumvention in 1973 Mitsui-Mitsubishi representing the zaibatsu sought to jointly develop the Trans-Siberian railway, the port of Nahodka and other industrial options including in Japan primarily in Northern Honshu and in Hokkaido with the Soviet Union but this project was terminated by the Politburo, the reason given being potential threats from China after confrontation including on the Amur and the need to build BAM (Baikal-Amur Railway) to the north of the Trans-Siberian Railway – the projects rejected were ancestor of the present OBOR project with differing participants re-explored from 1993 onwards.
These opportunities and trajectories in the 1970’s were explained to the Politburo in the 1970’s but rejected by the Politburo.
The Soviet Union was invited into Afghanistan by the Afghani government and hence never “invaded” Afghanistan.
The Politburo accepted the invitation of the Afghani government despite the advice of those practiced in strategic evaluation – the illusion that the Politburo was practiced in strategic evaluation endured in an ideological half-life post August 1968 but increasingly was ignored in practice.
During the 1970’s there was an oscillating aspect of contrariness and attempt to regain perceived control in many of the decision of the Politburo led by the man who loved medals and awards Mr. Brezhnev.
Consequently the Politburo and the Soviet Union was complicit in facilitating opportunities for ” Back in 1979, some people initiated a multi-billion-dollar covert operation to trap the Red Army in Afghanistan and bleed the Soviet Union at its soft underbelly.”
However the targets of these operations were not restricted to the Soviet Union but included as part of an ongoing “strategy” “to underpin the United States of America economic recovery/maintainence including recovering/maintaining their control over their perceived threats within their sphere of influence, particularly but not exclusively Japan.” and the location of these efforts were chosen the middle of Central Asia in reaction to experiences in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and Israel post 1973.
The above are necessarily thumbnails in confirmation and extension of the not widely perceived causation/facilitation/ history/trajectories/time horizons which may aid perception, as may testing the hypotheses that Ms. Omar is being attacked for challenging myth irrespective of which myth she attempts to challenge.
All the post-9/11 US savagery (from Afghanistan to “shock and awe” in Iraq, from Libya and Syria to the Iran sanctions) was directly managed by a pro-Israel Lobby manufactured “consensus” in the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, US Senate and Congress, mainstream media, and numerous pro-Israel foreign policy policy think tanks.
In their 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University address the “coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction” and “its negative effect on American interests”.
Both Mearsheimer and Walt argue that although “the boundaries of the Israel lobby cannot be identified precisely”, it “has a core consisting of organizations whose declared purpose is to encourage the U.S. government and the American public to provide material aid to Israel and to support its government’s policies, as well as influential individuals for whom these goals are also a top priority”. They note that “not every American with a favorable attitude to Israel is part of the lobby”, and that although “the bulk of the lobby is comprised of Jewish Americans”, there are many American Jews who are not part of the lobby, and the lobby also includes Christian Zionists.
In response to criticism of the 2006 publication of Mearsheimer and Walt’s original essay, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, Mearsheimer said, “[w]e fully recognised that the lobby would retaliate against us” and “[w]e expected the story we told in the piece would apply to us after it was published. We are not surprised that we’ve come under attack by the lobby.” He also stated “we expected to be called anti-semites, even though both of us are philo-semites and strongly support the existence of Israel.”
In a letter to the London Review of Books in May 2006, Mearsheimer and Walt responded to their critics:
– To the accusation that they “see the lobby as a well-organised Jewish conspiracy” they refer to their description of the lobby “a loose coalition of individuals and organisations without a central headquarters.”
– To the accusation of mono-causality, they remark “pointed out that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America’s standing in the Middle East is so low.”
– To the complaint that they “‘catalog Israel’s moral flaws,’ while paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states,” they refer to the “high levels of material and diplomatic support” given by the United States especially to Israel as a reason to focus on it.
– To the claim that U.S. support for Israel reflects “genuine support among the American public” they agree, but argue that “this popularity is substantially due to the lobby’s success at portraying Israel in a favourable light and effectively limiting public awareness and discussion of Israel’s less savory actions.”
– To the claim that there are countervailing forces “such as ‘paleo-conservatives, Arab and Islamic advocacy groups… and the diplomatic establishment,'” they argue that these are no match for the pro-Israel lobby.
– To the argument that oil rather than Israel drives Middle East policy, they claim that the United States would favor the Palestinians instead of Israel, and would not have gone to war in Iraq or be threatening Iran if that were so.
– They accuse various critics of smearing them by linking them to racists, and dispute various claims by Alan Dershowitz and others that their facts and references or quotations are mistaken.
