DISCUSSION THREAD: what does Trump’s ditching of the Iran nuclear agreement mean?
How do we interpret Trump’s decision to junk the nuclear deal with Iran?
-
- Is it simply more neocon warmongering and/or an attempt to please/appease Israel/Saudi Arabia?
- Why is the EU/UK refusing to go along with it at present?
- Is there a serious chance of war between Iran and the US/Israel, given that Syria remains unconquered?
- Are the US/Israel militarily up to such a task?
- How would such a large scale commitment of manpower and money go over domestically in a US that is sufering the extremes of economic hardship in many areas?
- What would Russia’s response be to any acts of overt military aggression toward Iran?
- Are there perhaps other, more complex, agendas here that aren’t obvious or clear at this time?
Feel free to discuss all this and more…
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Why he did it. Lifted from Saker Vineyard:
‘milan on May 11, 2018 · at 8:32 pm EST/EDT
Well, well, what have we here gentlemen:
Researcher, Jake Morphonios, discovers that, when Donald Trump was in bankruptcy after the US real estate crash of the 1980s, just before he was about to lose everything, he was bailed out by Rothschild Inc. and, thereafter, became social and personal friends of the Rothschild family. Morphonios claims that Trump now is serving the financial interests of the Rothschild global enterprise, especially in the Middle East where the US engages in wars that, covertly, are waged to bring oil resources under the control of Rothschild oil companies. Wilbur Ross, a former senior managing director at Rothschild Inc., was appointed by President Trump to be the Director of the US Department of Commerce, a position that is a source of ‘suggestions’ for US policy in such matters.. [If Morphonios is correct, this would be reminiscent of the maneuver by which the Rothschilds, acting through the Bank of England, bailed out J.P. Morgan during the Wall Street Panic of 1857 and, thereafter, became the hidden controllers of the Morgan banking dynasty. For that story, see Creature from Jekyll Island, pp. 407-419.]
https://needtoknow.news/2018/05/president-trump-rothschilds-puppet-major-revelations/
and this:
WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE
Donald Trump and Lynn de Rothschild.
http://aanirfan.blogspot.ca/2018/05/worlds-most-powerful-people.html
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/11/iran-israel-little-incentive-hurry-down-path-war
There was a time when Martin Chulov used to try and report something serious. I recall seeing him on Al-jazeera , in the studio with 3 other informed guys, discussing the Oil tanker trucks rolling by towards Turkey , from ISIS to the refinery in Turkey, with convoys so long that they were visible from Space & Sputniks and film evidence was also provided by Chulov on the ground.
Reading the above article takes less than one minute and tells you nothing , other than Chulov is clearly not himself .. or was heavily redacted ! Not one mention of Western backing of factions & proxy actions, only Iranian Proxies in the poxy Guardian today ..
Chulov is MOSSAD. He moved effortlessly in and out of al-Nusra Front territory, and that tells you a lot.
Thanks for the heads up .. I had often wondered how he managed to find himself on location, in the right place at the right time ..
The breathtaking brevity & wholly slanted inaccuracy of the article makes total sense now ..
Not sure what you folks are facing on this front in the U.K., but here in the U.S. many prominent American neocons in government and in media are actually dual U.S.-Israeli citizens. This includes current war-monger in chief, John Bolton, Trump’s National Security Advisor. Bolton is probably the most dangerous lunatic on planet earth currently, particularly given his position of power. Of course in these Orwellian times simply mentioning this fact of dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship among the U.S. neocon war-mongers opens me to the oh so predictable charge of “anti-semitism.”
However, if we did a little thought experiment and asked what public perception would be if reams of dual US-Norwegian citizens were in high positions in the U.S. government and said dual citizens constantly promoted war against Norway’s officially designated enemies, well, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there is a rather huge conflict of interest of global significance at play. Of course you’d never know any of this by watching or reading U.S. corporate media, and few progressive sites are willing to really discuss it because of the immediate troll attacks with accusations of anti-semitism. This is the sad state of our so called – “democracy” – in the U.S. and it poses a most grave danger to the rest of the planet as arguably we have a group of madmen guiding U.S. foreign policy in synch with that psychopath’s psychopath – Netanyahu!
in these Orwellian times simply mentioning this fact of dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship among the U.S. neocon war-mongers opens me to the oh so predictable charge of “anti-semitism.”
More and more, “anti-semitism” is the crime of noticing.
“with that psychopath’s psychopath – Netanyahu!”
Loved that! Absolutely spot on.
Within hours of Netanyahu visiting Moscow and even taking part in the Imortal Army march he has launched a concentrated and sustained strike on military positions within Syria. Some might say this demonstrates Putin’s collusion with Zionist ambitions. Indeed the only alternative to that possibility is that Netanyahu was humiliating and belittling Putin, demonstrating on the world stage that Putin is in fact impotent. I have seen no statement direct from Putin on this incident.
demonstrating on the world stage that Putin is in fact impotent
Have the S-300 air-defence missiles promised to Syria been delivered yet?
Now would be a good time.
It would be.
I have been stating for some 30+ years now to anyone who would listen that Israel is nothing more than a plausibly deniable nuclear platform for the USA. I do not believe for a moment that the Zionist cabal and their collaborators have any religous imperative in their reasoning and would not shy sacrificing Israel and all its people’s, Jew and non-Jew, if the cabal decides it is time to use that arsenal. The cultural framing has already been done in the US, the Armagedon is in fact eagerly awaited by large swaths of Americans. Drawing Russia into conflict with Israel has perhaps been on the cards for a long long time.
Israel is nothing more than a plausibly deniable nuclear platform for the USA.
Are you sure it isn’t the other way around?
How is it that fifteen years of Terror War (plus the upcoming attack on Iran) have exactly implemented the Yinon Plan for Greater Israel?
What can the “Yinon Plan” tell us about the events in the Middle East?
I am aware of the Greater Israel plan. And in certain ways current events make a compelling argument that that is indeed the ultimate goal. However the fact is the leaders of the Zionist cabal are almost all living in and have no intention of leaving the US. From world war 2 to modern Israel ordinary Jews are both expendable and only a tool for the larger geostrategic ambitions of the Rothschild elites.
Rothschild elites
Another anti-semitic myth, as we all know.
It’s only antisemitic if you think their being Jewish is more significant than their being part of a ruthless, amoral international banking system that trades off war and famine and has within it variously insane or delusional ideologues who believe in and promulgate disturbing doctrines aimed at heightened and dystopian degrees of social control that are generally presented as ecological and/or humanitarian concerns.
The more you reference their Jewishness as opposed to all the above reasons for denouncing them, the more you are either a) displaying genuine antisemitism or b) unwisely making it easy for others to dismiss you as such.
Talk about Israel, the Rothschilds, the Zionists all you want. But talk about what they DO or aspire to do, not what race or religion they happen to belong to – not least because you know that the latter is exactly what they want you to do.
I keep hearing that “anti-zionism is the same thing as anti-semitism”, from people who claim to be Jewish.
Occasionally, this assertion is contradicted by somebody who also claims to be Jewish.
The first thing happens about twenty times as often as the second thing.
Who should I believe?
what race they happen to belong to
I don’t accept that Jewishness is a “race” category. That’s THEIR theory.
Enough. You purposefully omitted the words “or religion” from what I said in order to make an excuse for argument. You claim to object to Zionism being conflated with Judaism, but then go out of your way to do that very thing. At best you’re being self-defeating. This discussion is now at an end. Move on.
… and, as usual in such cases, my comment has been Hasbara-ed out of existence. Comment Isn’t Free, apparently.
COMMENT BY OFFG EDITOR: This is the definition of “Hasbara”.You will note it is defined as propaganda intended to present the state of ISRAEL in a positive light. Anyone who looks at our output can see we have never done anything remotely definable as “hasbara” propaganda and that we openly condemn Israel for its genocide and warmongering. You will also note “hasbara” does NOT include, as this commenter seems to think, any attempt to curtail his apparent desire to divert any discussion into a quasi-antisemitc rant
For future reference – any discussion of Israel’s actions, ideology, history etc is entirely welcome. Any discussion of Zionism likewise. Attempts to turn such discussions into reductionist polemic about Jews or any other racial or religious group are strongly discouraged. Thanks.
@Milosevic
The discussion between us is closed. I asked you nicely to stop any more time-wasting on this topic. Any further replies WILL be deleted yes. Move on to a productive discussion, which can include Israel, Zionism or anything else you choose.
Any further replies WILL be deleted
Well, I’m glad we were able to clarify that point.
I neither know nor care if they are Jewish or not, (There are those who say they are actually the descendents of Khazars, from Georgia), and only use the term Zionist because there is no other popular term that includes all the people I refer to. As admin made abundantly clear who I refer to I do not need to expand on that. I have been attacked as anti Semitic a few times. I state again I have the same disregard for all religions and view them all as equally ridiculous. Those that follow them have their own reasoning and it is neither my want nor place to vilify them for it.
Shlomo Sand, the eminent Israeli Jewish historian, in his ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’ shews how Judaism was once a proselytising religion that welcomed converts, including the Khazars, and others. Whether Jew is a religious category, a racial one or simply a collective term applied to a certain group that shares religious and social beliefs, is a question that has been abused by the Israelis and Diaspora Zionists to counter, and these days even criminalise, all criticism of Israel and its crimes. In any case, Jews, however they or others define them, are varied in character and behaviour, like any group. The best of the Jews are very fine people, like the best of all groups, and the worst, like Bibi and his hench-men, are very bad indeed.
