Hillary Clinton is meeting on Friday with a new national security “working group” that is filled with an elite “who’s who” of the military-industrial complex and the security deep state.
The list of key advisers — which includes the general who executed the troop surge in Iraq and a former Bush homeland security chief turned terror profiteer — is a strong indicator that Clinton’s national security policy will not threaten the post-9/11 national-security status quo that includes active use of military power abroad and heightened security measures at home.
It’s a story we’ve seen before in President Obama’s early appointments. In retrospect, analysts have pointed to the continuity in national security and intelligence advisers as an early sign that despite his campaign rhetoric Obama would end up building on — rather than tearing down — the often-extralegal, Bush-Cheney counterterror regime. For instance, while Obama promised in 2008 to reform the NSA, its director was kept on and its reach continued to grow.
Obama’s most fateful decision may have been choosing former National Counterterrorism Center Director John Brennan to be national security adviser, despite Brennan’s support of Bush’s torture program. Brennan would go on to run the president’s drone program, lead the CIA, fight the Senate’s torture investigation, and then lie about searching Senate computers.
That backdrop is what makes Clinton’s new list of advisers so significant.
It includes Gen. David Petraeus, the major architect of the 2007 Iraq War troop surge, which brought 30,000 more troops to Iraq. Picking him indicates at partiality to combative ideology. It also represents a return to good standing for the general after he pled guilty to leaking notebooks full of classified information to his lover, Paula Broadwell, and got off with two years of probation and a fine. Petraeus currently works at the investment firm KKR & Co.
Another notable member of Clinton’s group is Michael Chertoff, a hardliner who served as President George W. Bush’s last secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and who since leaving government in 2009 has helmed a corporate consulting firm called the Chertoff Group that promotes security-industry priorities. For example, in 2010, he gave dozens of media interviews touting full-body scanners at airports while his firm was employed by a company that produced body scanning machines. His firm also employs a number of other ex-security state officials, such as former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden. It does not disclose a complete list of its clients — all of whom now have a line of access to Clinton.
Many others on the list are open advocates of military escalation overseas. Mike Morell, the former acting director of the CIA, endorsed Clinton last month in a New York Times opinion piece that accused Trump of being an “unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The Times was criticized for not disclosing his current employment by Beacon Global Strategies, a politically powerful national-security consulting firm with strong links to Clinton. Three days later, Morell told Charlie Rose in a PBS interview that the CIA should actively assassinate Russians and Iranians in Syria.
During his time at the CIA, Morell was connected to some of the worst scandals and intelligence failures of the Bush administration. In his book, he apologizes for giving flawed intelligence to Colin Powell about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, but defends the CIA torture program as legal and ethical.
Jim Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander Europe on Clinton’s advisory group, told Fox News Radio in July, when he was being vetted by Clinton as a possible vice presidential nominee, that “we have got to get more aggressive going into Syria and Iraq and go after [ISIS] because if we don’t they’re going to come to us. It’s a pretty simple equation.” He said he would “encourage the president to take a more aggressive stance against Iran, to increase our military forces in Iraq and Syria, and to confront Vladmir Putin” over his moves in Crimea.
The New York Times reported in 2011 that Michael Vickers, a former Pentagon official on Clinton’s new list, led the use of drone strikes. He would grin and tell his colleagues at meetings, “I just want to kill those guys.”
Others on the list played a role in the targeted killing policies of the Obama administration, including Chris Fussell, a top aide to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and now a partner with him at his lucrative consulting firm, the McChrystal Group.
Fussell was aide-de-camp to McChrystal while he was serving as commander of Joint Special Operations Command. McChrystal oversaw a dramatic expansion in the use of night raids and assassinations, and would later be accused of condoning torture at JSOC’s Iraq Base, Camp NAMA (code for Nasty-Ass Military Area).
Richard Fontaine, a former McCain adviser and president of the counterinsurgency-focused think tank Center for a New American Security, responded to the Paris attacks by writing an op-ed that advocated, among other things, a U.S.-backed “safe zone” in Syria. He has also proposed intensifying the bombing campaign against ISIS, and increasing the presence of U.S. special forces in Iraq.
Janet Napolitano, a former Obama DHS secretary, presided over a harsh immigration policy, where the department deported a record number of undocumented immigrants — although she did support Obama’s recent executive actions designed to protect some migrants.
The closest thing the list has to a dissenter to the status quo would appear to be Kathleen Hicks, a think tanker who served in the Obama Defense Department. On a panel at the Charles Koch Institute with John Mearsheimer earlier this year, she denounced American military overreach. “A big footprint in the Middle East is not helpful to the United States, politically, militarily, or otherwise,” she said.
Despite the heavy relevance of the region to U.S. foreign policy, only one adviser, former DHS official Juliette Kayyem, is a (non-Muslim) Arab American.
Top photo: Clinton in discussion with Lt. Gen. David Petraeus on Capitol Hill on Jan. 23, 2007.
Hillary appears appreciative of Gen. David Petraeus, although admittedly he did leak notebooks of classified information to his lover.
Hey! Anybody can spill some secrets, possibly even Hillary, though much of the cloak-and-dagger activities of the security deep state is classified. But it’s for our own good since, like rebellious children, some of us might object on constitutional and ethical grounds. American propaganda, probably the best in the world, is not perfect in its indoctrination through public schools and mass media.
cool.
Eisenhower warned us about the military. Trump will be not different although he might put NSA and IRS, etc on notice. There is a reason the elite fear a Trump presidency. Ron Paul is warning that the deep state will not change however. Hillery, sick, angry, man hating Hillery would be disasterous for the world.
I always figured she’d just be Bush/Obama all over again. :-(
Johnson/Weld is the only way out.
Johnson is ignorant and would be another slave of the Deep State, the Military-Industrial Complex.
Petraeus’s presence……being familiar with such things as a little adultery and a little leaking of secrets… and employing “hand me down” Republicans [a ‘Rockefeller’ Republican which is what Clinton II is in many positions]
In a democracy, you have choices. You can choose Trump. Who wants to increase spending on the military. Or Clinton. Who wants to increase spending on the military.
Two months until the US elections: The political issues facing the working class wsws.org
“Oppose US militarism! Stop the drive to World War III!
In political solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International, the SEP is fighting to build a mass anti-war movement, based on the international working class. The horrific consequences of the US war drive, which threatens to unleash a third world war waged with nuclear weapons, can only be prevented through the independent intervention of the working class. We insist that there can be no fight for socialism without a struggle against war and there can be no fight against war without a struggle for socialism”.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/09/pers-s09.html
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
— Jimi Hendrix
…..and it’s difficult finding anyone more obsessed with attaining power than HRC, and that is what is so deeply frightening and disturbing.
