(This will be a copy/paste post in the main, given the dueling voices and media narratives. And of course Obama finally reached the conclusion that ‘the coalition partners against ISIL need both Putin and Rouhani, but he’s gotta smack Putin around as he (ahem) accepts the inevitable. Hollande and Merkel had already backed off their ‘Assad must go now! positions. I’ve bolded a few sentences along the way.)
The photo was a bit surprising to me in that clearly, Barack loathes Vladimir. Is it personal or based on Imperial realpolitik? Is his hatred tinged with fear, and if so, which order of fear? If looks could kill…
From RT, and I’ll paste in all of it. One needn’t unduly lionize Putin to know how much truth he spoke, and grasp the extent of his past fruitful diplomatic efforts.
“The export of so-called ‘democratic’ revolutions has continued, but has unleashed poverty and violence instead of the triumph of democracy, Russian President Vladimir Putin said addressing the UN General Assembly.
Attempts to push for changes in other countries based on ideological preferences have led to “tragic consequences and degradation rather than progress,” said Putin in his speech to world leaders and policy makers gathered at the UN General Assembly’s anniversary 70th session in New York on Monday.
“We should all remember what our past has taught us,” Putin said. “We, for instance, remember examples from the history of the Soviet Union.”
It seems however that some are not learning from others’ mistakes, but keep repeating them, he said, adding that “the export of so-called ‘democratic’ revolutions continues.”
“I cannot help asking those who have caused this situation: Do you realize now what you have done?” he asked. “But I am afraid the question will hang in the air, because policies based on self-confidence and belief in one’s exceptionality and impunity have never been abandoned.”
He cited the example of revolutions in the Middle East and Northern Africa, where people have wished for change. However, instead of reforms and the triumph of democracy and progress “we’ve got violence, poverty and social disaster, and human rights, including the right to life, to which no weight is given.”
“Rather than bringing about reforms, aggressive foreign interference has resulted in the brazen destruction of national institutions and the lifestyle itself,” he said.
A single center of domination emerged in the world after the Cold War era ended, Putin stated. Those who were at the “top of this pyramid” were tempted to think that “if they were so strong and exceptional, they knew what to do better than others.”
“Therefore they do not have to reckon with the UN, which instead of automatically authorizing, legitimizing the necessary decisions often creates obstacles or in other words ‘stands in the way’.”
Power vacuums in the Middle East or regions of North Africa have led to the emergence of lawless areas which immediately started to be filled with extremists and terrorists, Putin said.
Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), who gained a foothold in Iraq and Syria, are now seeking to dominate the whole of the Islamic world, he said.
“[Islamic State] ranks include former Iraqi servicemen who were thrown onto the street after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many recruits also come from Libya – a country whose statehood has been destroyed as a result of gross violations of UNSC resolution 1973.”
Some of the extremists have defected from the ‘moderate’ opposition in Syria, which has been supported by some Western states, he stressed.
“First, they are armed and trained and then they defect to the so-called Islamic State. Besides, the Islamic State did not just come from nowhere. It was also initially forged as a tool against undesirable secular regimes,” he explained.
He described it as “hypocritical and irresponsible” to turn a blind eye to the channels through which terrorists are financed while making declarations about their threat to the whole world.
“We believe that any attempts to play games with terrorists, let alone arm them, is not only short-sighted, but ‘fire hazardous.’ This may result in a global terrorist threat increasing dramatically and engulfing new regions of the world,” he said.
“We think it is an enormous mistake to refuse to cooperate with the Syrian government and its armed forces who are valiantly fighting terrorism face to face,” he said.
“We should finally acknowledge that no one but President Assad’s armed forces and Kurdish militia are truly fighting Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria,” he added.
Russia has been providing military-technical assistance to Iraq, Syria and other states who lead the fight against terrorism in the region, he noted.
Putin proposed the joining of efforts and the creation of a broad international coalition against terrorism. He proposed discussions at the UNSC about a resolution aimed at coordinating forces to confront IS and other terrorist organizations, based on the principles of the UN Charter.
