Will America never learn? The persistence of bad foreign policy

Almost 237 years ago the United States of America started life through an armed rebellion against established authority -- the British monarchy -- which established a revolutionary new model of government "of the people, by the people and for the people". That remains a great and noble goal, and the fact that it has yet to be fully realized hasn't stopped US governments from trying to impose their model on the rest of the world.

Over the course of the last two centuries, successive administrations have adopted a policy of forcing other countries to adopt the US model, sometimes by persuasion and sometimes by conquest. Walt has a little list.

In 1812 the US Congress thought Canadians could hardly wait to join the new republic. Taking Canada from the British would be "merely a matter of marching", said Jefferson. Two years later, with the White House burned and the country nearly broke, Congress changed its mind.

The Mexican Invasion of the mid-19th century succeeded in annexing to the USA a large chunk of the southwest. For some reason, people from further south keep coming into "New Mexico" and neighbouring states, wanting to keep their language, customs and religion. Some folks, especially in Arizona, think it might be better to give the territory back to the Mexicans.

Then came the War Between the States, in which some states had the temerity to assert the right to leave the Union, a right which they thought had been guaranteed by the Constitution. They learned that once you're in the Hotel America, "you can check out, but you can never leave".

Having got that nasty business out of the way, and realizing that the Hispanics were a soft target, the USA embarked in 1898 on a truly imperial war against Spain. The net gain was a handful of tropical paradises (?) --- Puerto Rico, Guam and Philippines -- but hey, America was now a colonial power, just like Britain! The economic and other benefits were, errr, dubious.

What about the World Wars, I hear you ask. [Yes, what about the World Wars? Ed.] Is Walt saying the USA should have stayed out of the War to End All Wars...and the second War to End All Wars? Didn't America save the world for democracy? Well... No matter how many John Wayne movies you watched, America didn't bail out the Allies singlehandedly. And if the USA had come into the wars at the beginning rather than during the second act, the other colonial powers might have been accomplished faster and at considerably less economic and human cost.

But, you might argue, that's precisely why the USA was so quick to jump into Korea. Sorry, wrong again. Omar Bradley called the Korean War "the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy". One lesson that might have been learned (but wasn't) is that if you're going to fight, use both hands!

Douglas MacArthur wanted to cross the Yalu and invade Communist China, possibly dropping the Big One for a quick and decisive victory. But "wiser men" in the Truman administration wouldn't let him, for fear of provoking a war with the Soviet Union, for which China was merely a proxy.

Apparently they didn't consider the possibility that the USSR wasn't as strong as it appeared, and might well have been defeated, sparing the world the 40 years of cold war that followed the Korean truce. Even the willingness to call it a draw may now be regarded as a mistake, for the war, which technically never ended, threatens to go ballistic -- literally -- at any moment.

Which brings us to Vietnam, which Pentagon types will tell you is the first war the US ever lost. (This ignores the War of 1812, but Washington's memory is short.) In The Rise of the Chinese Republic (McGraw-Hill, 1989) American historian Edwin P. Hoyt says:

The Americans did not learn fast. It took them still another war in Asia [Vietnam] to learn that what American leaders had said many years ago was true. No statesman with a lick of sense will let the country get involved in a land war in Asia.

There was another lesson that the Americans May not even yet have learned: Anyone who interferes in an indigenous revolution anywhere is a fool, and such interference is bound to fail. In China and in Vietnam the Americans tried to interfere. These actions cost them billions of dollars and far too many lives, and ultimately the revolutions succeeded in the face of American interference.

Mr. Hoyt wrote that in 1989. Since then we've had the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan and (sort of) Libya. These theatres of war are all in Asia, although not the part Hoyt was thinking of. And they're all part of the Muslim world. Walt predicts that 100 years from now historians will lump them all together as "the Middle Eastern War" or "the Great War Against Islam". ("Crusades" has already been used.)

And still the USA cannot or will not learn. Now the Prez -- no Muslim he? -- is making noises (again) about taking action (nature unspecified) in Syria to overthrow a tyrannical dictator, make it safe for democracy, yada yada yada. Haven't we seen this movie before? (Canadians need not feel all smug and superior. "Call me Steve" Harper and his bumboy Baird are very vocal in their willingness to hold America's coat...at least until Uncle Sam's nose bleeds.)

Edwin Hoyt again:
The United States has run out of gas politically and philosophically. Any nation that converts from a dynamic economy to a service economy...finds that it loses that precious quality of initiative. The American government is still posturing itself in the world as the defender of the status quo. It is hard to consider a less dynamic and less appealing posture for a nation that once boasted of its revolutionary spirit.