Clinton got first pick from the “Basket of Deplorables”, and Trump got the leftovers. She’s still fishing around for Henry Kissinger, though.
Clinton Cash the full movie :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LYRUOd_QoM
Hellary Clinton, the corrupt Queen of Wall Street, leads the way for the war and terror profiteers to continue bankrupting America.Vote for Hellary so that inequality can widen further in the USA, as they automate out your jobs and ship more of you jobs abroad for cheaper labour. Vote for Hellary so she can ensure the completion of the Bilderberg plan. Corporate corrupt America needs you to vote Hellary.
Hillary is trying to coordinate with the Commanders for Israel Security through the Center for New American Security
The CIS/CNAS/Hillary Working Group is the force involved in marginalizing and flanking the Bibi/Lieberman/Bennett regime of the collapsing Israel apartheid state
The Lieberman appointment was the game changer for Hillary where she finally had to abandon Bibi as the apartheid state collapses, after the Existential Events (and seemed as such by Israel itself) of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the incoming UN Security Council resolution against Israel, supported by Obama
Apartheid? Where are the separate water fountains & bathrooms?
Why are there Arabs in the Israeli parliament & on the Israeli Supreme Court?
Every time I’ve been in Israel, the Jim Crow side of life was pretty obvious. Eg, if it was 120 degrees in the shade, the people picking tomatoes in the hot sun wore keffiyyehs, not kibbutz hats. There are definitely separate highways, separate water systems in the Territories.
Hillary Clinton claimed to have entered college as a Goldwater Republican, but to have left college as an anti-war Democrat. Yet in her disjointed Wellesley commencement speech, she refers approvingly to “the days before media orchestrated demonstrations” and juxtaposes these “media orchestrated demonstrations” to the presumably more admirable student demonstrations in support of a pass-fail system for Wellesley students.
Since the speech was given in 1969, her reference to “media orchestrated demonstrations” can only mean the anti-war demonstrations.
No anti-war Democrat referred pejoratively to the anti-war demonstrations in l969. Hillary Clinton is what she has always been, which is a war hawk.
http://www.wellesley.edu/events/commencement/archives/1969commencement/studentspeech#Mvu7uwgWYfIIxr6V.99
I’d say Make Love Not War, but if that means throwing it up the same hole as where Dirty Willy’s been, it may be safer going to war. COME ON HILLARY, NUKE US ALL AND BE DONE WITH IT! Or not, just keep the bullshit flowing and the taxes going to those lazy cunts in the military so they can wear their shiny buttons and do fuck all. God Bless ‘Merika!
Possible correction: WELFARE State… for the Military Industrial Complex…
and the 1%…
Remind me not to vote for her if these are her choices.
Hillarybots are so incomparably, goddam stupid
We’ve seen ample evidence of that in these threads. But now there’s MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid taking the idiocy to 11. She literally thinks Putin’s Russia is “Communist” and is undertaking actual red-baiting.
The older I get the more I realize the West is led by psychopaths, elected and sustained by a spineless, morally corrupt electorate.
Glad you are catching on. I knew the whole “social control system” was a scam when I was 14. The first scam is getting you to believe in heroes/leaders. For example, you are taught that Pharaoh built the Pyramid…not, thousands of workers built the pyramid. Generals win wars…not, the soldiers win wars, or lose them. Trump builds buildings…not, construction workers build buildings. Next, they taught you there was an invisible man in the sky runnin everything; a total absurdity but billions still believe it……their/your mind was invaded when you were a defenseless child. Money; possibly the biggest scam of all because it allows all the other scams to exist. The best definition of money I ever read was “money isn’t anything, it’s like Music and Mathematics. Totally faith based garbage. It’s not just the poor Muslim women and their oppressive dress code who have their minds messed up; it’s all of us to some degree. By the way, society is, always has been and likely always will be run by conservative sociopaths. They act like and head corporations, amoral to the core.
Don’t forget as stupid as a box of rocks.
Want to go after ISIS? Stop giving them money, weapons, intelligence, pickups, R & R in Turkey and medical care in Israel.
Shhh! You could get in trouble for revealing state secrets.
How about a list of National Security Advisors that are not “the warfare state.” Are there any out there? Please come up with a few names, for example, doves who would be National Security Advisors. When you convene National Security Advisors, you are by definition convening people who work for the warfare state, at least it seems to me. So, isn’t the problem here that she’s talking to any National Security Advisor at all? Unless somebody can name a name, me thinks so.
That said, Hil is trying to win an election against perhaps the most dangerous bigot and warmonger that has ever come this close to the White House. All the faux liberals should indeed be very frightened of that, because he’s not going to have mercy on them, he’s not going to respect the rule of law, privacy. As he’s made so clear, Hillary is guilty before proven innocent. He’s even condoning her assassination. Do the trust fund libs who frequent the Intercept believe they’ll be able to freely express their opinion, however naive and sheltered those opinions are, without being tossed into jail. Me thinks not.
From the evidence, that appears to be true. Thinking is hard. Spewing Revise the Record talking points is easy.
And I hear you can be paid for it.
Methinks you’re confusing “liberal” and “leftist”. If there’s one good thing this election has done for the US, it’s to clarify that liberalism and leftism are two different things, and that the former category includes quite a number of establishment Republicans while excluding quite a number of non-establishment folks who might sometimes identify as Democrats.
On a broader level, the game you’re playing illustrates perfectly one of the reasons liberals need fascists: so they can address leftists while pointing to the fascists, and go “see, look at those people, get in line behind us or they might beat you to death in the streets!” (Or if the leftists say no, so they can then turn around and address fascists while pointing to the leftists, and go “see, look at those people, get in line behind us and we’ll let you beat them to death in the streets”, as happened for example in Germany immediately after WWI.)
Also, I’m confused… you call Trump a “bigot and warmonger”, but isn’t one of the Clinton camp’s main criticisms of Trump supposed to be that he’ll endanger the US by not being enough of a warmonger? Get your buzzwords straight!
There it is again:
Jimmy, dude, I keep telling you and your co-worker, Karen, that constantly dropping these buzzwords from the script is a massive tell. I know Revise the Record doesn’t pay you well, and basically just emails a talking-point script and sends you out to this or that site without much more direction, but Jesus man, can’t you at least try to sound like an authentic, independent-thinking commenter? If for no other reason, for your self-respect?
That they told you to sprinkle the phrases “trust fund” and “white” about leftist Hillary critics might have been useful before month after month of seeing you all spew the same things online, but you’ve all been totally busted long ago. Please, at least pretend to be here as an actual person.
