Vox Popoli: Godless primitivism is not the answer

But it's certainly to be preferred to the defenders of Tolerance, Equality, Progress, Inclusiveness, and Diversity, or TEPID as I have occasionally referred to the satanic veil of Social Justice. And conservatives are understandably alarmed that their incessant irrelevance and defeatist equalitarianism is being rejected by the increasingly nationalist young men of the West:

The reason this book is important is because it speaks directly to a youthful dissatisfaction (especially among white males) with equality as propagandized and imposed in our day: a hectoring, vindictive, resentful, levelling, hypocritical equality that punishes excellence and publicly denies all difference while at the same time elevating and enriching a decadent, incompetent, and corrupt elite.

BAP would say—indeed does say—that this is where the logic of equality inherently and inevitably leads. He even goes so far as to deny that the American Founders meant a word of their rhetoric. I think this is impossible to sustain as a historical matter, but on the larger philosophical question it is possible that the founders meant every word but were still wrong. It’s fair to say, however, that BAP’s followers take for granted that the idea of equality is false. They even have a derisive term for it: “equalism.” They dismiss the language of the founders, of rights, of the American political tradition as “Enlightenment,” which—rest assured—they don’t mean as a compliment.

And I have more bad news for my fellow conservatives: the talented kids who’ve found this book aren’t listening to us. It doesn’t matter whether they aren’t listening because they found the book, or they found the book because they aren’t listening. The fact remains that all our earnest explanations of the true meaning of equality, how it comports with nature, how it can answer their dissatisfactions, and how it’s been corrupted—none of that has made a dent.

Bronze Age Pervert is correct to say this is where the logic of equality inherently and inevitably leads. The historian Martin van Creveld has laid that out quite clearly in Equality: The Impossible Quest. And the Founding Fathers quite clearly didn't mean their high-flying rhetoric. All men are most certainly not created equal, by God or by Nature, and Thomas Jefferson's reference to "British Brethren", "foreign Mercenaries" and "merciless Indian Savages" conclusively prove that the conservative fetish for equality is based on nothing more solid than their imaginations.

But the godless neo-platonic ur-fascism advocated by Bronze Age Pervert is not a viable solution to a very real problem. Lacking as it does any basis in philosophy or objective morality, it is absolutely bound to fail. The Bronze Age Mindset is just that, a mindless primitivist reaction on which it is impossible to build or sustain a functional civilization.

Without Christianity, without the European nations, without the Graeco-Roman legal and philosophic traditions, there is no Western civilization. Which, of course, is why the only solution to the undermining and subversion of the West is to return to the three core pillars of the West.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2019/09/godless-primitivism-is-not-answer.html

Reaching for Enlightenment - By Anthony J. DeBlasi

Explorer and aviator Richard E. Byrd noted how surprising it is, “approaching the final enlightenment, how little one really has to know or feel sure about...” [Alone, 1938].

Tardiness in discerning first and final things points to a common weakness among intellectuals, leaders and movers of society, namely a radical detachment from the spiritual side of human life, with a total disregard for the consequences in the here and now, let alone the before and hereafter.

Compensating for that spiritual blindness with brain-powered “enlightenment” requires an impossible act: the substitution of self for God, an act that mostly leads to misery, not progress. For it feeds an egomania, especially among scientists, social reformers, even theologians who, unlike honest artists and music makers – to bring up a sharp contrast – are too proud to admit that the products of their thought and designs have no more real substance than Rembrandt’s lighting or Ravel’s orchestral color. At best their facts fit together as well as the tile-bits in a Byzantine façade and their constructs encompass life as well, tone-wise, as a Brahms symphony.

Admit it or not, at root level, everyone is guessing – a truism missed entirely by those who have no use for truth, including the value of human life, yet insist on lording over people and controlling their lives, divested of even a shred of humility. This skipping over what it means to be human and mortal while reaching for what is best for human life closes the mind to the nature of reality and predictably leads to an endless return to Square One.

