Tag Archives: President Trump

What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria…And Does it Matter? by Ron Paul

Posted on April 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US will bomb when and where it wants, regardless of whether there is or is not conclusive evidence that “justifies” the bombing. From Ron Paul at ronpaulinstitute.org:

Inspectors from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have finally arrived in Douma, Syria, to assess whether a gas attack took place earlier this month. It has taken a week for the inspectors to begin their work, as charges were thrown back and forth about who was causing the delay.

Proponents of the US and UK position that Assad used gas in Douma have argued that the Syrian and Russian governments are preventing the OPCW inspectors from doing their work. That, they claim, is all the evidence needed to demonstrate that Assad and Putin have something to hide. But it seems strange that if Syria and Russia wanted to prevent an OPCW inspection of the alleged sites they would have been the ones to request the inspection in the first place.

The dispute was solved just days ago, as the OPCW Director-General released a statement explaining that the delay was due to UN security office concerns for the safety of the inspectors.

We are told that even after the OPCW inspectors collect samples from the alleged attack sites, it will take weeks to determine whether there was any gas or other chemicals released. That means there is very little chance President Trump had “slam dunk” evidence that Assad used gas in Douma earlier this month when he decided to launch a military attack on Syria. To date, the US has presented no evidence of who was responsible or even whether an attack took place at all. Even right up to the US missile strike, Defense Secretary Mattis said he was still looking for evidence.

In a Tweet just days ago, Rep. Thomas Massie expressed frustration that in a briefing to Congress last week the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense “provided zero real evidence” that Assad carried out the attack. Either they have it and won’t share it with Congress, he wrote, or they have nothing. Either way, he added, it’s not good.

We should share Rep. Massie’s concerns.

To continue reading: What Will Weapons Inspectors Find in Syria…And Does it Matter?

Advertisements

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Investigations, Military, War

Tagged , ,

Korean Summit: It’s Not About Us, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on April 23, 2018 | 1 comment

The real diplomatic story on the Korean Peninsula is this week’s summit between the North and South Korean leaders, not the summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

Yesterday they told us that President Trump was intent on war – he was about to invade Korea¸ unleash “fire and fury,” and millions would die.

Today many of these very same people are telling us that President Trump has been “snookered” by the wily Kim Jong-un, who doesn’t really mean all the pre-summit concessions he’s already made quite publicly. Trump, they say, is about to give away the farm to the North Koreans without getting anything in return.

The only constant note emitted by the Trump-hating chattering classes is their obsessive focus on That Man in the White House. Yet this development actually has little to do with Trump, at least in its origins: indeed, it’s not about us. The Korean summit came out of the election victory of President Moon Jai-in, whose signature campaign issue was reintroduction of the late lamented “Sunshine” policy of rapprochement with the North.

Moon and Kim will meet this week in a preliminary summit leading up to the supposedly bigger event, the Trump-Kim super-summit. Or so the conventional wisdom would have it: after all, isn’t everything in the world really about us?

Well, no, but you’ll have a hard time telling the pundits and policy wonks that. They don’t realize that the real summit is taking place this week in Korea, as the two leaders form a united front against Washington’s War Party – hoping to enlist Trump on their side.

As for the President, he’s optimistic but rightly says “we’ll see if it works out,” even as he lists the concessions already made by the North, which include:

  • A commitment to complete denuclearization
  • A pledge to end nuclear testing
  • A pledge to end ICBM tests.
  • A statement dropping their longtime demand for the withdrawal of US troops from South Korea.

Significantly, the office of President Moon and the North Koreans have jointly declared their intention to formally end the Korean war, presumably by signing a peace treaty, replacing the current armistice.

Prediction: Trump will make a big show of accepting it, and implicitly taking credit for it. But, hey, the Koreans don’t care who gets the credit, nor do they care about the vagaries of American politics except as they affect the ability of the Korean nation to reunite and recover from their national trauma.

To continue reading: Korean Summit: It’s Not About Us

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments

Tagged , , , ,

Trump’s Deal With the Deep State, by Bill Bonner

Posted on April 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

Fake wars are everywhere. From Bill Bonner at bonnerandpartners.com:

A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces

An airline ticket to romantic places

– Billie Holiday, “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)”

BALTIMORE – South Beach…

Last week, we were sitting in the hotel restaurant in Miami Beach having breakfast…

A man – about 30 – was leaning on the counter. His dirty pants were falling down. He wore a black t-shirt with a skeleton on it. He put his head down on the counter… and said something incomprehensible.

He got a cup of coffee… and staggered over to a chair and flopped down, talking to himself.