‘Final solution to refugee crisis is recovery of Middle East’
If a comprehensive strategy of political and economic stabilization of crisis-struck countries is developed, then there will be a hope of tackling the problem of the refugee crisis, Putin stated.
“The flow of people who were forced to leave their homeland has literally flooded the neighboring countries and then Europe,” he said calling it a “new painful migration of peoples.”
He stressed that the fundamental solution to the refugee crisis is rooted in restoring statehood where it has been destroyed, strengthening government institutions where they are weak and providing comprehensive assistance to the peoples’ countries of origin.
‘Ukraine’s territorial integrity cannot be ensured by arms’
Cold War thinking and the desire to explore new geopolitical areas are still present among some in the international community, said Putin.
“First they continued their policy of expanding NATO,” he said. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, “they offered post-Soviet countries a false choice – either to be with the West or with the East. Sooner or later the logic of confrontation was bound to spark off a grave geopolitical crisis. This is exactly what happened in Ukraine where the discontent of the population with the current authorities was used and a military coup was orchestrated from the outside that triggered civil war as a result.”
Putin once again called for the full implementation of the Minsk accords brokered by the Normandy Four in February. He said that the accords will guarantee Ukraine’s development “as a civilized state.”
“Ukraine’s territorial integrity cannot be ensured by threats and the force of arms. What is needed is the genuine consideration of the interests and rights of people in the Donbass region, [and] respect for their choice.”
From the WaPO:
“In his speech, Obama took direct aim at Russia’s military buildup in Syria as well as its support for Ukrainian separatists, saying, “We are told that such retrenchment is required to beat back disorder, that it’s the only way to stamp out terrorism, or prevent foreign meddling.
“But I stand before you today believing in my core that we, the nations of the world, cannot return to the old ways of conflict and coercion. We cannot look backward. . . . And if we cannot work together more effectively, we will all suffer the consequences.”
Beyond the barbs, the two raised the prospect of cooperating more closely on fighting Islamist terrorists and brokering a political solution in Syria, where war has raged for 4 1/2 years. Obama and Putin — who opened their first extended, formal meeting in two years with a stiff handshake before the cameras — remain divided over Assad, whom Obama wants ousted and Putin continues to back.
“The United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict,” Obama said in his 42-minute speech. “But we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a return to the prewar status quo. . . . And so Assad and his allies cannot simply pacify the broad majority of a population who have been brutalized by chemical weapons and indiscriminate bombing.”
Obama and Putin also offered differing accounts of what had transpired in Ukraine, where Russia has annexed Crimea and backed separatists in the country’s southeast.
Although Putin devoted the bulk of his speech to Syria and terrorism, he repeated Russia’s charge that the overthrow of Ukraine’s government early last year was “orchestrated from outside.” He said Russia would adhere to the Minsk agreements, once they gave adequate representation to the legitimate demands of eastern Ukraine separatists that Moscow has backed.
Obama, however, said the West would continue to impose economic sanctions on Russia unless it reversed course. “We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a nation is flagrantly violated.”
From the Paper of Record:
“President Obama made a forceful defense of diplomacy and the system of rules represented by the international body, but in a veiled reference to Mr. Putin, he warned that “dangerous currents risk pulling us back into a darker, more disordered world.”
“The Obama administration would like to find a way to link arms with Russia on a diplomatic process and not have to tackle some of the less palatable issues like creating safe areas in Syria,” said Andrew S. Weiss, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But the only road map Putin laid out today was a fuzzy concept of a grand coalition to fight terrorism arm in arm with Bashar al-Assad, the very man the Americans say is the source of the problem.”
After the Russians surprised the Obama administration by deploying warplanes, tanks and marines at an airfield near Latakia, Syria, the White House agreed to hold military-to-military talks to ensure against any accidents leading to a confrontation. But the larger hope, as Secretary of State John Kerry made clear on Sunday, was that the two sides might work out a common political strategy on Syria.”
Then lists of things about which Putin hadn’t offered detailed plans….