Inventing a “suitable reality,” sport of philosophers, utopian reformers, and politicians, just won’t do, as the following serves to illustrate.

An unnamed physiologist walked with Maurice Maeterlinck in Normandy, one day in the 19th Century. Maeterlinck was the poet-naturalist who wrote the classic chronicle, The Life of the Bee (from which this incident is drawn). The two paused at a plateau overlooking a plain that ran down to the edge of the sea, where they watched peasants stacking corn. It was a lovely, pastoral vignette of life framed in the peace and beauty of nature. The physiologist pointed to this picture of reality, made beautiful by distance, then invited his companion to go down and look closer. Suddenly the song that blended with the whisper of leaves was made up of abuse and insult. The laughter was the result of an obscene remark. There were harelips, hunchbacks, and imbeciles, hypocrites, liars, and slanderers among the men, women, and children working in the field.

The second, ugly reality contradicted the first, beautiful one. The two men then sat on a hill to reflect upon this anomaly. It was clear, at least, that in spite of the coarseness and mud-slinging at the center of the gathering, an unconscious necessity made the group function in a kind of rustic harmony. And that was a third reality. But which was the true reality, they wondered? Was it the distant, lovely one? The mean, up-close one? The hidden, functional one? How could they fathom reality when they could not rightly process what they could see, in the first place?

Is it not true that the filters used for viewing the world or mental nets thrown out to capture what is seen, to make sense of it, will eventually, if not instantly, confirm the mode of thought employed? Is it not true that a great wonder of the world is that it floods us with options and invites us to select and test not just for what works but for what is indeed best and most fulfilling for our lives? How can this be a successful endeavor when the mind depends solely on the data of the senses and the machinations of the brain? 

For mortals, the answer to the question – Which is the true reality? – is far less important than the lessons to be drawn from circling the truth. Taking Lesson One, that we are guessing,  and Lesson Two, that we are agents in a pliant world – contending with the evil of heartless men and women, it must quickly be added – we can proceed to move in life as though it is a divine journey, guided by time-tested tenets that transcend every generation and are madness to discard. History provides ample evidence that people cannot be their own gods and shows that there are really no supermen or superwomen to take the place of our Creator.

To cut to the quick: when we know that we don’t know, we can see that because every system of thought and action begins with a belief, a leap of faith, we may start by abiding in God without the mental gyrations of “proof” deemed necessary. For they who don’t believe can dismantle every “proof” and those who believe need no “proof.” We may opt for the goodness of Creation that we form a part of, since all that is left in the way is not a body of data, a set of theories, a political inclination,  not even the facts of suffering and the fear of death that attend being mortal in an uncertain world but, as with rebellious children, a foolishly stubborn will.

For some this should be a reminder, for others a warning, that to be “wise in one’s own mind” regarding the best path to take through life without the light of God – supremely well  illuminating sacred scripture – risks spiritual suicide. Acknowledging one’s incompleteness and dependence on a Mind superior to one’s own – that of the One who put us here – is not just a sign of humility in the face of the Eternal but a very wise step toward true enlightenment.

Sensing the beauty of the living world (words I am borrowing from a 1973 letter to me from anthropologist Loren Eiseley), I too rejoice in the “little cries from the edge of the imminent dark… and the many people there must be out there who are still not totally swept in our huge technological dream,” aware that what inspires the best in us emanates not from the human brain but from the spirit of God, source of our being.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/reaching_for_enlightenment_.html

America’s Wealth Hinges on Its Ability to Borrow Big – or Else - Vincent Del Giudice and Wei Lu (Explaining DaMagicFedBunny)

(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. economy is consistently ranked among the world’s strongest. But cut off its addiction to debt and exhaust its gold and currency reserves, and a very different picture would emerge.

The nation’s health as measured by gross domestic product per capita would plunge into negative territory without its dependence on borrowed money, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

In fact, the U.S. would fall almost to the bottom of a ranking of 114 economies by GDP per capita. Only Italy, Greece and Japan would fare worse. That’s a seismic shift from America’s comfortable No. 5 spot on a list based on conventional measures.

