Russia has been playing and excellent strategy in restoring the state of Syria with compliance to the rules. One can only imagine the chaos if they were not supporting the government of Syria! A good summary of the state of play. I only hope cool heads will prevail like those on the Russian and Syrian side.

Interesting article and one that shows a new element to the struggle. The Turks as with the Israelis are good at fighting people who cannot fight back but when you have a seasoned fighting force different story! Maybe when they are faced with a touch of uncertainty and dire consequences it will produce a peaceful rational outcome!

Agree she is a war monger and her record is there as as an example! I am only interested in foreign policy of the United States and Trump is at least taking advice from more realistic sources Michael T Flynn is one case in point!

Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko requests the supreme court of Ukraine to declare that his predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, was overthrown by an illegal operation; in other words, that the post-Yanukovych government, including Poroshenko’s own Presidency, came into power from a coup, not from something democratic, not from any authentic constitutional process at all.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/ukraines-president-poroshenko-says-overthrow-of-yanukovych-was-a-coup/5457631

There is a lot to read out there maybe you should start!

From another retired Marine General Smedley D Butler Major general US marine core twice decorated with the Medal of Honor!
“War is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives…………..
The only way to smash this war racket is to conscript capital and industry, before the nation’s manhood can be conscripted. Let officers and the directors and the high powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders, and our airplane builders and the manufacturers that provide anything that profits from war together with the bankers and the speculators be conscripted on the same wage as a foot soldier”

Wonderful review of recent history it is a pity the facts are missing!

The corporate elite are firmly in control!
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Meet_the_Neocons%2C_911_Criminals_and_Goldman_Bankers_On_Team_Trump/55231/0/38/38/Y/M.html

How independent is this organisation!

In April 2015 TI defended the decision by its American chapter, TI-USA, to give Hillary Clinton its Integrity Award in 2012. TI’s statement followed a report by National Public Radio that Bill and Chelsea Clinton were not factual regarding the transparency of the Clinton Foundation.
It has the smell of the corporate sector all over it!

“Frankly, it’s an idea that I find attractive, mainly because I think Trump’s views on immigration, the environment, human rights, civil liberties and deregulation are so uniformly horrible, they could destroy the country. But the Times objections are different from my own. The reason the Times wants Trump removed is because Trump wants to normalize relations with Russia which threatens to undermine Washington’s effort to project US power deeper into Central Asia.”

Trump basically upsets the Washington consensus and their little neocon plans! As always Mike some thought behind your articles!

Both groups are not socialist!

Meanwhile what is going on in Mosel or Yemen! Does anyone really care!

Richard Broinowski is President of the New South Wales Chapter of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, a writer, and a former Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea.

similar sentiments

http://johnmenadue.com/?p=10120

And what did the intervention and bombing, exploitation, dislocation and playing one group of people of against another do for the people in third world countries invaded by the West and indeed empire?
There is an old biblical saying “We reap what we sow”

To keep your puppet on the line you put pressure on them!

Wolfowitz doctrine » of 1992, according to which Washington must conserve its advance over the rest of the world by hindering the development of all potential competitors ………..
In 1992, he wrote that the most dangerous competitor of the United States was the European Union, and that Washington should destroy it politically, even economically.

NATO’s manifesto has always been to keep the Americans in control Russia out and Germany down!

Thanks for the reply Carlton! I think your reply of more value !

An incomplete picture is also being drawn by you as well!

The illusion of choice to the American people! Every four years the circus comes to town! The two parties represent two sides of the same coin!

Just what the world needs another opinion from a middle class white man!

The Republicans and the Democrats are two factions of the one party! The corporate democrats would even rather Trump in place than Bernie Sanders. Working people in America essentially are not represented and if any attempt is made to represent working people this is what happens

Video Link

Reading is a wonderful thing but not from the corporate mainstream, You know the ones that feed the military industrial complex!

While it is only human for people to become infuriated by unprovoked attacks – these attacks by the US and Israel are designed specifically to provoke a response. Long-term patience is just as important to winning a war as immediate fury.