‘Obama admits mistakes in Libya, says West should have done more’ (Reuters)
Oh…I reckon you did plenty; it was just all FUBAR. And no, Reuters; there are far more that two sides fighting for supremacy (and oil) there. What happened to Gadaffi’s horde of gold bars, by the by? Did Hillary Clinton use it all to set up Libya’s Central Bank?
This is too creepy for even moderately sentient beings, but here’s the Chocolate Puppet:
‘Ukrainian president mocks Putin in front of United Nations’ at the WaPO.
“The Russian delegation was not present in the General Assembly Hall for Poroshenko’s speech, an apparently deliberate boycott. On Monday, the Ukrainian delegation pointedly left the hall when Russian President Vladimir Putin started speaking.”
“How can you urge an anti-terrorism coalition if you inspire terrorism right in front of your own door? How can you talk peace and legitimacy if your policy is war via puppet government? How can you speak for freedom for nations if you punish your neighbor for this choice? How can you demand respect for all if you don’t have respect for anyone?”
Bryan MacDonald said, writing about the Ukraine flag wavers at the back of the hall, and Poroshenko’s speech:
“Nobody seemed to pay them the slightest attention. One man picked his nose. So did a woman nearby. Other delegates fixed their gaze on the real action below. Eventually, two officials arrived and ejected the group.
No matter how Kiev tries to spin the incident, it was a humiliation. Pitiful in the extreme. Barack Obama had earlier attempted to gently draw a line under the miserable Ukrainian situation which has dogged East-West relations for almost two years now. Poroshenko’s sad stooped walk betrayed the fact that he knew it. The attempts to rage against the dying of the light only made the spectacle more lousy.”
Straight to the key theme of the Imperialist-in-Chief: Michael Hudson’s ‘Orwell at the UN: Obama Re-Defines Democracy as a Country That Supports U.S. Policy
“In his Orwellian September 28, 2015 speech to the United Nations, President Obama said that if democracy had existed in Syria, there never would have been a revolt against Assad. By that, he meant ISIL. Where there is democracy, he said, there is no violence or revolution.
This was his threat to promote revolution, coups and violence against any country not deemed a “democracy.” In making this hardly-veiled threat, he redefined the word in the vocabulary of international politics. Democracy is the CIA’s overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran to install the Shah. Democracy is the overthrow of Afghanistan’s secular government by the Taliban against Russia. Democracy is the Ukrainian coup behind Yats and Poroshenko. Democracy is Pinochet. It is “our bastards,” as Lyndon Johnson said, with regard to the Latin American dictators installed by U.S. foreign policy.”
Now I’d assumed that the Guardian had been showing a bit of jocularity in ‘When Putin met ‘Obama – diplomacy decoded by the Russian internet’; From Twitter bingo to a feast of photoshops, how a frosty encounter by two of the world’s most powerful men was portrayed on social media’
But on closer look, it doesn’t seem to be so. “Netizens tried to push #Putinpeacemaker to the top of the trending charts, and for some, there was no doubt about who would come out of the negotiations as victor.”
The Tweet at the top of the page when I’d first peeked in was none other than the rabid Chris Miller, editor of the Kyiv Post, saying:
@ChristopherJM Sep 28 Russian internet troll army working overtime with #PutinPeacemaker hashtag ahead of Putin’s #UNGA70 speech today.
If it’s a troll army, one might think there’d be more than thirty or forty tweets (including more dissenters like Sputnik, Pyatt, than Putin supporters). Now one might conclude that this is a bit of a jest, no?
At TRNN: ‘Is Obama Fighting ISIS, Assad or Russia?; Prof. Sabah Alnasseri of York University says Obama speech at the UN pushes anti-ISIS forces towards Russian strategy. (I haven’t read or watched yet.)
from the interview:
“ALNASSERI: Right. And I mean, what again President Obama forgot to mention, the involvement also of the U.S. supporting Syria, Iraq, and Egypt in attacking Yemen. And again, creating chaos there, actually empower al-Qaeda in Yemen just like attacking in Syria and opposing the Assad government empowers the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra and all these extremist groups. So their policies in the region creating what the American would term creative chaos, in Libya and Iraq, in Yemen, in Syria, et cetera.”