To get this somewhat dystopian measure, Bloomberg took each economy’s 2020 GDP as projected by the International Monetary Fund as a starting point. We then adjusted the number by removing the ability to borrow, while adding reserves to create an alternative wealth measure.

U.S. per capita income of $66,900 would be slashed to a negative $4,857 using this measure. That’s a total loss of almost $72,000 for every man, woman and child.

The U.S. isn’t alone, though; it’s pretty grim across the board. Among the 114 economies included in the final list, 102 would experience reduced per capita wealth if they suddenly lost the ability to borrow.

Japan ranked dead last, with more than $93,000 of income erased per person. Its per-capita income of $43,701 in 2020 would flip to a negative $50,000 and its rank on the list would plunge 96 spots, from 18th to last.

Nor is the U.K. immune in the alternate, borrowing-free universe. With debt and reserves at 83% and 5% of GDP, respectively, its economy would see per-capita wealth drop 10 spots to No. 29 in this measure - from $43,522 to $9,779.

China would see its relative ranking gain a few spots, since its holdings of gold and foreign currency are the world’s largest at $3.36 trillion or roughly 22% of GDP. That dwarfs second-place Japan, with $2.1 trillion.

Luckily for Americans, a debt-free economy is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Even with growing trade wars against China and others, and the Trump administration’s projected $1 trillion budget deficit in fiscal 2020, the U.S. debt market allows for ample liquidity and the U.S. dollar is considered the world’s reserve currency.

The U.S. will need to continue to borrow. The IMF projects America’s government debt to average 109% of GDP over the next five years. Reserves, having averaged $425 billion between 2014 and 2018, would account for less than 2% of the projected $22.2 trillion GDP for 2020.

For full data set, click HERE

To contact the reporters on this story: Vincent Del Giudice in Denver at vdelgiudice@bloomberg.net;Wei Lu in New York at wlu30@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Tanzi at atanzi@bloomberg.net, Virginia Van Natta, Ros Krasny

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/america-wealth-hinges-ability-borrow-120000587.html

The First of Many Cauldrons Form in the Middle East — Tom LUONGO

The Syrian Arab Army with Russian air support not only retook the important town of Khan Sheikoun in Syria recently, it did so in classic Russian military style, encircling their enemies and cutting off their retreat.

In Russian military parlance this is known as a cauldron.

It will be the first of many such cauldrons the SAA and Russia complete as they battle their way across Idlib and retake the province, now seven years under control by Al-Qaeda linked militants who change their names and allegiances like most people change their underwear.

But the real cauldron is forming not in Syria but in Israel.

Israel’s hardline expansionists, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, finally have a US President completely committed to their side in Donald Trump. Trump has altered the US policy of destroying Syria to destabilize Russia and keep Central Asia chaotic into an explicitly MIGA policy – Make Israel Great Again.

Trump has tipped the balance in Washington from just sowing chaos to thwart longer-term integration plans of Russia, China and Iran into one in which Israel would finally get its wish to rule over a fractious and subjugated Middle East.

With every victory by the SAA Tiger Forces and Russian air force in Syria that policy has slipped away inch by inch. The stronger Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria becomes, the more the country is rebuilt and the American/Israeli/Saudi/British support for Islamic extremists known in western media as ‘moderate rebels’ becomes common knowledge the more pressure mounts on their secondary allies.

These were Qatar, Turkey, the UAE, France and Germany.

To one extent or the other, over the past four years since Russia moved into Syria, openly defying the US, all of those countries have pulled back their support for the regime change operation in Syria.

The last holdout is Turkey who, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, continue to play the two factions off each other to wheedle what was originally promised to him – Idlib, Aleppo and Manbij – out of the ensuing chaos.

Erdogan’s mendacity was on full display this week when he cut a security deal with the US to occupy land east of the Euphrates River while at the same time tried to use the deal he cut with Vladimir Putin for a demilitarized zone around Idlib to resupply pet militants about to be encircled by SAA forces.

