Tuesday 30 June 2020

Hubris: Israel's endgame in Palestine

The blueprints and rationale for the West Bank annexation can be found in the Galilee.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement overlooking the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, in Israeli-occupied West Bank on February 20, 2020 [File: Debbie Hill/Pool via Reuters]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement overlooking the Israeli settlement of Har Homa, in Israeli-occupied West Bank on February 20, 2020 [File: Debbie Hill/Pool via Reuters]
US President Donald Trump's Middle East "peace plan" is clearer in the original Hebrew. The Israeli version is bold on annexation, bleak on peace and low on diplomatic humbug.
And thanks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing politics, the "peace process" has been exposed for what it is - a colonisation operation. 
This surreal process has long served as a cover up for deep Israeli entrenchment in the West Bank and Jerusalem, rendering civilian and military withdrawal improbable if not unthinkable for most Israelis.
Having secured Trump's approval, Netanyahu will go forward with annexation despite warnings of an international backlash, the demise of the two-state solution, and the erosion of the "democratic Jewish state".
Netanyahu will likely once again rebuff such warnings, relying on unconditional US support.
With Washington on its side, Israel has long acted with impunity. Its annexation of East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights are a case in point. International fretting and frowning eventually subsided after the Trump administration recognised these annexations.
Israel has long opposed the establishment of a truly sovereign Palestinian state in the occupied territories. The governing Likud party supports only limited autonomy for the Palestinians, or at best, half a state on half of the West Bank.
Regardless of annexation, Netanyahu knows all too well that Israel is not in reality a "democratic Jewish state", not when a quarter of its population are not Jewish and mostly oppose its Zionist creed.
In fact, for the Palestinians, Israel is neither democratic, Jewish, nor a normal state. It is a colonial occupation, a garrison state, always at war, expanding its frontiers and deepening its domination of Palestine.
For these reasons, annexation is only a matter of when, not if, it will happen.
The more complicated question is, how and to what end?

From the Galilee to the West Bank

To understand where Israel is going in the West Bank, which is home to 60 percent of all Palestinians living under occupation, look at its record in the Galilee where some 60 percent of all Palestinian citizens of Israel live.
The similarities between Israeli policies towards these two predominantly Palestinian regions are as disturbing as they are instructive.
In 1947, the UN Partition Plan allocated much of the Galilee to a future Palestinian state. After the Palestinians rejected the ridiculous unenforceable plan and war broke out, Israel occupied the Galilee and imposed military rule for almost two decades with three goals in mind.
First, confiscate large swaths of Palestinian land, especially rich agricultural land belonging to Palestinian refugees, to settle Jews and eventually create a Jewish majority. Second, thwart the return of Palestinians to their homes and towns. And third, break up Palestinian contiguity to block Palestinian national unity and prevent a potential secession.
The plan worked.
After Israel's 1967 war and occupation, Israel carried out similar confiscations of Palestinian land to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including in and around East Jerusalem.
In both regions, Israel established three major Jewish centres in the south, middle and north to break up Palestinian contiguity of the newly occupied territories: Nazareth Illit, Karmiel and Ma'alot in the Galilee, Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Adumim and Ariel in the West Bank.
To solidify the enlarged Jewish presence in the Galilee and later in the occupied West Bank, Israel connected the Jewish settlements with bypass roads and outsourced regional development to networks of exclusively Jewish councils at the expense of Palestinian localities.
The newly erected apartheid system empowered new expansive and affluent Jewish settlements to the detriment of tightly controlled Palestinian peripheries in all the regions under its control.

Formalising apartheid

After five decades of occupation, Israel has now decided the time has come to extend its sovereignty to the illegal Jewish settlements over a third of the West Bank territory.  
Netanyahu reckons the Trump administration is offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go for the kill.
He aims for a gradual annexation. He could start with annexing the three main settlement blocks followed by the areas adjacent to the Jordan River.
This will pave the way for overall permanent Israeli control over historical Palestine.
But Netanyahu will not stop there.
Hoping to overcome his reputation, indeed his legacy of corruption, he is reinventing himself as a latter-day "King of Israel", who fulfils the theological fantasies of the Israeli and American evangelical right for full Israeli control over Palestine.
In that way, Netanyahu aims to consolidate and annex dozens of smaller settlements deep inside the West Bank as Israel has done in the Galilee, enabling Israel to keep its military in, the Palestinians down, and the refugees out.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has signalled its willingness to compensate the Palestinians for the loss of their national rights, with money and autonomy - Gulf money and Israeli-controlled autonomy.
To do so, Israel and the US have been pressuring rich Arab and European states to help turn their "peace into prosperity". They convened a conference in Bahrain especially for that purpose last year.
And they may attempt a similar regional initiative in the coming weeks to present the Palestinians with an ultimatum: acquiesce to their plan or face the consequences.