Reaction: https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/994519992325558272
Solution: it’s not going to be increased European “defense” spending and military “co-operation” is it, by any chance?
Most things have been inverted in this world so problem-reaction-solution needs to be read in reverse.
By the way, to be clear, I’m not claiming this is all there this is to it. It’s one part of the jigsaw in what, as always, is a multi-layered operation.
This latest slap in the face for Europe resulting from unilateral actions undertaking by the Israeli-American anti-Iranian offensive and the continuing subordination of Europe’s interests to the US, might – and it’s a big ‘might’ – be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Europe has been an occupied zone since 1945; it was carved into US and USSR separate and strategic spheres of interest. Now, since the collapse of the USSR, the whole of Europe, East, West, North and South is a US occupied zone. In western Europe in particular, populations have been raised and socialized into an acceptance of this situation; it is part of their world. It is not only a normal setting for them but it is also invisible to them. This is why the post-cold-war continuity, consolidation, and expansion of the NATO alliance went mostly unchallenged at every level of society in NATO member states, leaving the US to slowly consolidate its influence in each and every state.
It should be understood that the political classes of Western Europe and a fortiori of Eastern Europe, are complete and utter dolts, imagining that the US is doing them an enormous favour by defending them against the Russian hordes. In fact that US is using them as human shields in the preparations for a war against Russia; Europe is basically expdendable. One would thought that it would occur to Europe’s leaders that European and American interests are not the same, and that this slavish devotion to the Atlantic alliance is not in Europe’s strategic interests. Given the developments now taking place this exploitative and abusive relationship may cause reassessments in the environs of the western political elites. We shall see.
In France you can be ARRESTED for wearing a ‘Free Palestine’ T-shirt. The Zionists totally control Western polities through straight bribery and the ‘antisemitism’ vilification industry, now being given criminal enforcement powers across the captive states.
the ‘antisemitism’ vilification industry
People should start asking questions about the actual content of the Semitism that anti-Semitism is opposed to. As long as they ritualistically repeat “I’m not an anti-Semite”, the range of Thought Crime will continue to expand, until no dissent whatsoever from the program is permissible.
I well remember, just before I was banned at Truth Out, simply stupefying one of their presstitutes by speaking of ‘antigoyite’ hatred among SOME Jews, just as Judeophobia is only present among some goyim. He was not only OUTRAGED, of course, but hysterically so. The thought that some Jews hate the goyim was a simple truth that had him in splenetic paroxysms of stupefaction.
Anti-semitism is the crime of noticing.
The Iranian war which has been on the neocon agenda for sometime is on but in-between forgive the soap opera drama of geopolitical uncertainty. This is just to keep that oil price high but the stumbling block remains the Petro Yuan collaboration between China and Russia.
For the US, UK and French plan to work, invading Iran (most preferable for them via Israel but quite frankly any sovereign nation challenged by the rogue criminal US should maintain a nuclear arsenal – it is the only thing that saved North Korea) or maintain instability in the region to prop up oil and basket case Aramco. The other reason is to help stop the transportation of the pipeline through Syria. Iran is a major stumbling block given Iraq and Libya have fallen and Yemen, Sudan are falling. The Iran war must be maintained at all cost, let’s not forget Iran was suddenly conveniently accused of 9/11 participation when there is actual proof it was the Saudi funded terrorists but never let evidence get in the way of US and UK foreign or internal criminal policies. Israel, the Saudi Jewish arm is yet another rogue criminal entity described as a state but this US taxpayer funded institution is how this exercise is and will be carried out.
Two simple factors appear
one, fear and bullying countries to stop the world’s oil will be soon trading in the petro yuan linked to gold not the empty worthless debt linked dollar which is also the reason most of the countries of the globe are indebted to the IMF. The Russian and Chinese deal for the Petoyuan has found a way out for numerous countries who have been hit by sanctions for dubious reasons or stupidly agreed deals with the US only to be betrayed when the US bully unleashes western bombing western imperialist into western democracy, be it Iraq, Libya and now Iran and Syria. Only North Korea has avoided this and only because China directly challenged the US bully.
two, so rogue investors, speculators in oil will be able to get their money out and start the ball rolling for the heavily taxpayer subsidised fracking industry put in place by Cameron and May in the UK. Many of these companies are virtually bankrupt and have no business case and the UK is reducing fossil fuels when introducing nuclear but not when it’s your equally damaging and polluting fracking companies.
The banana republics of the UK and US are having to use Iran and pretend it’s concerns about nuclear because just going to war, taking resources and the fake news programme isn’t working on world or home populations anymore. So what are the plans for the populations
The US state wants to raise gas and oil prices to support their fracking industries but how can Trump do this if it will alienate his core voters, well, it would be mighty convenient if was that nuclear Iran’s fault especially if they refused to keep engaging in worthless deals because the US wasn’t happy.
Theresa May needs no such excuses because she has a amnesia led Tory base and Labour party is divided between a new left and the Blair right which helps the Tories and the right wing calling itself the centre. So May can sign nuclear deals, bomb Syria, invent Skirpal to scare people and damage Russia, sell off the UK to heavily polluting and heavily subsidised fracking companies, support terrorist funding Saudis, fund terrorists White Helmets, raise the cost of oil on the markets not to mention the energy bills for all UK households and even find time to be the most cruel and offensive puppet robot Prime Minister, just by finding erroneous reasons why people can’t vote or lose their citizen status. And people think Trump is bad.
Job done
Ex Londoner, well said, you’ve hit the nail on the head. As a uk citizen I ponder which is worse, being a UK or American citizen.
Try living in Austfailure, a COMPLETE stooge of the USA and Israel, now spitting in the face of the Chinese, with clear, undisguised, racist venom, despite China keeping our economy afloat and doing us NO HARM, and the worst climate destabilisation criminal denial regime on Earth (equal with the USA). The country where a CATASTROPHE like the death of over 30% of the Great Barrier Reef (with the rest CERTAIN in a few years)is reported for two days, furiously denied to be happening by the Murdochite media cancer, then forgotten completely, and ignored.
Austfailure, a COMPLETE stooge of the USA and Israel
This is thoughtcrime. The existence and/or influence of “Israel” is an anti-Semitic myth.
Please report to the nearest re-education centre for goodthink indoctrination.
Ex: I put a little light reading on the de-dollarisation myth over on the MH17 forum. To reiterate here: the petroyuan will not succeed the dollar. In fact, it accepts dollars in and dollars out. If it expands, it will accept a basket of other currencies too. The Chinese are jockeying for position within the SDR, which is the PBOC policy and preferred reserve currency. The BRICS institutions are fully integrated into and complementary to the “Washington Consensus” Breton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank, and WTO). In fact, they are a means of extending their credit lines. The alternative to globalised neoliberalism is globalised neoliberalism …with a better (Goldman Sachs trained) PR team behind it.
B, if I might respectfully disagree, you are looking at China through Western eyes. China has to collaborate with the crumbling West, or risk aggressive war launched on it. Of course such war is almost inevitable, the God-haunted West not ever being prepared to surrender its Full Spectrum Dominance without a massacre, but the Chinese are not prepared to be slaves of racists who treat them with contempt, and who plan to vivisect their country and rule the debris through Quisling ‘Yellow Yeltsins’. That isn’t going to happen. The Chinese represent the only alternative to Western elite omnicide, which will destroy Life on Earth unless defeated. A slim hope, but the ONLY one.
MM: of course you may disagree. that is the whole point of dialogue …not a power struggle to win and dominate (or the 21st century postmodern version: to dismiss and vilify) but an opportunity for us to learn, exchange and modify our views. I made my case below that my POV is an argument from transcendence, from a sovereign humanist POV. As such, it is antithetical (or hopefully higher order synthetical) to BOTH the Western and Eastern “eyes”. In fact, my POV is more Eastern than Western: stemming from secular small ‘b’ Buddhist anti-philosophy (Zen, Dzogchen, abhidhamma pitaka).
That said, you seem to be coming from a utopian neoliberal materialist capitalist POV? You can acknowledge the coming eco-Holocaust; but posit Chinese neoliberal globalisation as a solution? And we are talking about neoliberal globalisation, let’s make no bones about it, because the (Dissident Media) Vltchek article I read absolutely ignores this aspect of Ecological Civilisation. It is another term for neoliberal globalism …with Chinese Tianxia characteristics.
So do you propose that “only alternative” for human development must be through the multilateralisation of regional trade agreements (RTAs); via the so called BRICS+ model (now the extended BRICS++ model); the integrated ‘sustainable’ development and trade liberalisation of the various RTAs (EEU; ASEAN; SAARC; SACU; Mercosur) via Free Trade and Preferential Trade Agreements (FTAs and PTAs) into a hemispheric South-South free trade zone? Because that is literally a Goldman Sachs marketing plan: originating with Jim O’Neil (or did you not read any of the links I posted the other day?)