Why we keep losing wars

President Al O'Bama (seen here in a 1980 photo) has announced that he's going to "draw down" 10,000 US troops from Afghanistan. What, Walt wonders, does "draw down" mean? Years ago, when you were approved for a loan, you could draw it down. But we're talking about a war, not a financial deal.

I believe the Prez means he's going to bring the troops home. Or we could say he's going to "withdraw" them. Or we could say he's going to take them out of the war. Or we could say "retreat".

The fact is that the Excited States of America hasn't won a war -- with or without the help of other countries -- since 1945. Korea was a stalemate. Vietnam was a quagmire which ended in an ignominious evacuation. The First Gulf War was hardly a war at all and never really got finished. Iraq is still dragging on, much to the boredom of all concerned.

And Afghanistan? No matter how brave a face Hussein tries to put on it, 1000s of lives and billions of dollars have disappeared into the sand with nothing whatever to show for it.

What's the problem? It's not lack of resources. Although it's evident that the money could have been spent better at home, dollars have been found to pay for mercenaries, equipment, bribes to the "friendly" Afghans and so on. America has the best tools money can buy but can't seem to pacify a bunch of towel-headed Muslim fanatics armed with home-made bombs.

No, gentle reader, the problem is not that we can't win. It's that we WON'T win. What is lacking is the political will to hit the perceived enemy with everything we've got.

It started just after the defeat of Japan, when Truman wouldn't heed MacArthur's advice to stop the Communists before they got started. Then in Vietnam, Curtis LeMay said we should just "nuke [Charlie] back to the stone age". Walt doesn't agree with this, but LeMay was right in that if we really wanted to win, dropping the big one would have done the trick.

Vince Lombardi said that winning is not everything, it's the ONLY thing. Walt says, if you don't intend to win a war, don't start one.

VIDEO: Ron Paul: Is Islam about to engulf Western civilization?

Yesterday Walt told you about a report recommending the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in England and Wales. The headline Ed. wrote -- ahem! -- was "Islamization of UK complete, England to disestablish Anglican Church?" The rationale for the proposition was that the reality of modern-day Britain needs to be recognized. The reality is not that Islam is strong, and has overthrown a "Christian" nation, but that Christianity (represented by the established church) and Christian values are weak, and has been supplanted by secularism, fundamentalist Christianity, and (to be sure) Islam.

My posts on the clash of civilizations should not be misinterpreted as war propaganda. I am all for defending North America and Europe, by force of arms if necessary, from the Muslim invaders. And I agree with the Donald that there should be no more Muslim immigrants -- not any!

However, I am totally opposed to making war on the Islamic terrorists in their own land. I have written dozens in which I argue that "the coalition of the willing" has no business in the Middle East and Africa. [What about the oil business? Ed.] I believe that all the trouble in those reasons stemmed from the misguided and demonstrably failed foreign policy of the Paranoid States of America, beginning with Bush I's First Gulf War.

Instead of invading the sandpit, and raining death from the skies on 1000 innocent civilians for every jihadist, we should be defending our homelands by stopping the immigration of aliens who cannot and will not assimilate. Leave the Islamic extremists to fight their own Muslim civil war. Our task should be to rebuild our own economy and society.

Here's a new video from Ron Paul, making the same point more eloquently.



Recommended reading: A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq, by Paul William Roberts. Raincoast Books, 2004

A couple of thoughts about war from Gwynne Dyer

Gwynne Dyer know something about war. Born in Newfoundland almost six years before it became part of Canada, he joined the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve at the age of 16. While still in the reserve, he obtained a BA in history from Memorial University in 1963. Later he earned an MA in military history from Rice University (1966) and a PhD in military and Middle Eastern history at King's College London (1973).

Mr. Dyer served in the Canadian, American and British naval reserves. He was employed as a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy (Sandhurst) from 1973 through 1977. In 1973 he began writing articles for leading London newspapers on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and soon decided to abandon academic life for a full-time career in journalism.

In the mid-1980s, Mr. Dyer created and hosted War, an outstanding documentary mini-series that aired on BBC and PBS. As so often happens, the series begat a companion book (Crown Publishers, New York, 1985).

In the latter part of the book, the author discusses the future of war and the role of the military in today's society. More specifically, he considers the likelihood of an all-out nuclear war which would lead to the annihilation of mankind. Here are a couple of quotes which I think worth passing along.

