I have hardly blogged on the US Presidential elections for two reasons. Firstly the debate is so polarised that many people are oblivious to rational argument that moves outwith the few favoured memes of each side, and I have more than enough abuse in my life already. Secondly, it is some years since I spent any substantial length of time in the USA, and it is a country I find that I understand less and less. I prefer to blog about things where I bring not just judgement, but an extra store of knowledge.
I am very frequently chided for not posting on a subject; a number of people have approached me asking me to post on Nagorno-Karabakh, and indeed I have been offered money to post here on the subject, an offer I suspect would have turned out to be accompanied by conditions as to what I wrote. I will never accept such offers. I am not a corrupt shill like the highly respectable mainstream media journalists receiving secret UK government cash for propaganda from the Integrity Initiative. But also Nagorno-Karabakh is an ancient and tangled dispute with roots that lie deep in history, with complex modern consequences, and which would require a huge amount of reading before I was ready to take a considered view. It is part of a region of which I do in fact have a very deep knowledge, but on Nagorno-Krabakh not specific enough.
I think it is important not to become an all-purpose pundit who fires off unconsidered views on everything that occurs. Such pundits are two a penny in the mainstream media
On the US election I showed my limitations with a tweet yesterday evening predicting Biden would win fairly comfortably, and Trump would concede with good grace. I was wrong. I think Biden will win, but not comfortably and with margins in the key “rust bucket” states close enough for Trump to have every right to question in court aspects of the United States’ rickety voting practices. I still expect to see President Biden at the end of it all.
I know that many of my readers will be triumphant at the departure of Trump. I can understand that. From the viewpoint of US domestic policy and particularly attitudes to social division, race and immigration, the end of Trump’s cynical manipulation of atavistic instinct among the electorate will be in itself a good thing. This has not been a healthy period in US politics.
But Trump has not been defeated by a Bernie Sanders; he has been defeated by a corrupt political hack backed to the hilt by the large majority of the billionaire owned media, financed out of Wall street and with no intention of pursuing anything other than neo-liberal economic policies. It is also the firm re-establishment of the rule of the security state and the military-industrial complex. Trump’s instinctive isolationism made him an enemy of the security state interest which spent a great deal of time in trying to undermine its President.
With Biden we will return to business as usual, and that means war and invasions. Under Trump we have had no new wars started, even if he continued old ones with little control. Without Trump, I have not the tiniest doubt that Syria would have been bombed back to the Stone Age, exactly like Libya, and millions more people would have been killed. Irrespective of the undoubted damage Trump has caused inside the United States across many fronts, Hillary would have killed a lot more people. Just not Americans.
I pause to note that the terrorist in Vienna had attempted to go as a jihadist to Syria and fight against Assad. If he had not been prevented from doing that, he would have been financed by the Saudis, fed and clothed by the Turks, armed by the CIA, trained by the SAS and given air support by the Israelis. He might even have got to be a TV star posing in a White Helmet, or employment artfully placing chlorine bottles on beds for pictures by Bellingcat. Unfortunately, having been prevented from joining the western sponsored insurgency, he ended up killing Austrians instead of Syrians and now is a “terrorist”, whereas jihadist killers of Syrians are “heroes”. A strange world. The Manchester Arena bomber was of course physically brought in to the UK by the British military after fighting for “our side” in Libya. You do indeed reap what you sow.
I hope that those who consider themselves of the left enjoy their relief when the electoral process finally puts to bed the extraordinary populism of Trumpism, and returns the USA to the smoother control of the regular media and political classes and their billionaire controllers. Because anybody who believes any more than that is happening is a fool. I said that I did not blog about the US elections because of the appalling partisan nature of debate. The truth is the system threw up, again, two truly obnoxious candidates entirely antithetical to the real interests of ordinary people in the USA. Biden will do nothing to tackle the appalling wealth and resource inequality which is the most startling problem the country faces. He will hopefully resolve social tensions in the short term. But the cause of those social tensions is a system of gross exploitation of the middle and working classes which is not sustainable in the long term, and which was the root of the Trump political eruption.
