VIDEO: Zelenskyy says "Ukraine is helping fight Iran. Now help us!"

The current unpleasantness in the Middle East has diverted the world's attention from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And, particularly in the US of A, there is a growing chorus of complainers that America should reduce or even end support for those fighting for the freedom and independence of Ukraine.

What can these people say, now that Ukraine is doing what it can to support the American-Israeli efforts to overthrow the murderous regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran? In a speech given on Tuesday to a group of members of the British Parliament, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for joint efforts in building up anti-drone defences against Iranian missile and dreone attacks.

Ukraine has become the world leader in drone technology for warfare. On a daily basis they can now manufacture not only enough drones for their own need, but also drones for the needs of other countries. Ukraine now has technicians on the ground in all of the Arab countries surrounding Iran that have been attacked by Iran. And they are training the armies of those countries in the techniques of drone warfare.

President Zelenskyy said that "right now, there are 201 Ukrainians in the Middle East and Gulf region, and another 34 are ready to deploy... If, together with partners in the Middle East, we build a system like Ukraine, they will be able to track attacks from Iran or from the Houthis in real time, analyze them, keep improving their defense, giving people critical infrastructure and trade routes."

Dear readers, Ukraine is on our side! Seems to us the least we can do is give them all the aid we can in their desperate fight for freedom!

Thanks and a tip of the ushanka to Agent 5 for sending us the URL for this one.

What's the PLAN for IRAN?

As soon as POTUS (or Bibi) confides in me, or I figure it out by myself, I'll let you know.

3 things that could upset the electoral applecart

As I remarked yesterday, things are very quiet on the electoral front. 

Comrade Harris's handlers are running a textbook "basement campaign", just as they did with Senile Joe four years ago. Since the couple of interviews she gave were dumpster fires, she doesn't do interviews any more. She's appeared at a few small rallies and fundraisers, but doesn't do pressers. When someone somehow asks a question, her stock answer is, "So, I was raised in a middle-class family." That's it, that's all. Nothing to see or hear here, folks.

As for the Donald, he's out there doing rallies, making speeches, putting himself forward. Yesterday he spoke at events in Ohio and Indiana, in the same day. We're told the campaign plan for the next 40 days is to get out there into the red states, the blue states, and the purple states -- anywhere he can get a crowd, and that includes New York, California, Wisconsin and North Carolina!

The trouble is that getting out to see the American people and let them see him -- "They didn't get me yet!" -- is risky. It's not as if presidential candidates, and even sitting presidents, haven't been shot before. I'm minded of George Wallace, because this Routh, apparently suffering from severe TDS, is the same kind of nutjob who nearly killed the Little Judge and certainly ended his campaign. I do hope someone other than the security forces of the Deep State has Mr Trump's back.

Here are three things that could happen between now and the Day of Reckoning which would force the Cackler's hand and throw the election into confusion and chaos.

Demented Joe dies, or Article 25 is invoked. Brandon's "good days" -- when he knows what's going on around him -- are becoming increasingly rare. The gaffes and "senior moments" are becoming downright embarrassing. Even staunch Dimocrats should be uncomfortable when their President's wife starts running cabinet meetings!

If the President [pro tem! Ed.] kicks the bucket or is found to be non compos mentis so there's no choice but to remove him from office under the provisions of Article 25 of the Constitution, that would make the Cackler... wait for it... President. Ready or not. Among the issues she would be forced to deal with would be

The outbreak of a full-on war by Israel against both Hamas and Hezbollah. Things are starting to get hot and heavy in and around Israel. Yesterday, campers, the government you (allegedly) elected sent more American troops to the Middle East in the run-up to the next Gulf War. How many troops or where they will be deployed is, of course, a state secret. 

What will Hock Ptui (or, more accurately) her handlers do when the shit-hammer falls? Whose side will she take -- the Jews or the Arabs? It won't be possible to remain on tghe fence, or to say "I was raised in a middle-class family" any longer. 

Questions will also be raised, quite properly, about why the administration of which Ms Harris is so proud to be a part didn't do anything to prevent the hostilities reaching this boiling point. Senile Joe and Winken Blinken have put forth no plans, drawn no red lines, or done anything except to urge the warring parties to keep talking. Is the Biden-Harris tag team going to do anything of substance between now and November 5th, ot just wait and hope the whole thing blows over?