Starting with BRIC, adding ‘S’ (to include the SACU RTA), identifying MINT/MIST and the “Next Eleven (N11)” (developing into BRICS + and BRICS++); his papers have formed the basis of the policy implementation papers for the development of neoliberal capitalism …Integrated INTO the current WTO, IMF, World Bank, and UN SDG framework …only forming an enhanced voting bloc and cooperative leverage away from (but still complementary to: not destructive of) the established ‘Washington Consensus’ dollar based “rules based international order”. Same rules: different order: different basket of currencies (the SDR). Globalism by the (Southern) back door; by the design of, and for the delectation and exploitation of ‘Western’ (actually supra-national) ultracapitalists.
Because this is the plan for the development of the Ecological Civilisation into Global Economic Governance. This is not a figment of my imagination – it is an open secret. The only verification necessary is to read the policy papers, proposals, and BRICS joint declarations (the latest one, from Xiamen 2017, I have posted several times).
s://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/n-11-global-economy-by-jim-o-neill-2018-04
s://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/brics-leaders-xiamen-declaration-full-text/articleshow/60359120.cms
://eng.globalaffairs.ru/valday/BRICS-Plus-Alternative-Globalization-in-the-Making-18974
[Copy and paste adding ‘http’]
[BTW: under the guise of Brexit, Treason May will almost certainly seek to extend the South-South FTA/PTAs into North-South bilateral and multilateral FTAs – then integrate the EU (with an RTA {EU with a different name}); and the USA into the network to create a TTIP, TTP, TiSA, CETA analogous supra-sovereign, super-privitisation FTA …one big neoliberal ‘Ecological Civilisation’ under a ‘City of London Tianxia‘. If that is how her Trade Policy develops, you read it here first!]
I can only presume that those who prescribe to the de-dollarisation alternative factual internet trope are getting their information from Andre Vltchek, Pepe Escobar, F W Engdahl etc. who are (hopefully unwittingly) spinning a dangerous and disempowering counterfactual mythos. Which is why I encouraged others to read James Corbett, Michael Chussodovsky (Global Research covers both viewpoints), and Patrick Bond for the counterargument.
I am really interested to know if this is the development model you think we should follow, before I develop my antithesis? Or is it that you have just not read the fine print? I suspect the latter. I also suspect that those that are armchair progressive supporters for neoliberal globalisation are getting their information from secondary sources?
As I have been saying, the “alternative” to Western imperialism might be financial sub-imperialism, or a blend of both imperialism and sub-imperialism (another time we could look at updating Lenin’s view of imperialism to accommodate the miscible nature of modern capital) …which couldn’t be much WORSE for human emancipation. Especially if it is under the singlepoint control (via the SDR becoming the future reserve currency) of the Bretton Woods institutions …with a singlepoint global taxation system (exempting, as it already does, the globalised superclass). An eco-Holocaust might be a preferential outcome? It might be the only thing that saves us?
I’m definitely going to enjoy this future dialogue .. 😉
I believe that the Chinese are using capitalist methods to reach that position of moderate material well-being for all its peoples, where they can then concentrate on repairing the ecological damage of industrialism. I was interested recently to see that Adam Smith, Ricardo and J. S. Mill all conceived of capitalism producing a sufficient quantum of material wealth to ensure a decent life for all, after which it would not, cancer-like continue seeking infinite growth (on a finite planet) and humanity could, instead, concentrate on developing culture, personal capabilities and social health. They all seemed to sense, as did Marx, that capitalism could end up destroying the natural world on which it, and we all, depend.
Now, I don’t know if China’s governors do see such a situation as their ambition, but it appears so. They are certainly, as far as I know, the only ruling force on Earth that is working concertedly towards ecological ends. All others are either hard Right denialists eg the USA and Austfailure, soft Right pretenders to be concerned eg France, Germany, UK, or poor world states with no power over their own economic structures and at the mercy of the Washington Consensus of the IMF, WTO, World Bank etc, and the predatory international parasite classes, castes and tribes.
China’s situation is complicated by its ties to the international capitalist order. They cannot at present practise autarky, and, in any case, the whole world needs to purse ‘ecological civilization’ or we are all fooked. I think China hopes to be a good example to others, and to mass produce the technological means to e-carbonise, ie electric vehicles, renewable energy etc, that can be installed in other states. What’s more, China, in direct contrast to the US-led West, firmly proclaims its abhorrence of foreign intervention in the affairs of other countries, and wants to serve humanity, not exploit it to death, like the West. Whether this is empty rhetoric or not, time will tell, but I for one trust their bona fides.
Even more complicating is the Western elites’ hatred for and fear of China. Based in civilizational and racial hatred and contempt, so perennial in Western elites, this is driving the current, increasing (we’ve just had the Evil Harpy Clinton parading around the country, hissing and spitting hatred at China)and desperate war drive against China. These psychopaths will NEVER accept Chinese power equivalence with, let alone hegemony over, the glorious West. So the Chinese have to work on ecological civilization, while facing aggressive war, subversion, sanctions and threats from genocidal psychopaths.
Smith and others did not seem able to conceive of population growth getting out of control on the back of industrial efficiency and increased net material wealth in mostly useless superfluous junk, which only seems to bring with it decreased spiritual wealth and happiness.
The finite limits are still food and water and these have reached a plateau, environmental damage particularly our nuclear follies and their legacy are irreversible and are the deciding element in our certain demise, we have before and could again have ridden out climatic extremes without this novel factor. We staked a future which we held in trust and which was not ours with which to gamble and we lost.
The earth is a closed biosphere, filling with toxic detritus, the inescapable trajectory seems to be for the planet earth to become an uninhabitable smoking ruin. The untainted and best of the species mankind have already perished, we are the mutant degenerate last of a dying breed.
Progress such as we made was vastly over-rated, counter-productive and has given way to resignation and retreat. To err is human, to do so on a monumental scale is as certain and was inevitable, and we cannot escape that verity any more than we can as individuals or as a collective escape that other great verity -death.
I rather think that the ideas of Malthus were widely shared among Victorian elites. They have been essential features of Western elite psychopathy and misanthropy and class hatred ever since. One of the reasons that Western elites much admired the Nazis was their putting into effect the eugenicist project that advanced thinkers in the ruling circles of the West had long admired.
MM: I’m sure we will pick up this dialogue again: there is plenty more to be said …issues of human sovereignty usurped by capitalism, for instance. Or debt funding: already a Juggernaut that you simply cannot reverse. Like time: the arrow of debt is one way. Or the semi-privatisation and liquidation of SOEs; opening them up to foreign capital; the subsequent flight capital into the offshore shadow banks …mutually benefiting the same ‘Western’ capitalists that control the MIC. Last, but not least, the gigantesque of mega-project globalisation on the very environment the deferred Ecological Civilisation will come to depend. In the meantime, I see the Chinese acquisition of Syngenta has been approved. Looks like the Ecological Civilisation will be fed via the industrialisation of farming: on tasty GM crops? Yum!
https://www.rt.com/business/385398-china-agriculture-mega-merger-gmo/
There are no such things as petro $ or petro yuan. It’s a myth spread by the rich and believed by people who don’t understand modern state currency systems.
USA? What USA? It’s out of the picture:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.5203256,70.0550811,10558382m/data=!3m1!1e3
relegated to the sidelines
sent to the corner in disgrace
a wizzling sucking sound from the back of the planet
usw, usw.
How do we interpret Trump’s decision to junk the nuclear deal with Iran?
*TYPICAL UNSTABLE REGIME RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC POLITICAL THREAT: Trumpf, Mayf, Macronf, Netanyahuf, binSalmanf
Is it simply more neocon warmongering and/or an attempt to please/appease Israel/Saudi Arabia?
*Yes and Yes but this time it directly involves Russia.
Why is the EU/UK refusing to go along with it at present?
*Gas, oil and trade.
Is there a serious chance of war between Iran and the US/Israel, given that Syria remains unconquered?
*Yes unless the EU and Russia prevent a 2018 Guernica.
Are the US/Israel militarily up to such a task?
*No. The US hasn’t won a war since 1945, and it was the Soviet Union that defeated Hitler with 27 million deaths to US 500,000 UK 500,000 and France 500,000.
*Moreover, the Russians haven’t been stupid since Yeltsin, regaining economic, political, diplomatic and military of the Soviet Union without any of its liabilities and with continued Gorbachevian gravitas despite US UK agitprop.
*Putin plus Gorbachev and all Soviet leaders — and the drunkard Yeltsin — can only be interpreted through the lens of history as successor Tsars to the Tsars of the Tsarist empire without an official designated Tsar. Putin has the benefit of a semblance of a democracy (and an interim Medvedev presidency) as well as a direct, strong state capitalist economy and military system.
*Like England and Japan, Israel only wins wars against militarily incompetent and impotent regimes and then only by surprise attack Pearl harbor-style, techno or terror.
*Lots of techno firepower but little in the way of brave, courageous, tough manpower or womanpower except for shooting and beating up Palestinians as well as BDS supporters at Ben Gurion.
*With Israeli civilians as primary targets from drones and smart missiles from Haifa to Tel Aviv not to mention the Prime Minister’s various cushy digs in Jerusalem and elsewhere, how long would Israelis put up with that threat? Especially once their vaunted military have been found to be impotent and incompetent?