The future of Israeli hubris

While Israel bets on weak Arab dictatorships to succumb to US pressure, the Palestinians share the Arab masses' eagerness for freedom and rely on their sweeping rejection of Israel.
They overwhelmingly oppose the Trump-Netanyahu plans that facilitate Israel's illegitimate control over their lives, rendering them powerless guests in their own homeland, utterly dependent on Israel's goodwill.
They wish the international community would stop pleading with Israel over annexation and start punishing it for all its military transgressions and crimes in Palestine.
But if Israel goes ahead with annexation, the Palestinians will have no choice but to drop the goal of a mini-state on one-fifth of their homeland, and struggle for equal rights in the entirety of their homeland, seeking freedom from Israeli control and justice after decades of dispossession.
Contrary to the hopes of the Israeli right, the Palestinians will not be bribed or intimidated to pack and leave; they will remain steadfast in their homeland. If anything, it is the Israelis who seemingly are leaving. According to Israel's embassy in the US, 750,000-1 million Israelis live in the US alone. Thousands still are moving to Europe and seeking EU citizenship.
With an equal number of Jews and Palestinians living in very close proximity between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, political and physical barriers will come down sooner or later, albeit after shedding much blood and tears in the process.
If Israel devours all of Palestine, it will be a matter of time before Israel becomes Palestine.

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Russiagate’s Last Gasp


One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia paid the Taliban to kill GIs as an attempt to pre-empt the findings into Russiagate’s origins
 
Posted on

On Friday The New York Times featured a report based on anonymous intelligence officials that the Russians were paying bounties to have U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan with President Donald Trump refusing to do anything about it. The flurry of Establishment media reporting that ensued provides further proof, if such were needed, that the erstwhile “paper of record” has earned a new moniker – Gray Lady of easy virtue.

Over the weekend, the Times’ dubious allegations grabbed headlines across all media that are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans – which seems to have been the main objective. To keep the pot boiling this morning, The New York Times’David Leonhardt’s daily web piece, “The Morning” calls prominent attention to a banal article by a Heather Cox Richardson, described as a historian at Boston College, adding specific charges to the general indictment of Trump by showing “how the Trump administration has continued to treat Russia favorably.” The following is from Richardson’s newsletter on Friday:

  • “On April 1 a Russian plane brought ventilators and other medical supplies to the United States … a propaganda coup for Russia;
  • “On April 25 Trump raised eyebrows by issuing a joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin commemorating the 75th anniversary of the historic meeting between American and Soviet troops on the bridge of the Elbe River in Germany that signaled the final defeat of the Nazis;
  • “On May 3, Trump called Putin and talked for an hour and a half, a discussion Trump called ‘very positive’;
  • “On May 21, the US sent a humanitarian aid package worth $5.6 million to Moscow to help fight coronavirus there. The shipment included 50 ventilators, with another 150 promised for the next week; …
  • “On June 15, news broke that Trump has ordered the removal of 9,500 troops from Germany, where they support NATO against Russian aggression. …”
Historian Richardson added:
“All of these friendly overtures to Russia were alarming enough when all we knew was that Russia attacked the 2016 US election and is doing so again in 2020. But it is far worse that those overtures took place when the administration knew that Russia had actively targeted American soldiers. … this bad news apparently prompted worried intelligence officials to give up their hope that the administration would respond to the crisis, and instead to leak the story to two major newspapers.”

Hear the siren? Children, get under your desks!


The Tall Tale About Russia Paying for Dead US Troops
Times print edition readers had to wait until this morning to learn of Trump’s statement last night that he was not briefed on the cockamamie tale about bounties for killing, since it was, well, cockamamie.