In the 2007 book, Mearsheimer and Walt note that the vast majority of charges leveled against the original 2006 article were unfounded, but some critiques raised issues of interpretation and emphasis, which they addressed in the The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
In a February 2019 article in Foreign Policy, Walt discussed Omar’s Twitter criticisms of the conduct of Israel’s government and its U.S. supporters:
“here’s the kicker: […] being aware of, sensitive to, and deeply opposed to anti-Semitism and offering an informed, factual picture of the lobby’s activities affords little or no protection to anyone who is critical of Israel’s actions, is concerned about the one-sided nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and disagrees with the policy positions that groups like AIPAC endorse.
“How do I know? Let’s just say I have some experience with this phenomenon.”
Sorry, Israelis not responsible for the stupid, vicious, stuff our government does. WevAmericas are responsible.
I agree, no one has to go along with anyone who seeks to commit violence and rule over everyone. Every day, the people do so. We the people are supposed to be in control of our Republic, and instead have allowed criminals to take over and violate our God given rights they were supposed to uphold and protect. This is happening all over the world, the people refuse to be responsible, and abdicate this responsibility in return to be ruled over by masters, and choose to remain peasants.
None of these things could go on in the world if people regained their self respect and chose to fight for and defend our God given rights. Our republic was founded on the idea that no one is above the law, and all are equal under the law. Society is truly ill and it is obvious the way we raise our children and treat ourselves and others need to be change, asap. Such as through attachment or natural parenting and non violent communication.
Entitlements and privileges, which the democrat party especially is parading around is an obamination. Omar and the rest of them think they are above the law, and never denounce real violence and hate. There are no privileges, only rights and responsibilities. They seek mob rule and are bullies who want to control everyone else.
“To the accusation of mono-causality, they remark “pointed out that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America’s standing in the Middle East is so low.”
Mono-causality is a tool of deflection/obfuscation given that mono-causality can never exist in any interaction.
However instead of using that notion in reply to assertion of reliance on mono-causality, the authors chose to “point out that support of Israel is hardly the only reason America’s standing in the Middle East is so low.”
The framing of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy assigns primary emphasis and agency to Israel, its representatives and the Israeli Lobby whilst assigning lesser emphasis and agency to The United States of America, thereby obfuscating levels of co-operation, mutual interests and strategic partnerships amongst the parties, and in some regards why the door of The United States of America is regularly left ajar to The Israeli Lobby, the state of Israel and some of its representatives.
Another tool of deflection/obfuscation is providing an answer that others can conflate with the answer.
The Okhrana offered an answer to conflate by production of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which still enjoys a half-life, whilst some others offered an answer of “Corruption of our democratic system through contributions/bribes”, both of which like ” The framing of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy assigns primary emphasis and agency to Israel, its representatives and the Israeli Lobby whilst assigning lesser emphasis and agency to The United States of America, thereby obfuscating levels of co-operation, mutual interests and strategic partnerships amongst the parties, and in some regards why the door of The United States of America is regularly left ajar to The Israeli Lobby, the state of Israel and some of its representatives. ”
This then poses some interesting questions including but not restricted to “For what purposes did the authors, editors and publishers choose to frame, write and publish the original and subsequently amended version of “The Israeli Lobby and US Foreign Policy ?”
Perhaps a useful entry point would be through considering the purposes of Mr. Mearscheimer’s activities in evangelising detente with Russia in the 1960/70’s?
This was a component part of the reasons why in respect of “American” propaganda Mr. Putin quipped “They are now blaming the Jews”.
Yes, by all means, let’s have a thorough discussion of all those bought and paid for levels of “co-operation”, “mutual” interests and strategic “partnerships”.
There was Hasbara (pro-Israel propaganda) ‘splainin’ galore in the CN comments when the “Russia-gate” motive was being questioned. Check out the eager antics of comrade “Tannenhouser” https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/18/questioning-the-russia-gate-motive/
Well, the motive of “Russia-gate” is very much back in the limelight, and here we have comrade “OlyaPola” eagerly ‘splainin’ how mention of pro-Israel Lobby “agency” is “like” an amended version of “blaming the Jews”.
Deflecting/obfuscating Hasbara hilarity ensues.
At the end of his latest hilarity, comrade “OlyaPola” framed a remark made by Vladimir Putin during a series of interviews with film director Oliver Stone.
Stone interviewed Putin over nine days between July 2, 2015 and February 10, 2017. The following exchange occurred during the final interview, as Stone and Putin discussed the allegations of “hacking” during the 2016 elections in the United States.
The Putin Interviews – Oliver Stone (see minutes 8:22-10:52)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMMakf1rvVM
This segment of the interview was slightly edited for the documentary film series broadcast on the Showtime television network in June 2017. Here is the full exchange from the published transcript in The Putin Interviews:
Oliver Stone: But, you know, even Trump has said the Russians hacked the election – that was a quote.