Interesting article, though a shoe horn seems evident in your inclusion of Janet Napolitano. You should make the relationship between Obama’s immigration policy and the warfare state clear, if there is such a relationship. Otherwise, her inclusion makes an otherwise strong piece seem like a list of people whose policies, whatever they are, you don’t agree with. I’ve read the Napolitano paragraph twice to see if I missed something. The closest I can figure is that your reasoning goes like this: Obama made appointments supporting the warfare state. JN was an appointed to a related agency. She must be an advocate of the warfare state. Now, she might be. Your task as journalists is to tell me how.
Criminal Petraeus is a dishonorable dung beetle in costume as an American Soldier. He should not receive any respect from anyone. What he did and the plea deal after is equivalent to a captain of a sinking ship being the first person to leave that ship. What a disgusting human being!
Criminal Mike Morell is another dung beetle in costume. His belief that America should use our Special Ops to make Russia pay for their efforts in Syria suggests the false information he provided to Colin Powell about Saddam’s WMD’s was intentional.
Criminal HRC another dung beetle in costume.
Would those 3 criminals be considered “organized crime?”
War with Iran it is. Oh, sorry, the preferred nomenclature is “regime change”.
It will be a tough “regime change.” Iran has three times the population of Iraq and its military hasn’t been pounded by more than a decade of bombing to “soften it up” for attack and/or invasion.
Also, of course, attacking Iran would make a lot of powerful and important people and nations very unhappy.
It’s a really bad idea, especially for a country (the US) that hasn’t “won” any of its reckless wars since 1946, unless you count Grenada. ;^(
“It’s a really bad idea, especially for a country (the US) that hasn’t “won” any of its reckless wars since 1946, unless you count Grenada. ;^(”
Blinded by anti Americanism!
You can’t handle the truth!
Hahaha!
The more blatantly militant and corporately devious,
the better your chances of being part of the (fascist) team.
Poor Bernie Sanders! He and so many of his supporters
need to enable the corruption, but
they just don’t have the ability to prove their devotion on a
suitable level to be noticed.
Well, window dressing is a nice background to give the impression
that someone has an aesthetic beyond the blood-splattered money.
Maybe, when Trump again tries to prove his
cold-hearted deviousness is on a comparable level,
he could again be welcomed into the team and we can all
forget about those pesky little differences which are now separating
the two dominant versions of arrogant imperial delights.
Shall we have tea?
It should be abundantly clear to any sentient being that the US government has been controlled by the military industrial complex, that Dwight Eisenhower warned us about in his farewell address, at least since the coup on November 22, 1963. Without unending war there cannot be unending profits for the “defense” contractors. Hillary will be more of the same. The Hope and Change never was. The Bush warlords cost the US over 4000 of its finest, over 25000 wounded or maimed, and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians their lives. Did I mention the $2 trillion plus that had to be printed into existence? The next war needs to be the Second American Revolution.
In fact, the rise of the military industrial domination goes back,
at least,
to the FDR administration.
The building of the pentagon.
The removal and scorn for Henry Wallace
(who was central to the New Deal policies and who had enormous
support from the people during his vice-presidency)
by the heads of the democrat party because he was
(as the powerful portrayed it) insufficiently militaristic.
They brought in the uber-hawk Truman and proceeded
to inflate the hysteria of the “cold war.” This laid the groundwork
for the game of hyper paranoia and the competition by the
democrats and republicans to prove who was/is most
aggressively imperialistic and warmongering.
I believe Mrs. Clinton will be a restraining force on her war party advisors. The Clinton Foundation needs contributions from foreign despots, so glassifying the Middle East with nuclear weapons would be counterproductive, at least from her point of view.
I also see no motivation for her administration to stop selling planes and cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. This will help restrain her more enthusiastic advisers from sending more US troops to the Middle East. Why would the US wish to invade, when the Saudis will do it for them (and pay for the privilege)? It wouldn’t make sense for the US to cut into its own arms sale business.
That leaves the possibility of war in East Asia. But going to war against China would ding Apple’s profits, so that possibility is also ruled out. Europe is still averse to war, as many people there pay too much attention to history. So it will probably be difficult to start a war there. South American countries appear to be too busy ousting their democratically elected leaders to engage in war. That leaves Africa.
Africa has a lot of unexploited resources and nobody minds if you start a war there. Mrs. Clinton should instruct her advisors to refine the plans for the African campaign. It appears to be the most profitable opportunity out there.
Dude, your assessment makes way more sense than the WWIII article being promoted around here by some commenters.
You are correct, WWIII is not the appropriate terminology or framework for establishment foreign policy. Conscripted full labor participation is the proper euphemism:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j3SpCXMCPpc
Now you see here, I insist that given Hillary Clinton’s saber-rattling regarding Russia, and if she followed through on her statements as president, and if she listened to the “wise counsel” of her above advisers, given all that, that a devastating war between the U.S. and Russia would lead to conscripted labor participation like nobody’s business!
We aren’t forced to choose between her WWIII on the one hand, and the benefits of it on the other; to refer to either refers to both.
Indeed, referring to either includes both
You forget the maniacal propensity of the US to precipitate more warfare by our idiotic foreign policies; pretty soon “somebody” will truly “drop one on us”…..welcome to WW3.
People often lose perspective. Her advisors are just trying to keep the military-industrial-security complex fed, not start Armageddon.
Sure there are no Dispensationalists on that list?
I thought the same thing about Obama. Fact is, Clinton will lead us in to more war. As Secretary of State she took part in attacking countries that we were not at war with.
“The Clinton Foundation needs contributions from foreign despots, so glassifying the Middle East with nuclear weapons would be counterproductive, at least from her point of view.”
__
That cat is already out of the bag. The Clinton wallet wont be seeing any more donations from the Gulf states. Hillary, her neocon cabal, and NATO have their war plan focused on Russia/China/Iran … and any sane person knows the USA is doomed if that be the case.
Petraeus, Chertoff, Morell… deja vu all over again.
The Neocons are securing their positions in the executive branch, WTF! The same group of people always ruling and running America into disastrous wars, despite the undemocratic reality of this. Wasn’t preventing an oligarchy the general reason behind limiting presidential terms after FDR? Although it may be argued that it was to prevent one person from gaining too much power as president, both the Bushs and the Clintons have found a convenient work around by keeping the presidency within the family. Secure the nomination of your party nearly a decade in advance, stifle qualified contenders from challenging you even before the primaries, create bipartisan support in halting any parties outside of the 2 party system from gaining traction, and intimidate and ridicule everyone who brings up legitimate concerns about this process. This is phenomena that history has put on display in banana republics and unfortunately our chapter is now being forged in America. Its akin to one of histories many royal families preserving the facade of democracy and normalcy following a coup. They pass the throne from husband to wife to sons, ect. Hold elections while the royals control and/or manipulate the supreme counsels that vet and determine which candidates are even allowed to run. Leaving us dominated by only 2 American royal families and Neocon war zealots as our perpetually rulers. Consequently this is how Trump even became the second most serious contender for president of the United States of America, there was an utter lack of non-Royal options.
the rise of evil…. they smile in your face….