There is also the possibility that Deep State may finally succeed (God forbid!) in its efforts to assassinate President Trump. Let's skip the outrage and recriminations and consider the reality. Walt's legal advisor (Agent 3) is weak on US constitutional law, but believes that it is now too late to remove Citizen Trump from the ballot. And even if his name no longer appears on the ballot, you could write him in. So you will be able to vote for him, even if he's dead.

What happens, then, if the late Donald Trump wins? Remember that he has a running mate, the estimable Senator J.D. Vance, and (Agent 3 thinks) in most states you vote for them together, as a team. So if the Republican team, now down its star quarterback, wins, doesn't that make the second-string quarterback President?

But wait (as Vince Offer would say), there's more... It's not the popular vote that really counts, but the vote in the Electoral College. When you vote Republican -- you will, won't you? --  you are really voting for a slate of electors bound to cast their votes for... well, it could be anyone. And their votes would almost certainly go to J.D. So the death of President Trump could very well result in the election of J.D. Vance as 47th President of the United States of America!

Yes, Virginia, there IS a plan to retaliate against Iran

After reading "A sensible view of demands to retaliate against Iran" (WWW 1/2/24), a reader writes to note that Crooked Joe Biden announced a couple of days ago that he does have a plan to retaliate against Iran for the drone strike that killed three American troops. 

However, the soon-to-be former POTUS was reluctant to share details of his alleged plan. He says the Excited States of America will respond in the time and manner of his (Biden's) own choosing. Swell.

Walt's mole in the White House has found some notes scribbled on rolling papers in a packet labelled "Hunter's", outlining the substance of the plan. Here, in cartoon form, is the gist of it.

A sensible view of demands to retaliate against Iran

Most of Walt's readers don't read (or haven't heard of!) the National Post. Founded by Conrad Black, sometime Canadian (when he wasn't busy being Lord Black of Cross Harbour) and arch-conservative, the Post (and its group of Sun newspapers) is the only media outlet in Canuckistan which takes a reasonably balanced view of the world. 

One of the Post group's premier columnists is Kelly McParland, who wrote an excellent piece today on the stupidity of the Excited States of America's entering yet another war in the Middle East. Mr McParland argues that the Republicans who are pressing Crooked Joe Biden to hit back at Iran for the drone strike that killed three US soldiers [How come all three were black? Ed.?] are all but insane to advocate such folly. 

Worse, they are urging a course of action which President Trump has rightly and repeated condemned. I've emphasized Mr Trump's words in Mr McParland's column, which I'm reposting, in a slightly shortened version. (To read the entire column, click on the headline link.) 

Biden pressed to start another 'stupid' war

If you disliked Donald Trump but were determined to say something positive about him, you could always cite his consistent criticism of “stupid” American wars. It’s a position that hits home with a lot of people — Democrats as much as Republicans — who have lost loved ones in distant countries over matters a lot of Americans don’t view as their responsibility to solve.

Trump has been nothing if not consistent on the point.While campaigning for re-election in 2020 he boasted of his efforts to reduce U.S. military deployments overseas and pledged to "keep America out of these endless, ridiculous, stupid, foreign wars in countries that you’ve never even heard of."

He regularly assails the Biden administration over its defence performance — particularly the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, insists he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours as president, and says the White House "has brought us to the brink of World War III."

His admirers like to cite his record of having "no wars" during his four years in office — a claim with some merit compared to recent predecessors. One 2017 study concluded that crucial Trump victories in three key states in the 2016 election may have been helped by concern over high casualty rates under previous administrations. All of which makes it a bit odd that top Republicans are loudly demanding the sort of retaliatory action against Iran that history suggests would be an excellent way to start yet another ill-fated U.S. military entanglement....

"The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East. Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief," said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who is backing Trump’s renewed bid for the presidency. 

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell charged in a statement that "the entire world now watches for signs that the President is finally prepared to exercise American strength to compel Iran to change its behaviour."

He said U.S. enemies would continue to be emboldened "until the United States imposes serious, crippling costs — not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honour." Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John Cornyn both fired off tweets insisting the White House aim hits directly at Iran, while Trump himself used the attack to criticize Biden for his "weakness." 