Vladimir Putin: I do not understand what he means when he says, “Russia has hacked the election.” I’ve heard different statements of his saying that any hacking attacks, given the current level of technologies, can be produced by anyone anywhere,
by a person who lies in his bed somewhere and has a laptop. And you can even make it seem as if the hacker attacks are coming from another place, so it’s very difficult to establish the original source of the attack.
Stone: Well, this all seems to me still historically enormous—I’ve never seen where the two leading political parties, Democrat and Republican, the intelligence agencies, FBI, CIA, NSA, and the political leadership of NATO believe this story that Russia hacked the election. It’s enormous.
Putin: This is not exactly how it is. Well, I think you’ve read the documents related to that, the analysis that have been published.
Stone: Have you read the 25 page report?
Putin: Yes, I have. One intelligence service says that there is a great probability that Russia has interfered. Another intelligence service says that the probability, the certainty is not that great. They make some conclusions based on the analysis that they have conducted. But there is nothing concrete. Nothing clearcut. You see? I don’t know if that is proper. It reminds me of an ideology, kind of a hatred for a certain ethnic group like anti-Semitism. If someone doesn’t know how to do something, if someone turns out to be incapable of addressing this or that matter, anti-Semitists always blame the Jews for their own failure. They blame the Jews. Those people have the same attitude towards Russia, they always blame Russia for anything that happens. Because they do not want to recognize their own mistakes and they are trying to find someone to shove the blame on, on our side.
Broadcast is made on transmission regardless of portal, not on publication.
Consequently “censorship” is at best a restriction to some but not to all.
Also “censorship” is akin to a snail since it leaves a data-stream behind illuminating its “progress”.
The above limit resort to and response by spectators to “cui bono” as holograms of their own expectations and prejudgements/framing.
Words and practices are catalysts of connotations, the dating of broadcasts on the 19th April 2019 to some having connotations of crucifixion and to others Passover, on the 20th April 2019 having connotations of contemplation, and on the 21st of April 2019 to some a rolling away of heavy stones blocking entrances.
Immersion in the opponents’ “ways of seeing” may limit understanding of the above and lead to assigning significance based on projection of the opponents’ “ways of seeing”.
To paraphrase Mr. Burns in English, not all appreciate the benefits of
“Lord what a gift to give us
To see ourselves as others see us.”
Some perceive challenge as conflict whilst others perceive challenge as a form of co-operation.
To afford opportunities of further contemplation of broadcasts of the 20th and 21st April 2019 that were initially sent to “moderation” and then left in limbo, I attach copies below.
Enjoy your journey.
3 of 3
OlyaPola
April 21, 2019 at 09:16
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Abe
April 20, 2019 at 12:57
“here we have comrade “OlyaPola”
eagerly ‘splainin’ how mention of pro-
Israel Lobby “agency” is “like” an
amended version of “blaming the Jews”.”
OlyaPola
April 19, 2019 at 05:23
“T o the accusation of mono-causality,
they remark “pointed out that support for
Israel is hardly the only reason America’s
standing in the Middle East is so low.”…
“T his was a component part of the
reasons why in respect of “American”
propaganda Mr. Putin quipped “T hey are
now blaming the Jews”.
“Abe
April 20, 2019 at 16:31
At the end of his latest hilarity, comrade
“OlyaPola” framed a remark made by
Vladimir Putin during a series of
interviews with film director Oliver Stone.
….
“anti-Semitists always blame the Jews for
their own failure. T hey blame the Jews.
T hose people have the same attitude
towards Russia, they always blame Russia
for anything that happens. Because they
do not want to recognize their own
mistakes and they are trying to find
someone to shove the blame on, on our
side.”
Y ou will note that the framing to which
you refer has been “disappeared” as has
the update to OlyaPola April 19, 2019 at
05:23 which was broadcast through this
portal on April 20, 2019 at 05:25 (the
timing connotation of which was partly to
encourage the reinforcement of
expectation/ prejudice of robotic
precision) containing the “framing”.
Like the opponents you apparently seek
to bridge doubt by belief whilst
illustrating the tendency to conflate an
answer with the answer, and that we the
people hold these truths to be self evident.
T he framing was not in respect of Mr.
Putin’s answers to Mr. Stone during their
interviews but was in respect to the
answer given to a Russian television
station during a Q & A session broadcast
in Russian.
Words are catalysts of connotations.
T he “disappeared framing” which is
referenced in
“Abe
April 20, 2019 at 16:31
was to explain connotations likely derived
by many historically aware Russian
speakers particularly those with
experience of the “Soviet Union”, with the
greatest impact likely to be on those with
experience of/interest in the “security
services”, since Mr. Putin is adept at
communicating with diverse audiences
simultaneously.
“Blaming the Jews”.