Bet me, a survey of world leaders will also show they do not trust Hellary Clinton and believe she is stricken with some sort of debilitation that could have her tripping off WW3.
Hillary Diane Rodham
Hillar – 6
yDiane – 6
Rodham – 6
just a coincidence.
Elect Putin
Chelsea for president!!!
Indeed Webster Hubbell would be proud to have his daughter as President.
Hillary Clinton is a holdover, the equivalent of the Kremlin old guard in the failing days of the Soviet Union – connected to the old order, dedicated to their preservation, a product of the old system – with no future. The post-Cold War era her husband presided over, the crooked Russian billionaires, that’s all over. She’s not going to run a global empire – even if that’s what she’s focused on – that’s no longer a realistic position. China, Russia, India – these are not countries with global military base networks, and sooner or later, the vast majority of overseas U.S. military bases will also be shut down.
That’s not what her husband and his advisors promoted – no, they closed down domestic American bases and kept the foreign ones open. Liberal militant war pigs, that’s all they were – not much different from the Conservative militant war pigs, in fact they are basically on the same team, the neocons and the neolibs – closer to the Saudi Royals and Israeli PMs than they are to the average American citizen.
Game over, children; time to focus on rebuilding the domestic United States economy, because the imperial wet dream of global dominance is over, done, kaput.
Imagine a world without superpowers. . . I wonder if you can?
Of course they are the same team, they both have the same corporate masters.
As the article above alluded to that is why we saw the Hope of the Obama campaign turn into the miserable grey sameness of all recent govts since Reagan.
Wake up people! Get rid of the corruption! Nothing short of violent civil disobedience will do now. You’ve left it too late for anything else.
Your comment is like a bad joke.
You think you are opposed to the current corruption,
but you call for violence,
which is THE most significant characteristic of the current corruption.
You want more violence when what is needed most of all is
the elimination of a system which depends on violence.
Nice thoughts Ghandi but can you say “Dakota Access Pipeline”?
Chanting Ohm does not get the point across that enough is enough.
Hillary Clinton is a warmonger and may well start WWIII. This Foreign Policy article is written by an American who’s a visiting researcher at Moscow’s Foreign Ministry: The Kremlin Really Believes That Hillary Wants to Start a War With Russia.
And they are more than justified in that perception — her own words and actions show it, and now look at who is advising her. Read that whole FP piece.
Sorry folks. I didn’t see that Doug has already posted this below.
War, war and more war.
Wherever Hillary goes, the corpses pile up. She is the ultimate NEOCON.
Mr. Jilani, Mr. Emmons, Ms. La Chance
President Obama has been geopolitically extremely weak with respect to our traditional allies in the Middle East. I would expect Hillary to shore up our deteriorating relations with allies (for example; Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel) and hold a firmer line against Iranian and Russian aggression. Hillery’s advisers seem to support that idea.
You certainly have a point. I would add that all the above advisors put together are not half as crooked as the person they get to advise. Anyway, it will be Donald Trump who will win, so we need to focus on his advisors instead of all the world’s crooked population.
Fair enough General. I don’t buy that Trump is a shoe-in, but he appears to be making a race of it anyway (mostly on Hilary’s stupidity and corruption.
I dunno. Hayden is a weasel.
The very notion that an American could utter such a phrase and believe it is based on reality is not only ludicrous, it is sick and twisted.
What do you call Russia’s war in Ukraine? Self defense?
If the US-NATO puppet government in Kiev had left the people of the Donbass alone, there would be no war in eastern Ukraine. To the extent that there is war there, the Kiev puppets are the aggressors and the people of the Donbass are, indeed, acting in self-defense.
To the extent that Russia may be assisting ethnic Russians to defend themselves. . . what the fuck did anyone think would happen, while they were plotting the coup?
Doug
“……If the US-NATO puppet government in Kiev had left the people of the Donbass alone, there would be no war in eastern Ukraine. To the extent that there is war there, the Kiev puppets are the aggressors and the people of the Donbass are, indeed, acting in self-defense…….what the fuck did anyone think would happen, while they were plotting the coup?……”
First of all, Russia illegally annexed the Crimea Peninsula. Russia held an illegal referendum prior to annexation. In annexing the Crimea Peninsula, Russia violated the Budapest Agreement which Russia signed in 1994. Second, Russia is behind the rebellion in eastern Ukraine. Putin simply is stirring up trouble because of the loss of Russian influence in Ukraine. Indeed, Putin has even lied about Russian troops in the Crimea Peninsula and eastern Ukraine. Putin is a former cold war KGB agent that believes Ukraine falls within the Russian sphere of influence.
Third, it was a massive failure of Russian intelligence which cost Russia their puppet government. Ukraine was crawling with Russian agents (FSB/SVR). Russian intelligence failed to understand the roots of the rebellion i.e., the Ukrainian people lived for decades under a Soviet dictatorship. The Russian puppet, Yanukovych, put a stop to an economic deal with Europe leading to the coup, the illegal annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine (backed by Putin). The Ukrainian people simply sought closer ties to Europe and – understandably – wanted to distance themselves from their former Russian masters.
Russia is fully and solely responsible for the war in eastern Ukraine.
Man, Doug is in way over his head…
I am not sure how anyone can actually defend Russian policy in Ukraine. You almost have to be a Russian citizen or work for RT to take that stand.
“I am not sure how anyone can actually defend Russian policy in Ukraine. ”
He is not really defending Russian policy, he is striving to portray the West (specially the US) as the greatest evil responsible for all the world problems. From that perspective only Western nations can violate international laws. He will justify not only Russia’s violations of international laws but even Russia’s violations of its own agreements.
Nice to see a “kindred spirit” on this thread.
Craig, I promise you, you and Mani, as well as Gil, are all, indeed, kindred spirits. Altho, and while you frequently post inane arguments, I’ve never remotely seen you behave in as juvenile a fashion as Mani. Neither has Gil.
Mani is a self-admitted troll; he insists he’s only here to laugh and be entertained, which he underscores with strings of “LOLs.” You and Gil are not trolls, but yeah, your “spirits” are quite similar to Mani’s. Congratulations Craig, some new friends for you! You deserve them. Mani most of all.
Thanks!
I think you ate too much propaganda without chewing. While the Donbass is ethnically Russian, Russian troops have not been in Ukraine.
So somehow the Ukrainian army bombing and shelling eastern Ukraine becomes “Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Makes about as much sense as arming and supporting jihadis in MENA is somehow “fighting terrorism.” Just how delusional can a person get?
yep!