After a few minutes, he got up. He clutched his pants, which were almost around his knees. He wobbled. He lurched. He headed for the door and disappeared out through it.

Then, a woman… voluptuous… pretty… dressed in white jeans, with a very low-cut t-shirt came in the same door.

She looked in our direction. She said something. We couldn’t make it out… Was she asking the time of day? Directions? We smiled.

She came towards us and sat down next to us on the couch.

She whispered…

“Would you like a massage?”

Two young men came in. Shorts. T-shirts. Almost identical outfits. But one wore his baseball cap backwards. They held hands. Smiled at each other. They got cappuccinos.

They left.

South Beach.

Deceit and Delusion

But now, we are back in Baltimore, visiting our new granddaughter. Then, we’ll be off again, back to Ireland.

There was a time when we looked forward to traveling. Buying an airline ticket to a romantic place promised a thrill, an adventure… and a learning experience.

Now, we’d rather stay home. But now, the cost of not traveling is higher than the benefit of staying home. We’re taking care of business, in other words. And as business has grown, so has the need to take care of it.

But let’s turn to our familiar beat – the world of money. Or, more particularly, the world of deceit and delusion known as “economics.” Unromantic. Tawdry. But fascinating.

Staged Revenge

When we left off last week, we were looking at fake wars. As you know, these are wars that no one wants to win, since their real purpose is to shift wealth from the public to the war-fighting industries.

Our point was that even fake wars sometimes spin out of control – when people forget what kind of war they’re fighting, for example.

Early in the week, U.S. president Donald J. Trump was taking the trade war far too seriously. Then, his Deep State handlers must have straightened him out on that; before the week was over, he declared that he wanted to get back into the Trans-Pacific Partnership!

To continue reading: Trump’s Deal With the Deep State

Leave a comment

Posted in Cronyism, Government, Politics, Trade, War

Tagged ,

One Percent Chance Comey Not a Self-Dramatizing Fruitcake, by Ann Coulter

Posted on April 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

James Comey is a worm, squiggling this way and that. Ann Coulter pins him down and dissects him. From Coulter at anncoulter.com:

There have been a lot of questions about why Trump fired James Comey, ever since he announced to NBC’s Lester Holt — incomprehensibly — that it was his decision, citing, by my count, at least a half-dozen different reasons.

On Sunday night, that question was answered. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Comey for showing the American people why he was so badly in need of firing.

Interviewed on his new book, “Living in Truth,” “The Dictates of My Conscience,” “The Politics of Truth,” “A Higher Loyalty,” it quickly became apparent that one of Comey’s favorite formulations is: I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether so-and-so sodomized a chicken. It’s possible. I don’t know.

Here he is on ABC News, accusing Trump of hiring prostitutes to urinate on a hotel bed in Moscow (possibly — I don’t know):

“I honestly never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible, but I don’t know.”

And here he is on ABC accusing Trump of colluding with Russia:

“More words I never thought I’d utter about a president of the United States — but it’s possible [that he is compromised by Russia]. It is stunning, and I wish I wasn’t saying it, but it’s just — it’s the truth. … It’s possible.”

And here he is being interviewed by USA Today on Russian influence:

“I don’t know [if President Trump has been compromised by the Russians]. And these are words I never thought would come out of my mouth about an American president, but it’s possible. I’m not saying it’s likely, I don’t know, and the honest answer is it’s possible.”

None of this says anything about the president. It tells us only that Comey has a low opinion of Trump, which I already knew.

To continue reading: One Percent Chance Comey Not a Self-Dramatizing Fruitcake

Leave a comment

Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Investigations

Tagged ,

Did the West Just Lose World War III by Forfeit? by James George Jatras

Posted on April 22, 2018 | 1 comment

The declare-victory-and-go-home option is looking better and better in Syria. From James George Jatras at strategic-culture.org:

In the fall of the year 1480, at a point not far from Moscow, two armies faced each other on the opposite banks of the Ugra River.

On the one side were the forces of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, whose ruler, Grand Prince Ivan III (known as “the Great” and the “gatherer of the Russian lands”), had recently rejected further payment of tribute to the Great Horde.

On the other were the forces of Grand Khan Ahmed bin Küchük, who had come to lay waste to Moscow and instruct the impudent Prince Ivan to mend his ways.

For weeks the two assembled hosts glared at one another, each wary of crossing the water and becoming vulnerable to attack by the other. In the end, as though heeding the same inaudible signal, both withdrew and hastily returned home.

Thus ended more than two centuries of the Tatar-Mongol yoke upon the land of the Rus’.

Was this event, which came to be known as “the great standing on the Ugra River,” a model of what happened in Syria last week?