*The Israeli limits of power have been reached. Nukes cannot be used. Unless Bibi wants to do an Israel-wide Nuclear Masada? Or continue the historical reputation of the Jews poisoning Roman Wells during the Jewish Wars by using nukes against Syria and Iran? And then who will be downwind? Do they even have 1962-style fallout shelters all over Israel ready for 14-day stays? See “The Jewish War” (against the Romans) via Wikipaedia (***NOT***ALEX JONES”S THE JEWISH WARS !!! ) :
***GO DIRECTLY HERE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jewish_War
*Or. Go ahead and check out Alex Jones’es The Jewish Wars (plural) to see what Netanyahu versus everyone in the Middle East and the world looks like in deranged right wing American reverse.
How would such a large scale commitment of manpower and money go over domestically in a US that is sufering the extremes of economic hardship in many areas?
Not well. Might even turn Trumpfian West Virginia opioid addicts into out-and-out socialists. “Give us our opioids or give us New Improved Medicare for All and free college educations and pay for it by cutting 666.666% of the military / surveillance / security budget!” Oh. And jobs. And land to garden.
What would Russia’s response be to any acts of overt military aggression toward Iran?
*Prevention.
*Is that why the small penis bully Netanyahu has visited Moscow so many times?
*Why the Russians intervened in Syria?
*Why the Russians have not yet (officially) shot down any Israeli missiles or jets?
* Why the US / England /France / Nato has done virtually zero damage to Syrian assets?
*The reason for the absolute rank mouth-foaming rabid hysteria in US / UK Western Civ propaganda ministries?
*Why Putin has been far more restrained than Kennedy / Khrushchev during the 1962 Caribbean / Cuban Missile Crisis despite Nato nuclears on the Russian borders and not just 90 miles away?
Are there perhaps other, more complex, agendas here that aren’t obvious or clear at this time?
*Wall Street and City of London and Davos and their Deep State Ops. Always Wall Street and City of London and Davos and their Deep State Ops.
Do I pass the pop quiz? 😉 — thom
What is plain is that Trump is TOTALLY controlled by the Zionists, the fascistic cum theocratic Nutty Yahoo regime and its accomplices in Israel, and the neo-conservatives and the Congress and fakestream media controlled by Zionist money power. Iran, Syria and Lebanon will be attacked in accord with the Oded Yinon Plan, Bibi’s ‘A Clean Break’, the neo-cons’ ‘Clash of Civilizations’ plan for the coming wars on Russia and China, and various other projects, including Bibi’s desire for a ‘New Purim’ in Iran to add to his ‘New Pearl Harbour’ of 9/11.
No criticiism of Israel is permitted. Admin has said so.
This is blatantly untrue and contradicted by our own output as well as by everything we have said BTL. On the contrary, we have repeatedly said criticism of Israel is entirely valid. This commenter is fully aware of this fact and it’s hard to see this remark as anything but a deliberate attempt to undermine the site and seed diversionary argument. No further misrepresentations of our line on this will be acceptable. – OffG Editor
Oh, it’s constructive criticism from someone who sees Israel’s coming self-destruction (and destruction of its region, if not the whole world)as a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs.
Constructive or not, Admin has awarded Israel Exceptionalist status.
Don’t be absurd. We have made our views on Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians and general lawlessness more than clear. We draw the line at blaming “the Jews” because this is not political commentary, it’s racism, and incidentally, plays right into the hands of Israel since it permits all valid criticisms of the country to be dismissed as “antisemitism”. Some commenters here undoubtedly push this angle in order to achieve that result. Those who don’t should really consider the effect they are having.
This particular discussion is not continuing. Do NOT misrepresent our line again please.
It’s you that’s absurd. You are Israeli shills.
Don’t behave like a troll and don’t wilfully lie about our statements and our editorial policy. Final request.
You demanded that members stop discussing Israel. You also censored my message, and inserted your OWN TEXT into my message, making it appear that I had written it. FACT.
No, we didn’t. Re-read the thread. We asked people to stop conflating Israel the state with the race/religion of Jewishness/Judaism. We have repeatedly condemned Israeli genocide and warmongering.
Your comments are currently being premoderated. You are trolling. We asked you politely to stop and you refused. So we took this step. Most other sites would already have banned you outright. As soon as you stop trolling and begin posting opinions and facts relevant to the discussions of course we will remove your pre-moderation, which frankly only gives us additional work.
I once asked reine-Frecheit to re-read somethings, elsewhere , but to no avail !
Apart from 100% mindless foul abuse ..
You can thank me another day for my age old well & truly tried & tested methods & ‘observations’ of reine ‘Frecheit’, amongst many others in life, (before you noticed, i might add), coz’ I spotted him a mile off, his ‘roots’, his twisted psychology games, his cheap base methodologies, his inconsistencies, plus his impatient stylistic failures & deliberately led him on elsewhere, without sullying your pages with abuse, initially .. and meanwhile backed you up @Admin, repeatedly on the delicate matter of ‘Censorship’, as history shows & you well know .. 😉
I also, most deliberately & (with pre-meditation) did not copy my final ‘tough love’ (censored) reply to him, elsewhere, knowing full well you would delete my response to him as too lengthy & off topic , (if nothing else) but giving you a ‘heads up’, at how ‘Offensive’ his comments were on Censorship, & thus he was definitely on my Radar, already .. (with 28 days notice of intentions 🙂 remember, lol ?
Therefore, it is good to know that yer’ Radar is up to speed & somewhat sync’ed with mine now, & fair of me to say that you owe me a couple of answers elsewhere: one of them, most pertinent & relevant to the here & now, regarding ** the opportunity to view a commenters individual history at a glance **, for referencing tendencies, interests, inconsistencies, cycles, focus &&& (i requested that consideration on the OFFG site development & improvements page) ..
I could explain why I would appreciate this facility (enormously) : if needed , with justification in detail .. but I figure you can already guess , (at least finally now) , why, how & what would be so useful to all people commenting in general, for some greater objectivity (at a glance, for speed readers with research experience) , when investigating someone’s comments to date ..
including for @Admin .. your job facilitated, with external assistance from readers observations, free of charge .. with the all seeing eyes of a collective common compounded intel. & knowledge.
‘N’ Lightening your load ! both in terms of speed & observations, therein .. of OFFG’s Site Security against Agents Provocateurs & Cheerleaders both male & female ..
And i managed to say all that without “CAPS” (whoops:)) , (would you Adam & Eve it 😉
Almost anyway .. (laughing @myself 🙂 )
We’ve explained things to reinertorheit. Please don’t kick off another round of sniping.
Regarding comment improvements – we’re trying to find the best solution we can. But since we don’t require log-in to comment I don’t think that particular facility would be available. We’d have to formalise things a lot more, and that’s not in keeping with our free speech policy.
Fair enough: since you ask politely 🙂 I have been avoiding him deliberately actually, & elsewhere despite his many whinges, ignored anyway with more important things in mind: with one exception when he was advising & ‘beckoning’ for others to bolster his agenda, for you again, on OFFG: extra avoidance, to allow you the chance to reflect & draw your own conclusions with internal insight, above all .. !
Step by step with the improvements, Ok , though I feel I should mention that Steve Hohensee’s ideas were/are worth keeping in mind for future reference, even if not fully practicable now, due to present systems & engagements : coz’ I too had some ideas like Steve’s concepts for you, further down the road, that will progressively attract others in to the Dept. of Deletions (D.o.D), after having tested ZOHO Mail & Sales IQ, for a friend , (from Sept. 2017 until Jan. 2018). ZOHO have a pretty slick concept & operation admired by many, with super interconnectivity between the various time zones of their strategically integrated Databases: backed up & well & truly situated worldwide, also acceptable & operating in China today, already: (which says much, given the Guardian, Google & FB:) ) with a view to the future, including a fully functional live real time neat & simple lil’ mini Radar Screen, for the tracking of all activity of your website visitors, comments & questions: well worth investigating for your developers at a later date (it was free, to SME’s to a certain capacity).. ideal to keep track of & ahead of any threats. I’ll explain that better another time, coz’ there are many differing programmes for tracking, (for differing purposes horses for courses) & many people tend to freak unnecessarily about the word ‘Tracking’, imagine .. 🙂 until they get ‘hit’ & stitched !
After which we all demand accountability..
And more Transparency is the future.
We asked people to stop conflating Israel the state with the race/religion of Jewishness/Judaism.
What is your estimate of the proportion of people claiming this identity who make this conflation themselves? (“anti-zionism = anti-semitism”, etc)
How high would that proportion have to be, before other people could acknowledge its factual validity?
Does it appear that threshold has already been met?
Why do you concur with the zionist position that Jewishness is a “race” category?
Or are these all impermissible questions? If not, why are they never addressed? Is it because the answers are known, but unspeakable?
“Oh, it’s constructive criticism .. ”
So verily astute, bro. 🙂
** carefully constructed **
(Respect)
‘Strange’ that Bibi was in Moscow for the 9th May Russian celebrations 😉 (the only foreign dignitary apart from Aleksandar Vučić) “Not” strange .. ! 🙂 >> then MethanYahoo flew home & ordered Airstrikes on Damascus & Syria immediately : admittedly after the Iranian attack on Israeli forces situated illegally occupying Syrian Territory on the Golan .. Fascinating, Iran attacked the Israeli Lord Invaders on Golan, not in Israel: good strategy legally speaking ! Was that a proxy attack signal & demo. from Putin, a warning shot across Bibi’s Bows , or just Tehran’s frustrations at being disrespected by Trump .. ? ? or both ? (I have my opinion;)) Therefore, Trump could theoretically still be forcing all to play their cards, (with an ace up his sleeve), fully aware of the impending financial doom, facing the USA & Western Markets as a whole, this time around, (deadline 2020, as many financial analysts have called !). (Japan inc. 250% government debt to GDP Ratio, after adopting US methodology & corrupted derivative systems for decades & Nikkei buying the FT to boot the financial propaganda credibility levels.. & cover up!).