Given the Middle East’s status as one of the world’s most relentlessly volatile regions, Iran’s success in spreading its tentacles throughout the region, the tensions already centred on the bitter confrontation in Israel and Gaza and the growing boldness of Iran’s determination to taunt western powers, it’s difficult to see how yet another one-off U.S. retaliatory effort could accomplish anything other than increasing the danger the region’s many festering hot spots erupt into one giant conflagration.

In other words, just the sort of "endless", "stupid" foreign war that Trump has so often derided, and just the sort of quagmire the mullahs in Tehran would love to see sweep over the region. Chaos and conflict work to the benefit of regimes like Syria’s and Iran’s, helping focus hatred on foreign powers rather than the brutality and repression they inflict on their own people. 

A few quick missile strikes on known Iranian dependents in Syria or Iraq, or even Iran itself, might raise cheers for a day or two in Washington but would be yet another opportunity for Tehran to recruit the sort of fanatics who think spilling more blood is a good reaction to all the blood that’s already been spilled. Jumping impulsively into doomed conflicts is indeed a trait that has brought the U.S. tragedy and humiliation time and again. 

Vietnam was a quagmire. It was far harder for the Obama and Trump administrations to get US troops out of Iraq than it was for the Bush White House to get them in. The US disaster in Benghazi may not have killed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign all on its own but was certainly a nail Republicans hammered at enthusiastically. And Joe Biden’s rush to flee Afghanistan was a fiasco from which he’s never managed to recover.

It’s easy to understand the temptation to use Washington’s immense military might to strike back at a country that works so hard to bring despair to so many people. But in pressing Biden to risk lives for the sake of a quick headline or two, Republican leaders are demanding a response that’s diametrically opposed to what their favoured candidate has been preaching since the day he entered politics. 

Would they be making the same demand if it was a Republican sitting in the White House, forced to confront the prospects of setting off a regional explosion, complete with body bags being shipped back home? If so it would be evidence they’d learned no more about the dangers of stumbling into foreign wars than the presidents who sent U.S. sons and daughters into Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and came to regret it.

OK, al-Zawahiri is dead... but al-Qaeda is not. What now?

President Brandon announced yesterday that al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by an American drone strike which struck a "safe house" in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was said to be hiding. The Taliban had promised, when they took over Afghanistan after the American bugged out, that the country would no longer be a haven for Islamic terrorists. But they lied, and everyone knew that.

Al-Zawahri and the better known Osama bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought most of us in the West our first knowledge of al-Qaeda, the organization of Islamic extremists responsible for terrorism in the name of Allah which has killed many 1000s worldwide. Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals in Abbotabad, Pakistan on 2 May 2011, but al-Qaeda lived on, and lives on now. 

A good question to ask, then, is: what happens next? Let's not kid ourselves that the Islamic terrorism will stop. The execution of al-Zawahiri, just though it certainly was, may well have opened up the hornet's nest. Americans would do well to sleep with one eye open.

VIDEO: Ron Paul comments on long-overdue US withdrawal from Syria

In case no-one noticed, our blog quietly passed its 10th anniversary back in July. [If I'd remembered I'd have baked a cake. Ed.] How time flies when you're having fun! One of the themes that I write about again and again [and again and again. Ed.] is the folly of America being entangled in foreign wars that it can't win, especially the oil wars in the Gulf and Middle East. See, for example, "Will America never learn? The persistence of bad foreign policy" (WWW 2/5/13).

It's not that I'm a pacifist, or anti-Israel, or an apologist for the Islamists. I'm just a realist, like Ron Paul, and think it's stupid to waste tens of thousands of American lives and billions of American dollars meddling in and tens of thousands trying to act as referees in Muslim civil wars. Here's what Dr Paul has to say about Still-President Trump's announcement that US forces will be withdrawn from Syria, starting yesterday!



IMHO the withdrawal is long overdue! We have (dare I say it?) no dog in those fights. The USA will be no better off no matter who wins, and no worse off no matter who loses. The usual suspects say the Bushes, Slick Willy, and the Prez sent American forces to the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan, and kept them there, not just to convert the feudal Arab states to modern Western democracy, but to keep the Saudis and multinational companies in control of the oil that lies beneat the blood-stained desert sands.

