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Stunned by falling poll numbers, Hillary Clinton is hoping that Democrats will rally to her neocon-oriented foreign policy and break with Bernie Sanders as insufficiently devoted to Israel. But will that hawkish strategy work this time, asks Robert Parry.

Less than a month ago I warned that a ‘color revolution ‘ was taking place in the USA.  My first element of proof was the so-called “investigation” which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President Trump’s candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn.  Tonight, the plot to get rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and General Flynn had to offer his resignation.  Trump accepted it. Now let’s immediately get one thing out of the way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world.  That he was not.  However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump’s national security policy.  For one thing, Flynn dared the unthinkable: he dared to declare that the bloated US intelligence community had to be reformed.  Flynn also tried to subordinate the CIA and the Joint Chiefs to the President via the National Security Council.  Put differently, Flynn tried to wrestle the ultimate power and authority from the CIA and the Pentagon and subordinate them back to the White House.  Flynn also wanted to work with Russia. Not because he was a Russia lover, the notion of a Director of the DIA as a Putin-fan is ridiculous, but Flynn was rational, he understood that Russia was no threat to the USA or to Europe and that Russia had the West had common interests.  That is another absolutely unforgivable crimethink in Washington DC. The Neocon run ‘deep state’ has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian ambassador. And Trump accepted this resignation. Ever since Trump made it to the White House, he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood doubleplusgoodthinking “stars” and even from European politicians.  And Trump took each blow without ever fighting back.  Nowhere was his famous “you are fired!” to be seen.  But I still had hope.  I wanted to hope.  I felt that it was my duty to hope. But now Trump has betrayed us all.

Remember how Obama showed his true face when he hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.?  Today, Trump has shown us his true face.  Instead of refusing Flynn’s resignation and instead of firing those who dared cook up these ridiculous accusations against Flynn, Trump accepted the resignation.  This is not only an act of abject cowardice, it is also an amazingly stupid and self-defeating betrayal because now Trump will be alone, completely alone, facing the likes of Mattis and Pence – hard Cold Warrior types, ideological to the core, folks who want war and simply don’t care about reality. Again, Flynn was not my hero.  But he was, by all accounts, Trump’s hero.  And Trump betrayed him. The consequences of this will be immense.  For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It took the ‘deep state’ only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be.  Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they will all move back away from him.  The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again. It’s over, folks, the deep state has won.

Where does all this leave us – the millions of anonymous ‘deplorables’ who try as best we can to resist imperialism, war, violence and injustice? I think that we were right in our hopes because that is all we had – hopes.  No expectations, just hopes.  But now we objectively have very little reasons left to hope.  For one thing, the Washington ‘swamp’ will not be drained.  If anything, the swamp has triumphed.  We can only find some degree of solace in two undeniable facts: Hillary would have been far worse than any version of a Trump Presidency. In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire.  Just like Erdogan’ purges have left the Turkish military in shambles, the anti-Trump ‘color revolution’ has inflicted terrible damage on the reputation, authority and even credibility of the USA.

Prominent neocon Robert Kagan has endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, saying she represents the best hope for saving the United States from populist billionaire Donald Trump, who has repudiated the neoconservative cause of U.S. military interventions in line with Israel’s interests. In a Washington Post op-ed published on Thursday, Kagan excoriated the Republican Party for creating the conditions for Trump’s rise and then asked, “So what to do now? The Republicans’ creation will soon be let loose on the land, leaving to others the job the party failed to carry out.” Then referring to himself, he added, “For this former Republican, and perhaps for others, the only choice will be to vote for Hillary Clinton. The [Republican] party cannot be saved, but the country still can be.”

While many of Kagan’s observations about the Republican tolerance – and even encouragement – of bigotry are correct, the fact that a leading neocon, a co-founder of the infamous Project for the New American Century, has endorsed Clinton raises questions for Democrats who have so far given the former New York senator and Secretary of State mostly a pass on her pro-interventionist policies. The fact is that Clinton has generally marched in lock step with the neocons as they have implemented an aggressive “regime change” strategy against governments and political movements that don’t toe Washington’s line or that deviate from Israel’s goals in the Middle East. So she has backed coups, such as in Honduras (2009) and Ukraine (2014); invasions, such as Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011); and subversions such as Syria (from 2011 to the present) – all with various degrees of disastrous results.