Sun Tzu stated in the timeless strategic treatise, “The Art of War,” that:
A government should not mobilize an army out of anger, military leaders should not provoke war out of wrath. Act when it is beneficial, desist if it is not. Anger can revert to joy, wrath can revert to delight, but a nation destroyed cannot be restored to existence, and the dead cannot be restored to life.

http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.au/2018/05/israel-baits-hook-will-syria-bite.html#more

good article to match and reference with events! Thanks for the post!

Well I have three brain cells and I think the perpetrators of the crime was part of the investigation team ! You obviously have four brain cells so it should not be hard to work that out!

You give a reply like that and call him clueless and expect us to consider what you have said in reply! Write something intelligent to consider!!

‘Martyanov names the real enemy of both the Russian and the American people – the US political elites and, especially, the Neocons: they are destroying the US as a country and they are putting all of mankind at risk of nuclear annihilation.’

That is a real problem to be faced! Good article look forward to the book!

Your correct you are a neoliberal!
Hudson been around long enough to know how the IMF works !
Be interesting to know which country you refer!!

very clear article the loan is odious!

Whites, Men, Republicans and Other Scum

And that leaves!

This neoliberal neoconservative project encourages racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among the masses distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests to create an society for all.

“American society is morally bankrupt and politically broken, and its vision of the future appears utterly dystopian. As the United States descends into the dark abyss of an updated form of totalitarianism, the unimaginable has become imaginable in that it has become possible not only to foresee the death of the essential principles of constitutional democracy, but also the birth of what Hannah Arendt once called the horror of dark times. The politics of terror, a culture of fear, and the spectacle of violence dominate America’s cultural apparatuses and legitimate the ongoing militarization of public life and American society.” HENRY GIROUX

Casino capitalism has us completely taken us! We will be but a memory in a few hundred years

You have embraced neoliberal economics for 3+decades !

Those that own the means of production and those who sell their labor as crucial to the maintenance of capitalism. Its function is to create an obedient, docile, uncritical workforce who will work to support the upper-class’s lifestyle and the economy.

Keeping wages low, or debt pressure high, means workers will be less likely to complain or make demands. As workers struggle to provide their families with all the temptations that a capitalist society offers, they become far less likely to risk their employment, and less able to improve their situation.

At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a “respectable” sounding ideology which all boils down to the cheap labour they depend on to make their fortunes.
The larger the labor supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work, and the more power those “corporate lords” have over you.

The neoliberals especially don’t like social spending or our “safety net”. Why? Because when you’re unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably as little as possible. You see, they want you “over a barrel” and in a position to “work cheap or starve”.

Cheap-labor elites don’t like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why? These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you “over a barrel”.

Cheap-labor conservatives like “free trade” agreements. Why? Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world who are “over a barrel” and will work cheap.

Cheap-labor neoliberal elites encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

We are there because we have been steered and directed by neoliberal /neoconservative globalization!

The ugly truth is that these parasites just don’t like working people. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits those who work for an hourly wage.

Actually your comment needs inspection right up to the shitty steel sentence ! The United States created its own problems and that is what empires eventually do!

Where does the knowledge of Empires come from! They acquire it just like everybody else does!

1992-2001 were the best years America ever had. When you’ve seen America that great, it’s hard to forget.

Actually The United States after the second world war was when working Americans had it the greatest!

The United States in the 1950s experienced marked economic growth manufacturing , construction and wages

MMT modern monetary theory!

Good article will certainly spread this one around!

The House of Saud agreed to take only dollars in exchange for their petroleum No in exchange for protection of their shitty little kingdom!

That about sums it up!!!!

Fair assessment Mr Whitney! Good article for reference!

Sometimes these weasels come unstuck with the right interviewer!

Video Link

Well thanks for all the detailed information appreciate that cleared everything up for me!!!

Again an interesting piece of information for reference thank you!

I think that was important an significant as well!

good assessment Mr Whitney!

