Comment: I understand why the Queen isn’t in jail for supporting Islamic terrorist headslicers, but I don’t understand why Trump isn’t in jail for supporting Islamic terrorist headslicers.
Schiff’s misinformation extends to his defense of Joe Biden. In his opening statement, Schiff claimed that Biden never wanted the “corrupt prosecutor removed in order to stop an investigation into Burisma Holdings, on whose board Biden’s son Hunter sat.”
The latter settled the case with Burisma and its chief executive Mykola Zlochevsky by allowing it to pay a $7 million fine when the company stood accused of evading $40 million in taxes – a clear victory for Burisma.
Lutsenko did not even have a law degree
and has been characterized by Ukrainian officials as a crooked
political appointee of Ukraine’s former Prime-Minister Petro Poroshenko,
whom Biden had cultivated close ties with.
Schiff and other Democratic Impeachment Managers such as Sylvia Garcia of Texas claimed that under Shokin the investigation against Burisma had lain “dormant.”
Comment:Not a problem. Like
Schiff, the entire US political class believes US taxpayers exist only
to finance US mass murder and starvation which includes financing Islamic terrorists as US “boots on the ground.” Thus, I'm now a fan of Mr. Putin and am cheering his success. The term “US military” is a misnomer. US taxpayers actually have no military of their own since armed US military aren’t allowed to stand on US soil and enforce the 2000 mile US southern border. The #1 target of the US political class isn’t Russia,it’s US taxpayers and keeping us silent. The “endless war” policy begun by George W. Bush was for that purpose above all. “Endless war” impoverishes us and prevents us from having a country. It isn't even an election issue because the US is a dictatorship. ........
“Nine months ago, a group of Iraqi politicians and businessmen from Anbar, Salah al-Din and Nineveh provinces were invited to the private residence of the Saudi ambassador to Jordan in Amman.
Their host was the Saudi minister for Gulf affairs, Thamer bin Sabhan al-Sabhan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s point man for the region….
The plan is not new. But now an idea which has long been toyed with by the US, as it battles to keep Iraq within its sphere of influence, has found a new lease of life as Saudi Arabia and Iran compete for influence and dominance.
Anbar comprises 31 percent of the Iraqi state’s landmass. It has significant untapped oil, gas and mineral reserves. It borders Syria.
[Image: New statelet of “Sunni Iraq,” closeup from map below]
The western province is largely desert, with a population of just over two million. As an autonomous region, it would need a workforce. This, the meeting was told, could come from Palestinian refugees and thus neatly fit into Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” plans to rid Israel of its Palestinian refugee problem.
Anbar is almost wholly Sunni, but Salah al-Din and Nineveh aren’t. If the idea worked in Anbar, other Sunni-dominated provinces would be next.”
At least three large meetings have already been held over the plan, the last one in the United Arab Emirates. The timing indicates that the plan was initiated when John Bolton as Trump’s national security advisor.
At the height of the war in Iraq Joe Biden publicly supported it. The original plan failed when in 2006 Hizbullah defeated Israel’s attack on Lebanon and when the Iraqi resistance overwhelmed the U.S. occupation forces.It is doubtful that the plan can be achieved as long as the government in Baghdad is supported by a majorities of Shia. Baghdad as well as Tehran will throw everything they have against the plan.
The US strategy of Guaido’s presidential self-proclamation could not be more destabilizing, especially considering that it has Donald Trump’s recognition and support — and slavish endorsement of most of the EU, plus Ecuador, Chile, Colombiaand, of course, the likes of Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.
This was the case with the attempt, with the support of Colombian armed forces, police and paramilitaries, to push by violent military means US-donated “humanitarian aid”across the border with Venezuela in Cucuta, Colombia.
The paramilitaries would take over a city or big town, proclaim it “liberated territory,”
fly in a “Guaido provisional government” and call for international
assistance to be positively responded by the US military — exactly the model the US sought to deploy in Cuba in April 1961. It failed then and it failed in Venezuela in February 2019.
The blackout was unsuccessful in its intention to instill panic and desperation, which extreme rightwingers sought to exploit by encouraging looting so as to justify external (US military) intervention.
In April 2019, Guaido, with well-known extreme rightwinger Leopoldo Lopez, staged a farcical attempted coup d’etat
during which a few dozens soldiers blocked a Caracas thoroughfare,
where they languished for hours waiting for a non-existent military
uprising.
The coup ended with golpista soldiers seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy, Lopez in the Chilean then Spanish embassy, and, Guaido, tail between his legs, back to his home, surrounded by embarrassment.
They waited in vain for a government knee-jerk reaction leading to a shootout with an abundance of corpses, thus justifying external (US military) intervention.
The military remained totally loyal while, wisely, the government allowed the coup to just crumble away.
“The coup ended with golpista soldiers seeking asylum in the Brazilian embassy.”
Then the US activated the Lima Group (comprised of representatives of right-wing Latin American governments), led by the golpista Organisation of American States secretary-general Luis Almagro, seeking to both isolate the Venezuelan government and create the conditions for an international (US military) intervention.
Though they--especially Colombia and Brazil’s Bolsonaro — have been vociferously in favor of such intervention, time and again they have resisted US pressure to commit troops for a military adventure against Venezuela.
In August, Trump passed a raft of extra economic and
financial sanctions, including the freezing and confiscation of
Venezuelan assets in the US (of about US$30 billion), as well as the application of penalties against anyone doing business with Venezuela.