Since it is the professional duty of military officers to identify threats to the security of the state, they are constantly searching for potential dangers abroad -- and virtually every other state within military reach constitutes such a threat simply by virtue of having armed forces of its own. The planning reflex of general staffs provides governments with detailed and regularly updated scenarios for conflicts in unlikely places with improbably enemies (as late as the 1920s military planners in the United States and Canada were maintaining carefully worked out plans to invade each other), which on occasion can lend undue military importance to minor incidents and alarms.


There is a new common factor discernible in all the armed conflicts that ravage the contemporary world, and especially in the majority of those conflicts that are irregular in nature. Military power is becoming less effective in achieving decisive, politically satisfactory results at every level of conflict. This is as true for enemies fighting with conventional weapons as for the nuclear-armed great powers, and it is equally true for governments and for insurgents in the lower intensity irregular wars that now account for most of the world's actual killing.

Gwynne Dyer wrote those words in the 1980s -- before 9/11, before the Gulf Wars, before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before Libya and before whatever is coming tomorrow. He has been criticized for his "anti-militarism" and "pacifist tendencies" by many warhawks, including Conrad Black who discontinued publishing Dyer's columns in his newspapers. But Walt thinks War makes some good points. I suspect Ron Paul agrees. 

You can find the War mini-series on YouTube. Here's the link to Part I (of 6), and a search for "War with Gwynne Dyer" will call up the rest. Each part runs about 55 minutes.

Also on YouTube is a more recent (and shorter) commentary by Mr. Dyer on the wars in the Middle East. It's called "The Mess They Made" (2007). Here it is.



Conrad Black no longer owns any newspapers. Gwynne Dyer's insightful columns continue to appear in the Fort Mudge Weakly and other fine newspapers.

Fighting for freedom and democracy

Speaking of wise words from the past (see preceding post), here's an excerpt from a speech given in the Canadian House of Commons on the eve of World War II by J.S. Woodsworth.

"I would ask: did the last war settle anything? I venture to say that it settled nothing; and the next war into which we are asked to enter, however big and bloody it may be, is not going to settle anything either. That is not the way in which settlements are brought about.

"While we are urged to fight for freedom and democracy, it should be remembered that war is the very negation of both. The victor may win; but if he does, it is by adopting the self-same tactics which he condemns in his enemy..."

Mr. Woodsworth was roundly denounced as a traitor and a coward, and Canada joined the Allies (more than two years before the Americans did, let it be remembered) in the war against the Axis. Oops...almost wrote "Axis of Evil".

So we had World War II and we won that. Since then we've had Korea, the Six Days War, Vietnam, the Gulf, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention any number of UN "police actions" and "peacekeeping expeditions". But has anything been settled? Have freedom and democracy triumphed? [That's enough rhetorical questions. ed.]

Where next? Syria? Iran? Walt's morning line

Last week was a slow news week. Republican presidential wannabes are chewing on each other's haunches. The Greeks and the EU are still in denial about the former's effective bankruptcy and the inevitable demise of the euro. (Lifetime pct .986) And sound of gunfire and explosions reverberates through the streets of Baghdad, Tripoli, Homs, Damascus, Cairo etc. etc. ad infinitum.

As to Syria, the usual forces for Peace and Progress are shrieking that Something Must Be Done. And since the Arab Union (sic) and the United (sic) Nations can't agree to do anything, who better to take matters in hand than the good ole US of A.

There's also been some talk that Weapons of Mass Destruction -- to wit, nuclear bombs -- are being developed by Iran. You may think you've seen this movie before, but that was Iraq and the intended target of the non-existent WMDs was... well... that was never altogether clear but it didn't really matter, since the WMDs were really just a pretext to start a fight that the US was pretty sure it could win. (Lifetime pct .010)

No, the next American invasion of a Middle Eastern country will be a sequel to the glorious successes of Iraq and Afghanistan. And it's been in the pipeline -- the oil pipeline, that is -- for at least nine years.

In February of 2003, John Bolton (then "under-secretary of state for arms control" -- how's that for a title?!) told Israeli government officials that it would be "necessary to deal with" Iran, Syria and North Korea after the war in Iraq. Source: respected journalist Gwynne Dyer, in his column of 30 March 2003, reproduced in With Every Mistake (Random House, 2005).

Note, please, that Bolton was speaking to Israeli officials. Today the high-ranking American "advisor" doing the talking is General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. General Dempsey, echoed by UK Foreign Secretary William Hague, is warning the Israelis not to attack Israel, because an Israeli attack is "not prudent". Since that phrase was already taken, Mr. Hague said an attack would not be "a wise thing".