Good summary!

Great article!

What did the Chinese do thirty years ago, they made a decision, a strategic economic development decision
They were going to do what the Soviet Union couldn’t and didn’t do they were not going to hitch their store and there hope to go from being a poor backward country to becoming an industrial powerhouse.

They were going do it by becoming an exporting company, they were going do it by producing cheaply better quality than the West was producing for itself and they knew they could not do that by themselves they needed two things which they didn’t have:

One the technology to produce efficiently cheaply and number two entry, because it’s one thing to produce the stuff you have to distribute it, you have to get a way to get your better cheaper stuff into the markets, that the mass of people with money go to.

The Chinese decision therefore meant they had to cut a deal with the West, they had to cut a deal to acquire the technology and to acquire the distribution system.

Here’s how they did that, they invited companies in Britain, German companies, Japanese companies and American and Canadian companies to come.

They said to them very explicitly we are going to provide you with cheaper labor than you ever dreamed, you would have not just cheap but well-educated disciplined, used to working hard work and we will take care of all of that.

Number two as we develop our economy we will give you entree to sell your products here in China you get the workers and you get the market but the deal was we get the technology; nobody’s stealing anything, no American company had to go there and no one had a gun to their head.

These companies climbed over themselves to sell out the workers of their country in the best of neoliberal tradition!

Reasonable enough comment Syria is still intact! I would have thought the support for Iran would be there, it is a strategic area for both Russia and China!

The conflict is deliberate!

the established elite 1% call them what you want encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among the general population distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests to sustain a better future for their communities.

It is a strategy among many others like keeping wages low, or debt pressure high, which means workers will be less likely to complain or make demands. As workers struggle to provide their families with all the temptations that a capitalist society offers, they become far less likely to risk their employment, and less able to improve their situation.

This self honored group oppose a woman’s right to choose. Why? Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women “over a barrel”, forcing them to work cheap.

This self honored group bray about “morality”, “virtue”, “respect for authority”, “hard work” and other “values”. Why? So they can blame your being “over a barrel” on your own “immorality”, lack of “values” and “poor choices”. It however does not apply to them!

‘Republican candidates in the 2016 primary election would have these funds available for Trump in 2020 since almost all would prefer Trump over any Democrat.’

Corporate Democrats would also prefer Trump if a Progressive got up in the Democratic party

Maybe it is an economic problem which now includes a lot of whites! We have had 4+ decades of neoliberalism! We also have an Opioid epidemic which is now suddenly in the news because it has become a white problem.

Giving a lecture with statistics is fine identifying the real problem is another!
The solutions are in asking the right questions!

At bottom, Neoliberals have created a social hierarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a “respectable” sounding ideology which all boils down to the cheap labor and desperate people they depend on to make their fortunes.

They have been very successful at encouraging racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among people at the bottom distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests to improve their lives.

That is why in an election cycle 47% of the society never bother to vote because they have stopped believing their lives will ever change with no opportunity to ever step up !

agree!

An interesting read also not mentioned much is the non aggression pact Poland signed with the Nazis in 1934! We only here about the Nazi Russian one.

Debts that cannot be paid will not be paid ever!!

https://michael-hudson.com/2019/08/ellen-brown-on-peak-debt-jubilee/

Good article will keep that for reference !

Good article! The world needs a shake up from the shackles of the West!

Really! You should get a job in the west re-writing history they could use you!

The United States needs to leave and let Israel do some work they have been there since 1948 and haven’t made a friend yet!

It was no surprise attack!

Well when we are presented with the next big lie make sure you are first on the boat to defend us !

Agree missile tech has change the game!

Agree!

Good discussion and a pity many people do not get to hear but spread it as much as possible everyone!