Russian air support bombing the resupply convoy was a stern message to Erdogan that he is not setting the tempo anymore in Syria and his time is up. Time to choose sides or be allowed to wither on the vine.

Russia would prefer Erdogan to stay in power in Turkey, but he has to balance his expansionist goals vis a vis Syria with the realpolitik of his situation, which is that without Chinese and Russia economic support Turkey collapses.

The battle for Idlib will likely be less bloody than was originally projected because Erdogan will have to abandon his dreams of it and settle for rupturing the friendship between the Kurds and the US, which is the existential threat to Turkey’s future.

So, get ready for a replay of 2016-17 in the run up to the liberation of Aleppo. Systematic dismantling of the Islamist forces in Idlib will occur now that Khan Sheikoun is in government hands. Turkey will not risk open warfare with Russia over this. Erdogan’s forces are already over-committed around the region.

Syria forms the Western part of the cauldron around Israel. Once Idlib is consolidated then the US base near the border crossing at Al-Tanf comes into focus.

The Iraqi government is furious with Israel for bombing an ammunition depot in Baghdad recently and declared a no-fly zone over the country. Israel understands how important the Shi’a militia, known locally as the Popular Mobilization Units, are to securing Iraq’s independence from de facto US control.

And with Trump refusing the invitation by his advisors, Israel and likely British intelligence, to begin open warfare with Iran, Israel is feeling especially vulnerable given how quickly pieces are falling into place to link Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Iran then unveils its new anti-missile system publicly, the Bravar 373, which boasts better performance than the Russian S-300 with stealth detection capabilities. Not only does Iran enter the global arms sale business but it also made an explicit threat to Israel that its days of sending its planes around the region bombing everything it doesn’t like will be over soon.

Israel has to maintain its air force has control of the skies around the Middle East and can openly attack targets at will. This helps the propaganda war here in the US to win more support within the obviously captured House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees as well as drum up support back home.

But it’s an illusion. The cauldron is tightening. And with each incident like the last one the stench of desperation grows stronger.

The Saudis have lost in Yemen. The Houthis have survived the onslaught and Iran’s drones give them the capability to strike whenever and wherever they want, threatening Saudi oil production.

Iraq has reopened the Albukamal border crossing between it and Syria for the first time in seven years. And Tehran is working on improving highway connections between Iran and Syria, to facilitate trade. This leads to terrestrially breaking down Trump’s sanctions/embargoes on Iran and Syria.

Overland supplies from both Iran and Iraq can commence from there now. And US prohibitions on rebuilding Syria have zero support internationally.

But the bigger news is that Tehran is also proposing to Syria access to pipelines to secure its future energy supplies.

According to the source, two options for the pipeline are on the table – a new 1,000 km pipeline running through Iraq into Syria, or repairs by the Iranian side to the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline, an 800 km pipeline first commissioned in the early 1950s stretching from the northern Iraqi city to Syria, but whose operation was stopped in 1982 during the Iran-Iraq War, and which was severely damaged by airstrikes during the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

It’s estimated that the overall capacity of that pipeline would be about 1.25 million barrels of oil per day, which could theoretically account for nearly half of the country’s pre-sanctions crude oil exports.

Plans like this wouldn’t be on the table or discussed openly if there wasn’t confidence of them coming to fruition. We’re at the negotiating stage of these pipelines between Iraq and Iran. The US and Israel simply won’t be a factor now since Israel has thoroughly alienated the current Iraqi government.

So, the cauldron around Israel is forming. With the Saudis in deep trouble, Egypt refusing to go along with any of Trump’s plans – Arab NATO, the Kushner Deal of the Century – the game board has fundamentally shifted against them.

Netanyahu bet the farm on Trump and Trump failed to deliver. They were countered at every turn by patient and scrupulous opponents who read the board better and didn’t respond muscularly to repeated provocations. They let events come to them and waited for the moment of over-commitment.