Yes but on the plus side, his three point game has vastly improved…
https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+of+obama+playing+basketball&biw=1280&bih=597&tbm=isch&imgil=3vX0kIwNuuQdjM%253A%253B26DgguHHFdPONM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.californiaindianeducation.org%25252Fsports_heros%25252Fjoseph_burton.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=3vX0kIwNuuQdjM%253A%252C26DgguHHFdPONM%252C_&usg=__yw1KW1sQKk3vLUnGPCUnJXeE2IM%3D&ved=0ahUKEwiZhN3lkIHPAhWB4iYKHYhBBP4QyjcIPg&ei=ARDSV9n_D4HFmwGIg5HwDw#imgrc=3vX0kIwNuuQdjM%3A
Swish!!!
I am relieved that you didn’t post a link to a collage of the circle jerks that you, General Geek Mythology, craigsummers, and Nate ritualistically desecrate The Intercept threads with.
Is this truly you Mark? I have observed that my own avatar is being used by an unknown cowardly third party in a manner that is intended to aggravate me. However, I am unphased as I harbor the perspective that such foolish nonsense is only advanced by those whose own ideas lack the requisite gravitas to stand up to public scrutiny. As many of you past comments have been worthy of consideration, I suspect that this comment did not originate from you – at least I hope that that is the case.
Karl, I’ve been following the TI for awhile now, but I haven’t posted in a long while. I’m not sure if that is the “mark” or not that you are referring to, although it is appears to be a common screen name (the likes of which have inspired me to be unique). I find the post that you’re replying to be overly crude, yet I also find your encouragement of Craig, Hercules, and Mani intriguing. Those advocates are avid Zionists that are agree with Hillary’s positions of escalate the current wars in the Middle East and encouraging conflict with Russia. When their party (Likud) demands are being fulfilled they will believe that America is doing its duty. Where do you stand Karl? Do you also take their position? Do you harbor a grudge against Obama because his policies are version of Bush lite? Should Barak have been militarily more aggressive as the mentioned commentators preferred or do you believe his administration was too aggressive as many war weary members believe? Do you harbor disdain for the POTUS because he’s playing for the wrong team (the Dems)? Was the 2nd Bush a good president, did he serve our country well? Please elaborate, thanks.
Let’s not forget GilG; he and Craig are also high-fiving one another. Mani fancies himself a worker in the human rights and humanitarian aid field. How hilarious, then, that his new BFF is the torture-loving (Craig thinks it is affirmatively good, not merely some regrettable “necessity”), anti-civil liberties, Trump-voting, authoritarian, Craig Summers. GilG also thinks he’s some sort of sane liberal. Yet look at his affinity for what Craig is.
Both Zionism and unqualified support of Hillary turn progressives into… something else, usually Republicans/wingnuts. Someone afflicted with both is simply going to be irredeemably beset by moral and ideological rot. But they do find each other, and have here.
Sorry Sir Issac/Mona, I am not buying your act.
You are a very stupid wingnut with unhinged views, so that explains your ongoing fixation with me. (That, and I’ve rhetorically smacked you down so many times about this or that, that you are very frustrated and pissed at me.) You know, Karl, all the staff here, including Glenn, can access everyone’s ISP address. He’d know if I was posting under multiple names. But I’m not gonna pester him to waste his time verifying this every time a nut like you makes this claim.
Yet here you are in true form… go figure.
Karl I’m flattered that you mistook me for Mona, yet rest assured, I am a different person. Also there is no act to buy, as I’m not here to sell. If my questions were too intrusive then feel free to say so and I will push no further. Yet I’m still curious, as to your views, which I inquired about earlier.
Iranian and Russian aggression! Ha, that’s funny.
How do you think Hillary Clinton’s line works with Saudi Arabia?
https://www.newcoldwar.org/hillary-clintons-exceptionalist-warpath/
Nobody sane is buying this nonsense anymore.
The apartheid state of Israel is little better – now they’re selling arms to the Honduran military (probably just a cut-out for the U.S. State Department) to support the right-wing military regime that Hillary Clinton sponsored there.
After, of course, facilitating $30 billion in arms sales that then went to the Saudi obliteration of Yemen, while the Clinton Foundation received additional kickbacks from Boeing, the chief recipient of the Saudi contracts. Nothing increases one’s diplomatic and feminist bona fides like bombing a mess of weddings and hospitals. No doubt the refrain around the CIA/NSA water cooler was ” well the brides were asking for it…” As to Israel’s support of the coup and subversion of democracy in Honduras, its Iran-Contra all over again. Without Iran. And probably with those fabulous fascist females Power/ Nuland/ Flournoy playing the Ollie North/Poindexter/ Abrams/Negroponte role
And now we have Obama in Laos, bemoaning the JFK/Johnson/Nixon-sponsored cluster bombing of that country, and all the unexploded ordnance – while he did the exact same thing with the Saudis in Yemen, presiding over the biggest arms deal in history. Astonishing levels of hypocrisy, really.
I’d really like to see Obama visit Yemen right now, that would be fantastic, and incredibly unlikely.
hold the phone…
Hellary convinces Obama to crush Libya for regime change, lied to the Russians about this scenario, then arranged CIA weapons sales to some guy who shipped them to Syria to spark the revolution, OK’d a coup in the Honduras, and now the weapons we sell to israel are being straw purchased by Hellarys hunta in the Honduras?
Apartheid? Where are the separate water fountains & bathrooms?
Why are there Arabs in the Israeli parliament & on the Israeli Supreme Court?
have you heard that latest about that zion pos nuttinyahu?
he’s contaminated?
Anti-Racist Dutch MP Refuses to Shake Netanyahu’s Hand
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/07/anti-racist-dutch-mp-refuses-shake-netanyahus-hand/
so what is the deal – radiation from Dimona? doesnt use toilet paper? invisible swastika on his forehead?
Killery and Obama administration have increased arms sales to the middle-east by 143% over the Bush administration.
The middle-east dictatorships have been donating money like crazy for arms sales for the last ten years.
How much more “shoring up” would you say needs to be done?
Israel practically has a blank check when it comes to US relations. They get all our intelligence and vast sums of military aid.
What exactly do you think needs ‘shoring up’?
Explain
The List of advisers proves Hellary is a Neo-Con in the brain dead W Bush mold.
Why would any liberal or progressive vote for her?
Blind loyalty, and perhaps for her sex (never mind the same was not invoked with numerous more credible candidates from all parties (Margaret Chase Smith (R), Barbara Jordan (D), Elizabeth Dole (R), Carol Moseley-Braun (D), Cynthia McKinney (G), Roseanne Barr (P&F), Jill Stein (G), and numerous others I forget)).
gia, tera, peta… Ouch…
… Giga, Terra ouch
Ouch. kilo, mega, major ouch…
Most people don’t know who David Petraeus is or what his views are. This long CSPAN hearing shows his true character. https://www.c-span.org/video/?328261-1/former-cia-director-david-petraeus-testimony-us-middle-east-policy
He also gave his assessment of the Russian military build-up in Syria and of the Iran nuclear agreement.