At nearly every juncture, Hillary Clinton has opted for what seemed like the safe play at the time. Indeed, it is hard to think of any case in which she showed anything approaching genuine political courage or statesmanlike wisdom. Here is just a short list of her misjudgments after the Iraq War:–In summer 2006, as a New York senator, Clinton supported Israel’s air war against southern Lebanon which killed more than 1,000 Lebanese. At a pro-Israel rally in New York on July 17, 2006, Clinton shared a stage with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, a renowned Muslim basher who proudly defended Israel’s massive violence against targets in Lebanon.“Let us finish the job,” Gillerman told the crowd. “We will excise the cancer in Lebanon” and “cut off the fingers” of Hezbollah. Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force in bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006] Clinton did not protest Gillerman’s remarks.–In late 2006, Clinton fell for the false conventional wisdom that President George W. Bush’s nomination of Robert Gates to be Secretary of Defense was an indication that Bush was preparing to wind down the Iraq War when it actually signaled the opposite, the so-called “surge.” Later, to avoid further offending the Democratic base as she ran for president, she opposed the “surge,” though she later acknowledged that she did so for political reasons, according to Gates’s memoir Duty.

In the early months of the Obama administration, with Gates still Defense Secretary and Clinton the new Secretary of State, Gates reported what he regarded as a stunning admission by Clinton, writing: “Hillary told the president that her opposition to the surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary [in 2008]. She went on to say, ‘The Iraq surge worked.’”–In 2009, Clinton joined with Gates and General David Petraeus to pressure President Barack Obama into a similar “surge” in Afghanistan which – like the earlier “surge” in Iraq – did little more than get another 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed along with many more Iraqis and Afghans while extending the bloody chaos in both countries.–Also, in 2009, Clinton supported a right-wing coup in Honduras, overthrowing left-of-center President Manuel Zelaya.–In 2011, Clinton helped spearhead the U.S.-backed “regime change” in Libya, which led to the torture/murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as Clinton chuckled, “we came, we saw, he died.” Like the “regime change” in Iraq, the Libyan “regime change” left the once-prosperous nation in bloody anarchy with major gains by Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State.

–Also, in 2011, Clinton pressed for a similar “regime change” in Syria adopting the popular though false notion that a “moderate opposition” would neatly fill the void after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The reality was that Al Qaeda and its spin-off, the Islamic State, stood to be the real beneficiaries of the U.S.-supported destabilization of Syria. These Islamic terrorist groups now have major footholds in all three Arab countries where Clinton supported “regime change” – Iraq, Syria and Libya.

It’s easy to strike a pose of cynicism when contemplating Hillary Clinton’s inevitable (and terribly imminent) presidential campaign. As a drearily soulless, principle-free, power-hungry veteran of DC’s game of thrones, she’s about as banal of an American politician as it gets. One of the few unique aspects to her, perhaps the only one, is how the genuinely inspiring gender milestone of her election will (following the Obama model) be exploited to obscure her primary role as guardian of the status quo. That she’s the beneficiary of dynastic succession – who may very well be pitted against the next heir in line from the regal Bush dynasty (this one, not yet this one) - makes it all the more tempting to regard #HillaryTime with an evenly distributed mix of boredom and contempt. The tens of millions of dollars the Clintons have jointly “earned” off their political celebrity - much of it speaking to the very globalists, industry groups, hedge funds, and other Wall Street appendages who would have among the largest stake in her presidency - make the spectacle that much more depressing (the likely candidate is pictured above with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein at an event in September).