Now the counter attack will commence, I suspect, with brutal precision.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/27/first-many-cauldrons-form-middle-east/

The Death of Arms Control - Scott Ritter

A deadly accident in northern Russia earlier this month caused the U.S. arms control community to stand up and take notice. The Russians claim they were testing “isotopic sources of fuel on a liquid propulsion unit,” and that only after the test was completed did the engine explode. There was a spike in radiation levels detected in the city of Severodvinsk, roughly 18 miles away, shortly after the accident. Seven people were killed as a result of the explosion, including at least two who died of acute radiation poisoning. Scores of others were exposed to radioactive materials, and subsequently decontaminated and placed under observation. Within days, the Russians declared that all radiation readings in and around the accident site were at normal levels.

Many Western experts believe that the Russians were testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile, the 9M730 “Burevestnik”—known in the West by its NATO designation, the SSC-X-9 “Skyfall”—and that a miniature nuclear reactor these experts believe was used to power the missile exploded. Other experts, including me, question this conclusion. But a recent report by Roshydromet, the Russian agency responsible for sampling air quality, showed the presence of four distinct isoptopes in the atmosphere after the accident that are uniquely sourced to the fission of uranium 235, strongly suggesting that a reactor of some sort was, in fact, involved (mitigating against this conclusion is the fact that no iodine 131 was detected; iodine 131is the most prevalent isotope produced by the fission of uranium 235, and its absence would be highly unlikely in the event of any reactor explosion).

The bottom line, however, is that no one outside the Russians responsible for the failed test know exactly what system was being tested, why it was being tested, how it was being tested, and why that test failed. The Russian government has refused to provide any details about the test. “When it comes to activities of a military nature,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a press conference a few days after the accident, “there are certain restrictions on access to information. This is work in the military field, work on promising weapons systems. We are not hiding this,” he said, adding, “We must think of our own security.”

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Others were thinking about their own security as well.

“Something obviously has gone badly wrong here,” U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said after the accident. Bolton observed that Russia is seeking to “modernize their nuclear arsenal to build new kinds of delivery vehicles, hypersonic glide vehicles, hypersonic cruise missiles,” noting that “dealing with this capability … remains a real challenge for the United States and its allies.” The U.S. and Russia are currently discussing the extension of the New START treaty on strategic arms reduction, scheduled to expire in early 2021. “If there is going to be an extension of the New START,” U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, “then we need to make sure that we include all these new weapons that Russia is pursuing.”

But this is problematic—the new Russian weapons under development are directly linked to the decision by the George W. Bush administration in 2002 to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, a 1972 agreement that limited the number and types of ABM weapons the U.S. and then-Soviet Union could deploy, thereby increasing the likelihood that any full-scale missile attack would succeed in reaching its target. By creating the inevitability of mutual nuclear annihilation (a practice referred to as “mutually assured destruction,” or MAD), both the U.S. and Soviet strategic nuclear forces served as a deterrent against one another.

The deployment by the U.S. of modern ABM systems in the aftermath of its withdrawal from the ABM treaty, Russia believes, threatens its strategic nuclear force and thereby nullifies its deterrent potential. From the Russian perspective, only by building a new generation of modern nuclear delivery systems specifically designed to defeat U.S. ABM capability can Russia reassert its strategic nuclear deterrent. “We have repeatedly told our American and European partners who are NATO members we will make the necessary efforts to neutralize the threats posed by the deployment of the US global missile defense system,” Putin stated during a 2018 speech. According to him, “Nobody really wanted to talk to us about the core of the problem, and nobody wanted to listen to us.” Putin unveiled Russia’s new nuclear arsenal—which included the Burevestnik missile—and stared into the camera, declaring, “So, listen to us now!”