It is well known that the Deep State (read E.i.) , don’t trust Trump and his cowboy methods & intentions as ‘Marshall’ with Twitter account, because how can anybody forget his 1992 Chapter 11 affair, (experiences of humiliation, & being ostracised) and the fact that Soros orchestrated it all. Trump was never really in the ‘Murdoch Club’ , as fully committed M.C. member , Murdoch only offering a helping hand after Brexit (ordering Megan Kelly to cool it) & after reading Robert Mercer’s Data Analysis and Private Polls, where he noticed the extraordinary fact that Trump was going to Win the elections, with or without Cambridge Analytica, US societal chaos & dissent was rapidly approaching & rampant (just like I was telling everybody at the Guardian , well in advance, it was pretty obvious, all of which which I quantified with 2 words, “Trust & Judgement”).
Do you Trust HRC ? No, & there you go ! it was bit more complicated than that, obviously, but not for the voters in the Dust Bowl States of deliberate neglect, where weather had been weaponised against the farmers, utilising cloud seeding & HAARP to force farmers to sell up and Monsanto & GMO to step in, subsequently .. on the cheap.
Do you think that the devastation of Puerto Rico was bad luck ? ?
No way Bro, i followed that weather up close, on my radar ..
Well in advance! The USA tested Agent Orange on Puerto Rico, & Deforestation , also the ‘Pill’ for women &&& Paulson & Tax benefits in Puerto Rico & other Hedged Fund Managers .. and Puerto Ricaners never even had a voice in Congress .. !
The weather is weaponised whether you believe me, like it or not and I said the same to Admin yesterday, elsewhere on the last 9/11 article. I know for a fact, (honestly, thanks to my b’Amps/Grandpa), since the 1950’s extensive experimentation and I understand the technology of how to do it, indeed i was working for B.P. researching ‘it’, when they bought the technology and the Company for that reason & the fact that B.P. could source all Oil & Gas reserves on the whole Planet (inc. Russia) with that equipment from , Atlantic Richfield Corporation, ARCO. Oil. & HAARP .. ! (all abbreviations @admin, thus the caps). B.P. were using tiny 1-30 Watt shots and in order to buy the technology B.P. had to simultaneously share the ARCO Technology developed, with the US Department of Defence, for Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ program. Fact.
Today million & billion Watt shots are perfectly doable ..
I digress.
Given that Trump loathes the MSM with a contempt worthy of a loose cannoned Cowboy ‘Chomsky’ chump chimp with a loaded gun, (obliging all to sit at the table & discuss, including Rocket Man), I think Trump could still leave the Zionist derivative Hedged interests of historic hegemony & media control (with a history of weaponised weather engineering & 9/11 on their books to be booked & somehow evidenced in Law), all high & dry, after another “sudden”, (read top secret Mens Rea, in his head only) “change of heart”, in order to subsequently ridicule ALL those that ridiculed him, when thinking back on his life & times ..
So he can finally turn around & ridicule them ALL publicly.. not just CNN & the Guardian, this time around. His parting gesture of 2 fingers ..
with both hands 🙂 for extra emphasis 😉
All bets are off in my house, anything possible, including the bullet from the grassy knoll ..
Jared Kushner has turned very quiet, recently, or better said, the media avoids him & Ivanka. Did you notice .. ? ! 😉
(correction of damned auto-correct)
MegYn Kelly ..
(sorry Meg .. binary innit’ !)
What though do you posit as the means of control and ability to effortlessly co-opt both ends of the uniparty, in the US, UK, France and so on? Is it a just a financial weapon through central-banking control alone, or enhanced now by the Samson option, nuclear-blackmail through devices embedded in cities; pop-up synthetic terror such as the Twin-Towers, 7/7, with a readily available pool of unwitting patsies, to give cover, it is unlikely to be shared religious mania, blackmail then? Though It doesn’t seem that way, governments – the US, the UK – seem willing, witting participants, or are our democracies, parties so completely rigged and owned that their puppets can be effortlessly and without fail chosen and put into power every time. It does seem to be just a gloried, swollen protection-racket, pay-up, comply or something nasty will happen. There must be a mechanism that assures such utter snivelling wretched compliance. Shared interests, secret-societies, how can long-game conspiracies transcend generations? There must be a way to break the chain, I feel Kennedy, possibly was the last to try and throw a spanner in the works, and look where it got him and his kin. We are many, and not withstanding their supposed monopoly on violence, they are few.
p.s. I’m addressing Mulga Mublebrain’s comment: https://off-guardian.org/2018/05/09/discussion-thread-what-does-trumps-ditching-of-the-iran-nuclear-agreement-mean/comment-page-1/#comment-118659
or are our democracies, parties so completely rigged and owned that their puppets can be effortlessly and without fail chosen and put into power every time
Yes, that.
“Owned by who?” is the question you’re not allowed to ask.
Coincidentally, here’s some trailers for an upcoming movie called Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It’s obviously a work of fiction; nothing like this could ever happen in the real world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mamvq7LWqRU
V. Hard to keep a straight face watching NetanYahoo ..
Do you think when he was repeatedly tapping the ‘pull-pit’ , that he was sending an electronic impulse into the bums seated, in order to harmonise the rise of the puppets ??
No, it’s simply a conditioned response on their part.
They’ve been carefully trained that cheering for Zionism, at every opportunity, will be rewarded with shekels, like manna falling from heaven.
Notice the way Nutty Yahoo pauses, and glares meaningfully at the assembled sabbat goyim. This is their cue to demonstrate their slavish obedience to the Übermenschen.
Oh, believe me I noticed ! i’m well trained ..
and my horses are well educated & observant of such body language, too .. even if MethanYahoo were to feed them the best quality uncontaminated food & feign all loving, they would be watching him constantly out of the corner of one eye, with hindquarters ready to react & unload with deadly precision, should he even try to get too close again, whilst chewing the cud with a huge skepticism, sniffing every mouthful first, with their Jakob’s organ .. 🙂 😉
Tony, it’s plainly money, as they are notoriously ‘generous’ contributors, are famous for demanding obeisance thereafter, and for hounding those who ‘get in our way’ from public life, eg Cynthia McKinney and Corbyn, generally either through financing other candidates, or by ‘antisemitism’ industry smears, that can be applied to ANYBODY, even dissident Jews.
Then there are blackmail and threats, which Norman Finkelstein saw as being used in the Goldstone case, where Goldstone was forced, by a vicious campaign, to retract one small part of the UN Report into the Gaza massacre, although the other five, goy, therefore inconsequential, members of the committee rejected his change of position. And Israeli elite figures have long, often off-handedly, threatened to nuke various targets, including Rome in one case. And, of course, Israel has assassinated more leaders, and often their families and neighbours, in recent decades than any other power. I’d be convinced, I imagine. And, if you go along and are loyal, there are rich rewards for collaborators like Tony Blair.
German businesses should immediately halt their operations in Iran following President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Irannuclear deal, the US ambassador to Germany said on Tuesday.
“As @realDonaldTrump said, US sanctions will target critical sectors of Iran’s economy.
“German companies doing business in Iran should wind down operations immediately,” tweeted newly-appointed Richard Grenell.
https://www.thelocal.de/20180509/us-tells-german-businesses-to-stop-trade-in-iran-immediately The Germans are reputed to be good at following orders, will they follow this one?
What I found amazing was the claim by Trump that Iran backed not only the Taliban but Al Qaeda, both Sunni groups who hate the Iranian Shia. Then he agreed with Netanyahu’s phony presentation of Iran’s continuing plans to build a nuclear weapon, that claim was debunked by almost everyone, since all that same evidence was in the hands of the nuclear authorities many years ago.
In my opinion the reason the US/Israel wanted to ditch the deal has more to do with Iran’s growing military and economic strength, in particular its highly accurate ballistic missiles which Iran is producing in their thousands and will be made available to their ‘arc of resistance’ friends in Syria and Lebanon.
Everything has been tried to limit Iran’s conventional weapons systems with sanctions, compelling Iran to mass produce, and very successfully, their own home grown weapons systems, including the anti aircraft system the Bavar 373 which is claimed to be better than the Russian S300 http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/09/03/533862/Iran-Farzad-Esmaili Remember Israel is only postage stamp size and is vulnerable to a concerted rocket barrage, in fact it could be wiped off the map if all the 100’s of thousands of rockets were unleashed by their enemies. Israel could in turn destroy much of the infrastructure of their opponents. It might be a case of mutually assured destruction [MAD]. Rather than making deals with their neighbors including the Palestinians it knows it can only realize its greater Israel ambitions by the use of force, aided of course by its big stupid friend the US.