And they probably sleep better than we do, as ignorance is, you know, bliss. ;^(
We’ve had the same people in government or working with government for 30-40 years. They get paid to run for office, while they’re in office provide subsidies, tax loopholes, and federal contracts for their corporate interests. When you leave office, walk across the street through the open door of WhateverTheF–k And Partners Firm, collect your money and laugh. These people will never stop unless they’re made to, why would they?
Mona posted this, from Foreign Policy, to the thread on Glenn’s last piece:
The Kremlin Really Believes That Hillary Wants to Start a War With Russia
I think it probably qualifies as a must-read.
Yes, it deserves serious highlighting.
Meh…
If Kissinger vouched for it, it’s golden! I kid though, some thoughts on the rest.
But their perception doesn’t make it true. Think of the opposite: “Washington perceives Putin as an existential threat.” Surely some people in Washington feel this way, but objectively its an absurd exaggeration. It’s like claiming that ISIS is an existential threat to the U.S. You may believe that, but it doesn’t make it true.
So refocusing to the article’s title of the “The Kremlin Really Believes That Hillary Wants to Start a War With Russia,” so what!? Is it really a surprise that Russian politicians would vilify a critic of their political regime when the alternative is the adoring Donald Trump!?
If they had NO respect at all for Clinton, they wouldn’t insist on remaining anonymous. Re-read this article. There is zero specificity on any of the actors that feel this way. That is telling. They may loathe her, but they aren’t stupid enough to not respect her.
This is simply a gross representation of what she said. This line stems from the 3rd Democratic debates in which Hillary Clinton advocated establishing a no-fly-zone in Syria which could limit Syrian bombings but further enter the U.S. into confrontation with Syria and Russia. This FP author’s interpretation is sinister in nature and ignores that Clinton said “And of course [the no-fly-zone] has to be de-conflicted with the Russians, who are also flying in that space.”
This article spells out the argument for/against the no-fly zone that doesn’t contain a misleading quote. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/19/do-republicans-and-democrats-really-disagree-about-how-to-handle-the-islamic-state/
How serious is this piece? The author suggests Clinton is some raving drunkard and spends a few sentences fixating on some of her goofy facial expressions and antics as if they meant something meaningful.
LOL. I don’t buy into the Trump being a pawn of Putin narrative, but the notion that Moscow respects the “America First” slogan is pretty touching in its naiveté. It’s a meaningless slogan that could cover anything. America first could mean buckling down and being protectionist, or protecting interests abroad and thwarting preemptive threats.
I’ve been around TI enough to know that this is literally the antithesis of what several TI viewers believe. This is Kissingerian hogwash. Untainted by ideology, the predictability of realpolitik. Why are some of you endorsing this piece!?
The author then proceeds to basically say: we took Crimea, its ours, move on Hillary.
On a parting note, we already had a president that aimed to normalize relations with Mr. Putin and glowed in his magisterial warmth. His name was George W. Bush and it didn’t turn out as well as planned (see Georgia-Ossetian conflict circa 2008)
The article was a little hyperbolic but I think you overstate when you call it Kissingerian hogwash. I suspect Hillary herself will relish “the predictability of realpolitik,” with Kissinger holding her hand.
You mean the George Bush that ignored Russia’s advice and went into Iraq? The one who favored expanding NATO? The one condemned Russia for sending its forces to both defend Russian peacekeepers targeted by Georgia and to defend South Ossetians after Georgia broke the cease-fire? The one whose administration only supported one withdrawal from Iraq- Georgian troops being flown from Iraq to Georgia on USAF aircraft, not long after Russia sought to destroy Georgia’s offensive war capacity?
Yup, that’s the Bush Nate means. Historical accuracy isn’t a major concern of his.
You shouldn’t coopt views you are ignorant of, Dougie boy.
For example, If you believe that Georgia broke the ceasefire as Orville said, perhaps you can go update all the news accounts and Wikipedia pages concluded otherwise.
Whether Georgia or South Ossetia broke the ceasefire is a trivial question and the truth may be unknowable (although I strongly suspect Georgia).
The central question is why there was a fight. And the answer to that is that Georgia (led by a new pro-Western regime and encouraged by the Bush administration) wanted to reclaim South Ossetia and Abkhazia and neither the people of those regions nor their protector, Russia, were inclined to allow that.
I just glanced at the Wiki page. The first paragraphs look like they’ve been edited by the Georgian Ministry of Truth, probably with translation assistance from “our” State Department.
Let’s compare and contrast these two statements by Doug:
1. Historical accuracy isn’t a major concern [of Nate]
2. Whether Georgia or South Ossetia broke the ceasefire is a trivial question and the truth may be unknowable (although I strongly suspect Georgia).
Somebody is projecting…
So 7,300 nuclear warheads. Plus, of course, the 6,970 in the US arsenal. Maybe you should do a little historical review, Nate, and remind yourself of all the wars that can be traced to what one side believed about the other.
. . .Skipping a bunch of standard Nateishness. . .
The author is an academic working in Moscow. He wasn’t part of “taking” anything.
And Crimea has been Russian since 1783, when both Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet were founded under Catherine the Great. That it ended up under the authority of Kiev after the breakup of the USSR was a side effect of an internal political move by Khrushchev in the 1950s. The vast majority of Crimeans have long wanted independence from Ukraine and/or reunification with the Russian Federation and at least twice voted for those outcomes, only to be blocked by Kiev.
Once the US-supported coup toppled the elected government and the coup plotters unleashed the (real, live, no-bullshit) Nazis, there was never any question that the peninsula would be “going home” to Mother Russia and there is no chance that status will be changing. Only the truly clueless, and the most reckless Western warmongers,imagine otherwise.
That arsenal remains significant regardless of President. Pretty poor counterargument and irrelevant to my points.
As for Crimea, what alternative reality do you live in?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
Sorry, Nate, I know too much about this issue to rely upon Wiki pages. I repeat:
“. . .there was never any question that the peninsula would be “going home” to Mother Russia and there is no chance that status will be changing. Only the truly clueless, and the most reckless Western warmongers,imagine otherwise.”
That’s the one and only real reality.
Ha, what a arrogant response, love it! YOU are the real source for the truth since YOU “know too much.” Sounds like something the Donald would say.
At that debate, Hillary said that she would shoot down Russian planes as part of her “no-fly zone.” But perhaps we should feel better because she said, “I would hope that it wouldn’t come to that.”
She referred to Putin as Hitler, and installed Warpig extraordinaire Victoria Nuland as the Asst Sec of State on her way out the door. If she’s elected, we should all pray that she only starts a New Cold War.