T o a historically aware Russian audience,
which includes many in the population
unlike some other societies, this was an
allusion to the Okhrana’s (T sarist secret
police) use of blaming the Jews during the
Zubatovschina, including Mr. Zubatov’s
efforts in “police socialism” and in
conjunction with the Black Hundreds the
Okhrana’s complicity in the producing
“T he protocols of the elders of zion”
which continues to enjoy a half-life.
Included in the efforts of “police
socialism” was the parade of supplicants,
some believing that if only the Papa Czar
was aware of his flock’s tribulations he
would solve them, led by Father Gapon
(Orthodox priest) on the 22nd of January
1905 to the Winter Palace.
T he Papa Czar was not in the Winter
Palace but soldiers were arranged outside.
T he soldier’s fired on the supplicants
killing some whilst dispelling some
illusions as to the beneficence of the Papa
Czar and facilitating the 1905 revolution
throughout the Russian Empire.
After the revolution of 1917 some of the
authors and practitioners of “T he
protocols of the elders of zion” decamped
to Germany – a short limited thumbnail of
these activities are outlined in the
publically (spelling as version identifier) available book:
T itle: T he Russian roots of Nazism :
White Emigres and the making of
National Socialism 1917-1945
Author: Michael Kellogg
Publisher: Cambridge University Press:
2005
ISBN-13: 978-0-511-84512-0
In conjunction with German security
services during the Weimar Republic and
the T hird Reich the emigres and their
various associates in the region built up
networks throughout Eastern Europe and
the Soviet Union, and in anticipation of
the T hird Reich collapsing contact was
made with various “Western security
organisations” to negotiate transfer these “assets” to the
“West” to ensure comfortable transition,
which was largely achieved.
T he assets formed stay behind networks
particularly but not exclusively in what
are now Poland, Lithuania, Latvia,
Estonia, Belarus and Ukraine.
T hese efforts on the part of stay behind
networks were largely curtailed through
efforts of representatives of the Soviet
Union co-ordinated largely from Riga and
Moscow, during the period from 1943/44
to 1954, a contributory factor to why
Crimea was transferred to the Ukrainian
SSR in 1954, but the efforts of the
emigres and their associates never wholly
disappeared throughout the “Cold War”
and subsequent, but have oscillated
subject to facility and opportunity as
presently in Georgia, Ukraine and
elsewhere.
T hank you for your continued illustration
and precipitation of the petri-dish of the
opponents’ culture. >
Enjoy your journey.
OlyaPola
April 23, 2019 at 03:59
“please be so kind as to provide the
specific date of broadcast and television
station identification, and attach a
verifiable recording (audio or video) and
transcript of the full exchange (both
question and answer), ….”
“….the
interchange between Mr. Stone and Mr.
Putin, your text of which appears to rely
on a translation performed by a person
who apparently has limited knowledge of
connotations of Russian words in Russian
to various audiences, and is not aware of
the context within which the interchange
took place.”
and why some ensure that they arrange the translations themselves hence the document from the Russian Embassy in Washington linked from
https://www.globalresearch.ca/orchestration-russophobia-prelude-war/5675302
The alleged quip, “They are now blaming the Jews”, does not appear in either the 2017 interview or the 2019 document.
Keep fighting the good fight, comrade “nom du jour”
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/12/15/protecting-the-shaky-russia-gate-narrative/
Enjoy your “prize”, and do think of how to get things right.
Dear comrade “OlyaPola”,
What prodigious “transmissions” you keep pulling out of your “portal”.
Regarding “the answer given to a Russian television station during a Q & A session broadcast in Russian”, please be so kind as to provide the specific date of broadcast and television station identification, and attach a verifiable recording (audio or video) and transcript of the full exchange (both question and answer), so that your “frame” can be assessed.
“please be so kind as to provide the specific date of broadcast and television station identification, and attach a verifiable recording (audio or video) and transcript of the full exchange (both question and answer), so that your “frame” can be assessed.”
You are invited to do your own research if so minded as all are since that is one of the purposes of routing “hypotheses” through this portal secretarial services not being on offer, and as you may have done on the interchange between Mr. Stone and Mr. Putin, your text of which appears to rely on a translation performed by a person who apparently has limited knowledge of connotations of Russian words in Russian to various audiences, and is not aware of the context within which the interchange took place.
Perhaps this is why some organisations are conducting searches for “Russian speakers” ?
Thank you once more for illuminating some of the contents of the petri-dish of the opponents culture including sense of entitlement.
Speaking of “framing” and “misrepresentation”:
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is an inflammatory forgery.
The activities of the pro-Israel Lobby are a reality.
They are not “like”, except in the prodigious “transmissions” of Hasbara propaganda peddlers.
Hasbara propaganda ‘splainers’ attempt to distract attention from pro-Israel Lobby “agency” and obfuscate the question of “cui bono”.