Israel has threatened to ‘..take the world down with us’, if they ever feel threatened. So we face a situation where the Israel ruling elite expects to be allowed to destroy Syria, Lebanon and Iran, killing, quite probably, millions, but if its victims dare strike back with fury, they intend killing us all, possibly through a nuclear winter, a scenario specifically threatened by an op-ed in the LA Times by a certain Professor Perlmutter, i 2002. If you look up the ‘Samson Option’, in Wikipedia, Professor Perlmutter’s plans for what he calls a ‘Jew-hating world’ are quite explicit.
This is useful background, I think.
http://svaradarajan.blogspot.co.uk/2005/09/persian-puzzle-i-iran-and-invention-of.html
This alleged divide between Europe and US over the deal with Iran is completely false if not an established modus operandi. The US is actually still working with the UK and France but must appear not to look as it is because people seem to have wised up. This is more about propping up dodgy fracking companies (US and now heavy investment in the UK – these companies are not profitable but are if the oil price rises dramatically and you get some free oil too!!!) not to mention the need to raise the price of the basket case Saudi company Aramco. Saudi Arabia does not have its oil reserves independently verified but does have a habit of working with thieves, sorry Western allies to take over oil supplies in Iraq, Libya and presently Syria (Raqqa) and Yemen. So it seems the agenda is to pretend to have differences and even separate agendas. On the one hand, Trump warns Iran of ‘much bigger problems’ if it restarts the nuclear programme. Robot May, Clown Boris, Macro Macron want to maintain the deal except the real deal has been done. Trump never wanted the deal, he needs war, Macron and May need war otherwise the oil price corrects and ordinary people in the US and UK pay less and your energy and oil friends do not profit. Theresa May has already negotiated the highest energy prices through her very bad nuclear energy deal where taxpayers and bill payers pick up the tap for a dirty filthy industry destroying our planet. May and her Government have also bent over backwards to stop the banning of plastic in Europe and instead engineer support for plastic with minor useless bans on straws. Oddly May is busy trying to create the same deal for taxpayers and users she did for nuclear for fracking. I know her husband made some money from her decision to bomb Syria for no reason at all so I wonder where it all fits in with Iran. So the plan so far, Trump gives warnings to Iran to disengage from any nuclear activity even though doh, that is already the actual negotiated deal and you have some puppet show from the criminal Israeli war crime state. Then in line with Skirpal, Syria’s Douma, some people will no doubt invent false WMD of the nuclear variety in Iran and then suddenly everyone (US, UK and France) is on board to invade Iran even though it was the actual plan from the beginning. After all, those allies in Europe and the US can prop up the Government of Iran and get some benefits like not having to pay for oil to restore democracy from the puppet Government they no doubt plan to impose. If this sounds a bit like Iraq II, Libya II, substitute drug opium for oil Afganistan II, it probably is.
So to recap, a high oil price hits ordinary consumers benefits, volatile share markets hit pension funds, hedge funds benefit and all that Quantitative Easing money makes a whole bunch of rich people richer and allows for unprofitable fracking companies to suddenly have the business case to destroy the UK along with the US with their real damaging drilling, not to mention the terrorist funding Saudis help launch their rubbish Aramco alleged oil rich company. All the while, Saudis remain supported by the US, UK alongside their fake counterpart Royals in the UK.
You are not wrong about the price of oil. Trump announced the proposed withdrawal, Bibi fired a few missiles at South Damascus, the Saudis announced they will pickup the shortfall in production when the secondary sanctions hit (more petrodollars), Brent futures end the day at $77 a barrel: a three year high. Bibi lobs shells into Quneitra …eat, sleep, repeat. They are bidding up the oil price: they need to, the fracking companies and Aramco are haemorrhaging debt …but the price is ultimately demand constrained. There is only so much heavily indebted economies can afford to pay. They are stuck in a rut they cannot get out of with heavier and heavier unrepayable debt burdens. Just one of the many systemic fragilities of a dying political economy. It is a jeopardy crisis for consensual reality (based on neo-nonsensical hydrocarbon economics) that will have to be addressed sooner rather than later.
ex, in a fit of absent-mindedness you have forgotten the climate destabilisation Holocaust. Continued fossil fuel use is actually no longer required to cause that catastrophe, but to drive on with oil and gas, particularly fracking, which with its fugitive emissions of methane is the worst polluter of all, will give us a good shot at going full ‘Venusian’, if you get my drift. Poor feller my planet.
Mulga, my dear friend …I sense a bit of cognitive dissonance when you hold up the climate destabilization Holocaust on one hand: and on the other, the remedial development side, you hold up the Ecological Civilisation of China. Just who do you think the world’s primary energy consumer is? Then there is the increasing sub-imperialism they employ to acquire their oil (and other raw materials ) in Africa. They are not going to build BRI with solar or hydrogen powered machines. In fact, if you drill down into Chinese “Three Gorges Dam ” model of “ecological economy ” it is a scam, with a whole new subset of ecological and human displacement consequences to be offset against the “advancement”. Advancement for whom: the global superclass? The urbanised bourgeois Chinese “conspicuous consumers”? The disenfranchised and disappeared former peasant underclass? Certainly not the millions of internally displaced who had their traditional livelihood destroyed so that the Yuan can concrete Asia Pacific …displacing and exploiting as it goes. Not to single them out, it is neoliberal globalisation that is the problem, not the individual countries that adopt it (which is why I prefer a World Systems POV). Nevertheless, China is the largest gear in the engine that is driving the “Venusification” of the planet. Poor feller my planet is about right. But a Chinese Tianxia won’t save it.
B, there is an interesting article in Dissident Voice, by the excellent Andre Vltchek concerning how long the Chinese leadership has planned an ecological civilization, how they have enlisted foreign advice from thinkers from other intellectual traditions who also seek such an end, and how Xi’s additional five year term (NOT President for Life as the Western racist Sinophobes make out)is, in part, intended to solidify the movement inside the Chinese Government, in the face of the ‘growth at all costs’ tendency.
One thing is for certain. With Life-hating hard Right regimes like the USA and Austfailure, other Western regimes that DO NOT take the situation seriously and the essentially Life-destroying Free Market capitalist death-cult dominating the rest of the planet, China is our last, God knows how good, hope for human survival beyond the next few decades.
Thanks MM, I’ll read it. We may not see eye to eye, but I welcome the dialogue. I’m not proposing judgement on whether imperialism or sub-imperialism is better, nor denying the current meta-democracy of East/West relations having beneficial consequences (for Syria, for instance) …I’m proposing an argument from transcendence for a new emergent liberation ecology. That means absorbing the heirarchical parasitical tiers of supra-sovereignty (the globalised superstructure) down into a sovereign humanity foundational infrastructure – the material base. ANY role for capitalism (undergirded by valorisation, private property rights, and instrumental reason) will be to humanely do away with itself …without taking the life capital with it. Capitalism (another day I will propose that the problem is pan-historic and universalised: not merely capitalistic or hemispheric …capitalism’s Good Cop – Bad Cop false dialectic) can play no part in the future …that is, if we are to have a future.
@BigB
I sense a lack of awareness on your part, in just how much China has invested in the technologies of the future, whilst playing the West at it’s own game.
You overlook the industrious philosophical long game typically played by the Chinese , since before the Opium Wars, & now today with B.R.I.C.S. ..
BRICS = Half of the World’s population !
Why do you think South Africa & Zimbabwe are fully signed up & committed to the Chinese future designs for a Multi-Polar World ?
There are reasons that lay completely underground in terms of Public Knowledge disseminated in the Western MSM , inc. d’ Beers ole’ diamond racket.. to do with the future technologies of ALL nations (I.P. owned & controlled by the Chinese & OPERATIONAL), that the West never discusses openly due to their smoking gun A.C.R.I.D.Laurels , that they have been resting upon, with manipulated machinations & (Fixed) Hedged (‘bets’) Funds on out of date derivative mechanisms of control, including weaponising the weather against sovereign nations with HAARP & cloud seeding and this will be exposed progressively by the Chinese, who simply have a superior IQ ! & that was fact back in the 80’s when they were still over 900 million farmers ..
ACRID :- Advanced Climate Research Infrastructure for DATA
Western data is total pseudo-science for market manipulations !!
And the Chinese and many others & I know this for a ‘Fact’.
Intel’s HARMONIE programme to brain wash ?
& harmonise with HAARP weather forecasting ..
you can’t make this up!
imo, who controls the weather controls the food supply and XI has to put rice on the table for 1.3 Billion people every single day, to keep them happy, first and foremost. Therefore that huge responsibility alone is so huge that no westerner is gonna’ tell him why, how & what he has to do , when he has the Water from the Himalayas and China always did, even when the the CIA were paying the Dalai Lama $180,00 per year from WW2 until 1974 .. as terrorist with his band of spitting Terrorist Lamas, that murdered 500 municipality workers, before China moved into regulate in 1959. Real world reality bites, not Hollywood or Richard Geared.
The Dalai Lama’s greatest regret was trusting the CIA ..
he said that in 1999 quite publicly, just search.