Almost immediately upon reports of the staged chemical attack in Douma on April 7, speculation began as to the likely response from the west – which in reality meant from the United States, in turn meaning from President Donald J. Trump. Would Trump, who had repeatedly spoken harshly of his predecessors’ destructive and pointless misadventures in the Middle East, and who just days earlier had signaled his determination to withdraw the several thousand Americans (illegally) stationed in Syria, see through the obvious deception?

Or, whether or not he really believed the patently untrue accusations of Syrian (and Russian) culpability, would Trump take punitive action against Syria? And if so, would it be a demonstrative pinprick of the sort inflicted almost exactly a year earlier in punishment for an obvious false flag chemical attack in Idlib? Or would we see something more “robust” (a word much beloved of laptop bombardiers in Washington) aimed at teaching a lesson to both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his ally, Prince Ivan III’s obstreperous heir Russian President Vladimir Putin?

To continue reading: Did the West Just Lose World War III by Forfeit?

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

Tagged , , ,

Trump Territory, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on April 21, 2018 | 1 comment

A racially tinged scandal brews in Great Britain. Across the Atlantic, the vitriol, rancor, and scurrilous invective against President Trump has reached a point that it essentially stops debate on those aspects of Trump that should be debated: his policies. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

British media report today that Donald Trump may visit the country in late summer. (Renewed) calls for mass protests are everywhere, of course. The Metro news outlet features a picture of a pamphlet that reads No To Racism. No To Trump, that dates from an earlier occasion (Trump was supposed to come several times, but never did).

Now, good luck with those protests, it’s still a free country, in name at least. But boy oh boy, would you guys miss the point. Because as we now all know – or could-, your country is being governed by a group of people who are so racist they make even Trump’s fake tan pale in comparison. If Theresa May is still in office by the time Trump visits, you’re all a bunch of racists.

Both May and her Home Secretary Amber Rudd – and you all know they’re far from alone- look so completely deranged in reports about the Windrush scandal that you will have to get rid of them first, or else shut up about Trump because you will have no moral ground whatsoever left on which to protest his visit.

For those of you who don’t know what Windrush is about, and if you’re British you have no excuse not to know, it’s the name given to a group of people who arrived, on invitation, in Britain between the late 1940s and early 1970s, often as children, and whose legal status in the country is now put in so much doubt that some have already been deported, some are denied health care, and all live in fear. Despite having lived and worked and paid taxes all their lives.

There are many instances of people who have never left Britain for a family visit, some who can’t see their own children because they did go for that visit and weren’t allowed back in, the entire story is so appalling and disastrous it’s hard to read the various reports on it. The common denominator of all of these people? They are black.

To continue reading: Trump Territory

1 Comment

Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Governments, Investigations, Media, Politics

Tagged ,

“Big Progress” – North Korea To Halt Nuclear, ICBM Tests; Dismantle Test Site; Pursue Peace, by Tyler Durden

Posted on April 21, 2018 | 1 comment

This looks like good news. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Update 3: President Trump has tweeted the “good news,” adding that this move was “big progress.”

“North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World – big progress! Look forward to our Summit.”

Update 2: North Korean Leader Kim’s full statement (via KCNA):

The decision “to include the great victory of the economic construction and nuclear armed forces construction transfer line” includes the following decisions.

  • First, in the course of struggle to carry out the party’s translation, we carried out the nuclear test and the underground nuclear test, the miniaturization and the lightening of the nuclear weapon, and the project for the development of the ultra-large nuclear weapon and the transportation means sequentially and faithfully realized the nuclear weaponization. I declare it solemnly.
  • Second, from April 21st, Juche 107 (2018), the nuclear test and the intercontinental ballistic rocket test will be discontinued. North Korea’s nuclear test center will be discarded in order to ensure the transparency of the suspension of the nuclear test.
  • Third, the suspension of nuclear testing is an important process for global nuclear disarmament, and the DPRK will join international efforts and efforts to halt the nuclear test altogether.
  • Fourth, we will never use nuclear weapons unless there is nuclear threat or nuclear provocation to our country, and in any case we will not transfer nuclear weapons and nuclear technology.
  • Fifth, we will concentrate all the efforts to build up a strong socialist economy and mobilize the human and material resources of the country to dramatically raise people’s lives.
  • Sixth, we will establish a favorable international environment for the construction of a socialist economy, and will intensify close dialogue and dialogue with neighboring countries and the international community in order to protect the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the world.

To continue reading: “Big Progress” – North Korea To Halt Nuclear, ICBM Tests; Dismantle Test Site; Pursue Peace

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments

Tagged , ,