Walt's translation and sub-text: "Hang on a minute. We're not ready yet!"

Clearly, if the Jews start a war with Iran, they will be counting on the West to intervene on their side. And plenty of people in high places in London, Ottawa and (especially) Washington would be happy to do so. The only problem is that the West is broke. The war in Afghanistan is still syphoning billions of dollars a month out of the American and Canadian economies, and the governments of Britain and other EU countries are still pouring their pounds and euros down the rathole that is Greece. The West can't afford another war.

Nor can Israel, if the West doesn't send troops, arms and matériel. Yet Iran is the Middle Eastern power the Jews fear most. Israel believes a nuclear-armed Iran would be a threat to its very existence, citing Iran's support for Arab militant groups, its sophisticated arsenal of missiles capable of reaching Israel, and its leaders' calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

The Jews have been known to attack their neighbours before. There was the infamous Six-Day (Non-)War in 1967. In 1981, the Israeli air force destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor. And in 2007, Israeli warplanes are believed to have destroyed a target in Syria that foreign "experts" think might have been an unfinished nuclear reactor... or possibly a hospital, who knows?

But Iran would prove a much tougher nut to crack than Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq or Syria. It is doubtful that the Israelis could single-handedly destroy, Iran's nuclear facilities, if such there be. And the Iranians (not being Arabs) would surely fight back. They could fire missiles at Israel, get their Muslim friends Hezbollah and Hamas to launch rockets into "the Jewish entity" and cause global oil prices to spike by striking targets in the Gulf.

So... if the Jews are smart ["if"? Ed.] they'll wait until Western support has gone from rhetoric to military readiness. That should take until 2013, at least. Walt's prediction: no war against Iran... this year. (Lifetime pct .986)

The war against ISIS explained... again... seriously, this time

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon... [Hey! That opening is copyrighted! Ed.] OK, it's been a quiet week in Mudge County. [Where dat? Ed.] Walt is following three "situations", as the military calls them -- the Yellow Umbrella protests in Hong Kong, the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and the latest phase of the Oil Wars -- waiting for something definitive to happen in any or all of them.

If you read my Remembrance Day piece, "Some wars would be better forgotten", you'll know that I've decided "Oil Wars" is a good catch-all name for the American-led invasions and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iraq again. "Oil Wars" is my feeble attempt to nutshell the reasons for those "missions".

Explaining why the Prez has led his country and the "coalition of the willing" once more into the sandpit isn't easy. With tongue firmly inserted in cheek, I tried to do so in "Are you confused about the war in the Middle East?". Agent 6 thinks -- and I must admit -- that a more serious analysis is overdue.

So, thanks to Agent 6, I'm going to give you a link to an essay posted on September 8th in The Equedia Letter, "Canada’s fastest growing and largest investment newsletter dedicated to revealing the truths about the stock market".

The writer, Ivan Lo, thinks the War against ISIS -- the self-described Islamic State of Iraq and Syria -- is all about... wait for it... oil (and the gas that goes with it). Refer to the map below as you follow this excerpt from "The Real Reason for War in Syria: Pipeline Control".

Take a look at [the timeline of events listed earlier in the article] and you will see an astoundingly shocking chain of intertwined events all related to currency and energy.

Currency manipulation allows developed countries to print and lend to other developing countries at will.... When the developing nations realize they can’t pay back the loans, they’re at the mercy of the lending nations.

The trick here is that the lending nations can print as much money as they want, and in turn, control the resources of developing nations. In other words, the loans come at a hefty cost to the borrower, but at no cost to the lender.

That is why energy is much more valuable than currency in a fiat system. That’s why many wars have been fought over the control of energy. The current conflict in Syria is no different....

Russia is already the dominant energy powerhouse in Europe, supplying and controlling nearly 40% of total gas imports to Europe. Russia’s energy dominance in the Eastern Hemisphere has allowed the nation to amass fortunes; fortunes used to continue its energy dominance through resource acquisitions and the buying of support from resource-rich allies.

Russia wants this dominance to continue. That’s why it needs to maintain control over Syria.

Syria’s location puts it smack in the middle of Qatar and Turkey; a perfect crossroads for a natural gas pipeline that could make Qatar, the world’s largest exporter of liquid natural gas (LNG), a strong supplier of gas to Europe. A gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey means will Russia lose its dominance and control over energy supplied to Europe; thus Russia will lose lots of money and power.