Coalition bombing of Yemeni civilian numbers are staggering by now, and Saudi Arabia is doing USian “double taps” at weddings and other gatherings.
And according to the US, Russian planes bombed ‘positions’ in Syria last night.
davidly
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café babylon 
Talking with Comrade Sourpuss, Alnasseri confirms the US is engaged in maintaining a “war order”. In a war order, Orwellian doublespeak prevails. Perhaps Hudson stumbles into admitting that “democracy” is largely a propaganda term. Its flagrant use to justify war proves how seductive it is; if leaders were earnest, they would discriminate between true and false democracies; since hegemonsters use it fraudulently, they cannot.
Putin diplomatically mocks hegemonster O: “policies based on self-confidence and belief in one’s exceptionality and impunity have never been abandoned.” The exceptionality is a mask, based on fear, not-self-confidence, and fraud, not belief. The incorrigibility of hegemonsters flows from deeper flaws than over-confidence and Putin humiliates US military philosophers.
Most USn’s are anesthetized and will have to wait until they are liberated before they can hear the truth.
“Is it personal or based on Imperial realpolitik? ”
Well it’s a rivalry of former spies. A CIA man vs. a KGB man. They are probably throwing subtle signs to each other that only spies understand.
If it were personal, O can’t be as intelligent as Pootie. In fact, O being less intelligent than Pootie would magnify his displeasure.
Ah HA HA HA HA HA HA.
Politicians most often speak with forked tongues to mislead their demos. They fool each other much less often. There is a camaraderie among spies, as well, which they will disguise in their affect. But here Pootie, who has bested B.O., smiles and B.O. frowns. So this piquant photo simultaneously captures their honesty and duplicity – I bet O will treasure it.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Fuck you, sadists.
I just caught fleeting images of a Putin/Obama handshake at this affair , courtesy RT. Didn’t stick around to see it but the image of Obama’s barely extended hand and Putin looking down at it with apparent disdain did stick in my mind. I just caught it in passing. I can imagine the feeling of having to shake hands with someone you despise.
ha! can’t say for sure that this is the translation (i couldn’t get either of the two translators to say, but it might have been : ‘A question to all the Putinists out there: if Obama is a dick, but Putin shook his hand, what does that make Putin?’ according to this ‘global voices’ website.
purdy funny, but i’m starting to wonder if the hashtag weren’t sorta compliments of putin detractors to begin with.
If killers could look… I mean, if looks could kill…
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One of shortest POTUS photos ops ever. Walk in, shake hands, walk out. 13½ seconds.
There must be a trick to get images to publish in comments. How?
sometimes just entering a photos url works, and if it ends in jpg. tiffs don’t work on wordpress. but sometimes i can’t get them to embed. let’s try this one:
edit: the url minus parentheses: (https://cdn.rt.com/files/2015.09/original/560a5f63c46188a1198b457f.jpg) i right-clicked, chose ‘view image’, then a stand-alone url with the image booted up.
Nah, Pootie was locating the shyster’s hand cause he didn’t trust him to maintain his position
HA HA HA HA HA HA
bad ass!
(g’night)
i guess what i’d meant but not expressed well, was ‘does obama actually believe that putin is attempting to recreate an empire?’ or is it because putin just showed that the Emperor has no clothes?
Sure. Will you pity the projecting hegemonster, then?
sure, after i’d spit on his grave (O’s, that is.)
And piss on his grave if he doesn’t believe his own bullshit, yeah?
what?
does it matter if he doesn’t believe his own bullshit? are people he killed by drone, by missile, by conventional bombs…any less dead? is the ME any less of a fire keg if he doesn’t believe his own con? i may not be understanding the question, of course. are you just being…comrade X-ish?
on edit: how in the world did i forget to name the hundreds of thousands he sent into diaspora? yes, he’s madeleine albright, and will take (maybe) 10,000 of them in.
Sure it does. It would be remarkable if he believed it and the acknowledgement of fraud should be reiterated if he didn’t.
