War and Empire Links Feb 2020

Trump Supporters Are George W Bush Supporters LARPing As Ron Paul Supporters. CaitOz. Feb. 16, 2020.

In real life Trump has imprisoned Julian Assange, has re-started the Cold War, has killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, has vetoed attempts to save Yemen from US-backed genocide, is working to foment civil war in Iran using starvation sanctions and CIA ops with the stated goal of effecting regime change, has occupied Syrian oil fields with the goal of preventing Syria’s reconstruction, has greatly increased the number of troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, has greatly increased the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reduced military accountability for those airstrikes.

Every single one of these longstanding deep state agendas that Trump has advanced have been defended by Trump supporters in my social media mentions as brilliant strategic maneuvers against the deep state.

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You’ve been had. You were duped by narrative and empty words into supporting a garden variety Republican president who’s been advancing garden variety Republican agendas. Your anti-establishment sentiments were successfully corralled by propaganda into a standard GOP ideology with some populist-looking window dressing. You’ve been sitting very pretty lately while the Democrats make complete asses of themselves with ill-advised impeachment agendas and a scandalous primary race, but in reality you’re just as blinkered and duped as they are.

Believing that a US president is going to save you is just as dumb as believing the FBI and CIA are going to save you. Republicans have been doing the former while Democrats have been doing the latter. Both have been duped by custom-made establishment propaganda into cheering for different aspects of the establishment, and the only one who wins is that very same establishment.

Stop getting duped into believing in America’s two-handed sock puppet show. It’s always fake, and it always ends the same: all your money goes to the performers, and you get screwed. Start seeing through the illusion.

The Destruction of Libya: Posturing Predators; Lethal Lies. Robert Snefjella, countercurrents. Jan. 29, 2020.

Premeditated criminal violence has been around for a long time.

Deliberate criminal violence has motive, involves planning, and is cruel and harmful. The motive often involves the attempt at some real or imagined gain, or forceful seizure. Surprise attacks are favored.

Because the evil of such violence is obvious if in clear view, criminals usually attempt to hide such acts, or to obscure their crime with lies. Secrecy and dishonesty are generally indispensable basic tactics for the success of violent criminality. An exception historically is the criminal violence of those who rule tyrannically; their crimes are sometimes brazen, ‘in your face’.

Wars of aggression are criminal violence on a massive scale. During the period after the 2nd WW, the last seventy five years that is, there have been lots of those. There is as yet no effective justice served to those who wage wars of aggression. Once a war has been initiated, one can surrender, or fight back, and hope for the best. Prevention is the best cure.

Curiously enough, wars of aggression are often undertaken by countries that are members of the United Nations, and who are sworn to refrain from wars of aggression. The very words United Nations are of course misleading, as the member nations are not united, but in any case, they are all supposed to “refrain from … the threat or use of force against … any state.” (part of UN Article 2.4)

When intending or conducting a war of aggression, apart from the prerequisite war machines and logistics and soldiers, a basic disinformation template is habitually deployed: The public in the aggressor countries are subjected to propaganda, a blizzard of lies and distortions and spin, with tactical censorship of unhelpful info. The intent of preparatory and ongoing propaganda is to program the ‘home team’ to at best support, or at least not oppose, the impending or actual war of aggression.

The leader of the designated target country will be denounced repeatedly as a monster, and accused of a compendium of personal defects, dastardly intentions, and vile deeds. The country itself will be subject to serial vilification by the intended predators, and usually, whatever can be done will be done to weaken the intended prey. Then, as preface to launching the war, one or more incidents will be staged, or declared, the now proverbial ‘false flag event’, and this will be used to ‘galvanize’ the aggressor’s public, and ‘justify’ the ‘response’. Public fear, anger, desire for revenge, and ‘war fever’, will all be cultivated. But a further effort to dignify and even sanctify the criminal violence is often employed. Sometimes even prior to the atrocities, but usually after the fact, outstanding perpetrators of atrocity will be ceremoniously honored. Warmonger Obama’s Nobel Prize for Peace is an example of the former. This entire process will call forth the fullest repertoire of the human capacity for hypocrisy and emitting falsehoods and sanitizing evil with simulated sincerity.

I’ve chosen Libya as the particular focus for the rest of this article. Its history and present circumstances are illustrative and instructive pertaining to the general observations above. ...