It brought Venezuelan financial transactions in the world almost to a total halt. US strategists expected panic and capitulation from Maduro but instead were met by more resilience.
Throughout the year, Guaido called for mass mobilization almost weekly, each time with less support. His team has been beset by accusations of corruption even from his own “ambassador”
to Colombia; by irrefutable evidence of strong connections with
Colombian narco-trafficking paramilitaries, and by growing fragmentation
in the opposition and within his own base.
The US got the Lima Group, led by Almagro, to use the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR in its Spanish acronym) to apply sanctions against Venezuela.
A US-designed military treaty, TIAR’s activation has a military threatening flavor, but it left Venezuela unimpressed.
According to the Venezuelan government, Guaido’s team ordered a
terrorist attack against military barracks during which terrorists
murdered a soldier.
They stole rifles and about 10 rocket launchers, apparently
intending to shoot down a Colombian plane, blame Venezuela to generate a
conflict and thus get a TIAR-sponsored international (US military) intervention.
Most weapons were recovered and most of the terrorists were captured.
Since 2019 the US has constantly threatened Venezuela with military action — “all options are on the table” — coupled with aggressive statements from the US southern command and persistent violations of Venezuela’s air and sea space.
Previously US Vice-President Mike Pence on tour in Latin America sought to create a “coalition of the willing” to undertake military action against Venezuela.
But all US efforts, though wreaking havoc on Venezuela’s economy and inflicting horrible hardships, shortages and hyperinflation on millions, have failed.
Trump, “who has made the restoration of democracy in Venezuela one of his signature goals,” faces “a stinging defeat” where military action “is not a realistic option,” concluded a Washington Post editorial (January 8 2020).
Faced with a year of brutal US economic aggression, any other government in the world (Cuba excepted) would have collapsed or capitulated.
The socio-economic model represented by the Bolivarian revolution explains Venezuelans’ resilience and resistance.The model is so structured as to defend the poorest and most vulnerable, such as the CLAP food program that benefits six million families.
Venezuela refuses to apply neoliberal policies
— its tenacious commitment to free universal healthcare and education
and pensions to 100 per cent of those entitled are further examples. All that--and the building of three million houses for the
poor, aiming to reach five million in the coming period--explain why the people of Venezuela support the Bolivarian socio-economic model. Imagine this with no US sanctions or US financial aggression.
The capacity of the model to deliver explains something even more fundamental: the civil-military alliance, cornerstone of the Bolivarian revolution.
The Bolivarian People’s Militia currently stands at 3.3 million, rapidly being expanded to five million. Bolivarian Venezuela wants dialogue, elections, democracy and peace, not war.But if the US goes for military aggression, millions are willing and ready to defend the patria. No pasaran! Not in 2002, the year of recovery, not ever.”
The Trump administration,just like the Obama regime, is willing to start World War III to protect the largest al Qaeda outfit in the world from annihilation by the Syrian government and its Russian, Iranian and Lebanese allies. The New York Times and the rest of the corporate mediahave also chosen sides in the struggle against terror in Syria; they prefer the sons and daughters of Osama bin Laden to the internationally recognized government in Damascus. The same goes for most of the so-called “resistance”–the world’s phoniest “left,”
who direct their righteous anger at the victims of U.S. imperialism and
take their political cues from the corporate rag on 42nd Street,
oligarch Jeff Bezo’s propaganda sheet in Washington, and Rachel Maddow,
the MS-DNC’s 8 Million Dollar Woman.
“Donald Trump is now all-in with the al Qaeda defense team.”
Just in case theal Qaeda/White Helmets don’t get the message–that the U.S. is eager to “retaliate” against Syria for chemical weapons use, no proof required—the White House issued this statement: “Let us be clear. It remains our firm stance that if President Bashar al-Assad chooses to again use chemical weapons, the United States and its allies will respond swiftly and appropriately.”
“The New McCarthyite line is that, since the Russians are trying to stir up dissent in the U.S., all dissenters are in league with the Russians.”
Donald Trump is now assuming the role of guardian of al Qaeda’s Idlib caliphate, to replace the diminished ISIS caliphate. He knows that he is aiding and abetting al Qaeda, as he accused Obama of doing,but, What choice does an imperialist have?If Syria is reunified and rebuilt, and its alliance with Iran, Lebanon
and Iraq allowed to deepen, then the prospect of Washington derailing
China’s New Silk Road evaporates–and with it, the future of U.S. empire.
Trump doesn’t want to preside over that, and so he takes up the mission of the predecessor he [supposedly] despises.
The entirety of the corporate media are committed to their role in the mission. They must pull off the Deception of the Century, to cover up the Crime of the Century. Since the U.S. is so deeply enmeshed with Islamist fighters in Syria, thejihadist terrorists have lost their value as the “generational,” existential threat to America. The “Russians” have been drafted--capitalist oligarchs and all–to resume their historic place on the hit/hate list.Having
failed to come up with proof of “collusion” between Wikileaks, Donald
Trump, and the Russian government to filch Hillary Clinton campaign
emails–because it didn’t happen--the New McCarthyite line is that, since the Russians are trying to stir up dissent in the U.S., all dissenters are in league with the Russians. The “resistance” is fine with that, which shows they are frauds, allies of a corporate multicultural fascism that is vying for domestic hegemony with an older, white supremacy-based fascism.