I call BS on that. With the development of fracking and shale oil, and the slowly lessening use of plastics and other oil-based products, America is virtually self-sufficient in oil. And if the liberals on both sides of the Canada-US border would smarten up and support the development of Canada's oil sands and the import of Canadian oil through pipelines which the leftists don't want to be built or expanded, oil self-sufficiency would be guaranteed. Who needs Arab oil?!

Mr Trump's announcement late Sunday has set the lefties' hair on fire. Expressions of shock and horror are being heard from all liberal quarters, notably Brussels, the capital of the European Union, and (of course) the commentariat of America, Britain and Canada.
* America is leaving its Kurdish allies in the lurch!
* America is surrendering! Another failure for Trump!
* America is caving to Assad!
* The Turkish invasion of Syria will be disastrous!
* More millions of refugees will be washing up on our shores!
and, inevitably
* We're inviting a resurgence of Al-Qaeda and ISIS!

Walt says, who cares?! Let the Islamists duke it out. And if a humanitarian disaster ensures, let the Europeans and Canucks take care of it, if they're so minded... and can afford it. Getting out of the Middle East is absolutely the right thing to do. As Dr Paul and Dan McAdams say near the end of the video, it's not going to happen overnight, but this week's decision by Still-President Trump is a step in the right direction.

Further reading: "Worried for Kurds in Syria, abandoned by US? Here’s an obvious solution but it will make Washington hawks MAD", by Nebojsa Malic, on the Ron Paul Institute website, 8/10/19.

Here we go again? US forces on way to Saudi Arabia

As reported on Al Jazeera (and every other news site) this afternoon...

The Pentagon said on Friday that the US will deploy additional troops and military equipment to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to beef up security, as President Donald Trump has at least for now decided against any immediate military strikes in response to attacks on the Saudi oil industry.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said this is a first step, and he is not ruling out additional moves down the road. He said it's a response to requests from the Saudis and the UAE to help improve their air and missile defences.

The article goes on to say that US troop deployment will involve a moderate number of forces -- hundreds, not 1000s -- and will be primarily defensive in nature. All the same, it looks to me as if we're headed for another in the continuing series of Gulf Wars. Walt's market tip: Buy oil stocks, including companies that operate pipelines.

VIDEO: Suspicions confirmed! Hamilton Gregory talks about "McNamara's Morons"

Whenever I watch Apocalypse Now -- and I've done so several times -- I am struck by the lack of intelligence, or even common sense, displayed by some of the "boys on the boat". I have the same thoughts when I read accounts of the behaviour of American troops during the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. Think Abu Ghraib. The average IQ of 1000s of the men... and women... who were chosen to implement US foreign policy seems to have been a degree or two above room temperature.

Why was that? In McNamara's Morons, Vietnam vet Hamilton Gregory argues that people of low intelligence -- "intellectually challenged", if you will -- were deliberately chosen in preference to better abled draftees and volunteers. In this video (running time 36:28) the author discusses the reasons for the deployment of "McNamara's Morons" -- troops of limited mental ability -- and the consequences of this deliberate choice on the part of those commanding the United States military.



Is it any wonder that, for the first time since 1814, the Paranoid States of America lost a foreign war. Sadly, Vietnam wasn't to be the last loss. This week President Trump has ordered another 10,000 troops sent to the Middle East sandpit. How many of them, I wonder, will be smart enough to throw a grenade in a high arc, rather than straight ahead? (Mr Gregory mentions this in his talk.) 100s of them will die as the result of their own stupidity. As for winning a war (even though the Islamist enemies aren't all that bright or brave either), good luck with that!

Further reading: Don't take Walt's word for it. Check out "VP Pence tells West Point grads it's a 'virtual certainty' they will fight on a battlefield for America", Fox News, 26/5/19.

UPDATED: Iraq at Sweet (?) Sixteen - Why are we still there?

UPDATED ADDED 25/3/19 - This comes under the heading of "Further reading", but I just became aware of it this afternoon. Click here to read a transcript of Dr Ron Paul's speech to Congress opposing the authorization of military force against Iraq. If only they'd have listened!

Today is the 16th anniversary of the American-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and then... chaos. The Paranoid States of America and its "Coalition of the Willing" involved themselves in the endless Muslim civil war -- a four-cornered one featuring Sunni Muslims vs Shia Muslims vs ISIS vs Kurds -- and there we are, still... 16 years later, after the expenditure of trillions of dollars (literally) and the loss of 1000s of lives of American and other Westerns. 16 years...