But one shouldn’t be so jaded. There is genuine and intense excitement over the prospect of (another) Clinton presidency. Many significant American factions regard her elevation to the Oval Office as an opportunity for rejuvenation, as a stirring symbol of hope and change, as the vehicle for vital policy advances. Those increasingly inspired factions include: Wall Street Politico Magazine, November 11, 2014 (“Why Wall Street Loves Hillary”):

The Israel Lobby Foreign Policy, Aaron David Miller, November 7, 2014 (“Would Hillary Be Good For the Holy Land?”):

Lincoln Chafee, the former Rhode Island governor and senator, says the Democratic Party needs a presidential candidate who will champion Americans’ constitutional rights and scorn unnecessary wars – and that he may be the right person for the job. Chafee unexpectedly launched a presidential exploratory committee Thursday and tells U.S. News he intends to make civil liberties a major part of his likely campaign, with an anti-mass surveillance message similar to those trumpeted by Republican candidates Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. The National Security Agency’s dragnet collection of phone records violates Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, Chafee says, offering a sharp contrast to the difficult-to-discern and vague positions of other prospective Democratic candidates. “The words of the Fourth Amendment are very clear: You need a warrant. That’s strict language, and ‘no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,’” he says. “It’s not complicated.”

If he jumps into the race, Chafee says he will seek to pressure front-runner Hillary Clinton – expected to announce her candidacy on Sunday – to bend toward pro-civil liberties positions, though he says he wants to be fair and credits Clinton for previously opposing immunity for companies who allegedly complied with government surveillance. Chafee, from a prominent political family, was a liberal Republican in the U.S. Senate from 1999 to 2007. He was elected Rhode Island governor in 2010 as an independent and became a Democrat in 2013. He did not seek a second term and left office in January. As a senator, Chafee voted for the USA Patriot Act in 2001 (as did Clinton) and to renew expiring provisions of the act in 2006. He says he, like Patriot Act author Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., was shocked to learn from whistleblower Edward Snowden that the executive branch interpreted the law as allowing the bulk collection of U.S. phone records. “I don't believe it granted any power to tap phones or any other surveillance without a warrant. That’s a definite stretch,” he says.

Chafee says he plans to announce a position on pardoning Snowden in the near future and says he’s also considering his position on marijuana legalization. Most Americans favor legalization, polls show, but few mainstream politicians do. “That’s another issue that will evolve during the campaign,” he says.

The United States government has already declared that in regards to what it alleges to be a Russian cyberattack against the U.S. Democratic Party, the U.S. reserves the right to go to war against Russia. NATO has accordingly changed its policy so as to assert that a cyberattack (in this case actually cyber-espionage, such as the U.S. government itself perpetrates against even its own allies such as Angela Merkel by tapping her phone) constitutes an act of war by the alleged cyberattacker, and so requires all NATO member nations to join any cyberattacked NATO nation in war against its alleged (cyber)attacker, if the cyberattacked member declares war against its alleged cyberattacker. Excuses are being sought for a war against Russia; and expanding the definition of “invasion,” to include mere espionage, is one such excuse. But it’s not the only one that the Obama Administration has cooked up. U.S. Senator Mike Lee has asserted that President Barack Obama must obtain a declaration of war against Syria — which is allied with and defended by Russia — before invading Syria. Syria has, for the past few years, already been invaded by tens of thousands of foreign jihadists (financed mainly by the royal Sauds and Qataris, and armed mainly with U.S. weaponry) who are trying to overthrow and replace the Syrian government so that pipelines can be built through Syria into Europe to transport Saudi oil and Qatari gas into the EU, the world’s biggest energy-market, which now is dominated by Russia’s oil and gas. Since Syria is already being defended by Russia (those royals’ major competitor in the oil and gas markets), America’s invasion of Syria would necessarily place U.S. and Russia into an air-war against each other (for the benefit of those royal Arabs — who finance jihadist groups, as even Hillary Clinton acknowledges): Syria would thus become a battleground in a broader war against Russia. So: declaring war against Syria would be a second excuse for World War III, and one which would especially serve the desires not only of U.S. ‘defense’ firms but of the U.S. aristocracy’s royal Arabic allies, who buy much of those ‘defense’ firms’ exports (weaponry), and also U.S. oilfield services firms such as pipelines by Halliburton. (It’s good business for them, no one else. Taxpayers and war-victims pay, but those corporations — and royal families — would profit.)