But you were the one who asked: ‘does obama actually believe that putin is attempting to recreate an empire?’ Were you hoping to catch O’bummer being remarkably gullible?
let’s see; how to parse the several notions here….
first, i guess, is that O may not believe in russian revanchism, yet may believe in the Divine Right of the US empire (and nato). i don’t guess he ever believed that r2p libya could be justified, save for the (sorry) three harpies whispering in his ears conning him. it was an illegal war as per UN resolution, what, 1973? oh, yes, it wasn’t an actual war his legal team told the rubes.
i dunno what control he has over the dark armies, CIA (or its ngo fronts), jsoc, and others who destabilize regimes in order to rescue them in the name of…democracy, and establish US-friendly puppets that seldom seem to work out as intended, eh?
on the other hand, he and the pentagon may sincerely believe that permanent war is the way to go. NATO must be giddy that the taliban have taken some city or province in afghanistan, for instance: four more years!
oopsie; i’m gettin’ into the weeds. think i’ll go process more carrots for freezing. ;-)
i think hudson was quite precise in showing what ‘democracy’ means to the US, at least in terms of ‘exporting it’ (for profit and Empire he might have added, not “stumbling into”. but i don’t think he’d agree that it’s always a propaganda term, just that ours isn’t one. he might even have listed a dozen other more recent examples, honduras for one, venezuela for another.
odds are they’ll get maduro soon. can’t have socialism in our backyard, ya know.
so you think that expression of O’s was fear, then? i just never imagined he was the ‘true believer’ he seems to be there, i guess.
Yeah, Pootie got his goat, so O lost his cool.
It doesn’t suit Hudson to elaborate the illusions of democracy. Western “democracy” is a trick to keep profits flowing to banksters. If Hudson really cared about democracy he’d spend some time illuminating that propaganda. (Hudson’s probably against real democracy, anyway, for the same reasons as a conservative.)
So Hudson does stumble into it since he wouldn’t want to do a real exegesis.
A corollary to Sinclair’s “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it:” The belief which profits a man should be regarded with much suspicion.
O feigns wariness but is really offended by Putin, who understands the hegemonster shtick. O’s true “loathing” can be fraudulently expressed.
well, i’d have paid a fat $1.99 to have been a fly on the wall in their one-on-one meeting. so…the dagger-eyed stare and frown was a(nother) con?
i like the sinclair lewis corollary, though.
Yeah, a con, as he plays his personal affront as statesman-like doubt.
ha. i can’t claim to know why russia is bombing syrian ‘posts’ or whatever, but this is sick in a sick world: ‘Russian airstrikes in Syria: Pentagon says strategy ‘doomed to failure’ – live’ and the first three quotes are from…wait for it…a student in the area. then ash carter, next jen stoltenberg (now head of NATO).
ha; i just checked to see what NATO’s a-tweetin’ about this. nothin, but ya gotta love this un:
where are those redacted pages, anyway?
Yeah, like people walking past an understated mark of the devil only remember it for a fleeting moment (why else would the d3vil mark himself?).
It’s getting pretty absurd. “You killed my terrorist!!!”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-accuses-russia-of-going-after-americas-good-guy-terrorists/5479099
i’d say ya just can’t make this shit up, but of course it had to go this way, didn’t it?. first headline i saw this morning on my msn e-mail server was ‘russia pouring gasoline on the fire’. well, sure. the moderate extremists are *our* cia-trained and weaponized better bad guys!
i’m kinda leery about global research in general, but chassudovsky seems to have gotten it right. b at <a href="http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/09/syria-thoughts-on-the-russian-air-support.html“>moon of alabama:
“The neocon Institute for the Study of War correctly identifies the target the Russian planes hit:
An alleged Russian airstrike hit the rebel-held town of Talbisah north of Homs City. Talbisah is home to Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, hardline Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, and a number of other local rebel groups, all of which are active in local governance efforts in the area. Both Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) have claimed a number of vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIEDs) in Homs City, located only 12 kilometers south of Talbisah.” [snip]
“The “western” anti-Syrian governments will continue to play outraged over the Russian help for the Syrian government. But I do not expect them to take any serious countermeasures. What can they do? Give anti-air missiles to their “moderate rebels” so that these can be handed over to al-Qaeda?