‘So you can compare what’s happening in China today with what happened to the American economy after 2008. Henry Liu and others have written about why China cannot really go broke as a result of its debt. The reason is that if a corporation in China is unable to repay its debt to the government-owned bank, then the government-owned bank has a choice: It can either write down the debt and leave the corporation functioning, working with its employees and being productive. Or, it can do what a US bank would do: foreclose on the loan, drive the company under, and have it sold at the distressed price to a corporate raider or vulture fund. China doesn’t throw the companies over to the corporate raiders or vulture funds.’ Michael Hudson

https://michael-hudson.com/2020/01/democratizing-money-a-discussion/

Good article Michael ! Love it when I get something to annoy my MSM friends with!

Lucky to have Putin there and what is more astounding is they had a drunken puppet Yeltsin that nearly destroyed the Federation to only be replaced by an outstanding leader that was needed not just for Russia but globally!!

Good point!

Thanks for the information and further readings!

Even if one read this and wanted to debate some of the aspects of history they would be well ahead of significant western populations who revel in the bosom on page two of a magazine or the sport section on the back of a newspaper!

It is about economics! The capitalist system loved slavery it was good for business!

63% of the population cannot string 500 dollars together for an emergency in the United States!

At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a “respectable” sounding ideology which all boils down to the cheap labour they depend on to make their fortunes.
The larger the labour supply, the cheaper it is. The more desperately you need a job, the cheaper you’ll work, and the more power those “corporate lords” have over you.

Cheap-labour conservatives and now its more brutal form neoliberalism encourage racism, wars misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

The ugly truth is that cheap-labour conservatives just don’t like working people. They don’t like “bottom up” prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple. “Corporate lords” have a harder time kicking them around. Once you understand this about the cheap-labour conservatives, the real motivation for their policies makes perfect sense. Remember, cheap-labour conservatives believe in social hierarchy and privilege, so the only prosperity they want is limited to them. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits those who work for an hourly wage.

Certainly not beyond the realm of possibility! Food for thought!

I could not agree more !

It is amazing what a few good missiles can do to and the Syrians are not going anywhere! That is called the reality of the situation and does not require a whole lot of talk!

This whole facade is to stop Sanders from getting the nomination!

If the Corporate Democratic machine were perfectly honest with themselves and the rest of the American public ; their statement would be we would prefer Trump to Sanders

Yes Sometimes but we are at war ! So sometimes becomes possibly something else!

Free Market !!!! What planet do you live on!

There is mum’s a dads capitalism ! Then there is the casino corporate predatory capitalism which infests our society!

Good article ! Neoliberalism needs to be put in the bin and tightly sealed so it never rises again!

Yes but some people still have discipline and still fall by the wayside I always remember the linesman in Portland Oregon who was ready to retire and live of his hard earned gains in a small superannuation policy ! Unfortunately for him ENRON took over the company he worked for just before he retired he lost everything!

At the end of the day your last sentence sums it up and reality will have to be faced!

At this point the EU countries will have to turn to the Kremlin for a common response to what promises to be a major disaster.

Well at least I can agree with your sentiments! They are what I consider a human response human response!

how simple and clear you have made everything ! I was confused before I read that thanks!

Thanks Mike good for reference!

Really The Us economy was already in bad shape before the crisis Rip Van Winkle!

The EU Is Rewriting WWII History to Demonize Russia
https://www.unz.com/article/the-eu-is-rewriting-wwii-history-to-demonize-russia/#comment-3519596

Poland signed its own non-aggression pact with the Nazis back in 1934, some five years before the USSR did. In addition, Warsaw not only recognized the legitimacy of Czechoslovakia’s partitioning by the Nazis under the no-less-infamous 1938 Munich agreement, but also bit off a chunk of its territory under the same accord.

The Poles (who rarely attack anybody unless their prospective victim is already agonizing or unless there is some “big guy” protecting them – Churchill was quite right with his “greedy hyena of Europe” comment!).

America the victim ! Victim of its own Bullsh@t

Well he could be wrong but equally do not underestimate the Russians and the Chinese!

Corporate power needs to be in the title sentence that is truly what drives the state apparatus.

They will feed and encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

This is a class war!

Time will tell.

