With Friends Like These… by Robert Gore
The US government is engaged in an epic, generational battle; its very survival might be at stake. That would be its battle against the truth. What it has never been engaged in is a war against terrorism, in particular, a war against state-sponsored terrorism. That would be because its allies are prime sponsors, and the biggest sponsor of all has been...the US government! The world owes an incalculable debt to Vladimir Putin for deftly illustrating both facts.
This is an excerpt. For the full article, please click the link above.
This is an excerpt. For the full article, please click the link above.
notice the instant reaction of the Obama regime was to call for more gun restrictions against Americans...pushing another agenda...
Somehow I can't see Americans agreeing to a deliberate nuclear attack against an ally.
Staging a false flag is much easier (and people are more brainwashed) today than it would have been in '45.
Lots of people were still angry about FDR's arranging Pearl Harbor.
I posted the title on RT; hope you don't mind. Some Americans give Putin a really bad knocking; one he doesn't deserve. I think it is hard for Americans to give up that "We're the best in the world because the Soviet Union collapsed and we didn't."
They haven't realized a new nation, a phoenix perhaps, has arisen in its place. A good nation.
This on going nation building in an area of the world with a population inculcated with political philosophies anathema to ours is folly. Time and time again they have proven they prefer totalitarian theocracy over democratic republican forms of governance. I just look at what folly our intervention in Libya was and how little threat a subdued Qadaffi posed to us then. Now, as Putin alluded, the vacuum our government created there is being filled with no-goodniks too.
This altruistic tendency to make the world all better is filled with potential dangers our founders warned us about.
"Nothing is so important as that America shall separate herself from the systems of Europe, and establish one of her own. Our circumstances, our pursuits, our interests, are distinct. The principles of our policy should be so also. All entanglements with that quarter of the globe should be avoided if we mean that peace and justice shall be the polar stars of the American societies." --Thomas Jefferson to J. Correa de Serra, 1820.
"The Great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith." George Washington, 1796.
However, I think the question we need to ask, isn't what have we done wrong in the past? it is, what will we do now that the hornets nest is emptying itself and stinging us and others around the world? I am now of the opinion that the best we should do is help to support a safe zone or a city in the region that will welcome all from the surrounding areas the few that desire peace and liberty. Perhaps it could be a seed on its own. Enough of the whole nation building bilge.
We should do less there and more at home. Let "Allah" sort them out...
Regards,
O.A.
Aside from that, it's unclear to me exactly where this article is laying the blame for the imploding middle east condition. Yes, I agree that the U.S. has been a long time ally of Saudia Arabia due presumably to oil and I agree this is short-sighted as they are one of, if not the formost producer of terrorists. However I don't agree that the U.S. led coalition going into Iraq was entirely or even mostly bad. Iraq had stabilized enough to have over half a dozen local and national elections by the time Obama took over the helm. Yes, Bush broke - and fixed - Iraq. Unfortunately Obama touched it before the glue had dried and broke it again and from those cracks ISIS emerged.
Thank you for the Snowden edit. I'll make the change.
It sounds simplistic, but the Founders had this idea of the US being protected by citizens keeping weapons in their homes, and I think that should be our main defense. We certainly need a standing military to detect and respond to missile attacks, but I don't think we need to be using those missiles to attack individual criminal suspects aboard. It's so tempting. The foreign gov't can deny involvement. A high ranking US official can review the intelligence and act as judge and jury, and we can kill someone who probably has committed murders and is planning more. I actually think the military officers and civilian leaders forget that this is the way world worked before rule of law, and acting this way is a step backward.
Your article does a good job making me think "US wants person X not to run country Y, but I just want America to be left alone and live life, creating things that people love in exchange for money." Really, how many Americans care who's in charge of Syria? People will say they care about the effects of the oil, but I say stuff happens in the market with the supply and demand curves for all kinds of things moving around, and market participants respond, often without even realizing it. If oil gets expensive, people will find a way to get people their energy and plastic materials some other way. I cannot be convinced that US interests require a trillion dollar (if you count all things related to military) standing army.
So I agree and look forward to Part 2.
Terrorism is very simply an excuse to exercise dominion over another. It stems from the false notion of superiority over another and the conclusion that that superiority gives that person the right to inflict one's own views corporally (physically) on another. Terrorism is built on the premise not of equals looking to benefit each other through trade, but on the premise of a ruling class and a sub-class. Terrorism is an ideology, and the only way to perpetuate it is to actively spread that ideology. Those who argue that American wars or support of Israel in the Middle East (or the even more absurd arguments that industrialization and climate change) are responsible are in fact denying a core principle of being: individual responsibility. They are taking the Freudian tact that we are merely products of our environment: clay pots to be molded rather than self-determining beings capable of self-locomotion - action and consequence.
Terrorists and tyrants alike make excuses about the acts of others in justification of their own acts of aggression, but the base argument is false. I am not the product of someone else's decisions no matter what they may be. I am a product of my own thoughts and actions. If I become a terrorist or tyrant, it is because I willed it to happen.
Again, from an outcome standpoint, yes, some are likely to choose to lash out in violence. I am not sanctioning the actions of the US you have cited or disagreeing with the conclusion. I am merely pointing out this statement is an assertion of cause and effect. However, the precedent need not lead to the consequent at all. Again, it is a choice of the individual as to how to react. One can allow one's emotions and predispositions to rule, or one can choose to rule over the emotions. I just can not sanction the reaction as being generated by the action as a scientific rule when dealing with conscious individuals ruled by free will.
"Regardless of individual choices, for individuals, when considered as part of a larger mass, violence has often and will continue to beget violence among some members of those larger masses."
True, but it is not for lack of a choice. They choose to respond with violence. They choose to use another's violence to justify their own, denying the responsibility of free will.
So here's an interesting question: can those who start with free will after a period of allowing others to dictate their decisions for them ultimately reach the point where they lose their free will?
Come to think about it...we see the same predicament in all governments...guess that's why we call them...wait...you know what's coming...or do you?...wait...here it is...........
KAKISTOCRACIES!