A conspicuous example of deflection/obfuscation is the frame known as “Russia-gate”, a bi-partisan effort to divert attention from pro-Israel Lobby influence/Israeli interference in the 2016 elections in the United States.
Part and parcel of “Russia-gate” is the effort to frame opposition to the pro-Israel Lobby manufactured “consensus” as an “anti-Semitic” shadowy “Deep State”.
P.S. Regarding the framing of “conspiracy theory”
Michael Kellogg’s 2005 analysis of The Russian Roots of Nazism illustrates the complex interplay of sometimes contradictory political forces that helped shape the “anti-Semitic” conspiracy theory most dramatically manifest in the fabricated “Protocols”.
The advantage of “anti-Semitic conspiracy” thesis for the Israeli government, the pro-Israel Lobby, and Hasbara propaganda ‘splainers’ has yet to be fully appreciated.
“The advantage of “anti-Semitic conspiracy” thesis for the Israeli government, the pro-Israel Lobby, and Hasbara propaganda ‘splainers’ has yet to be fully appreciated.”
A useful tool in deflection is to make a misrepresentation of an opponents’ communication and then respond to your own misrepresentation.
This does not necessarily need to be by design but can be by default – default being a synonym of unconscious design.
“Michael Kellogg’s 2005 analysis of The Russian Roots of Nazism illustrates the complex interplay of sometimes contradictory political forces”
Analyses from which wise strategies are derived are always based on considering ” the complex interplay of sometimes contradictory political forces” and failure to do so tends to lead to increasing variances between expectations and outcomes, encouraging subsequent recurrence of attempts to bridge doubt by belief to attain comfort/confirmation – the “surge” in Iraq being just one of many illustrations.
Thank you for your continuing illustration of some of the contents of the petri-dish of the opponents’ culture including a predeliction towards the simplistic.
OlyaPola
April 19, 2019 at 05:23
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
“T o the accusation of mono-causality, they remark
“pointed out that support for Israel is hardly the only
reason America’s standing in the Middle East is so
low.”
Mono-causality is a tool of deflection/obfuscation
given that mono-causality can never exist in any
interaction.
However instead of using that notion in reply to
assertion of reliance on mono-causality, the authors
chose to “point out that support of Israel is hardly
the only reason America’s standing in the Middle
East is so low.”
T he framing of T he Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy assigns primary emphasis and agency to
Israel, its representatives and the Israeli Lobby
whilst assigning lesser emphasis and agency to T he
United States of America, thereby obfuscating levels
of co-operation, mutual interests and strategic
partnerships amongst the parties, and in some
regards why the door of T he United States of
America is regularly left ajar to T he Israeli Lobby,
the state of Israel and some of its representatives.
Another tool of deflection/obfuscation is providing
an answer that others can conflate with the answer.
T he Okhrana offered an answer to conflate by
production of “T he Protocols of the Elders of Zion”
which still enjoys a half-life, whilst some others
offered an answer of “Corruption of our democratic
system through contributions/bribes”,
both of which like ” T he framing of T he Israel Lobby and U.S.
Foreign Policy assigns primary emphasis and agency
to Israel, its representatives and the Israeli Lobby
whilst assigning lesser emphasis and agency to T he
United States of America, thereby obfuscating levels
of co-operation, mutual interests and strategic
partnerships amongst the parties, and in some
regards why the door of T he United States of
America is regularly left ajar to T he Israeli Lobby,
the state of Israel and some of its representatives. ”
T his then poses some interesting questions including
but not restricted to “For what purposes did the
authors, editors and publishers choose to frame,
write and publish the original and subsequently
amended version of “T he Israeli Lobby and US
Foreign Policy ?”
Perhaps a useful entry point would be through
considering the purposes of Mr. Mearscheimer’s
activities in evangelising detente with Russia in the
1960/70’s?
T his was a component part of the reasons why in
respect of “American” propaganda Mr. Putin
quipped “T hey are now blaming the Jews”
(in emulation of the Okhrana during the Zubatovschina, a reference understood by a Russian audience, with connotations of a parade of supplication lead by Father Gapon under the illusion that if the Papa Czar knew how his “flock” was suffering he would save them. The parade took place on the 22nd of January 1905, when the parade arrived at the Winter Palace they were fired upon dispelling some illusions of some of the paraders and facilitating the 1905 Revolution throughout the Russian Empire.)
Understatement is another tool of deflection/obfuscation of Hasbara. Par exemple:
“the door of T he [sic] United States of America is regularly left ajar to T he [sic] Israeli Lobby, the state of Israel and some of its representatives”
During the Putin interviews, the President of the Russian Federation mentioned what happens when “someone turns out to be incapable of addressing this or that matter”.
From the latest “1000 percent” incapable “someone” in the White House, to all of “some of its representatives” in the US Congress and Senate, all that glorious US savagery is strategically managed to “secure the realm”.