Kamala Harris was of course the most right wing possible Vice-Presidential pick. Her advance into power, despite being entirely rejected in the Democratic primaries, is in itself a huge condemnation of the system. I believe I am right in saying that Harris’s Primary campaign was so disastrous she managed to obtain zero delegates at all to the Democratic National Convention. Zero, None. Absolute bottom of the pile. Rejected by Democratic voters as the candidate in toto. Attempting to confirm this zero delegate fact, I just looked up the Wikipedia page on her primary campaign, which turns out to be the most entirely false, hagiographic and manicured Wikipedia page I have ever seen, on any subject, which is saying a lot. Apparently her Presidential Primary bid was in fact a tour de force of brilliant debating and political strategy, recounted in enormous detail, not an abject failure resulting in no delegates. The extraordinarily dishonest Wikipedia page is not perhaps in itself hugely important, but it is emblematic of the sinister manipulation behind the scenes of Kamala Harris’s rise to power.
Let us put a note in our collective diaries to look again in two years and see whether the USA has entered a period of renewed social progress, or just reinvigorated its position as a violent threat to the world. I am looking forward to the period when Biden’s mainstream cheerleaders have to find something positive to say rather than just respond “But Trump is evil”. I predict most of the responses below will say nothing much more on analysis than “But Trump is evil.” Knock yourselves out.
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“I pause to note that the terrorist in Vienna had attempted to go as a jihadist to Syria and fight against Assad. If he had not been prevented from doing that, he would have been financed by the Saudis, fed and clothed by the Turks, armed by the CIA, trained by the SAS and given air support by the Israelis. He might even have got to be a TV star posing in a White Helmet, or employment artfully placing chlorine bottles on beds for pictures by Bellingcat. Unfortunately, having been prevented from joining the western sponsored insurgency, he ended up killing Austrians instead of Syrians and now is a “terrorist”, whereas jihadist killers of Syrians are “heroes”.”
May I lift this quote? With proper attribution, of course.
—
[ Mod: From the notice at the end of each of Craig’s articles:
This post is free for anybody to reproduce or republish, including in translation.
Regards. ]
..thank you for usual most ethical observations Mr. Murray; on Harris VP, she has demonstrated ability to “fail upwards”, and as result of her only “constituency” being dnc (billionaires-neoliberals) who appointed both her and horrible biden.
Tellingly, “trump is the issue” propaganda remains all we are allowed perceive, and though some have found ourselves censored, by friends, family, and media, while expounding truth of both horrible candidates.
I can only observe personal satisfaction that you remain, in aftermath of one of my few true heroes passing this week; Robert Fisk. I will be unsurprised when this dismissible missive go censored, also…
Quick prediction – only an opinion though.
Biden will be kept going until a bit beyond January 2021.
Then his medication will be scaled down – he will have an ‘ incident ‘
The DNC will the replace him because they have to on medical grounds – initially with Harris ( she will be removed later).
Then a male replacement ( I don’t know who) will be put up by the DNC and ……Hello Hilary!! as VP.
Whether that can work I don’t know but I think it’s a possibility.
All participants will be on some form of performance enhancing medication.
p.s. Do the ‘ Don’t/Do count the votes remind you a bit of George Romero’s satire: The Night of the Living Dead?
I hear George got the idea for the movie through sitting and watching people in Shopping Malls.
Zombies shop online now.
They don’t want to suffer with Covid.
@Ken – If a president leaves office early then the VP takes over, assuming she doesn’t stand aside. If she does become president then she appoints a VP subject to majority support from both Houses of Congress – and it seems the Republicans will keep control of the Senate.
Many Republicans would like nothing better than for Hillary Clinton to occupy high state office. That would really fire them up. But it won’t happen. She has nowhere near the influence attributed to her by many Republicans. Politically she is a figure from the past. What does she do now anyway? After-dinner speeches?
A plague on both their houses.
Priceless video clip from inside the Oval Office today.
Interesting piece about last election:
Hillary Clinton urged to call for election vote recount in battleground states
Alleged irregularities in key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin prompt demands for audit amid concerns over ‘foreign hackers’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/23/hillary-clinton-election-vote-recount-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin
Ring any bell?
You note “cynical manipulation of atavistic instinct among the electorate” as something unique to Trump. Brother, he’s a late comer to that game.