Late last night the president tweeted: “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or the VP. …”
For those of us distrustful of the Times – with good reason – on such neuralgic issues, the bounty story had already fallen of its own weight. As Scott Ritter pointed out yesterday:
Perhaps the biggest clue concerning the fragility of the New York Times’ report is contained in the one sentence it provides about sourcing – “The intelligence assessment is said to be based at least in part on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals.” That sentence contains almost everything one needs to know about the intelligence in question, including the fact that the source of the information is most likely the Afghan government as reported through CIA channels. …”

And who can forget how “successful” interrogators can be in getting desired answers.

Russia & Taliban React
The Kremlin called the Times reporting “nonsense … an unsophisticated plant,” and from Russia’s perspective the allegations make little sense; Moscow will see them for what they are – attempts to show that Trump is too “accommodating” to Russia.

A Taliban spokesman called the story “baseless,” adding with apparent pride that “we” have done “target killings” for years “on our own resources.”

Russia is no friend of the Taliban. At the same time, it has been clear for several years that the US would have to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. Think back five decades and recall how circumspect the Soviets were in Vietnam. Giving rhetorical support to a fraternal Communist nation was de rigueur and some surface-to-air missiles gave some substance to that support.

But Moscow recognized from the start that Washington was embarked on a fool’s errand in Vietnam. There would be no percentage in getting directly involved. And so, the Soviets sat back and watched smugly as the Vietnamese Communists drove US forces out on their “own resources.” As was the case with the Viet Cong, the Taliban needs no bounty inducements from abroad.

Besides, the Russians knew painfully well – from their own bitter experience in Afghanistan, what the outcome of the most recent fool’s errand would be for the US What point would they see in doing what The New York Times and other Establishment media are breathlessly accusing them of?


CIA Disinformation; Casey at Bat
Former CIA Director William Casey said: “We’ll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false.”

Casey made that remark at the first cabinet meeting in the White House under President Ronald Reagan in early 1981, according to Barbara Honegger, who was assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser. Honegger was there, took notes, and told then Senior White House correspondent Sarah McClendon, who in turn made it public.

If Casey’s spirit is somehow observing the success of the disinformation program called Russiagate, one can imagine how proud he must be. But sustained propaganda success can be a serious challenge. The Russiagate canard has lasted three and a half years. This last gasp effort, spearheaded by the Times, to breathe more life into it is likely to last little more than a weekend – the redoubled efforts of Casey-dictum followers notwithstanding.

Russiagate itself has been unraveling, although one would hardly know it from the Establishment media. No collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Even the sacrosanct tenet that the Russians hacked the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks has been disproven, with the head of the DNC-hired cyber security firm CrowdStrike admitting that there is no evidence that the DNC emails were hacked – by Russia or anyone else.

How long will it take the Times to catch up with the CrowdStrike story, available since May 7?
The media is left with one sacred cow: the misnomered “Intelligence Community” Assessment of Jan. 6, 2017, claiming that President Putin himself ordered the hacking of the DNC. That “assessment” done by “hand-picked analysts” from only CIA, FBI and NSA (not all 17 intelligence agencies of the “intelligence community”) reportedly is being given close scrutiny by U. S. Attorney John Durham, appointed by the attorney general to investigate Russiagate’s origins.

If Durham finds it fraudulent (not a difficult task), the heads of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials may roll. That would also mean a still deeper dent in the credibility of Establishment media that are only too eager to drink the Kool Aid and to leave plenty to drink for the rest of us.

Do not expect the media to cease and desist, simply because Trump had a good squelch for them last night – namely, the “intelligence” on the “bounties” was not deemed good enough to present to the president.

(As a preparer and briefer of The President’s Daily Brief to Presidents Reagan and HW Bush, I can attest to the fact that – based on what has been revealed so far – the Russian bounty story falls far short of the PDB threshold.)


Rejecting Intelligence Assessments
Nevertheless, the corporate media is likely to play up the Trump administration’s rejection of what the media is calling the “intelligence assessment” about Russia offering – as Rachel Maddow indecorously put it on Friday – “bounty for the scalps of American soldiers in Afghanistan.”