Speaking of management:
Trump’s purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.
Trump received the “Liberty Award” for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.
“We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent.”
VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U
After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.
Trump’s questioning of Israel’s commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel’s undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.
Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic “opposition” continues apace.
“During the Putin interviews, the President of the Russian Federation mentioned what happens when “someone turns out to be incapable of addressing this or that matter”.”
Thank you for your further illustrations of the opponents’ tendency to bridge doubt by belief to attain comfort/consideration in this instance your fixations on “Hasbara”, the televised interchange between Mr. Stone and Mr. Putin and assumption that others assign the same level of significance to another party as that other party seeks to assign to themselves.
Context is always key.
This interchange was the outcome applications made by Mr. Stone, discussions within and recommendations from the Press Office of the President of the Russian Federation and Mr. Putin’s agreement to the proposal.
Significance assigned by parties are also key but not necessarily common, a state of affairs that apparently Mr. Stone understood due to “having some experience in this”.
Mr. Stone has a pedigree in film-making and Mr. Putin has a pedigree in various activities including the Presidency of the Russian Federation.
It was agreed that the film would be made available to various broadcasters in various locations.
Mr. Putin is generally diplomatic and polite – he is often quite astute and focused – has abilities in communicating with various audiences simultaneously including through catalysing connotations – and has a wry sense of humour.
Mr. Putin and others understood that part of the audience would rely on translation of his words and that some of the audience “might have difficulty differentiating Austria from Australia” and hence it would be wise to simplify responses, whilst the Russian audience would not require translation.
Mr. Putin did try to be part of the audience but admitted that on at least one occassion had fallen asleep whilst viewing it.
Another fixation you appear to have is the notion that the Russian Federation annexed Crimea in 2014.
Given you appear to set great store to filmic presentations perhaps Russian language discussion with Mr. Putin with a Russian television station on the matter forming a significant part of a documentary made by the Russian television station may illuminate matters.
A copy can likely be sourced by application to the Press Office of the President of the Russian Federation through the portal
http://en.kremlin.ru/
Thank you for likely aiding my winning of this week’s blini prize; the last time I enjoyed such success was when a commentator accused me of being “an American”.
Thank you, comrade, for your continuing illustration of deflecting/obfuscating Hasbara hilarity, whether by design or by default.
911 is a monument to American ignorance. The only thing we know for certain about 911 is that we don’t know what happened on 911.
We know the real target was our vanity.
“911 is a monument to American ignorance.”
One way to deflect and mask ignorance is to build a monument of commemoration.
There are many monuments in the misnamed “The United States of America” one of which is the Vietnam monument.
Given their tendency to double down on ignorance perhaps Mr. Trump and his associates’ activities in wall building will include, but not necessarily be limited to, extending the Vietnam monument.
Thank you Max, it’s a great summary of what is wrong with the foreign policy and why racism is so rampant.
There are candidates for 2020, who understand and probably share your views. Take for example Tulsi Gabbard in her recent twonhall meeting video:
hxxps://www.reddit.com/r/tulsi/comments/bbsg8q/reupload_tulsis_most_inspiring_and_controversial/
Quote from her replies…
“People get into a lot of conversations about political strategies… I might get in trouble for saying this, but what does it matter if we beat Donald Trump, if we end up with someone who will perpetuate the very same crony capitalist policies, corporate policies, and waging more of these costly wars?”
And just to drive home this point, quote:
“This is not a joke. This is not about me. This about all of us. This is about our future. About making sure we have one.”
Tulsi did get in to trouble. A day after the video posted on Twitter, it had been deleted by Twitter without explanation…
Thanks to you any everyone that has responded for the thoughtful comments. If you are able to edit yours, a more accessible link for the Safari browser is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tulsi/comments/bbsg8q/reupload_tulsis_most_inspiring_and_controversial/
Yes you are right again..
Osama Bin Laden was unofficially convicted of the attacks within a time frame that could not possibly have allowed any intelligence to have been gathered which supported the accusation. That is, it would be impossible if they did not already have that information. How could they have had no warning of an operation, which must have been very difficult to keep under wraps, but then be able to name the culprit in less than a day And if they had some forewarning of the attack, even if it was not specific, then it raises even more questions about government agencies complicity.
From day one, there has not been a shred of publicly available evidence against Bin Laden. Up until mid December, there was nothing but the continued repetition of his name. The official documents detailing allegations against Bin Laden provide no convincing evidence. Of the 69 points of “evidence” cited, ten relate to background information about the relationship between Bin Laden and the Taliban. Fifteen relate to background information regarding the general philosophies of Al Qeada, and it’s relationship to Bin Laden. None give any facts concerning the events of 9/11. Most do not even attempt to directly relate anything mentioned to the events of that day. Twenty-six list allegations related to previous terrorist attacks. Even if they were convictions of previous terrorist attacks, everybody knows that this isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, in terms of evidence for involvement of September 11th.