The U.S. government also declares that Russia ‘conquered’ Crimea in 2014 and that Russia must restore it to Ukraine. The U.S. government wants Ukraine to be accepted into NATO, so that all NATO nations will be at war against Russia if Russia doesn’t return Crimea to Ukraine, of which Crimea had only briefly (1954-2014) been a part, until Crimeans voted on 16 March 2014 to rejoin Russia. This Crimean issue is already the basis for America’s economic sanctions against Russia, and thus Russia’s continuing refusal to coerce Crimeans to accept again being part of Ukraine would be yet a third excuse for WW III.

Hillary Clinton says “As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack.” She alleges that when information was unauthorizedly made public from Democratic National Committee computers, the cyberattacker was Russia. She can be counted as a strong proponent of that excuse for WW3. She’s with Barack Obama and the other neocons on that. She has furthermore said that the U.S. should shoot down any Russian and Syrian bombers in Syria — the phrase for that proposed U.S. policy is to “establish a no-fly zone” there. She makes clear: “I am advocating the no-fly zone.” It would be war against not only Syria, but Russia. (After all: a no-fly zone in which the U.S. is shooting down the government’s planes and Russia’s planes, would be war by the U.S. against both Syria and Russia, but that’s what she wants to do.) She can thus be counted as a strong proponent of those two excuses for WW3.

This is delicious. Donald Trump’s anti-interventionist foreign policy ideas are causing panic among the neoconservatives. Clearly this branch of the Republican establishment will leave the party over Trump. Neoconservative Washington Post writer Jennifer Rubin is outraged that Chris Christie would endorse Donald Trump despite “months and months of careful coaching” in foreign policy by “outside… experts.” That’s how the Israel lobby works, by coaching politicians. This is what the neocons have successfully done with Marco Rubio: gotten him to be a robot on the Israel issue.

And then this. Neoconservative Robert Kagan, also in the Washington Post, is endorsing Hillary Clinton because of Trump’s xenophobia and demagoguery and racism, but also the foreign policy

Kagan is the man who brought us the Project for New American Century letters that helped get the country into the Iraq War.

Are Adelson and Saban people that presidents should be looking to for Middle East policy advice? Apparently Hillary Clinton thinks so. It’s not a matter of necessity. As Bruck details in her profile of Saban, Obama kept Saban at a distance. He did not rely on Adelson money or on Saban money for his elections. Hillary Clinton is choosing to dance to a different tune. All of this brings into question Hillary Clinton’s judgement when it comes to the Middle East. As we know, she voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In the 2008 campaign she refused to acknowledge the vote as a mistake; now she does.  However, this letter to Saban leaves one to wonder whether her judgment has improved.

Beinart thinks Clinton’s implicit support of the occupation and the fight against BDS is counterproductive and bad for Israel. Signing up with Saban and Adelson, says Beinart, “is disastrous” because Adelson and Saban are shutting out the very voices and constituencies with whom BDS enjoys credibility.  The Adelson/Saban approach, worries Beinart, will be counter-productive and will ultimately make the BDS movement more potent.  If Hillary Clinton were serious about fighting BDS, says Beinart, Saban would be the last person she’d ask. She’d be looking for ways to impose a two state solution from the outside.

The only way to prevent this Israeli unilateralism is through solutions “imposed from the outside.” …. How can direct negotiations possibly succeed when Benjamin Netanyahu has explicitly and repeatedly said that he doesn’t support a Palestinian state anytime soon, and doesn’t support one near the 1967 lines ever? The only way to make direct negotiations meaningful is to force Netanyahu, or some Israeli successor, back into the paradigm outlined by Bill Clinton and the Arab Peace Initiative [in the Oslo process] …. Unless that framework is “imposed from the outside,” people morally opposed to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank will see no hope for ending it without BDS. And they will gradually embrace the movement, even though it goes beyond the two-state solution to question the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state within any borders. The Obama administration, by signaling that it may support such a UN framework this fall, is pursuing the best alternative to BDS that exists today. If Hillary helps torpedo that UN initiative, Haim Saban should look forward to more letters from her about BDS in the future. Because the Democratic presidential frontrunner will have done her part to help it grow.

By Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates

Second, we have to create our own facts on the ground. No-fly zones and safe harbors for populations are not “half-baked” ideas. They worked before (protecting the Kurds for 12 years under Saddam Hussein’s reign of terror) and warrant serious consideration. We will continue to have refugees until people are safe. Moreover, providing robust support for Kurdish forces, Sunni tribes and what’s left of the Iraqi special forces is not “mumbo-jumbo.” It might just salvage our current, failing strategy. A serious commitment to these steps would also solidify our relationship with Turkey, which is reeling from the implications of Moscow’s intervention. In short, we must create a better military balance of power on the ground if we are to seek a political solution acceptable to us and to our allies.

By M.K. Bhadrakumar October 5, 2016 9:54 AM (UTC+8) Share 0 Tweet Print Email Comment 0 Asia Times is not responsible for the opinions, facts or any media content presented by contributors. In case of abuse, click here to report. On Monday, the Barack Obama administration fulfilled its week-old threat to suspend bilateral talks with Russia over the Syrian crisis. Does this signal that the dogs of war are about to be unleashed? The thought may seem preposterous but tensions are palpable. US spy planes are spotted ever more frequently in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea over Russian bases, especially Tartus and Hmeimim in Syria.

Russia has deployed SA-23 Gladiator anti-missile and anti-aircraft systems in Syria, the first-ever such deployments outside Russia. Western analysts see it as a pre-emptive step to counter any American cruise missile attack. Russia is not taking any chances.

Moscow factors in that the US may use some rebel groups to ensure that Russian “body bags” are sent to Moscow, as threatened explicitly by US state department spokesman John Kirby last week. Moscow suspects American involvement in the missile attack on the Russian embassy in Damascus — “Brits and Ukrainians clumsily helped the Americans”, a Russian statement in New York said on Tuesday. Indeed, passions are running high. There could be several dozen western intelligence operatives trapped with the rebel groups in east Aleppo. Clearly, the turning point was reached when the US and western allies undertook a fierce air attack on the Syrian army base at Deir Ezzor lasting an hour and killing 62 government troops. The US explanation of that being an accident lost credibility, since within an hour of the airstrike, extremist groups of al-Qaida followed up with ground attack as if acting in tandem.

On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Retired Admiral James Stavridis is on Hillary Clinton’s shortlist for a vice presidential candidate alongside Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA). We’ve previously reported on Stavridis’s opposition to the Iran deal and his friendly relationship with anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney. But a review of his columns for ForeignPolicy.com (FP) reveal the retired admiral regularly promoting defense spending and weapons systems that could benefit defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, where Stavridis chairs the company’s international advisory board. None of Stavridis’s columns on FP, or elsewhere, identifies his connection to the defense contractor. Instead, his FP bio describes him as “a retired four-star admiral and NATO supreme allied commander who serves today as the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.”

Amid much hysteria, the notion has been widely peddled in the United States that President Obama's "new" foreign policy doctrine, announced last week at West Point, rejects neo-cons and neo-liberals and is, essentially, post-imperialist and a demonstration of realpolitik. Not so fast. Although stepping back from the excesses of the Cheney regime - as in bombing whole nations into "democracy" - the "desire to lead" still crystallizes might is right. Moreover, "exceptionalism" remains the norm. Now not so blatant, but still implemented via a nasty set of tools, from financial <a href='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/ck.php?n=a9473bc7&cb=%n' target='_blank'><img src='http://asianmedia.com/GAAN/www/delivery/avw.php?zoneid=36&cb=%n&n=a9473bc7&ct0=%c' border='0' alt='' ></a> warfare to cyber-war, from National Endowment for Democracy-style promotion of "democracy" to Joint Special Operations Command-driven counter-terrorism, drone war and all shades of shadow wars. In the early 2000s, the model was the physical destruction and occupation of Iraq. In the 2010s the model is the slow-mo destruction, by proxy, of Syria.

And still, those who "conceptualized" the destruction of Iraq keep rearing their Alien-like slimy head. Their icon is of course Robert Kagan - one of the founders of the apocalyptically funereal Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and husband of crypto-Ukrainian hell raiser Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland (thus their dream of Ukraine as the Khaganate of Nulands, or simply Nulandistan.)

Kagan still commands the attention even of the otherwise aloof Commander-in-Chief, who avidly consumed The World America Made before his 2012 State of the Union Address, in which he proclaimed "America is back".