I don’t expect Biden to be around for long, it wasn’t a vote for him, it was a vote for Harris, she is a Clinton protégé. HRCs recent rant, sorry, I mean article in Foreign Affairs runs like a job application submission. So a Harris Presidency is on the cards if Joe can’t make it and maybe even a Clinton slot somewhere, its the whole Clinton/Obama network coming back to finish off its everlasting War On Terra of which Harris the hawk will be a willing contributor.
I’m a Trump supporter. Appreciate many disagree. But, do the left not see the election fraud? Serious question, it’s not about Trump, or ideology. I’d hope that the left would call this out, because it’s just so blatant. And any party which engages in such serious fraud does not have your back.
It’s a genuine question, not trolling. I suspect everyone has made up their mind about Trump, and that’s ok. But there is simply no way Biden got more votes than Obama 2008. Didn’t happen. And personally, I’d be genuinely surprised if Biden became POTUS. We will see.
Ciaris
Trump has no more right than anybody else to monitor the secret process of ballot rigging that is now taking place in swing states. How is he supposed to produce evidence of a secret and criminal operation carried out by his enemies?
Trump appears to be toast, but when the Democrats fire up the war machine again, people will see the difference.
The trouble is the claims he has made so far have been palpably untrue and have just made him look even more stupid. He’s behaving like a cross between a petulant toddler and a third world despot who can’t accept that the election is not going his way.
But like so many before me, where is the proof? Trump goes on and on about election fraud without producing any evidence. Can you? I am genuinely interested if you can but totally not interested if you’re just sour grapes about this.
With you Ciaris – have a look at what I just posted as a new comment at the bottom.
Your error, as with most of us like minded who haven’t seen through all the veils yet, is in sticking to the fabrication of ‘left’.
Left only exists in context of Right. They were created at the same time. To allow people to place themselves along that fixed 1 dimensional precursor of the Overton Window.
It was created by the Top.
As a means of protecting themselves from and controlling these below them.
That way the bottom is encouraged to fight between ourselves. Like the Three Stooges.
When what we should really be doing is punching up ever higher!
Hope that makes some kind of sense.
Ciaris
As a non American I could look at this dispassionately. Why is it that the US relies so much on being the leader of the free world, so much as as to advocate regime changes around the globe, with force, with sanctions and with protests, but then each party has no faith in the electorate process in the US itself? The Democrats spent the last 4 years telling us that the Russians successfully interfered with the 2016 and then we now have Trump also saying something similar, except that it is not the Russians this time. Two questions immediately arise.
Q1. If the Russian were so successful last time why could they not also be successful this time?
Q2. Given that the US is made of 50 states, and given that each state has control over the electoral process, and that a lot of the swing states changed from Trump to Biden, under in many cases, a local republican administration, then how is it possible to explain that manipulation took part in these different states and all of them with the same aim and result?
If any one believes the above, then they also have to believe that the US electoral system is really not fit for purpose and that the results of the elections could just as well be determined by a toss of a coin.
It must be truly terrifying times for those unfortunate enough to be living in Syria or some other ‘Axis of Evil’ country.
Yes also for North Korea but also for europeans, which leaders, will gladly welcome more US military operations near the russian border now with Biden at the helm.
More terrifying than the war that has already forced 12 million out of their homes?
Kempe
I dont know, what is pretty clear is that Biden will quit the North Korean diplomacy Trump started and go harder on North Korea.
The same way Trump ripped up the treaty with Iran?
Kempe
Well thats another problem, Trump made EU, Russia and China to some extent even back Iran during his presidency. With Biden on Iran, he will mobilize those nations, especially europe to go harder on Iran. The nuclear deal is dead, Biden wants to return to it. Iran wont. Conflict is looming.
Jack
There is very little evidence for what you claim. After all Obama’s major achievement was the Iran deal abd Biden is close to Obama. In fact it would be very surprising if Biden does not rejuvenate the deal.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/8/what-will-a-biden-presidency-mean-for-iran
You are quite right to ask, as the war was started by Obama and continued by Trump without really any much change. Obama had a year to escalate in Syria after the Russians stepped in but didn’t. Presumably the non-escalation in Syria was on the advice of the military?
Looks like springsteen can cancel his emigration to Australia (NOT UK!)
Why do “celebrities” keep threatening us with leaving their countries if results do not go their way. (and keep getting away with it)
Of interest to some.