Is there any sign of the conflict in Iraq ending? NO! POTUS and our top military people tell us ISIS is "just about" defeated, reduced to a few hundred jihadis encircled in a shithole somewhere in Syria. Once they surrender, we can declare victory... again... and go home. Errr, not the part about going home. There will be a drawdown of some of the US personnel, sometime, but there will be a US presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future. Why? Because there is still a power vacuum, with no united and effective national government in place. And because ISIS has not been vanquished, but is merely going to ground. They will resurface at opportune times, whether in Iraq or Syria... or the Netherlands... or the USA!

I said "American-led" in the first sentence to emphasize that the US is not alone! In 2003, America's gallant ally, Canada, decided to take a pass on Iraq. Apparently the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien asked itself what the point of the mission was, and decided discretion was the better part of valour. A couple of years later, to repair relations with their disgruntled neighbours, the Canucks joined in the invasion of Afghanistan. After 160 troops lost their lives, the Canadians pulled out, leaving the US holding the Afghan bag.

But that was OK (they said) because they'd changed their mind and would send a token force to Iraq instead, to help with training and, like, you know... anything that didn't involve more body bags being repatriated. No more motorcades along the "Highway of Heroes", please! And more than a decade later, the Canucks are still there, working with the American forces to bring peace, order and good government to the shithole that is Iraq. Isn't that wonderful?

How appropriate, then, that Canuck Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan (a Sikh person) and Diplomat of the Year (2018 -- look it up) Chrystia Freeland (the one not wearing a turban) picked yesterday to announce that Canadian armed forces, almost 200 strong (!), will stay in Iraq for another two years... like it or not. That should come as a great relief to the US military. What would the "Coalition of the Willing" be without Canadians?! What do Canadian voters think of this exercise in peacekeeping and nation-building, and other initiatives of Just In Trudeau's Gliberal government? We'll see in October.

Further reading: The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, by George Packer. Farrar Strauss & Giroux, New York, 2005. Mr Packer's thesis is that President Bush II and his advisers (Hello! Messrs Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) had no idea what they were getting into when they pressed ahead with the invasion of Iraq even though Saddam posed no threat to the USA or even his Gulf neighbours, and no plan whatever for stabilizing and rebuilding the shithole once the invasion was over. And remember, he wrote this book in 2005. Things only got worse after that. Where and when will it all end?!

Getting out of the Muslim civil wars - about time!

I don't understand the reaction of American civilians, Republican and Democrat alike, to Still-President Trump's announcement this week that he intends to bring US troops home from Syria and Afghanistan. Daniel McAdams, writing on Ron Paul's website, says that "Washington heads are exploding", and so it would seem, but why? Is the Paranoid States of America a nation of warmongers? Do Americans really believe that the best defence against Islamic terrorism is to hammer the jihadis in their own sandpit? Does no-one see any merit in getting out of the Muslim civil war that is really none of our business? As Mr Trump says, "Are we going to stay there forever?"

Mr McAdams writes: The warmongering Left has joined forces with the neocons to demand that President Trump reverse course in his recent decision to pull US troops from Syria. Neocons claim that ISIS will increase with the US absence, but it was the very US intervention in the region - that they supported - that led to the rise of extremist and terrorist groups.

Indeed. It was interventionism -- the insane desire to be the world's policeman and bring the so-called "pax Americana" to a war-weary world -- that got the USA into the Gulf Wars. Shortly after 9/11, US troops stormed into Afghanistan, which had littlel if anything to do with the attack. Since then, America has lost more than 2400 soldiers and spent nearly a trillion dollars in its longest war ever. And with what result? The Islamists control about half of that shithole, the rest being controlled (in theory) by a feckless government that can't keep its notional army from killing the Westerners who are there to "help" them. Does that make any sense?

I can understand the displeasure of the American military with the President's decision. Secretary of Defense James Mattis departed in a huff [a minute-and-a-huff? Ed.]. He is emblematic of the super-macho militaristic types that have held the highest ranks in the American armed forces ever since World War II. They are the philosophical heirs of Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, William Westmoreland, and [That's enough generals. Ed.] who delight in sending American kids overseas to kill... and be killed... because there's no fighting to be done at home, but if there's no fighting, there won't be any need for the billions in defence spending, and many brass hats will be out of their jobs.