“After three visits to Ukraine in five weeks, Victoria Nuland explains that in the past two decades, the United States has spent five Billion dollars ($5,000,000,000) to subvert Ukraine, and assures her listeners that there are prominent businessmen and government officials who support the US project to tear Ukraine away from its historic relationship with Russia and into the US sphere of interest (via “Europe”). Victoria Nuland is the wife of Robert Kagan, leader of the younger generation of “neo-cons”.  After serving as Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson, she is now undersecretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.”  Diana Johnstone  Hear Victoria Nuland’s very concise, almost victorious speech:  

the new Iran sanctions bill that would kill Obama’s historic deal with Iran. And today’s bottom line is, Opposition to the warmongers is firming up. Jim Lobe reports that Senator Feinstein’s speech (above) may have killed AIPAC’s hopes of passing the new sanctions with a veto-proof Senate majority, at least until the AIPAC policy conference in the spring. Lobe notes that financial incentives to block the Iran deal also affect media: Tuesday’s floor speech by Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein could bury AIPAC’s hopes of winning passage of what I have called the Kirk-Menendez Wag the Dog Act of 2013…at least for the next month or so. The speech, which was remarkably comprehensive in rebutting virtually every argument made by AIPAC and the 59 co-sponsors in favor of the bill, comes amid a surprising spate of newspaper editorials against the bill, particularly given the dearth of actual news coverage about it. Newspapers that have taken position against the legislation in just the last few days include the Minneapolis Star Tribune, USA Today, the New York Times, and the often-neoconservative-leaning Washington Post. As cash-poor as they are, newspapers are still less susceptible to the kind of pressure exerted by AIPAC and its associated PACs that are able to provide — or deny — substantial cash for political campaigns.

So is the new Jeff Bezos/Washington Post showing a little vertebrae? And what about the new Chris Hughes/New Republic. Ryan Cooper has a piece up there trashing Cory Booker as a warmonger.

Recall that the newspaper editorials denouncing the bill as a march toward war followed a forceful White House statement that called out the warmongers: “The American people have been clear that they prefer a peaceful resolution to this issue. If certain members of Congress want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American public and say so,” said security aide Bridget Meehan. That put AIPAC supporter Steny Hoyer on the defensive. Politico:

Greenwald’s plans for the many Snowden documents yet to be released to the public:I think we will end the big stories in about three months or so [June or July 2014]. I like to think of it as a fireworks show: You want to save your best for last. There’s a story that from the beginning I thought would be our biggest, and I’m saving that. The last one is the one where the sky is all covered in spectacular multicolored hues. This will be the finale, a big missing piece. Snowden knows about it and is excited about it. Afterwards, there’ll be more to release—I made a promise to Snowden that we’d get as much of the archive out as possible—but I think the big media splashes will probably be over. But it takes time. We’re reporting on stories right now, finding things in the archive still that we’re trying to corroborate. We have one reporter who has done nothing but read documents, trying to cross-reference and make connections, every day since November.

And what he expects for 2016:Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing. I hope this happens so badly, because I think it’ll be so instructive in that regard. It’ll prove the point. Americans love to mock the idea of monarchy, and yet we have our own de facto monarchy. I think what these leaks did is, they demonstrated that there really is this government that just is the kind of permanent government that doesn’t get affected by election choices and that isn’t in any way accountable to any sort of democratic transparency and just creates its own world off on its own.

Some interesting polls form a background to the collision of major historical forces unleashed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to solicit an invitation to address the U.S. Congress in March.

Some interesting polls form a background to the collision of major historical forces unleashed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to solicit an invitation to address the U.S. Congress in March.

Some interesting polls form a background to the collision of major historical forces unleashed by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to solicit an invitation to address the U.S. Congress in March.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who along with President George W. Bush helped send the United States military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in an interview Wednesday the White House has yet to justify potential strikes in Syria.

Rumsfeld served a secretary of defense from 2001-2006, a period that saw the U.S. begin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said in the interview, however, that current statements from Obama and his aides haven’t met the threshold for intervention in Syria. “There really hasn’t been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation,” he said. “When you think about what’s really important in that region – it’s Iran’s nuclear program and the relationship between Iran and Syria, the Assad regime, with respect to terrorists that go around killing innocent men, women and children, including Americans.”