Within less than four hours of the attacks taking place, the media were fed comments, which assumed Bin Laden’s guilt, comments made on the basis of events, which could not possibly have occurred. The Pentagon and the Department of Defense used dialogue attributed to Bin Laden, in an effort to incriminate him, while refusing to release all of the dialogue, and refusing to issue a verbatim, literal translation.
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on the FBI’s web page, Rex Tomb, the FBI’s Chief of Investigative Publicity, is reported to have said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
In the months leading up to the Septmber 11, 2001 attack, it is reported, the Taliban “outlined various ways bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for Cruise missiles.” The Bush administration did not accept the Taliban’s offer.
On September 16, 2001, CNN reported that in a statement issued to Al Jazeera, bin Laden said, “I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks”.
“On September 20, 2001,” according to the Guardian, “the Taliban offered to hand Osama bin Laden to a neutral Islamic country for trial if the US presented them with evidence that he was responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington. The US rejected the offer.”
Bin Laden, in a September 28, 2001 interview with the Pakistani newspaper Ummat, is reported to have said:
“I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle.”
October 3,2001: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in an interview today with The New York Times, said administration officials had been briefing allies on what he called “pretty good information” establishing the link between the airplane attacks and Mr. Bin Laden. But, he added,”it is not evidence in the form of a court case.”
One Western official at NATO said the briefings, which were oral, without slides or documents, did not report any direct order from Mr. Bin Laden, nor did they indicate that the Taliban knew about the attacks before they happened.
A senior diplomat for one closely allied nation
characterized the briefing as containing”nothing
particularly new or surprising,”adding:”It was
descriptive and narrative rather than forensic. There
was no attempt to build a legal case.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/03/world/a-nation-challenged-the-evidence-nato-says-us-has-proof-against-bin-laden-group.html
Good article. The problem is that no one in the USA gives a s**t about facts. The Government is immune from public opinion. Of course the MSN is going to crucify her . Rep. Omar is playing around with assasination in taking on the Israeli Lobby and other powerful interests in Washington. I would be willing to bet that there are already contracts out on her life with the purpose of scaring anyone else from raising there head and stating the obvious.
You’re absolutely right. Americans are happy to believe the official narrative because it doesn’t threaten their comfy pathetic lives. What they don’t seem to realize is that the rest of the world doesn’t share their blind gullibility.
Israel has clout via the tens of millions of Dispensationalist Fundamentalists.
They don’t operate in that manner. She will be removed in other ways. They are not going to draw that kind of attention when she can be handled in a manner of character assassination. After all they own the media.
Bigotry, violence, and extreme language – America, it all literally oozes from the pores of your skin.
You just look terrible anymore to outside observers.
“…“Can you imagine what the world would be like today if there was still a Soviet Union?” remarked Zbigniew Bzezinski…”
Yeah, I can.
There never would have been a war on Iraq in 1991 nor an obliteration of Iraq in 2003, which has lasted until the present day. The destruction of Yugoslavia never would have taken place and the wars and proxy wars on Syria and Libya would have only existed in the twisted and depraved imaginations of the Zionist and militarist psychos in our midst.
TINA never would have been an imperative and the working people of the Western world (primarily the U.S.) wouldn’t be in a race to the bottom as it comes to wages, healthcare insurance, poverty levels, infant mortality, life-expectancy, union power in the workplace, secure retirements, and outlandish housing costs. With the demise of the USSR the millionaire capitalist-investor class really took the gloves off and saw no reason to provide the working masses with certain life-affirming policies, it was time to really sock it to the bottom 90%.
Despite some its faults, the world’s people have been paying dearly for the demise of the USSR.
For further reading on what I’ve outlined above:
“Blood Lies” by Grover Furr
“Blackshirts and Reds” by Michael Parenti
“Fool’s Crusade” by Diana Johnstone
“Against Empire” by Michael Parenti
essays and articles by Paul Craig Roberts
essays and articles by Andre Vltchek
You nailed it. Thank you.
In short, without an antidote, the US does what the neocons and Israel decide to do. Welcome to the world of “my way, or the highway” cowboy mentality…
Very much so! I have often thought this and agree with the statement that the loss of the USSR was an historical tragedy.
Right on, Drew. And thanks for the bibliography.
Actually, people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children, would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same godforsaken boat. Communism might be a good idea on paper, but in reality, because of the ignorance of the bureaucratic leadership, it was a dismal failure.