Complicating matters further is the notion put forward by Esper that the weapons Putin unveiled in 2018 would require that the New START treaty be modified prior to any extension, impeding what otherwise would simply have been an automatic extension, based upon mutual consent, for a five-year period. The Russians took umbrage over this position. “If we want to really comprehend the core of the matter,” Vladimir Yermakov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister for nonproliferation and arms control, told the Russian pressearlier this month, “it should be noted that the New START Treaty covers specific categories of strategic arms, including intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), heavy bombers and ICBM and SLBM launchers. The Treaty,” Yermakov emphasized, “does not cover any other weapons systems.” Regarding the failed test of Aug. 8, Yermakov declared: “This also concerns the relevant research and development projects.” Yermakov categorically rejected the proposition put forward by Esper, noting that “the question of hypothetically extending the New START Treaty with certain weapons systems that do not fit into the aforementioned categories is absolutely unacceptable.”

Esper’s position, Yermakov said, did not take the Russians by surprise. “As of late,” Yermakov said, “we have been hearing US officials express doubts more and more often as to whether extending the New START Treaty makes sense. It is hard to perceive this as anything other than a conscious effort to lay the required media groundwork and to invent pretexts for declining to extend the agreement after it expires in February 2021 and to obtain absolute freedom to build up the US nuclear arsenal, even to the detriment of strategic stability and international security.”

The Russian position on the extension of the New START treaty, Yermakov said, is that it would “be a reasonable and responsible step, making it possible to prevent a complete breakdown in the area of strategic stability,” and “would also provide extra time to consider joint approaches towards new weapons systems that are currently emerging and possible new arms control treaties.” But before any extension could be considered, the Russian side insisted that the U.S. resolve an outstanding issue of treaty compliance that centered around 56 Trident SLBM launchers and 41 B-52H bombers that were “converted” from their nuclear mission in a way that does not render them incapable of accomplishing that mission. Such conversions are permitted under the New START treaty “by rendering [the Trident SLBM launchers and B-52H bombers] incapable of employing ICBMs, SLBMs, or nuclear armaments.”

For the Trident SLBM launchers, the conversion was done by removing gas generators of the ejecting mechanism from the launch tube and bolting the tube covers shut. The problem, for the Russians, is that this procedure is reversible, meaning that the launcher could still be used to launch SLBMs simply by removing the bolts and replacing the gas generators. Likewise, the B-52H modifications involve the removal of launch equipment from the aircraft. The aircraft still retains a socket that would allow the arming mechanism of a nuclear weapon to be connected to the removed equipment, which means the B-52H could be converted back to its nuclear role simply by reinstalling the equipment. According to Yermakov, “Russian inspectors are unable to verify the results of the re-equipping under the procedure stipulated by the Treaty.” From the Russian perspective, the issue of the noncompliant “conversion” of the Trident SLBM launchers and B-52H bombers is of “fundamental significance”; any extension of the New START can only be discussed, the Russians maintain, once the United States “fully return to complying with the spirit and the letter of the treaty.”

The foundation upon which U.S.-Russian cooperation regarding New START was constructed is fragile, founded as it was on the unilateral abrogation of the ABM Treaty in 2002, the ongoing compliance issue regarding the conversion of treaty-accountable items under New START, and the precipitous decision on the part of the Trump administration to withdraw from yet another landmark arms control agreement, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which went into effect Aug. 2. It would be the INF Treaty that would deal the fatal blow to U.S. credibility when it came to arms control.

The U.S. had, since 2014, accused Russia of violating the INF Treaty by testing a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) to prohibited ranges. According to the U.S. narrative, Russia took advantage of the existence of two other missile systems, the Kh-101 air-launched cruise missile and the Kalibr sea-launched cruise missile, to try and disguise the development of a new GLCM, the 9M729, which the U.S. claims was flight-tested to ranges prohibited by the INF Treaty. “Russia probably assumed parallel development—tested from the same site—and deployment of other cruise missiles that are not prohibited by the INF Treaty would provide sufficient cover for its INF violation,” then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told Congress in January.