I am not a regular Maddow-watcher, but to me she seemed unhinged – actually, well over the top.

The media asks, “Why does Trump continue to disrespect the assessments of the intelligence community?” There he goes again – not believing our “intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.”

In other words, we can expect no let up from the media and the national security miscreant leakers who have served as their life’s blood. As for the anchors and pundits, their level of sophistication was reflected yesterday in the sage surmise of Face the Nation’s Chuck Todd, who Aaron Mate reminds us, is a “grown adult and professional media person.” Todd asked guest John Bolton: “Do you think that the president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election, and he doesn’t want to make him mad for 2020?”

“This is as bad as it gets,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi yesterday, adding the aphorism she memorized several months ago: “All roads lead to Putin.” The unconscionably deceitful performance of Establishment media is as bad as it gets, though that, of course, was not what Pelosi meant. She apparently lifted a line right out of the Times about how Trump is too “accommodating” toward Russia.

One can read this most recent flurry of Russia, Russia, Russia as a reflection of the need to pre-empt the findings likely to issue from Durham and Attorney General William Barr in the coming months – on the theory that the best defense is a pre-emptive offense. Meanwhile, we can expect the corporate media to continue to disgrace itself.\

Vile

Caitlin Johnstone, typically, pulls no punches regarding the Russian bounty travesty:

“All parties involved in spreading this malignant psyop are absolutely vile, but a special disdain should be reserved for the media class who have been entrusted by the public with the essential task of creating an informed populace and holding power to account. How much of an unprincipled whore do you have to be to call yourself a journalist and uncritically parrot the completely unsubstantiated assertions of spooks while protecting their anonymity? How much work did these empire fluffers put into killing off every last shred of their dignity? It boggles the mind.]

It really is funny how the most influential news outlets in the Western world will uncritically parrot whatever they’re told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, and then turn around and tell you without a hint of self-awareness that Russia and China are bad because they have state media.

Sometimes all you can do is laugh.”

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). This originally appeared at Consortium News.

Iranian arrest warrant for Trump shows how disreputable US presidency has become

Finian Cunningham
is an award-winning journalist. For over 25 years, he worked as a sub-editor and writer for The Mirror, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Britain's Independent, among others.
Iranian arrest warrant for Trump shows how disreputable US presidency has become
The arrest warrant issued by Iran to Interpol for Donald Trump over the assassination of its Quds Force commander might have some unusual takers. Such as… Democrats in the US?
American politics have become so toxic and factionalized it is not beyond the realm of possibility that opponents of the president might consider arresting him if he stepped into their state jurisdiction.
Democrats and their supportive media have Trump down as a Russian agent anyway (that is, a domestic enemy). Now this week, he is being assailed for treachery against the armed forces by allegedly ignoring intelligence briefings claiming that Russian operatives were paying Afghan militants to assassinate US troops.
How bad can Trump’s reputation get in the eyes of obsessed Democrat rivals? If he is guilty already for the litany of crimes and misdemeanors he is accused of, then why not take advantage of an Interpol red notice as he steps off Air Force One in a Blue State?
ALSO ON RT.COMIran issues arrest warrant for Trump over Soleimani killing, will ask Interpol to act – local media
But in all seriousness, the arrest warrant issued by Iran for the murder of General Qassem Soleimani in January shows how disreputable the office of the US presidency has become. Trump has openly bragged about ordering the assassination of the widely revered Iranian commander.
There was a time when American presidents would at least use discretion in liquidating foreign enemies. Not Trump. He reveled in the murder. For the more liberal apologists of America’s Murder Inc., Trump’s kind of bravado is embarrassing. The president is just not supposed to divulge the bloody reality of Washington’s lawlessness.
It is doubtful that the Iranian warrant will go beyond symbolism. The Trump administration has dismissed it as a “propaganda stunt.
France-based Interpol, which serves as an international agency linking national police forces, told RIA Novosti if it receives a request to arrest Trump, its own rules will not allow it to act on it. 
ALSO ON RT.COMInterpol says it can't act on Iran's request to arrest Trump for ordering the killing of General Soleimani
Arguing that the Iranian move is illegitimate because it is “politically motivated” is void. Arguably, Trump is indeed liable for authorizing the murder of General Soleimani, whose car was hit by a US drone as it drove away from Baghdad International Airport. The Iranian authorities have therefore every right to seek the prosecution of Trump and dozens of other administration officials designated for indictment over the Soleimani killing.
One can be sure that if the shoe was on the other foot, the Americans would be screaming for Interpol red notices against Iranians.
It’s extremely remote Trump will ever travel to a country that might conceivably make an arrest on behalf of Iran.
Nevertheless, the arrest warrant is bound to give him pause, as the Iranian authorities have pledged to prosecute Trump even after he steps out of office and reverts to being a private citizen. The Donald will have to do security risk assessments when opening up new golf courses in the Middle East.
But the ultimate symbolism is an American president who has been sanctioned by another country for arrest. The mere fact that Interpol will even process an application for an international arrest warrant is in itself an astounding blemish on the American presidency.
Flagged by Twitter for possible hate speech, deprecated by European allies for lacking leadership, and now his name put on a crime database, Trump is bringing disrepute on an office once seen as the most powerful in the world.
No wonder if some US opponents would like to see him detained, if only tongue in cheek.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Serving the Bottomless Kool-Aid: ‘Blame Russia’ Rides Again!