And what is the result? "Pax Americana" is a myth! Ever since its troops landed in Korea as part of the Disunited Nations' "police action", America has been at war -- declared or otherwise -- with someone, somewhere, every single hour of every single day. What has that cost the nation, in treasure, in lives, and the foregone benefits of peace? With President Trump, I ask: Is this going to continue forever?

In the summer of 2017, the President announced that he was adding about 1000 more troops to those already in Afghanistan to bolster the "training and advising" mission, which we are supposed to believe doesn't involve any fighting, just teaching the Islamists how to fight. But, Mr Trump said, doing so went against his instinct. Since then, security conditions in Afghanistan have not improved, according to the latest government watchdog report.

And then there's Syria. US forces were sent to that shithole to Syria to work with local Syrian and Kurdish "partners" on the ground to help defeat ISIS. Now, the President says, that mission has been largely accomplished, and in terms of the amount of territory controlled, that would appear to be the case.

Of course the jihadis haven't been exterminated. They've simply gone to ground, or gone elsewhere. 1000s of them have migrated to Europe and, yes, America, disguised as "refugees" and asylum-seekers. So the fight against them should continue, wherever they may be found... but not in the sandpit. Leave the mopping up to the Turks, the Kurds and other Muslims. "Keep at it, Mohammeds, and lots of luck to you. We're done with you!" That's what I would like to hear all of the lawmakers in Washington say. I can't understand why anyone would think otherwise.

Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who

Even though it's the longest-running continuous military engagement in US history, some time has passed since the Gulf Wars (aka Oil Wars) was front page news in the Paranoid States of America. That may be about to change as the fighting enters a new phase.

Now that the ISIS (the Sunni Muslim terrorist "state") has been more or less defeated, at least in Iraq, the "victors" -- Shiite Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north -- are starting to fight each other. Western armed forces, mostly American, are caught in the middle, "training and advising" both sides.

The last noteworthy battle in Iraq, which dragged on through most of this summer, was in Mosul, the heart of the Kurdish part of Iraq, also in the middle of large oil fields. The area is also home to millions of Arabs, Turkmen, Yazidis and a few thousand persecuted Christians. Mainly Kurdish forces, led into battle by American and Canadian "trainers" succeeded in driving out the ISIS jihadis.

Last month, flush with success and swimming in oil money, the Kurdish government of the semi-autonomous region held a referendum on independence, in defiance of Iraq's central government in Baghdad. To no-one's surprise, the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favour of declaring the own republic. They already had a flag, so figured a state would make the set complete. The Iraqi government immediately called on foreign countries to stop importing oil from the Kurdish region and to deal with them instead.

This weekend the Iraqi government dropped the other shoe. The so-called Iraqi National Army and state-backed Shia militias launched a major, multi-pronged attack aimed at retaking Kirkuk. Kurdish forces appeared to be pulling back, abandoning fortified positions around the airport as large numbers of civilians fled the northern city ahead of a feared assault.

This latest phase in what is essentially a Muslim civil war pits two close US allies against each other, potentially undermining the unfinished war against ISIS. There is a very real possibility, right now, of American "trainers" and "special forces" being killed by Canadians, or (more likely) vice versa. Walt says it's folly to take sides in this conflict -- a waste of money and of the precious lives of our troops. Let the Muslims duke it out! We can buy oil from any of them... hell, all of them!

Further reading: Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks (Penguin Press 2006).

VIDEO: Republican voters: WATCH "Fahrenheit 9/11"!

I see by the meeja that George W. Bush has given a ringing endorsement to his "big little brother", "JEB!". I wonder what brilliant backroom boy thought having Dubya speak up for his brother would boost the Shrub's chances of becoming the Republican candidate for the Presidensity, or at least getting the GOP Establishment to coalesce behind him so as to deny the nomination to a real (?) conservative. [Who did you mean by that? Ed.]