But their perception doesn’t make it true.?
I WILL HAVE TO CALL YOU OUT ON THAT LIE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo
and your mention about Kissingerian hogwash? Kissinger literally is HOGWASH.
American foreign policy is BANKRUPT and will BANKRUPT America if wallstreet’s whore hellary takes the helm.
Nate, I usually ignore you — you are usually in idiot — but I do want to call attention to one way in which you misrepresent that article. You claim it distorts what Clinton said about a NFZ in Syria. You claim it:
This is what he wrote, my emphasis:
Most of your comment is equally tendentious. But I’m now reverting to ignoring you.
“This is Kissingerian hogwash. Untainted by ideology, the predictability of realpolitik. Why are some of you endorsing this piece!”
Because the article is against HC, the candidate despised by TI writers specially GG. The article is a joke. It is laughable but more importantly, it is a negative report on HC. That is the key for those commenters.
I took a look, but that article left out most of the major issues in the post-Cold War State Department agenda in ex-Soviet satellite states, from eastern Europe to Central Asia – control of oilfields in Central Asia and pipeline routes to Europe in places like Georgia. The article also had very little mention of the NATO expansion agenda (and let’s recall, the justification for NATO, i.e. the Warsaw Pact, has been dissolved) in eastern Europe.
Consider a truly radical notion: just as with the Warsaw Pact, NATO should be dissolved. If the EU wants to take over (at about what, 10-20% of todays NATO outlay?) fine, they can do that. That would be comparable to the Russian military budget – and would save hundreds of billions in American taxpayer money that would be better spent domestically in the U.S.
Funny how we can’t get any discussion of the benefits of NATO dissolution in the press – -any more than we can get a discussion of whether or not Gaddafi would have been overthrown if he’d dropped $32 million on the Clinton Global Initiative / Clinton Foundation, as Bahrain’s Crown Prince did. Let’s ask Clinton about that in the debates! (Fat chance)
Gosh, that has seemed perfectly obvious to me since the early 90s (I thought that “peace dividend” was a really good idea). Does that mean I’m radical?
“Radical” defined: anything the U.S. corporate media won’t touch. This leaves a lot of room for “radicals”, doesn’t it?
Personally, I find it astonishing that the corporate media won’t mention the fact that so much of the popular distaste for Clinton revolves around her militaristic foreign policy agenda, which seems so similar to the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle-etc. era – it’s really kind of creepy, the whole media world in the U.S. – and particularly much of the “liberal progressive pro-Clinton” outlets. How much longer can this continue?
The analogy does not quite hold. No matter what, Obama/Hillary would never have had a Bahraini Crown Prince murdered, and would never have opted to subvert and destabilize Bahrain, as they did Libya.
The Clintons probably would have taken any $32 million proffered by Gaddafi and went ahead and had him murdered anyway.
No, I doubt this – that was the strangest thing about the Gaddafi episode, as he had been such a good friend of GW Bush, Tony Blair, Sarkozy and Condi Rice from 2003-2008.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/25/article-2030186-0D91F03900000578-457_634x440.jpg
So what went wrong? I think it has a lot to do with the unanticipated Arab Spring, which was quickly hijacked by pro-Arab monarchists (like Hillary Clinton) – Gaddafi, like Assad, was more in the Arab nationalist camp.
I still think $32 million would have bought him some Clinton face time and avoided the overthrow.
hellary has decided to go all third reich on the planet and restart the eastern front. i guess she also was able to scavenge and refurbish some pansers.
hellary clinton is insane
SHE WANTS TO DRAFT WOMEN.
thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/283631-clinton-backs-mandatory-draft-for-women
Let’s see if her daughter would ENLIST fight and die and then see how this insane pimped out whore for wallstreet wars for profits feels.
and hellary clinton is a compulsive liar.
Thank you. Yes, CrookdClinton wants to draft women. You can start by reinstating the drafting men first.
Has she ever given a reason.
You can almost see the eyes of the China and the whole world actually planning their years, while we carry on a soap opera show led by BillCrookClinton himself.
Again, statesmen of yore would have fallen on a sword or taken a selfbullet wound.
No self respect.
If we had reinstituted the draft in the wake of 9/11, the apparently-endless War of Terror would have ground to a halt some time ago.
Americans don’t give a shit about some “economic draftees” and gung ho shitkickers being killed along with hundreds of thousands of brown people (about whom they care even less) but, when the sons and daughters of “people like us” start coming home in bags, they can become very upset.
The all-volunteer military has been and remains a critical tool without which the warmongers wouldn’t have nearly such a free hand.
absolutely.
BDS the military and we can put money back into a country and make it worth defending – if we ever really get attacked.
wallstreet’s fear is free and clear.
It never ceases to amaze me that anyone suggests bringing back the draft in order so that we will have less war. This is entirely ass-backward. Drafts are instituted to make wars bigger, not to end them. No kidding! Counter-intuitive, eh?
I know people use the Vietnam War as an example of what they think they are talking about. Which is funny because the exact opposite is evidenced. The Vietnam War got bigger thanks to the draft.
Public anger did indeed grow, and I suppose nostalgia for all that awesome civil engagement must have a lot to do with the idea that somehow bringing back the draft will suddenly make Americans anti-war.
But wait, what did the public anger accomplish first? Ending the draft. Arguable, public did not end the war. A few years AFTER ending the draft, the war finally ended.
The obvious lesson is: bring back the draft, and we will have bigger wars, and then people will get angry, and then the draft will be stopped, and we’ll be back where we are now, only with a lot more dead people. A cunning plan for peace!
typo in last paragraph: Arguably, public anger did not end the war. A few years AFTER ending the draft, the war finally ended.
Forgot to add: the war ended well after the demonstrations had pretty much fizzled out too. I can’t see how Vietnam supports the case that a draft makes Americans stop war. It might show how a draft makes Americans stop the draft. Seems kind of dopey, not to mention cruel and deeply authoritarian, to just test out this doubtful hypothesis that drafts end wars on thousands of unfree conscriptees.
(Oh yeah, and they always pretend that THIS TIME the draft will “really” be fair and affect everybody across the country equally, all classes etc., which is just fucking insane, like how do you live in this country and you think somehow right now we would have a “fair” draft?)
Nonsense, she’s just keeping a close eye on those macho thugs, merely pretending to get down on her knees to service the military-industrial complex! Just like Obama’s blackness made him too cool for school (why a modern day Malcom X – if you don’t count his murderous, corporatist warmongering or his entrenching and militarization of ubiquitous surveillance and racist policing), Hillary’s magnificent Wonder-vagina will steer her away from the patriarchal, corrupt, vicious militarism which serves nasty corporate interests! Remember “They say email, coz she’s female! All hail the shining beaver on the hill! It’s a re-vulva-lution!” It’s obvious the patriarchy is making her do anything that doesn’t look good – well, either the patriarchy or the Russians. “Clinton’s great, this I know. Dear Bob Cesca told me so!”