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When a nation touts its own exceptionalism, that’s called patriotism. Absolute Americanism so red-blooded that it’s become mandatory for all political aspirants (think Obama’s "belief” with "his every fiber") to prostrate themselves at exceptionalism’s altar. Funny, when an individual believes himself exceptional – that’s diagnosable. Sociopaths afflicted with messiah complexes proclaim their exceptionalism. No one much mentions that twist. Well, only a mentally ill nation – and its symptomatic political-media spokesmen – would dare digest and obtusely deliver the latest headline prognosis: "Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says." (We’ll come back to the absurd doozy packed behind that comma)

Ah ha! And here you thought America capable of making a mess – and miring in the morass – of Afghanistan all by itself. Blasphemy. Two decades of military stalemate teetering towards outright defeat; a highly corrupt and perceptibly illegitimate imposed "partner" Kabul-cabal that still lacks sufficient GDP to pay its own soldier-cops; an indelible adversary that won’t quit; plus 2,219 dead American troops and who knows how many – well, at least 147,000 – vanquished Afghans? Yep, apparently Putin was behind all – or, forgive me, much – of it. Forget Arendt-ian "banality” – that’s the beauty of "evil," especially the utility gift of eternal Russian evil: exceptional America is thereby never culpable, need never self-assess, nor reform its systems. Because, because…Russia. It seems there’s no limit to the almighty power of that nuclear petrostate with its Italy-sized economy.

Pick a self-imposed American problem: systemic injustice (and consequent mass protests); an archaic, undemocratic electoral system; the worst candidate (Hillary) in recent memory; and now Afghanistan – and the duopoly’s political and media elites have a ready responsibility-evasion tool: Russia (or China on the COVID flip-side). Context? Nuance? Critical analysis of intel "sources?" No need. Self-awareness? Not their jam. These professional Washingtonians would have you believe that behind every disastrous decision – running a Clinton against a professional troll; whistling into the graveyard of empires – is an omnipotent (and invariably shirtless) Putin riding a Russian bear. Pretty convenient, huh?

Surely, this reflex (or is it a tic?) belongs in the "you can’t make this shit up" pile. Yet loads of people still buy it! That’s enough to make many of us who didn’t buy what the Russiagaters were selling from Jump Street question our own sanity. Forgive the haughty petulance, but it’s hard as hell to be right in a room full of wrong people – particularly, when the pathologically mistaken are all loaded with Ivy League diplomas, celeb-level notoriety, and the seven-figure salaries that come with it. Publicly questioning the Russia-reflex in mainstream circles has the distinct imagined feel of passing on the Kool-Aid at a Jim Jones soiree. Suddenly one feels Katie Holmes’ pain. But the cultish myopic blame-game is older than Scientology itself. And Russia is the favorite mastermind monster under Washington’s bed.