The demise of the USSR would have no effect whatsoever on the hegemonic madness of the US which, under the guiding light of the Monroe Doctrine (established way before the USSR), carries on destroying one country after another. I would ask, “What would the world do without the USA?” Live in a much more peaceful world for sure. As for Omar, I wish her the fortitude to continue telling the truth. Again, Max Blumenthal proves himself one of the world’s best reporters.
“constant fear”
The years of 1928 to 1953 were not constant since there were the years 1954 and subsequent.
That’s not true Rob Roy. You’re parroting Western capitalist talking points. A whole host of brand new scholarly literature has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist media made it out to be. In fact, under Stalin the Soviet Union made substantial gains in women’s rights, literacy, healthcare and industrial wages. Also, had it not been for Stalin’s agrarian plan there would have been more famines and more severe famines, And as everyone knows, if Stalin never crash course industrialized the country they never would have defeated Nazi Germany.
Far from the USSR being a police-state it was often seen as a giant trough in which, for example, rent wouldn’t be paid and no one would come around to collect it.
Please see the following books for a truth trip: “Blood Lies” by Grover Furr and “Stalin, Waiting for the Truth” by Grover Furr. Also, Michael Parenti’s “Blackshirts and Reds is excellent.
“A whole host of brand new scholarly literature has hit the shelves in just the last few years proving the USSR was nowhere near as horrible as the Washington imperialist media made it out to be.”
During the 1990’s in Russia there was a widely used observation/saying.
It was “Izvestia was Pravda about America but not about the Soviet Union, but the Americans were not Pravda about any”
“..people in the USSR lived lives of constant fear (they call it the “Time of Terror”) that their friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers, even their children, would “tattle” on them and they would wind up in the torture chambers. They lived in stark, nearly unbearable poverty; the only comfort was that they all were in the same godforsaken boat. ”
It is remarkable that this sort of crude propaganda, which is without any real foundation beyond the claims of hired propagandists, is constantly being recycled by people who have no idea what life in the Soviet Union was like.
In point of fact living standards were, on average, higher in the USSR than they have been subsequently in any of the constituent states. As to the rest of the stuff-it is simply bad TV scripted nonsense, with a bit of half digested Orwell tossed in.
“In point of fact living standards were, on average, higher in the USSR than they have been subsequently in any of the constituent states.”
Perhaps you understand the practice of blat perhaps not, and why dachas and blat were necessary.
Like organisations in other countries GOSPLAN often made the data fit the purpose, increasingly from 1969 hence one of the reasons for agreeing detente with the USA, like George W Bush and his cohorts in preparation for invading Iraq.
The saying “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work” applying.
In addition in various kombinats/kolkhozs those presenting under various titles including head of supply would barter goods with input suppliers to ensure regular production/achievement of the plan/achievement of norms to such a degree that by 1984 it was “estimated” that circa 30% of economic activity avoided the plan and GOSPLAN.
If you can access it perhaps through MGU and/or its associates, the study of the Soviet potato planting to consumption process by Academician Sergei Sergeivich Artobolevsky (deceased to the regret of many internationally) of the USSR Academy of Sciences Geography section is “educational” if you want understand how to have significantly less potatoes for consumption than planted to almost a world-beating standard.
Mr. Artobolevsky became a leading expert in the development of the Moscow/St Petersburg corridor after the demise of the Soviet Union.
Perhaps it would be wiser if you modified your assertion quoted above in respect of sectors and time frames.
Micheal Perenti is the best. He was the Truth To Power voice before 9/11, before all the yuppie reporters sold their souls for “access” and a talking heads show. I watched it happen in slow motion with great dismay.
Spot on. The western owner class was forced to share at least one plate with the rest of the population to make the west appear superior in material terms, and with that incentive or threat gone, there is no more need for a plate, few crumbs under the table should be sufficient. But as usual, greed goes along with stupidity, they forgot that doing so for decades undermines the stability of the system. Trump, Brexit, trade wars, abrogations of treaties, blatant disregard for bare basics of international law etc. are just symptoms of deeper discontent across the globe.
Excellent comment DH!
The very same class of idealogues wanting to “really sock it to the bottom 90%” are the same folks who set up the major communist systems in the 20th century. These were NOT organic, grass roots movements of indigenous people organizing against an oppressive leader. Americans have no concept of the losses the Russian citizens endured in lives and freedoms lost.
The Russian PEOPLE defeated the Nazis. The Russian PEOPLE through off communism. Americans assisted as allies then as adversaries in both ventures.
Realising that the Russians would never go back to Communism, the Banksters went in whole hog with the Chinese who are having better luck recruiting American sellouts. The Chinese have been much more efficient as state capitalists and as censors and destroyers of dissent. Communism thrives on sellouts. When freedom and dissent are eliminated, we are no longer human. Controlling language and information is the lynchpin, as has happened regarding our own foreign policy. Identify those in cabinet and high elected positions having dual or ambiguous loyalties.