They are not about:

Racism or “White privilege”
Police violence
Social alienation and despair
Poverty
Trump
The liberals pouring fuel on social fires
The infighting of the US elites/deep state

They are not about one of these because they encompass all of these issues, and more.

That is probably the best part of the article I added the word one!

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. Because they control the minds of the masses, they have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power…If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X

That has not changed!

The Manufactured Crisis of Police Racism!

The media campaign is designed by the corporate media news to divert attention away from the real issue neoliberal economics and corporate power

Cheap-labor conservatives encourage and manipulate racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry.

Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners to them their communities and their families.

So lets march for our own personal agenda which hits the headlines but we do have one powerful agenda to march on and that is the economics of the 1%!!

MAGA against an exclusivist Fed/Wall Street/Silicon Valley-controlled system.

They both need to be gone! for ordinary Americans to realize a future!

Good article !

Great stuff ! Thank you

John, great article but we know that what you call “large-scale privatizations in Russia ” was a large scale robbery. Even Magnitsky’s mother stated that Browder is a fraud. Mr. Nekrasov whose film has been banned in many countries due to Browder’s legal challenges has a reputation as a Putin critic — After interviewing Mr. Browder in 2010 Nekrasov says he set out to make a “Magnitsky the hero” film. But as filming proceeded he “began to have doubts”. More accurate would be that he smelled a rat. John, I have read many of your articles you never disappoint with your research and evidence.

Does the election really matter!

NO!!

There is only one choice in this election. The consolidation of oligarchic power under Donald Trump or the consolidation of oligarchic power under Joe Biden. The oligarchs, with Trump or Biden, will win again. We will lose. The oligarchs made it abundantly clear, should Bernie Sanders miraculously become the Democratic Party nominee, they would join forces with the Republicans to crush him. Chris Hedges

We are in the stages of becoming a country with a terribly small wealthy class playing the stock market at one end and a vast population sinking into conditions we never dreamed .

Take your pick a one party system with two factions ! The ruling elites refuse to address the root
causes behind these protests, the more they loot the Treasury to enrich themselves and their fellow oligarchs,the more they engage in futile and absurd efforts to deflect blame, the more unrest will spread.

The last desperate resort by the oligarchs to save themselves will be to stoke the fires of racialized violence between disenfranchised whites and disenfranchised people of color.

This is the next chapter in the saga

Both parties are a problem and the American people will go down if they keep supporting two Wall street Parties bought and paid for by the elite!

Country COVID cases Deaths Cases per 100 thousand Deaths per 100 thousand

Australia 14,403 155 56.2 0.60

Sweden 78,897 5,697 763.3 55.05

Australia was in lock down

But even the IMF is cautioning against this sort of optimism:

Any final verdict will also depend on whether, as a by-product of its approach, Sweden is closer to achieving herd immunity, thereby increasing its resilience in the event of another wave of infection. Medical knowledge about Covid-19 is still accumulating, and recent tests indicate that immunity gains have been lower than initially projected.

Good article for reference thank you!

The US itself, in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty with Japan – signed and ratified by Canberra and 47 others – who in effect gifted most of the South China Sea islands – namely, the Spratly and the Paracel island groups – to China? The US then organized a separate document with the Republic of China in Taiwan – the 1952 Taipei peace treaty – making it even clearer that these islands should be taken from Japan and in effect given to China.

GREGORY CLARK http://johnmenadue.com/gregory-clark-china-a-maritime-expansionist/

What would it mean for Blacks ????????

I know what it would mean for corporate America she is one of us business as usual screwing ordinary Americans of color , white , asian etc!

The groups that will be left with nothing will be a mixture of colors it is a class war!

Thanks for that comment as well!

Thanks Pepe! Good read!

I do not support any of these groups and their carry ons! This is supposed to be a first world country a country that stands as an example to democracy and this baby of a man trying to make sense of the world and what is going on, with a media that has filled his brain with crap runs around with an assault rifle!

The neocons and neoliberals have a lot of blood an murder and povety on their hands!

Good article ! Lots to look at for reference!