To wit, should a crippling Depression drives tens of thousands of desperate World War I veterans (and their families) into the streets to beg an advance on promised bonuses, well, then, surely – according to a president and his generals – the marchers must be "Bolsheviks." Three decades later, when a mass movement of black Americans had the temerity to call in their own 350-year unpaid promise of civil rights, they too became "communists” – witting (or unwitting) agents of Soviet machinations. Fast forward five decades further, and when a combat veteran, serving military officer congresswoman dare run for president on an antiwar platform, Tulsi too – according to Queen Hillary of the Moscow martyrs – is "totally" a "Russian asset.” Talk about a timeless script!

Which brings us to intractable Afghanistan, which – according to the ready Scooby-Doo narrative – wouldn’t be so intractable after all, if it wasn’t for that meddling Moscow. We all know the Maysles trope: "Tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance." True enough – but the same can be said for collective American mental illness. Subtract historical context, relevant comparison, and the (to put it lightly) tattered record of US intelligence "reporting," and anything is permissible: like uncritically making supposed Russian "bounties" the story in America’s tortured Afghan adventure.

Let us begin with the backstory. Only an exceptionalism-disease-ravaged nation’s "paper of record" could "break" the original Russian-bounty story without solitary reference to the minor matter that the US military shouldn’t be in far-flung Afghanistan in the first place – and certainly ought not stayed on for a nation-building pivot after decimating Al Qaeda and toppling the Taliban 17 years ago. Or, for that matter, bother with the pesky past: wherein American "intelligence" definitely did arm, train, and pay ("bounty" anyone?) the Taliban’s Islamist forebears to kill Russian troops – to the tune of 15,000 battle deaths from 1979-89. 

Neither did the New York Times trouble itself with geographical realities – I.e. relative proximity of Russia’s borders with Afghanistan. Nor comment on the inconvenient (if not necessarily prohibitive) actuality that Moscow is no historic friend to – and has its own ongoing challenge from – Central Asia and Caucasus Islamists.

Furthermore, it’s hardly mere "what-aboutism" to note the wider irony – and rank hypocrisy – of Washington howling about ostensible Russian "bounties" on American trooper heads. After all, this comes from a USGovernment that literally just placed public bounties on Venezuela’s president, elected legislators, a former intelligence chief, and retired general – then acted shocked…just shocked, when some of its own American ex-special forces mercenaries tried to collect on the multimillion dollar reward. Per sage-like Secretary Pompeo: "There was no US government direct involvement in this operation." So, if the Russia-Taliban link is genuine – and that’s a big "if" – was Moscow’s operational "involvement" really all that much more "direct?"

Look, nobody – even we "Russian assets" and "Putin apologists" – in their right mind wants to see more Afghan-outbound flag-draped coffins. Nor is there much of a caucus favoring foreign actors paying for American soldier scalps. And sure, we don’t really know whether Moscow’s GRU actually did the now mainstream media-swallowed deed. Point is, there’s plenty cause for sensible skepticism. Surely just a short list of now infamous touchstone terms – "WMD," "Libya," "collusion," "[Pentagon or Afghanistan] Papers," "EITs," etc. – should be enough justification for caution. The same "intelligence says," that’s quoted in the New York Times headline, has done a whole lots of says-ing on every one of this super-spook fiascoes.

That the entire spectrum of mainstream media has uncritically built front-page stories on anonymous "sources" from these very same – and not uninvested – US/Western agencies, is proof positive of how deep the malignancy has spread. But let us assume that every bit of this story is true: the press coverage has still been abysmal. America’s corporate media – and reviving-door politico-military talking heads – act like history begins anew each morning as the sun rises over Imperial Washington. This new world spares no time for context, past national sins, relevant contrast, or real reflection on US strategy (or lack thereof). As such, America the exceptionalist-sociopath carries on its insane life absent any real capacity for empathy or self-awareness.

Oh, and I almost forgot, wonder if "All the news that’s fit to print" will think it fitting to explain how exactly killing US troops and potentially spiking Trump’s Afghan peace/withdrawal program helps Moscow’s "master plan" to get The Donald reelected? Call me crazy, but something does seem awry – one of these narratives doesn’t fit…maybe both.


Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor at Antiwar.com His work has appeared in the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Mother Jones, and Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War (Heyday Books) is available for pre-order. Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet and see his website for speaking/media requests and past publications.

Copyright 2020 Danny Sjursen