“Biden has already pledged to restore U.S. aid to the Palestinians if elected. He has said he would leave the U.S. Embassy to Israel in Jerusalem—a move a majority of Israelis regarded as long overdue—but says he would reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem for the Palestinian leadership, as well as the PLO’s mission in Washington.”
– Time article from Oct 19 2020
Along with rejoining the JCPOA, a more sensible seems to be on the way. Netanyahu seems to have backed the wrong person from the same article :
Before Israel’s April 2019 elections, Netanyahu’s campaign team posted gigantic posters of him and the U.S. President above Jerusalem’s highways.
Trump polls more favorably against Biden in Israel than in the U.S. Recent polling showed that 50% of Israelis want the incumbent to win on Nov. 3, compared to only 21% who prefer Biden.
My 2 cents
Aid to palestinians is not about any intent to make peace, the aid is about the US, once again trying to influence palestinians, especially the corrupt Abbas,
Trump cut that aid, now Biden wants to get in again.
And Iran deal is dead, besides Iran doesn’t need any deal at all. They are a sovereign state.
The yanks choose other countries’ presidents faster than they choose their own.
Well said Portside, brilliant ! Ps , where is Sharp Ears these days ?
The American electoral system is as antiquated as ours, using bits of paper. Haven’t they heard of computers?
At least we haven’t heard of ‘hanging chads’, so far.
Some of Trump’s concerns about the admittance of count observers and proper verification processes around late arriving ballots seem legit.
But it’s the way he expresses himself with no tact / delicacy. The blunt assertions of mass election fraud and theft will win him few political allies. Such bold assertions need real evidence.
A lot more complicated than that, Mary. Go read about HAMMER and SCORECARD for how you can ‘change votes’ between local counts and central records. Started out as a Central Intelligence security app, got privatised by Obama’s crew so they could use it to harvest votes.
Plenty out there saying that this method has been used to harvest votes for Biden this time: we await forensic ICT analysis to know whether it can be proven or not.
So why didn’t they use that technique to get Hillary in?
Probably because they didn’t think she could lose. Trump never got all that free advertising for nothing.
I wrote my first computer program using punched paper tape on PDP-11, possibly before you were born. I know a bit about computers. Paper is still the best medium for voting, possibly printed by a computer, to allow for hand counting and verification.
“On the US election I showed my limitations with a tweet yesterday evening predicting Biden would win fairly comfortably, and Trump would concede with good grace.”
Since when has Trump ever done anything “with good grace”?
There are many employees in Scotland who like Trump and his Family
Freedland is giving it to Biden.
Donald Trump’s malignant spell could soon be broken
Joe Biden has swept the popular vote, and is on the verge of claiming the electoral college. It’s a momentous achievement
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/06/donald-trump-joe-biden-popular-vote-electoral-college
Rowson’s cartoon shows Biden in a rowing boat.
https://mobile.twitter.com/cartoon4sale/status/1324786588493189122
Sharks and other nasties surround it.
If you serious think Biden is benign you need to see a psychiatrist. Biden is as corrupt as hell and will start more wars than Trump ever did.
I just learned from the “Colonel Cassad” blog (a Russian site run by the Crimean blogger Boris Rozhin) that Trump’s victory speech was blocked on all US networks and CNBC. “Cassad” posted a link to an RT video with the speech, which unfortunately is about 2/3 overdubbed in Russian so I couldn’t understand it. The impudent Rozhin comments:
“According to USA Today, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, CNBC and NBC have suspended live coverage of Trump’s speech accusing opponents of trying to “steal the election”, claiming numerous voting irregularities across the country, and claiming that he will win the election after the vote count. … Immediately after the broadcast was turned off, the MSNBC presenter said that “there is no information about illegal votes, nor about Trump’s victory.” ABC and NBC anchors also said Trump was making “unsubstantiated” statements.
It’s great that TV news anchors define what is true and what is not. What about First Amendment and Opinion Inclusion?
The fight against Agent Donald forces us to abandon even the semblance of decency and the simulation of democracy.
In fact, they are trying to tell us that freedom of speech is who needs freedom of speech. And if you do not understand this wonderful principle, a caring censor will correct you.
Well, what better example than a censored US president. These choices are getting better and better.”
There was a mention on Yahoo entertainment that networks “cut away” from Trump’s victory speech.