He added that Secretary of State John Kerry, who left the U.S. Senate earlier this year for the top diplomatic post, had been “dealt a bad hand” by his predecessor Hillary Clinton and Obama, who he claimed had created a global leadership void. “This administration has been in a withdrawal mode, an apology mode,” he said, adding: “That vacuum we’ve created is being filled by people that don’t have our values or interests.”

Let’s get past the personality part of the Sid Blumenthal story. Phil tangled with Blumenthal in the Clinton years, and has the greatest respect for his mind; and much of what Blumenthal was saying is vital information that should be heard by American politicians. Check out this other email that the Washington Post published, in which Blumenthal explains the New Republic’s usefulness as a propaganda organ for the Likud Party and the neocons. Blumenthal worked at the New Republic, so he knows whereof he speaks.

So Israeli intelligence tried to undermine Jimmy Carter by putting out stories on his brother! Billy Carter (1931-1988) was a charming ne’er-do-well who had an intense sibling rivalry with his older and more successful brother. Billy got mixed up in Middle East politics. PBS: In September 1978 Billy made a highly publicized trip to Libya with a group of Georgia legislators and businessmen eager to make deals. Several months later, he hosted a delegation of Libyans in Atlanta, as they looked for a place to locate a permanent trade mission. When asked why he was involved, Billy said, “The only thing I can say is there is a hell of a lot more Arabians than there is Jews.” He also argued that the “Jewish media [tore] up the Arab countries full-time,” and defended Libya against charges of state-sponsored terrorism by saying that a “heap of governments support terrorists and [Libya] at least admitted it.” President Carter tried to disassociate himself from the controversy that ensued, telling NBC News that he hoped people would “realize that I don’t have any control over what my brother says [and] he has no control over me.” Billy also apologized and explained he wasn’t anti-Semitic, but the damage was done. The Atlanta Constitution remarked, “If [Billy’s] not working for the Republican Party, he should be.” Some time after this, Billy spent seven weeks at an alcohol addiction treatment facility in California

In the duration of the “revolutionary frenzy” that categorized western media coverage of the Libyan Civil War in 2011, public audiences were captivated with both tales of rebels aspiring for “democracy” and with complimenting stories of unabated brutality by Gaddafi forces. Without any serious mainstream criticism, an imperialist mythology centered on the interventionist doctrine of the “Responsibility to Protect” was cemented in public consciousness with even usually non-mainstream and “anti-imperialist” figures such as Juan Cole deliberately misrepresenting the situation in Libya. In Cole’s perspective, no reference to armed militants from the start of the conflict or the role of extremism and western premeditation found its way into the narrative and he predicted a simplistic narrative where the overthrow of Gaddafi would lead the region into an era of unity, prosperity and freedom. Libya Today How is Libya today? If one denied the existence of hell, they need not look further than Libya to observe a case of hell on Earth. Libya as a functioning, cohesive state has virtually ceased to exist, having been replaced by a myriad of conflicting factions divided on tribal and religious lines. While mainstream media tends to obscure the identity of these factions and their connection to western imperialists, Eric Draitser in his analysis, “Benghazi, the CIA, and the War in Libya” shows the beyond the fractious infighting, both primary factions engaging in direct combat have been beneficiaries of the NATO imperialist powers in their systematic aggression against the Libyan state.

“Confirmed: U.S. Armed Al Qaeda to Topple Libya’s Gaddaffi” with a very astonishing admission by “top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers” confirming the obvious truth that “conspiracy theorists” have been saying since 2011. The US backed Al Qaeda in Libya and that the Benghazi attack was a byproduct of this. Washington’s Blog notes that in 2012, it documented that: The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists. According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi: The Hindustan Times reported last year: “There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times. It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi. Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya.  Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled. What was once deemed conspiracy theory became confirmed reality when the Daily Mail reported as Washington’s Blog subsequently pointed out:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t been helping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier. ‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline. She blamed the Obama administration for failing to stop half of a $1 billion United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaeda-linked militants. ‘Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,’ Lopez claimed. ‘They were permitted to come in. … [They] knew these weapons were coming in, and that was allowed.. ‘The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.’