The Gulf dictatorships though may make such a grave mistake:
“Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said Tuesday that there were no circumstances in which his country would accept the Russian effort to keep Mr. Assad in power. He hinted that if a political solution that led to his departure could not be found, the shipment of weapons and other support to Syrian rebel groups would be increased.”
don’t forget: the devil is red. know what else is funny? the link don’t work. must be a super-secret soundcloud recording, and i don’t have the decoder ring.
one day might it be that all these memorials to the Empire and the military are toppled like the confederate flag?
margaret kimberly calls obama’s look in the photo ‘peevish’, though she could mean in the ‘handshake’ one. and:
“Not content to defend the indefensible, the president made it clear that the Obama doctrine of regime change and terror is alive and well. “I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary.”
well, here are a few pieces of the puzzle i hadn’t known; from mike whitney:
“On Tuesday, Barack Obama shoved a knife in Putin’s back. This is from Reuters:
“France will discuss with its partners in the coming days a proposal by Turkey and members of the Syrian opposition for a no-fly zone in northern Syria, French President Francois Hollande said on Monday…
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius “in the coming days will look at what the demarcation would be, how this zone could be secured and what our partners think,” Hollande told reporters on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly…
Hollande said such a proposal could eventually be rubber-stamped with a U.N. Security Council resolution that “would give international legitimacy to what’s happening in this zone.”…(France, partners to discuss northern Syria ‘safe zone’: Hollande, Reuters)
Hollande is a liar and a puppet. He knows the Security Council will never approve a no-fly zone.
Russia and China have already said so. And they’ve explained why they are opposed to it, too. It’s because they don’t want another failed state on their hands like Libya, which is what happened last time the US and NATO imposed a no-fly zone.
But that’s beside the point. The real reason the no-fly zone issue has resurfaced is because it was one of the concessions Obama made to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for the use of Incirlik airbase. Washington has kept the terms of that deal secret, but Hollande has let the cat out of the bag.
So who put sock-puppet Hollande up to this no-fly zone nonsense?
Why the Obama administration, of course. Does anyone seriously believe that Hollande is conducting his own independent policy in Syria? Of course not. “ [snip]
mr. wd and i had been discussing this possibility, but i hadn’t know that the US was adamant about still flying missions:
“While the Russian military is maintaining an open channel to the Pentagon and reporting when-and-where it is carrying out its airstrikes, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that the US plans to “continue to fly missions over Iraq and Syria” increasing the possibility of an unintended clash that could lead to a confrontation between the US and Russia.
Is that what Washington wants, a violent incident that pits one nuclear-armed adversary against the other?” (more is here)
He’s quite sure that Putin knows all this, thus wasted no time in bombing jihadist positions, plus the fact that they’ll likely bomb friends of assad, as well. oh, my; such interesting times, and so dangerously fraught. is the Empire mad? well, of course ‘yes’. provoking a dangerous duel with two nuclear powers.
on DN!: rashid khalidi on Syria: The Beginning of This Mess was the 2003 U.S. Invasion of Iraq
(the transcript)
on edit from the transcript: hmmm; khalid has another point of view:
“RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, the overthrow of those two dictators in Libya and in Iraq, which in both cases was done in a completely heedless manner as to what would follow, certainly has created two of the worst situations in modern Middle Eastern history. There’s no question of that.