Trump needs to be excised because he is a tremendous irritant. It actually goes above and beyond an analysis of his policies and his actions. The response to him has turned the Democratic Party into something terrifyingly dangerous. Trump, to Democratic stalwarts, has to be wrong about absolutely everything, and alliances with the most truly evil elements, in the service of countering him, are seen to be justified, as is suppression of basic Constitutional rights — a philosophical trend that actually started pre-Trump.
Trump occasionally utters something that sounds maverick, but he never follows through, he always caves. He’s been a Republican, and Republicans for decades have been nothing but corporate fascists. And it’s not at all certain Trump has been any less bellicose than a Democrat president would have been.
Will the Democrats, in the absence of the extreme irritant, begin to regain their sanity?
@Spike – Thanks for this.
Can you give some examples of the Democrats’ alliances with what you see as “the most truly evil elements”, combinations ostensibly formed in order to fightTrump?
I am not sure where you’re coming from. Do you go along with what Cardinal Vigano wrote? (That link goes to one of his open letters.)
For decades, roughly from around the invention of thermonuclear weapons until the rulers’ mainstreaming of their use of “green”, many liberals and especially leftwingers focused on the military-industrial complex and its role in international relations and politics, even if in some countries (such as Britain) they mostly stopped short of denouncing the real weight of corruption and the warfare state and they limited themselves for example to saying homely things like “the Tories give contracts to their friends in big business”. Thus constrained, they got practically nowhere in analysing the real corporate state. They were too scared that fellow middle-class types might call them “conspiracy theorists”. If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny. (That said, two points have to be added here. First, the “anti-nuke” culture in Britain in the 1980s – dating back earlier too – was sane and sincere and it deserved considerably more respect than today’s “leftwing” “politics” which makes a major issue out of catering for the small minority of men who like to dress up in women’s clothing. Second, there were in existence leftwing critics who did NOT suffer from the mentioned critical weakness – thus an even higher degree of respect is due for example to a person such as Ulrike Meinhof.)
Well we’re in a different epoch now, and
* the rulers HAVE mainstreamed “green”;
* the medical-industrial complex is five times bigger than the military-industrial one (actually maybe this isn’t a difference, because I wouldn’t be surprised if this has been true ever since Rockefeller interests started the modern medical sector);
* to a certain extent the two complexes are fusing (this is new: ask people in Liverpool about the soldiers who are on the streets in that city today to help with “mass testing” for the strain of the SARS coronavirus that’s getting mentioned so much);
* the next stage of the clampdown is CERTAIN to be health-themed (there should be no doubt about that whatsoever);
* and in any case future wars between nuclear powers are likely to be biological to a degree that is at least as important (and probably much more important) as their being nuclear or chemical.
OK, those are a few themes of the epoch. And hardly any left-wing radicals in the world are anywhere near understanding any of this.
Meanwhile Vigano writes
“The purpose of the Great Reset is the imposition of a health dictatorship aiming at the imposition of liberticidal measures, hidden behind tempting promises of ensuring a universal income and cancelling individual debt.
The price of these concessions from the International Monetary Fund will be the renunciation of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination against Covid-19 and Covid-21 promoted by Bill Gates with the collaboration of the main pharmaceutical groups.
Beyond the enormous economic interests that motivate the promoters of the Great Reset, the imposition of the vaccination will be accompanied by the requirement of a health passport and a digital ID, with the consequent contact tracing of the population of the entire world.”
And we immediately see that this DOESN’T all come from the raving of nutcases who are hell-bent on spreading falsehoods. It’s very far from that. Whoever rubbishes it in that way has zero clue.
As Guy Debord put it, “In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is a moment of the false.”
Your thoughts, @Spike?
So, because the Dems have become insane, the solution is to get rid of Trump and to support or at least tolerate the Dems’ theft of the election?
Mental health post
Did anybody else spot this bit in Trump’s nutcase “they’re all cheating” speech yesterday?
“Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot, with a lead of over getting close to 300,000 votes on Election Night in Georgia. And by the way, got whittled down and now it’s getting to be to a point where I’ll go from winning by a lot to perhaps being even down a little bit.“
From the diction you can tell he’s finding it hard to speak fluently. But there’s more than that. The antonym to “winning” that he uses isn’t the obvious one, “losing”. It’s the mouthful of “perhaps being down a little bit”. You can say he’s contrasting “little bit” with “a lot”, and yes, to some extent he is, but that’s masking on his part. If there are any experienced forensic interviewers reading this, they will know what I’m talking about. This is a guy who is experiencing a major block against saying something like “I’ll go from winning to losing”. And it’s not even a straightforward “this or that might happen” scenario he’s talking about. He is describing a possibility that his opponents are in his view seeking to force into existence through skullduggery. So what’s the problem? Can’t he say “My opponents are stuffing ballot boxes to take me from winning by a lot to losing?” Can’t he say “These criminals are cheating their socks off so that I will be declared the loser of this election.” Obviously no, he can’t. He can’t even face the possibility of being the “loser” even when it’s described as an outcome that his wicked criminal opponents are trying to bring about.
There will be more. This is not going to end nicely. Meanwhile his son “Donald Junior” is saying his father should fight “to the death” against the possibility that he will be declared the loser in various states. Those were his exact words: “to the death”. The mainstream media have picked up on the words “total war”, but not on the phrase “to the death”. Those are scarily crazy and disgusting words to come from a son whose dad is mentally cracking up big time and in public. Some crack-ups really do lead to a person’s death. Trump is ill and he needs his son’s support but he isn’t going to get it. Indeed DJ Junior was literally hyperventilating in the first part of that footage, and he may well be even crazier than his father. Talk about a f***ed-up family! Neither of them seems to have prepared for a narrow loss in the election. This is almost like mythology. Trump is a Jungian, by the way. I’m not, but Carl Gustav Jung would have understood a fair bit of what’s going on here.
Are you an experienced forensic(k) interviewer?
No, but I’ve read widely.
And you talk some pish
Anyone can be a Mr Insulty-Pants on the internet 🙂
I think it is Hunter Biden who has had the mental health issues, if we are going to get down to brass tacks.
And Joe Biden who was getting Hunter bungs from Ukraine, not to mention all kinds of corrupt deals in China.
Where you get this notion that Biden is an honest pussy cat is beyond me. He is deep state USA through and through and hating Trump is not a good enough reason to support Biden….
Apologies for my comments at 20.40 and 21.09.
Not sure why, but very often we niche people and events into historical characterizations and then expect the outcomes to be the same today as they were 200 or more years ago. Well, that was then; this is now, as S.E. Hinton reminded us. While history does repeat now and then, it does not do so very often because the cultural, technical, and economic environments are rarely a solid fit between today and yesteryear. The market crash that triggered the Great Recession should have triggered a Depression – but policies and practices had changed enough that the world was spared that calamity.
Yes, Biden is a somewhat corrupt political hack. He engenders all the voter enthusiasm of a Bob Dole. But Dole was not running against Darth Vader. The DNC was too cowardly to ask Americans to vote for change, just to vote out the most corrupt and incompetent US president ever. Transformation will have to wait until Biden gets all the governmental toothpaste back into the tube. However, it is worth keeping in mind that the two most transformative presidents in the last century have been FDR and LBJ. Johnson especially matches Craig’s description of Biden.
Why assume from the get-go that Biden will sit out his presidency? He has a shot at a historical legacy. That is pretty motivating stuff. We also need to keep in mind, that all politicians are corrupt – just some are less corrupt than others and do not get $12M estates on Martha’s Vinyard as payback. I would have loved to get a ballot with Sanders/Warren on the ticket. Just once before I die, I wanted to vote FOR a candidate rather than select the lesser of two evils. Alas, that is the government I inherited, and it was designed to change very very slowly.
LBJ is the most criminal president the U.S. has had. There is no doubt that it was his decisions that made Vietnam a major war, a totally unnecessary war that killed millions of people. There is a lot of evidence that he masterminded a criminal enterprise that killed many people in Texas throughout his career. There is a lot of evidence that he played a key role in the assassination of JFK; there can be no doubt that he masterminded the coverup. There is a lot of evidence that he conspired with Israel to sink the USS Liberty; there can be no doubt that he led in concealing the fact that the Israeli attack on the ship was quite deliberate.