For its part, Russia denied that the 9M729 violated the INF Treaty. From the moment the U.S. first raised its allegations regarding the 9M729, Russia requested that they be backed up with facts that would substantiate the claims; this the U.S. refused to do. Finally, in an effort to forestall a precipitous U.S. withdrawal from the INF Treaty, Russia displayed the 9M729alongside its cousin, the 9M728, a similar GLCM that the U.S. acknowledges complies with the range restrictions of the INF Treaty. The Russian Ministry of Defense invited U.S. and NATO military officers stationed in Moscow to attend this demonstration; none did. The Russians were able to demonstrate convincingly that the 9M728 and 9M729 missiles made use of the same propulsion components—solid-fuel rocket motors, which meant that, all things being equal, both missiles would fly the same distance. But there was a kicker—the 9M729 missile was equipped with an improved guidance and control package, as well as a different warhead which, in their aggregate, weighed significantly more than their counterpart components on the treaty-compliant 9M728 missile. In short, the Russians demonstrated that the 9M729 could not fly further than the treaty-compliant 9M728. The U.S. ignored this demonstration.

At the same time the U.S. was accusing Russia of violating the INF Treaty with the 9M729 missile, Russia was voicing similar concerns about the Mark 41 “Aegis Ashore” vertical launch system that the U.S. had installed in both Poland and Romania as part of its ballistic missile defense shield. The Mark 41 originally was designed for service on naval vessels. In this role, its launcher system could be configured to launch either the SM-6 surface-to-air missile, or the Tomahawk sea-launched cruise missile. From the Russian perspective, the Mark 41, when placed in a ground-launch configuration, became an INF-capable system, since it could launch a GLCM of proscribed range. The U.S. was adamant in its rejection of these claims, noting that the Aegis Ashore systems in Poland and Romania were configured to launch SM-6 surface-to-air missiles only. The Russians, however, insisted that there was no physical way to make this determination, noting that the INF Treaty required that similar systems be denoted with unique visually distinctive features; the U.S. dismissed the Russian position as a “technicality.”

On Aug. 18, the U.S. conducted a test launch of a GLCM from a Mark 41 launch cannister that had been bolted to a flat-bed trailer, making it a de facto ground launcher. The GLCM flew to ranges greater than those permitted by the INF Treaty. Technically, the U.S. was not in violation of the INF treaty at the time of the test, because it had expired on Aug. 2, some 16 days prior. But those 16 days hold the key to understanding just how seriously Russia took this test. According to a transcript of a meeting Putin held Friday with members of the Russian Security Council, he declared that by conducting a missile test a mere 16 days after the INF Treaty ended, it was “obvious that it was not improvisation, but became the next link in a chain of events that were planned and carried out earlier.”

From the Russian perspective, they had been right all along—the U.S. had cheated on the INF Treaty, just as they were cheating on the New START Treaty. With such a dismal track record of noncompliance, it is all but certain that the New START Treaty will not be extended and, thus liberated from any vestige of constraint, the U.S. and Russia will embark on a new arms race that threatens all of humanity with the all-too-real possibility of imminent destruction.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-death-of-arms-control/

Beware the Vengeance of the Afghans - By Eric S. Margolis

After 18 years of war in Afghanistan– America’s longest – US and Taliban negotiators are said to be close to an agreement that may see the withdrawal of many of the 14,000 US soldiers in that remote nation.

That’s the official version.  President Donald Trump keeps changing his mind about the number of US troops to be withdrawn.  The latest version from the White House has 5,000 US troops remaining in Afghanistan as a permanent garrison to guard the major air bases at Bagram and Kandahar and protect the US-installed puppet Afghan government in Kabul.

Without US troops to defend it, the Afghan regime of Ashraf Ghani would be swept away in days.  Even Trump has admitted this.  Keeping the Ghani regime safe in Kabul would at least provide a fig leaf to claim the US-backed government was still in charge.

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The pro-war right in Washington is crying to high heaven at this prospect.  Senators and congressmen who never heard a shot fired in anger are ready to fight to the last 18-year-old American soldier and keep the trillion-dollar war sputtering on.

To date, 2,426 American soldiers have been killed in combat in Afghanistan, with some 20,000 wounded, many of them permanently maimed.