But just to speak to what the Russian president said, the part of the problem he’s not talking about is the sectarian part of the problem, the fact that the Syrian regime has disadvantaged Sunnis, the fact that the Syrian regime’s dictatorship, its brutality and so on and forth, is what provoked the uprising in the first place. And so, he throws in, in his interview, a word about reforms. The problem is a political problem, it’s not a military problem. And a core part of the problem is the nature of that dictatorship. And so, what one has to do to resolve this is to square that circle, to get a new formula whereby you will not have a sectarian-dominated government in Damascus, and at the same time to prevent this—to fill this vacuum with a government that has some kind of support, so as to prevent groups like the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front from taking over, which is the way things are going. The United States and others talk about a moderate opposition. The overwhelmingly dominant forces in Syria in the opposition are hard-line radical Islamist groups, whether they are the Islamic State or Jabhat al-Nusra or others. And that’s the trend. Things are going much more in that direction as far as the opposition is concerned.” [snip]
RASHID KHALIDI ….”I would also say, in response to what Secretary of Defense Carter said, that it is in fact true that what the Russians are doing is not directed at the Islamic State. The Islamic State’s fiefdom is far to the east of the areas that the Russians have been launching airstrikes against in the last two days. What they are doing is backing, shoring up the Syrian regime in the backbone area of central Syria, the area between Damascus, Homs, Hama and the coast, which is the only area that the regime controls and which is an area which ISIL is not very near. So, it is a right mess.
I think American policy has been appallingly confused. I think that it has been confused in different directions than Senator McCain seems to be suggesting. Really, you need to cut a deal, and you need to knock heads together. The United States needs to knock the heads of its own allies together—Saudi Arabia, which is out of control in Yemen and is acting in a very unrestrained manner in Syria, as are a number of American allies, and Iran and the Soviet—and Russia—there’s a slip for you—Iran and Russia, both of which are just backing the Assad regime to the hilt, and, in fact—I agree with Secretary Carter—are helping to increase sectarian tensions. Every external party is responsible in some measure for this incredible mess—the 10 countries that are bombing Syria, or have been bombing Syria, and the countries that have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into some of the most extreme groups on Earth in the Syrian opposition.”
yes, ‘cut a deal’, but how would that come about?
‘Russia admits targeting non-Isis groups in Syria as airstrikes continue; US accuses Moscow of ‘indiscriminate’ military operations against Syrian opposition, while Iran says it backs Russian intervention’
“Russian combat aircraft have carried out a second day of airstrikes against Syrian rebel forces as Moscow admitted it had targeted groups other than Islamic State in coordination with the government in Damascus.
Vladimir Putin, seizing on US and western disarray, had insisted earlier that Russia was targeting Isis. But Moscow appeared to admit it was striking more widely as American-backed rebels reported that they had been hit.”
(putin and lavrov had said earlier that they were bombing more than just ISIL earlier, although i can’t remember the exact language.)
Emptywheel: ’With One Bombing Run Russia Gets the US to Acknowledge CIA’s “Covert” Regime Change Forces’
“The selective ignorance about CIA’s covert operations in Syria seems to have been eliminated, however, with one Russian bombing run that targeted them.
Russia launched airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, catching U.S. and Western officials off guard and drawing new condemnation as evidence suggested Moscow wasn’t targeting extremist group Islamic State, but rather other opponents of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
One of the airstrikes hit an area primarily held by rebels backed by the Central Intelligence Agency and allied spy services, U.S. officials said, catapulting the Syrian crisis to a new level of danger and uncertainty. Moscow’s entry means the world’s most powerful militaries—including the U.S., Britain and France—now are flying uncoordinated combat missions, heightening the risk of conflict in the skies over Syria.
Thus far, of course, US officials are insisting that the anti-Assad troops Russia targeted are wholly distinct from ISIS (even while they remain silent about whether they’re Islamic extremists).” [snip]
“Make no mistake: I am not defending Russia, Syria, our vetted “moderate” rebels, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else. It’s a volatile situation and none of the outside intervention seems to be helping. But one big reason we’ve been failing is because we’ve been lying publicly about the forces on the ground. Those lies just got a lot harder to sustain.”
but zounds, bibi!
‘Netanyahu predicts Arab countries will align with Israel against Iran and Isis; The Israeli prime minister shared hopes of ‘lasting partnerships’ in Middle East against ‘common dangers’ and aired frustrations over Iran deal in UN speech’
“The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has claimed that shifting alliances in the Middle East are drawing Arab countries closer to the Jewish state in confronting the common enemies of Iran and Islamic State.