This Jonathan Cook blog piece on the election and its aftermath is excellent. The kind of insight The Guardian used to be graced with:
https://braveneweurope.com/jonathan-cook-the-task-before-sleepy-joe-is-to-put-liberal-america-right-back-to-sleep
On Nagorno-Karabakh: it’s a shame that not more people are talking about this. Vladimir Putin seems to have betrayed the Armenians. Russia and Armenia have a mutual defence agreement, under the terms of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation. Now that the majority of the N-K population have been chased out – “ethnically cleansed” (to use that disgusting phrase) by Azerbaijani forces with Turkish support – are the few Armenians who haven’t fled supposed to be grateful? Boycott Azerbaijan and Turkey!
Israel too has been helping Azerbaijani forces. That is thoroughly in keeping with Israel’s nature as a state based on, and which continues to perpetrate, “ethnic cleansing”. In fact Israel is Azerbaijan’s LARGEST supplier of weapons. These weapons include drones. Readers of this blog may be interested to know that a couple of thousand Daesh guys from Syria have also been participating.
After Armenia withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv in protest, the Israeli president Reuven Riflin had the gall to offer “humanitarian assistance” to Armenia. The Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan told him where he could shove it, and said it would be more logical for him to send his “aid” to the mercenaries and terrorists as a continuation of his government’s actions so far.
Has any of the above been covered at all so far in the western (or indeed Russian) media?
You gotta wonder whether some interests might have an eye out for opportunities in respect of body organs and orphans, as in Haiti and Nepal.
All the scumbags in major countries want to be friends with the Azerbaijani attackers because Azerbaijan has oil whereas Armenia ain’t got shee-yit. We are talking a major crime against humanity here, resulting in a “humanitarian catastrophe” as some might wish euphemistically to call it.
I’ve said it before, but the idea that Israel currently has a region-wide strategy of backing Sunni against Shia Islam, while sounding convincing to some, kinda breaks down when you look at Azerbaijan, a predominantly (85%) Shia state that is working hand in glove with Turkey (80% Sunni) against the Armenians (Christians). (Armenia is the world’s oldest Christian nation, having converted before the Roman empire). Bahrain, another predominantly Shia country, recently signed a “normalisation agreement” with Israel. Israel is not anti-Shia; it is anti-Iran.
The Turkish and Azerbaijani languages are mutually intelligible (mostly anyway) – let’s put it like that. To get a taster of the murderous hatred against the Armenians, consider that it is illegal in both Turkey and Azerbaijan to give public recognition to the genocide that Turks committed against Armenians beginning in 1915. Note that while the Israeli government has denounced certain instances of denial of the holocaust that was meted out to Jews by Germans, it has no compunction in befriending and arming those who deny the holocaust that was unleashed against Armenians, nor indeed in helping the perpetrators’ descendants to continue their forebears’ evil work in the here and now.
The fact that the Armenian Orthodox Church has a presence in Jerusalem and would have to be a party in any lasting settlement for that city (which is not to say that one is imminent) may also affect Israeli policy. The Israeli government has not heeded the calls for it to recognise the genocide committed against the Armenians, largely of course because of its own Jewish-racist ideology but also because it doesn’t want to upset its customer government in Turkey.
Putin did not betray anyone; the Armenians betrayed themselves. First, they had about 25 years to decide what to do with Karabakh but Armenia did not officially recognize Karabakh neither as part of Armenia nor as an independent state. Second, under ODKB Russia has an obligation to defend Armenia, not Karabakh, and only if Armenia asks for help. The Armenia was not attacked and they never asked for help. End of story.
Here is a video from Russian ANNA news from Karabakh https://youtu.be/S2UTwO2aNPk
Enjoy!
The video shot by Russian news crew shows their attempt to get into the city of Shusha (also called Shushi sometimes) on November 6th, however, the road was already cut off by the Azerbaijani units and they had to turn back. Because this road is the only one into the city, cutting it off meant its de facto enveloping. The fall of Shusha doomed the next big city, Stepanakert; however, the signed peace agreement saved it. The video shows some failed attempts of the Karabakh infantry and tanks to break through, then shows evacuation of the wounded. Also, the crew took some brief interview from Karabakh fighters and local residents. The video is important, I believe, because it clearly shows the absence of the Armenian army in the conflict zone; we see only Karabakh militia units. Thus, it is clear that Putin did not betray the Armenians. He saved them from total disaster.