Somethings never change. Nobody will dictate to the Chinese
Definitely Not Publicly .. coz’ they waited & watched E.i. !
just like they are doing now with their Navy in the Mediterranean.
balkydj: I developed my POV above. China could continue to sustain 1.3bn people WITHOUT globalising …by de-globalising and localising. In fact, that would make their ability to do this sustainable in the event of a globalised economic collapse (a when, not an if, given the level of systemic financial fragility). The trans-border water rights are an issue …just ask India, the former ‘Stan’ countries, and Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam (along the Mekong Delta). This is not about China: the issue is neoliberal globalisation which is omnicidal and inimmical to all life on earth. I have developed my thesis as to how this will develop above. I ask the same hypothetical question as I did Mulga: is this the way you see human development progressing? Because I see this as human slavery progressing. You may want to read some of the links I have posted (here and on the MH17 forum) because I am pretty sure of my footing. The ultracapitalists have published there policy, they are not trying to fool us. Why are we trying to fool ourselves that a respun ‘Ecological’ version of neoliberal globalisation will save us?
[I am a buddhist (small ‘b’): so I am well aware of the Dalai Lama’s past affiliations. Some of us even suspect that they may not have been terminated, at least within his entourage. But there is no proof, and I digress.]
Interesting: Yer’ dead right that China could survive in isolation, no question there, fully agreed. My brother lived in China & Hong Kong for 35 years & i have plenty of Chinese family members 😉 The other Brother was living by the Mekong in Udanthani for many years in the 90’s. I’ll be interested to read your thoughts.
Best that i read your comments & links tonight on the MH17 forum before saying too much else. Thanks for the heads up. I’d been saving that article ’till the weekend, as I actually predicted that ‘strike’ in advance, having my suspicions of some people I’d been observing online and even went to comment & warn of the dangers, to a NATO member consulate in Sofia, to test their levels of interest.
But he & she were not interested, despite the Slavyansk Cold War Arms depot with 5 million pieces of equipment, nor the OSCE, nor the FT in London , & definitely not Guy Verhofstadt.. which made the case pretty clear to me, even before the criminal tragic loss of life.
All the world is a stage & all the world is staged by a big elitist club and we ain’t in it..
innit’ ! ? Unless A.i. & the Chinese potential for Supercomputing & Communications Networks of the future take an interest ..?
NATO should be disbanded, after all that I have seen with my own eyes, on the Balkans (& in advance of their arrival in Bulgaria this time round). NATO & the UN’s appalling legacy of the last 3 decades, on the Balkans especially just got a whole lot worse in the last few years, as they cloud seed & engineer the destruction of both Society & Culture in what was such a pristine wild environment, impossible to find in Western Europe today ..
I’ll get back to you, after reading up ..
sub-imperialism
I must have missed the part where Chinese armies invaded and subjugated Africa.
It is to be able to ignore the ‘home’ situation, like the opioid crisis for which the US government has no answer how to solve it.
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0329-drug-overdose-deaths.html
And it is because the Russia, Russia, Stormy Daniels meme becomes kind of a drag.
It is also because it will prevent the EU to openly trade with Iran (and Russia), but I think that comes second as EU corporations do already trade with Russia (like Shell) and probably also (although I do not know this) with Iran.
In short, it is for Bread and Circus purposes. All for us.
My view is simple: the US is increasingly seeking to oust EU nations from trade in areas where the US has little footprint. They wish to weaken Europe and hope to grab the markets down the line. So Russia-European trade must have sanctions as US trade with Russia is peanuts. Same in Iran….
US true special relationships are now with Israel and Saudi.
European Leaders should seek to dissolve ties to US by 2030 and be honest about the nature of the USA….
The Real Axis of Evil-the USA, Sordid Arabia and the capo di tutti capi, Israel.
“European Leaders should seek to dissolve ties to US by 2030 and be honest about the nature of the USA….” – Absolutely spot on. Years ago my hope was that the creation and evolution of the EU would provide a power block capable of preventing the U.S. from leading us all merrily to global destruction. That hasn’t happened yet, but the Trump persona presents some challenges for European leaders that an Obama or Hillary did not. My hope (err-rather-‘fantasy’ I suppose) is that peoples in the EU will simply refuse to follow their leaders into more U.S./Israeli led war in the Middle East with Trump as the face of U.S. empire.
Then again, I don’t get the sense that “democracy” exists in anymore robust or meaningful form in much of the EU than it does here in the U.S. where it is simply a code word for rule by our “oligarchy” which is heavily invested in the military/arms industries and in need of permanent war for economic survival. Watching the vicious MSM attacks of Corbyn for example suggest that the European oligarchy has no interest whatsoever in any “popular” input to the system.
EU cooperation with and expansion of economic ties with Russia and China along with abandonment of serf status to the U.S. would/could literally change the fate of humanity. At this point, if the fate of the planet rests with we the brain dead, self absorbed populace of the U.S. – well – I hate to say it, but then we are all freaking doomed.
Alistair Crooke has a good piece up at Strategic Culture.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/05/07/is-israel-readying-for-war.html
Trump is making an appeal to two domestic constituencies: the speculators in the FIRE sector, who are already deeply indebted to him, for his leadership in changing the Tax system in their favour. And the Israel lobby.
With regard to the first: the natural opposition that should come from industrialists deprived of export markets is mitigated by the fact that industry is dominated by the arms manufacturers. Thus, for Boeing, the loss of a $38 billion deal supplying airliners to Iran is compensated for by the increase in arms sales as the prospect of war increases.
Israel is the peculiarity. Trump is throwing the US behind a political plan- for Israel to dominate the Levant, the Arabian peninsula and north east Africa by destroying any potential opposition to its diktats. This is the modern version of Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall and a form of madness of a severity that is only attained when Bible thumping meets fascism on the common ground of racism. Israel’s Jewish population is outnumbered in the region by about 100:1. Any rational Zionist programme would recognise that for the state to survive in any form it will have to reach a modus vivendi with the locals. And yet this is the one idea that has almost disappeared in Israel during the past generation..
Why? Because there has been no balancing force to the US in the international arena. All that Israel’s governments have had to do is to assure themselves of, in the final analysis, US backing and it could do what it desired. With impunity. There would be no consequences.
Except of course in South Lebanon where, after years of Israeli sponsored bullying, the poor and unwarlike local population, (in terms of numbers no larger than Israel’s Jews) the shiah, at the very bottom of the racial/political pecking order, organised themselves into a national movement and are now one of the most powerful forces in the region.
In the United States, since the 1980s Israel has simply been an easy way of mobilising a wealthy clientele, an aging Israel Fan Club in the old Jewish communities and the idiots who constitute the Evangelical grassroots, into political support-from vote banks to funding campaigns. Nobody has troubled themselves to enquire into the effects that giving Israel ever more complete support, despite its appalling excesses, has on the country’s international position.
A pity because all is changed: the US is no longer accepted as global policeman and arbiter. It may have no rivals for a role nobody wants but it can no longer act without fear of the consequences. And it will not be long before Americans begin to realise this And when they do Netanyahu and his out riders like Naftali Bennet and Lieberman are finished.
The question then, among Zionists, will be how can we make a deal with our neighbours without giving up the plunder accumulated over the past 70 years? Without returning every inch of the Occupied Territories, without revisiting the facts on the ground following the 1948 partition, without dealing honourably with the refugee question?
One thing we do know: the United States will not help them if its interests appear threatened, it doesn’t keep agreements, it doesn’t stand by commitments, it is like any other state. And, when its interests are threatened, the interests of its ruling class, the ending of the Zionist dream , the C19th nonsense that Europeans are worth ten times their number of Levantine Arabs, will come very quickly. Because the people in Washington, regardless of their religious or cultural hobbies, care only for themselves.
As to Trump’s motives; they are very simple, he is consolidating his domestic political position: repudiating the agreement will not be opposed by the Democrats, who have long been ashamed of the apparent rationality in lowering tension and sad to have had to give up the claim, repeated by Netanyahu earlier this week, that Iran is building nuclear weapons. As the mid terms approach it will be interesting to see how very few Democrats will criticise Trump for this move.
You are quite correct that unending Zionist intransigence and aggression does not guarantee Israel’s safety or future, which ought to be as important as releasing the Palestinians from unceasing torment and assuring Israel’s neighbours that they will no longer be threatened by expansionist Zionism. I have one personal way of judging when Israel is preparing an aggression-the Holocaust stories start appearing in the fakestream media in even greater numbers than usual, which is happening here in Austfailure at present.
Not just in Austfailure, also all over Euro-Media, plus in Schools..
And the late night , early hours film agenda 4BG.
Horowitz profiling Eichmann on trial and my woman snoring like a traumatised grounded–hog, (in her dreams shot by a US cop, on bended knee) , added to which my dog was sick & in pain .. which I was beginning to think was maybe terminal, as I noticed that .. die Deutsche Welle had to purge their sins & conscience, daily and by night too, by heightening conscious awareness to extremes &
Murdoch has not only bought up BTV, but worse still his chain gang is supplying/ offering school books for young students of Bulgarian to English, with glossy pictures of seductive glamourised market scenes in Jerusalem , (for yer’ holidays?) & with a Superman shirt incongruously clashing & standing proudly central in frame, out of context in the middle of the most technicolour fabrics & textile displays for girls & women.. so superconductive that ..
my good woman rejected that book for her students outright & immediately , (as we have a village named Jerusalemovo, with weekly market & migrants/refugees, just down the road from us) … ta 😉
But ‘it’s everywhere you look, you see the connectivity to a Subliminal firkin’ Pandemic of virtue parading paradise values, like a scratched vinyl recording of ole’ radio Lord Invaders post-genocide, when the Balkans have their own story to tell, that the Turkish fail to even acknowledge: adequately ignored by NATO & the UN, from 1913 onwards, when my local river was fully red with blood, according to the Serbian historian’s book on the shelf .. but ‘non’ onono no we have to consider the later greater Jewish history first & in schools, with superman t.shirt insert !!