In a lengthy speech to the UN general assembly, punctuated by long pauses in which he glared at delegates after denouncing them as “obsessively hostile” to Israel, Netanyahu said he hoped the shared threat posed by Tehran and Islamic State would remake the politics of the region.
“Common dangers are clearly bringing Israel and its Arab neighbours closer and as we work together to thwart those dangers, I hope we’ll build lasting partnerships,” he said.”
When privileged ghouls glare at you, you are a target. The problem is that these are Panglossian ghouls who will maintain that their way is the best of all possible ways, even after they’ve crossed the threshold of fascism.
good on ya, comrade. i’d had to refresh myself on the various interpretation’s of ‘panglossianism’. seems the most fitting is that in the face of all evidence to the contrary: we still believe…”, yes?
all of this is a seriously and potentially global *military alliance* game-changer, and i, like so many, looked to the alt-lending bank angles to be the main changer. wow; and china? wot ho?
ooof: i just thought of the many quasi-religious who’d predicted that the total eclipse of the full blood moon…would be the harbinger of the entrance of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. man. oh, fuck me, do we need some music! (and no, i don’t believe you pay any attention to it whatsoever…)
goodness, after way too long condsidering, i’m goin’ with:
I thought you were monitoring my clicks! “I am a bad ass, you are a bad ass” got me to listen to a few more weirdo swamp boogies. I think I need a little THC assist to absorb their full splendor …
HA HA HA.
Voltaire’s Candide “begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simply “optimism”) by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide’s slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, “we must cultivate our garden”, in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, “all is for the best” in the “best of all possible worlds”.
The hegemonsters hold a least-evil “optimism” (or optimalism) where they claim to have delivered a world as best can be made. Of course, this is paranoid hegemonster bullshit meant to inhibit their dethronement when they have in fact delivered a living hell …
it’s just that you’ve never commented on any of the music here, but then…most don’t. glad ya clicked more. i met them watching Treme, and was instantly enchanted. moar! moar!
thank you for the extras from ‘Candide’; what an interesting wiki piece, too. so many whatchcallits: ‘subsets’, ‘take-offs’?
Moar Hammond B3, less screaming, please.
candy can go high-register, but you reminded me of my old boulder compadres Zephyr. john faris played a hammond b-3 righteously.
White Bird – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q918fs4RAto
The Psychedelic Organ
i really like ‘it’s a beautiful day’; another b-3, eh? la flamme can really play that fiddle. i met them once in C. Spings, and they were just plain good folks, friendly as all giddy-up.
but woot! who knew? the cover art is like some of those cartoons on monty python; i forget the artist’s name. but i’ve have thought moog.
David Icke sums it up. Hypocritical psychopaths bomb bomb bombing, to paraphrase:
ha. yes; i’m preparing a tweet storify on the media differentials of putin v the coalition. icke’s wiki is interesting, including the bits about ‘the babylonian brotherhood’. ;-)
i like icke
Ick, Icke, the disinfo enterpreneur.
yeah, but aren’t they all? i just glean what i can use.
How often do I come across a devastating leftist critique of recent history which is, as I’m reading, ringing true and significant. But then the reputable leftist author starts regurgitating the myth of 19 superhuman Muslin hijackers being the perpetrators of 911? That too is disinfo.
crap. i always do this. that should be ‘true and significant’
Sure, the supremacists are always injecting disinfo and all filters miss some or other of it. Icke makes a career of appropriating and improving on it. He’s an artist, you see, of cultural exploits and a sadistic, crapitalist ironist.
got more respect for icke than very serious useful idiots
that’s fine; we all have different tastes, and he was right on this. but when i read about the lizzard people (isn’t that scientology?), i was tempted to say: “hey! i resemble that!”
“Taste is, after all, the only morality.”
N0bama’s expression is the Oceaniac Look of LOSE in the serial failures of his Syriass PNAC Attack!
you may be seeing it right, bruce. and wot the fook did putin say to him in their closet session, anyway? ooof, the reports don’t reflect it, do they?