I'm guessing the strategy is to position JEB! as the agent of continuity -- the one who will carry on the good works started by his brother and his father before him. Whether this is such a good idea at a time when most Americans, regardless of party affiliation, hunger for change remains to be seen. To any Republicans -- in South Carolina, let's say -- who think that more Bush-league government might not be such a bad thing, Walt recommends Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's critical look at the presidency of George W. Bush, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the War on Terror. The film is the highest grossing documentary of all time, and we have it for you, via YouTube, right here!

But first (as they say), IMDb's summary of what Fahrenheit 9/11 is all about. "Film-maker Michael Moore provides deep and though-provoking insights on the American security system, the level of paranoia, fear, uncertainty, false values and patriotism, which all combined together to set a stage for George W. Bush to launch a war on Iraq instead of focusing on getting the real culprit(s) behind the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

"This documentary also focuses on how some Saudis were safely and secretly flown out of America while planes were ostensibly grounded after the attacks. Archived film footage, candid interviews with politicians, and an overall waste of public funds for a war that was initiated on false pretension to wit: a weapon of mass distraction - to take the focus away from the real enemy and get Americans glued to their TV sets to watch innocent Iraqis and Afghans getting killed. And a war that would eventually alienate the USA and its citizens from almost every country on Earth."



Yes, JEB! is in the pro-Saudi "War on Americans" right up to his neck. He makes his first appearance in the film at about the 2-minute mark. As for the Bush family's connections to the houses of Saud and bin Laden -- not to mention Big Oil, Halliburton, etc etc -- anyone who thinks that connection ended with that expiry of Dubya's term needs his/her head read. Hey, Republican voter! Do you really want more of this?!

The Prez lied! US occupation of Afghanistan to continue until 2017

The Paranoid States of America has been fighting a "war against terrorism" in Afghanistan -- not to mention Iraq, Syria, etc etc and so forth -- for 14 years. The Afghanistan war is the longest in American history, and, Walt suggests, the second-most futile. (Vietnam would take the dubious honour of being the most futile.)

It will be remembered (or should be) that the Prez promised, when seeking election and re-election, that he would bring US troops home from the sandpit by the end of his term. He lied.

Today POTUS announced plans to keep nearly 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan through most of next year. 5500 will remain even after he leaves office in 2017, handing off the conflict to a successor. Wouldn't it be ironic if the third commander-in-chief to oversee this misguided and mishandled war turned out to be Hellery Clinton. It would be interesting to watch the Empress trying to pin the blame not just on the immediate past president, but on the past-past president!

Mr. O called the new plan a "modest but meaningful" extension of the US military mission, which he swears he originally planned to end next year. Why didn't he do it? In the words of W.C. Fields, "Things happened." The Prez acknowledged America's weariness of the lengthy conflict, but said he was "firmly convinced we should make this extra effort."

He may be convinced, but Walt is not. Like Ron Paul, Walt believes the USA has no business intervening in the Muslim civil wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq, Syria, etc etc and so forth) -- never did, never will. American blood is being shed. American treasure is being poured down the desert rathole. And for what? To bring Western civilization and democracy to the benighted Islamists? They don't want it and won't have it! Better to just let ISIS, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest duke it out. Will any serious contender for the presidensity have the guts to say that...and mean it?! Let's see....

Footnote: Let's be fair. It really was Dubya, not the Prez, who got America into Afghanistan. But it's not like he won't have a war to call his own and leave to his successor as a parting gift. Earlier this week, POTUS announced that he was sending US troops into Cameroon (central Africa) to help defeat the ISIS affiliate, Boko Haram. Boko Haram (translated as "Western education evil") is just one of the Islamic terrorist groups who benefitted from the US-led intervention in Libya. Thank you Mr. Obama...and Ms. Clinton.

Further reading: "How Can Anyone Still Be An Interventionist?" by Jacob G. Hornberger, on the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity website.

VIDEO: George Carlin explains US Middle East policy

Note from Ed.: Many thanks to Agent 17 for sending us the link to a George Carlin riff we'd forgotten about. Recorded 22 years ago, just after the Gulf War, Mr. Carlin explains how war is really prick-waving. Call it "Carlin's bigger dick foreign policy theory". Check it out.

Warning: This video contains "graphic language" -- lots of it. If obscenity, particularly the F-bomb, offends you, read one of Walt's other posts. OK? Don't say you weren't warned.