Mental, ‘bonkers’ (as my daughter would say), pure Planetapornoghetto ..
14 years, aaaah less even a decade ago, no way José, none of the above S.S. sick shite styling of societal focus ..
This unilateral withdrawal from the treaty is to all intents and purposes not an action taken by the USA but by Israel. True the Saudis will be happy and benefit but it is 100% the work of the Zionist cabal that runs both the US deep state and Israel. Indeed it is hard to decide if Israel is an undeclared state of the US or if the US is a colony of Israel.
As to what Iran can do to respond? For one thing it would do well to ignore the deceitful consternation displayed by France, Germany and the UK. I have no doubt their protestations to Trump are nothing more than a veil and a mediocre effort to pretend they do not have hostility toward Iran. The recent strike on Syria by the unholy trinity should tell them all they need to know.
Russia has a closer relationship to Iran than it has had for centuries. However there is a deep rooted mutual distrust in the Kremlin and Tehran that prevents the kind of mutual cooperation required to make an attack on Iran unthinkable to psychos like Netanyahu. Equally China must unlearn it’s oldest traditition and be prepared to join a military coalition. If China, Russia and Iran stand together they could not only secure their right to develop free from the war economy of Imperial Hegemony run out of Washington but drive these warmongers out of the middle east altogether and in doing liberate a score of nations from the tyrany of empire.
The UK, France and Germany are all vassal states of Israel, through their thoroughly corrupted and intimidated ruling elites. They will make a fuss, for show, then when the war drive cranks up, they’ll get on board-or the money will stop flowing, or they’ll get the ‘antisemite’ treatment.
Maybe the answer is hiding in plain sight!
The Art of The Deal by Donald Trump J. Trump (age 71 & 11/12th’s)
Think big:- Trump is achievement orientated. Even, if things were quiet and ok, he would want to do something. He will attempt to overcome a policy frustration by ‘thinking bigger’; if that makes it worse then he will think ‘even bigger’.
Protect the downside and the upside will take care of itself:- There will not be a nuclear or any real war or any real major negative consequence; this has already been sorted.
Maximize your options:- Have plenty of alternatives (regardless of consistency).
Know your market: The market in the American public, American & European ruling class, and Foreign leaders.
Use your leverage – Military posturing & financial bullying & badgering.
Enhance your location:- Position yourself (this overlaps with 2. & 5.
Get the word out:- Use media, make sure to say something that gets attention.
Fight back:- Don’t give in, until’ you got something.
Deliver the goods:- Always shoddy & overpriced; hey, that’s business.
Contain the costs:- Essentially, a repeat of 2.
Have fun:- It’s a game
(What is noticeably is that the upside is really not part of the upside, indicates that Trump is really risk averse and the major negative consequences already ‘been taken care of?)
What if the real target in all this is not Iran but Germany? To economically hamper Germany & prevent the EU becoming a greater Germania? To prevent Germany getting close to Russia?
There are forces in Germany that are indeed averse to US hegemony. It would not surprise me to see them emerge as the France/UK military partnership develops and to find these Germans aligned with Russia.
Reblogged this on circusbuoy and commented:
Israel has bit their nose to spite their face and may find themselves all alone in the middle east as trump cosys up to Russia.
Does the bigger question here need to be answered? What is Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the 5 Annexes? Does anyone know of someone who actually read the documents without depending on summaries of others…
I’m not claiming I’ve read them, but what it appears was an agreement to end sanctions to only “slow down” Iran’s goal of becoming a nuclear power. It called for reduced production of components used in making a nuclear weapon and Iran’s “promise” they will play nice… So what in reality was accomplished by it and what in reality does removal of the U.S. mean because of it…
Isn’t this now a greater risk because other countries will not be implementing sanctions as Trump did after pulling out of the agreement; that Iran could again step up production while being kept afloat by other countries?
So many questions and I am not one to claim I have the answers or full understanding of world politics… I know I will now read the Iran Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) so I can understand it without someone “summarizing” their understanding..
Iran has had NO nuclear weapons program for many years. It is a signatory to the NPT so has rights to nuclear power and science. Its Supreme Leader issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and it has proposed a ‘nuclear weapons free zone’ in the Middle East, a proposition that the Western fakestream media scum have totally disappeared, for obvious reasons, since it was made.
Holy Israel, in contrast, refuses to sign the PT, has hundreds of nukes, including neutron bombs, and members of its ruling elites have often threatened to use them, even to provoke a nuclear winter as revenge against a ‘Jew-hating world’. In particular Israeli leaders have threatened European cities, and to ‘take the world down with us’, if threatened with defeat in war. And the USA, France and the UK have all totally refused to meet their NPT obligation to disarm their nuclear forces. Indeed the USA is spending more than one trillion at present to modernise its thousands of nukes, and make them ‘more usable’. Yet Iran is the villain?
Bibi wags the dog.
Check out Pepe Escobar on this
http://www.atimes.com/article/the-art-of-breaking-a-deal
Just ask the American Indigenous-the USA made hundreds of treaties and agreements with them, and broke every one.
“How would such a large scale commitment of manpower and money go over domestically in a US that is suffering the extremes of economic hardship in many areas?”
It is not too far-fetched to compare “the extremes of economic hardship” suffered by Germany in 1933.
Then, as now, catastrophic national overspending was considered (by the politicians) to be a price worth paying in order to have a chance at ultimate victory, economic recovery and control over other countries’ resources.
We really can’t afford to let this comparison escape anyone’s notice.
Iran is the last significant military hurdle for the US, on its way to the Heartland of Central Asia.
The agenda is to cut and control the New SILK ROAD or OneBelt One Road (OBI) between China and Europe.
This is to preserve the US dollar as the Worlds Reserve Trading currency. The dollar is the US Achilles heel.
The US has 11 carrier fleets . controlling the main sea route choke points, to enforce the dollar trade.
The overland Silk Road to Europe makes the sea routes and US Navy largely redundant.
Sir Halford Mackinder in the book Heartland Theory, stated ‘the Nation that controls Central Asia controls the world Island’.
This was plagiarised by Zbigniew Brezinszki in his Grand Chessboard book.
The European powers are aware of this and is the reason they are staying out of the conflict. It is not in their interest to be so held to ransom by the US in trade with East Asia. and welcome the USA demise.
@Salford Lad. Thanks for that. We Europeans have been trading with Persia, and via Persia to China — right across EurAsia — since time immemori’l. (Book, The Shape of Ancient Thought). Long before Alexander (Iskander) gave his name to Kandahar in Afghanistan and Ghandara in north India. And we are not going to stop for the whim of some Johnny-come-Lately 6,000 miles away from Europe across the Atlantic. Britain and Ireland are part of Europe; so is Russia; Iran is one of the bridges between us. The US of A is not.
One factor concerning Europe is the Secondary Sanctions regime that will make it impossible to do business in Iran after 180 day’s. It effects Boeing but the main losers are European companies who have spent the last 3 years investigating good business possibilities. Indeed EU-Iranian trade has rocketed. It is suspiciously like what happened in 2014 when sanctions against Russia led to bans on food imports. Across Europe agriculture was badly hit, from French peach farmers, cheese makers to the Scottish herring industry. All the European dreams of providing their skills and capital into extracting some of the World’s largest resources in Russia was cast aside while the politicians cow towed to the Empire. The same is happening now; they will see what they can do, says Macron. It’s easy to forget how business orientated the Empire is; an opportunity to stop Europe getting too pally with Russia while cutting them off from cheap energy was too good to be missed. After all Europe could buy US shale products. It’s always been America First and Europe has known it since the 1890’s. Their domination has never been stronger. Their military is being polished up in case anybody gets seriously out of line. Secondary Sanctions shows that America controls the World’s economy as well as a gun to its head.
I don’t see very much evidence the US military is being “polished up”. On the contrary it seems mired in corruption and failed productivity. It has mass and might, but when was it last seriously tested against an even slightly comparable force?
The only slightly comparable force is Russia, and that is thermo-nuclear annihilation territory. The US military is for destroying defenceless states, setting their populations at each others throats, operating death-squads, killing in the most cowardly fashion with drone strikes, organising the drug traffic and raping the locals as US bases, once established, never leave.
Despite the understandable grammatical errors due to English not being the writers first language this analysis provides some valuable insights into that specific issue:
http://thesaker.is/military-and-non-military-escalation-into-nuclear-war/
Interesting perspective here. It may represent Israeli military & perhaps US military thinking but it may also be that by the time, like Von Stauffenberg, that any of these military gents get round to putting a bomb under the table, it will be too late.
http://www.inss.org.il/publication/united-states-withdrawal-nuclear-dear-iran-lessons-simulatio/
Judging from BTL the Telegraph, opinion is split 50:50 Good:Bad.
Judging from BTL the Indie, overwhelmingly Bad; in a word: Go it, EU! Let’s tell him to stick it up his (T)rump.