Too funny!
Uh-oh! Lock the doors and bar the windows! Hide the women and children (and the boys and men)!
Maisie’s on a magnificent rampage.
And it’s not fair. She only gets away with this cuz she’s a girl. ;^)
I appreciate the rogues gallery and citations… but do not see anything in the following.. other than standard issue head promo guy telling people his products or companies he reps products are super duper….
[Chertoff] since 2009m has helmed a corporate consulting firm called the Chertoff Group that promotes security-industry priorities. For example, in 2010, he gave dozens of media interviews touting full-body scanners at airports while his firm was employed by a company that produced body scanning machines.
I am unsure if I am to be outraged that he gave media interviews…espousing the glories of these products while head of a consulting firm rapping these goods?
…or, I am supposed to be generally unhappy that he is a ‘hardliner’ from GWB administration… who likes uber security gear?
no sarcasm..but have to say that what you describe is probably in his job description… as a private consultant.
That media outlets fail to (if they did fail) point out the bias…is more on them, I would think.
…that should read ‘repping’…
Did you open the link and read it?
Kitt… good point… and no.. I scan-read quickly without diving in…
I would have enjoyed seeing a relevant insert in the body…. but that’s a writing quip….
Thanks for making the suggestion. A good link…
however, I wonder if you read the Clarification on this Article above same.
It points out that the headline and citation about abusing public trust are claims made by a group actively opposed to these devices….
I think it is telling, but the Chertoff group stated that the connection was “previously disclosed”
—- from the link:
“An airport passengers’ rights group […] criticized Chertoff, who left office less than a year ago, for using his former government credentials to advocate for a product that benefits his clients.
“Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive,” said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, which opposes the use of the scanners.
Chertoff’s advocacy for the technology dates back to his time in the Bush administration. In 2005, Homeland Security ordered the government’s first batch of the scanners — five from California-based Rapiscan Systems.
———- the clarification referenced in my reply:
CLARIFICATION TO THIS ARTICLE
The headline on this article about former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff’s advocacy of the use of full-body scanners at airport security checkpoints was misleading. The headline, “Chertoff accused of abusing public trust by touting body scanners,” was based on the comments of a representative of a group that opposes the use of such scanners. The representative of the group criticized Chertoff for not disclosing in media interviews that his consulting firm has a client that manufactures the machines. In not ascribing the accusation to that critic, the headline could have led readers to believe that Chertoff was facing a formal accusation or that The Washington Post had reported broader criticism than the article showed. The article also should have said that The Post contacted a spokesman for Chertoff, who said the Chertoff Group had “previously disclosed” that its clients included a maker of body scanners.
———
finally… let me say, my post was mostly an observation about the strength of the criticism leveled…I am no fan of Chertoff or body scanners..etc… and not
a fan of abusing public trust as a former public official.
Why aren’t major Press and Media organizations demanding a restoration of our Bill of Rights? The 1st Amendment is actually the life-blood of a free and independent Press.
The U.S. Supreme Court restoring the constitutional “rule of law” so officials no longer perceive themselves as above-the-law would deter America from devolving into imperialism and authoritarianism.
The current federal appeals case “Turkmen v. Ashcroft” would be a great place to start making government officials respect the supreme law of the land. This case would allow “personal” lawsuits against unconstitutional abusers after 9/11, creating a deterrent for current and future war crimes.
Right of recourse was not included in our docs. That needs to change.
Its a who’s who of neocon psychopaths! How fitting for Hillary!
These guys just get recycled between the Democrats and Republicans.
Imagine how many people have died at the command of these people.
I don’t know how any American can vote in the next election. Blood is on your hands.
You are right, have to vote for Stein or Johnson. Truly frightening. Hell we are all swimming in blood.
“I don’t know how any American can vote in the next election.”
It’s easy, we simply don’t vote Democrat or Republican. Despite whatever media your reading/watching is telling you, there are in fact more than two parties here. I myself am a rather active member of the Green Party who will be voting for Jill Stein.
http://www.jill2016.com
The neocons have joined the Hillary Clinton team; and what that really means is that Clinton has become the greatest threat to world peace and progress that exists today; anyone claiming to be a “liberal Democrat” concerned about “humanitarian issues” who is backing her is either a blantant hypocrite or grossly ignorant of what her real agenda is.
Nothing justifies voting for this right-wing neocon warmongering corporate elitist con artist – no, not even Supreme Court picks.
Exactly! At what point does a Supreme Court pick trump killings of millions.
I am tired of this notion that Hillary’s appointments to the sSupreme Court would be good ones. Of course, supporters of abortion rights will be appointed but first, you can be certain she will appoint corporatists and others sympathetic to oligarchy.
No doubt, Hillary and her band of bloodthirsty “feminist” “humanitarian warriors”, in the throes of a joint Orwellian paroxysm, will now be touting their humanitarian bombing incursions as pre-emptive abortions.
It is quite unfortunate, that the power the supreme court wields, the ability to strike down laws as unconstitutional, the reason trotted out to justify Clinton, is a power that it gave itself, not appearing anywhere in the constitution.
A constitutional amendment is not needed: simply pass a law clearly stating that they cannot do so, and the unelected band of social progress anchors in robes can be put in their proper place among the balance of powers.
Yes indeed. She is an extraordinarily dangerous and malevolent gorgon, voted most likely to start WWIII in her high school yearbook. However, the neocons have been a fundamental part of team Clinton from the get-go.
As far as the court goes, she’ll just offer us more John Robertses, people who know their only job is to serve power; the distinction being that he’s far more intelligent and nowhere near as constrained by the need to adhere to knee-jerk fundamentalism as Scalia was, and hence, more ecumenical in his pursuit of nastiness, to the point of realizing that never minding the beating of breasts and and gnashing of teeth by the Scalia/Alito/ Thomas hysterics, clearly the interests of power were best served by ramming through Obama/Romney/HeritageFoundation-care. And he has been proven right millions of times over.
If this gallery of mercenary killers obtain power the projection of global population growth will need recalculation.
Man I am starting to lose count of my ever growing list of reasons I’d never vote for Hillary Clinton. I started losing count around 358. I think with these advisors, and vacationing with Kissinger, I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of 402. Pretty sure it will easily exceed 500 come November.
Love your logic. I gave up on counting a while back. Just a reaction now.
None of their kids will go to war.
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/698494360694976513
She was always a non-starter for me. I have only 1 reason for not voting for her.
She’s an Establishment candidate.
Knowing this, I know her policies would never change from the status quo that I loathe so much.
She’s a Washington statue. Pillary Clinton.
Reach for the gold ring…