How our governments gull us into supporting unjust, unwinnable and STUPID wars

"Gull" is defined in Ed.'s Annadales's English Dictionary as "v.t. To make a fool of; to trick; to mislead by deception". Gulling the voters is a black art practised since time immemorial by politicians throughout the world. Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." But he and his successors have mostly succeeded in fooling most of the people most of the time.

This is particularly true when it comes to persuading peace-loving people that making war is in their best interests. Walt believes that most people would prefer not spend their fortunes and lives and fortunes waging war, not to kill or be killed. But our so-called leaders -- Obama, Bush, Harper, Clinton, Nixon, Johnson, Blair, Cameron, Harper (choose the one(s) you've been gulled into voting for -- tell us doing so is in the national interest, which means in our best interests. Total bullshit, but most of the people buy it, most of the time.

The sad thing is, they get away with it -- with sending our boys (and girls and "others") where they themselves would never go, with spending your (not their) tax dollars by the billions -- so easily. How do they do it? Here's a quote from Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring:

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship....

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brough to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country greater danger. It works the same way in any country.

Herr Göring said that in 1946, shortly before he was sentenced to death by hanging for crimes against humanity. The quote appears at p. 215 of Jon Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory (Doubleday 2009), which Walt recommends highly.

Where Men Win Glory is the story of Patrick Daniel "Pat" Tillman, RIP, killed by members of his own platoon on 22 April 2004 while on patrol in eastern Afghanistan. Before enlisting in the US Army, Corporal Tillman (he was promoted posthumously from the rank of Specialist) was a football player, who had a pretty good run in college ball and then in the NFL. He walked away from this $3.6-million NFL contract because he was deeply troubled by 9/11, and felt a strong moral obligation to join the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

In other words, he was gulled by Bush II, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and all the others who dragged America into the Muslim civil wars for the sake of... of what? Oil? Bringing civilization and democracy to the heathens? Or... what?

When Mr. Tillman signed on, the US military and its propagandists (Hello, Jim Wilkinson!) tried to make Tillman an inspirational emblem for their "Global War on Terror", but he refused to do any media interviews. Soon after beginning his first tour of duty in Iraq, the scales fell of his eyes. He openly declared the war was "illegal as hell". The more he saw of the American invasions of Iraq -- the "battle" of Nasiriyah, for instance -- and Afghanistan, the more disgusted he got, but he was determined to finish his three-year hitch as matter of duty and honour. Sadly, an inexperienced and trigger-happy US Ranger ended his life.

But did the US military's propaganda machine relent? Nooooooo! At first, the Army told credulous reporters that Corp. Tillman had been killed by enemy fire. It wasn't until 28 May 2004 that the Pentagon notified his family that he had died as a result of a friendly fire incident. The family and other critics allege that the Department of Defense delayed the disclosure for weeks out of a desire to protect the image of the US armed forces and portray Corp. Tillman as a hero of a just war.

In Chapter 33 of Where Men Win Glory, we read:
The White House was frantic to come up with something to divert attention from the deadly quagmire that Iraq had become, precisely as Osama bin Laden had gleefully forecast. The president [Bush II] was facing an increasingly tough campaign to win a second term in the White House, the election was barely six months away, and his approval ratings were plummeting. When Tillman was killed, White House perception managers saw an opportunity not unlike the one provided by the Jessica Lynch debacle thirteen months earlier....

Following Tillman's death, there was nothing to prevent the Bush administration from using his celebrity to advance its political agenda. [Jim Wilkinson's successors] wasted no time in concocting a narrative about Tillman that they hoped would distract the American public in the same way that Wilkinson's fable about Lynch had....

While he was alive, Tillman had been the object of tremendous public fascination, and White House officials guessed that selling him as a fallen war hero would send the media into an orgy of adulatory coverage. They were not disappointed.

Well, the Bush Wars in the sandpits of Iraq and Afghanistan are over. It's hard to say who won, but not so hard to say who list -- the people of America and the other members of the "Coalition of the Willing". And the American wars of empire (or oil, or whatever) didn't really end. They only morphed into the Obama War against terrorism, another "just war" to bring the benefits of civilization and democracy to the benighted... wait, didn't I write that before? Yes, we've seen this movie before -- there actually is a made-for-TV movie: The Tillman Story -- and we'll see it again... and again... until we listen to real leaders like Ron Paul and refuse to be gulled any more!