Thousands of US-paid mercenaries and foreign troops dragooned into this conflict have been killed or wounded.  Heavy Afghan civilian casualties, mostly caused by air strikes, are covered up by US occupation authorities.  Without 24/7 US air support, American forces would have long ago been driven from Afghanistan, as were their British and Soviet predecessors.

Proponents of the Afghan War insist that ‘terrorists’ will take over if US troops withdraw.  By now, it’s unclear who the so-called ‘terrorists’ really are.  Previously, the US branded Taliban as terrorists. But now that the US is negotiating with Taliban to end the war, Washington claims the threats are the Islamic State from Iraq and something called ‘the Khorasan Group,’ a figment of Washington’s imagination.

The US warns that if Taliban wins, it will turn Afghanistan into a base for international terrorism.  This is absurd.  Taliban today controls more than half the nation by day, and 80% by night.  There is plenty of room left for anti-US groups.

War at the Top of the ...Eric MargolisCheck Amazon for Pricing.

Contrary to US claims, Taliban was never a terrorist group.  I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan when Taliban was created.  Civil war in

Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out led to wide scale banditry, rapine and anarchy.  A preacher named Mullah Omar, a veteran of the anti-Soviet war, cobbled together a force of ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) fighters and students to attack the bandits, rapists,  and opium-producing Communist forces causing mayhem.  This rag-tag movement came to be known as ‘talibs,’ or religious students.  Thus was born Taliban.

Mullah Omar and his Pashtun fighters went on to drive the Communists from Kabul and take most of the country.  According to the UN, Taliban eliminated 90% of Afghanistan’s opium production and brought a rough justice to the nation.

Washington demanded Taliban turn over bin Laden. But the Afghan mountain warriors held to their tradition of defending guests and refused, claiming bin Laden would never have gotten a fair trial in the US.  But they offered to send him for trial in another Muslim nation like Turkey or Egypt.  The US spurned this offer and invaded Afghanistan, oblivious to its title ‘Graveyard of Empires.’

And so, under the banner of the faux War on Terrorism, the US bombed and rocketed Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest but proudest nations, for 18 years, using B-1 heavy bombers and fleets of killer drones against mountain tribesmen armed with old rifles and fierce courage.

America faces historic defeat in Afghanistan.  By not winning, it loses.   How this loss would affect the rest of America’s empire remains to be seen.  But the sooner America ends this shameful colonial war the better.

The Best of Eric S. Margolis

Eric S. Margolis [send him mail] is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

Copyright © 2019 Eric Margolis

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/08/eric-margolis/beware-the-vengeance-of-the-afghans/

I didn’t know that! – Ask: Why?

Simple answer – they didn’t want you to know that!

Just like most of us, I was a graduate of American public schools, including the study of history. I accepted it as fact and simply moved on. The only problem I am discovering now is that just about everything I learned and accepted was not only NOT true – it seems to have been purposely propagandized to make me willingly elect and perpetuate the rule of psychopaths and perverts.

How was it done? Simple – LIES – which we accepted as DaGospelTruth!

As I explain on my website – the purpose of building my library and selecting articles to be archived is to ask: Does it add to my knowledge base or confirm what has already been asserted by other authors?

Today - GILAD ATZMON informs us that Jeffrey Epstein was not the first sex trafficker. Vox Day shows it is an equal opportunity business. And Richard Enos reveals the official government agencies deeply embedded in the process.

BTW – the best line I read this week: “True. I got my job on merit. I blackmailed a politician.”

What about WW II – who were the villains and heroes? Dresden? How about Hiroshima, Nagasaki? “As we have previously found, the US public exhibits only limited aversion to nuclear weapons use and a shocking willingness to support the killing of enemy civilians,” write the report’s authors.” Will there be payback – someday?

Why Germany Invaded Poland – history, but not as you and I were taught!

Who really wanted WW II? – the evidence!

As a Christian – do you have an understanding of what is going on in this world?

Never said mentoring is easy!