In order for Qatar gas to reach Turkey, it has two options. One option would lead a pipeline from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to Turkey. The other would go through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and then to Turkey.

Saudi Arabia already said no to the first route because it wants to ensure that it gets a piece of the action and maintain control over the gas that goes through its region. Of course, that means less profits and control for Qatar. So that means option one won’t happen. On to Syria.

Syria’s President Bashar Hafez al-Assad has long been Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ally. At the recent G20 summit, the media was shocked to hear Putin’s direct remarks regarding helping the Assad regime in Syria: “Will we help Syria? Yes, we will. We’re doing it right now, we’re supplying arms.”

It’s no wonder why Assad said no to the second route; he’s obligated to help block the flow of natural gas out of the Persian Gulf into Europe to ensure that Russia remains in control of European energy. It’s no wonder why Qatar has spent more than $3 billion supporting the rebels in dethroning Assad.

If Assad is forced out, Qatar could put in place a puppet regime in Syria that will allow them to build a pipeline into Europe and give Qatar the ability to sell natural gas to Europe, undermining Russia.

Of course, the Saudis have also been helping the rebels because it too wants to control the flow of energy from the Persian Gulf to Europe. There are even rumours that Saudi Arabia and Qatar may be ‘bribing’ US congressmen to approve war on Syria in order to dethrone Assad.

If Qatar or Saudi Arabia gains control of Syria, it would be a major blow to Russia. The U.S. wants to supply Europe with gas; this was made clear when it backed the Nabucco-West pipeline.

America reaffirmed its natural gas stance last year with Exxon and Qatar proposing a $10 billion U.S. energy export project. The U.S. has the world’s largest supply of natural gas and it has boldly made plans to profit from supplying gas to Europe. Combine that with the fact that Washington and Iran are direct enemies, and you can see why it is in America’s best interest to dethrone Assad.

Dethroning Assad will kill two birds with one stone; it will bypass Iran and loosen the control Russian energy has over Europe. All of this means that the U.S. and its energy allies, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, will do whatever they can to remove Assad and implement their pipeline wishes.

Well, that's one man's opinion of the motive of Armerica and its Arab "friends". Makes a lot of sense to me. Perhaps "Oil Wars" is exactly the right name for what we're doing in the Middle East. Certainly it's better than calling what we're doing "the Right Thing".

Can you say "stalemate", boys 'n' girls?

Call me a traitor if you like, but it has to be said that the US of A has form for starting wars which it can't finish. Before Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam we can point all the way back to the War of 1812, which then POTUS James Madison said would be "only a matter of marching", all over in a month or so. Does this sound familiar?

Since the outcome of the War of 1812 is barely mentioned in US schools nowadays, let us review how Madison's little excursion turned out. There was fighting, mostly on the Canadian (British, in those days) side of the Great Lakes. The Royal Navy attacked and burned the American capital, causing Dolly Madison to pack up her dishes and flee the White House. The Americans won the final battle (New Orleans) nearly a month after a truce had been agreed. The borders of the US of A remained as they had been ante bellum. Much treasure and blood was expended, but nothing was gained.

Walt predicts a similar outcome for the American-Israeli war on Iran. 

Again, call me a traitor if you like, but I don't see a lot of winning going on here! The Israelis are said to have invaded Lebanon, but that's a sideshow. The Big Show is Iran. The mission (so far as we can understand it) is to (a) terminate the Chief Mullah and so (b) to effect the overthrow of the Islamist theocracy, while also (c) ensuring that Iran would never have nuclear weapons and (d) the supply of Big Oil would be secure forever more, Or (e) all of the above.

Three weeks in, after the loss of dozens of American lives and expenditure of many millions of dollars, as nearly as Walt can see, only (a) has been accomplished. So what? The same gang of mullahs may be hiding behind a cardboard cutout of the Son-of-the-Mullah, but they're still in control. A few oil tankers are getting through the Strait of Hormuz, but the US is clearly incapable of keeping that channel oopen to the point where President Trump is almost screaming "A little help here!?!?" at America's fair weather friends.

I can't see any favourable outcome to this conflict. POTUS says it'll be over when he thinks it's over, but when will that be? Seems to me the stage is being set for a declaration of victory and a "withdrawal" under cover of a cease-fire which will be touted as a Big Win, just like that over Hamas a few months ago.

Many Americans have been killed. US military bases in the Gulf are burning. America's so-called allies are running for diplomatic cover. The only "winning" is being done by the Israelis, who are finishing what they couldn't do in 1967. Clearly the US of A has lost control of a war that will not end until Iran says so. 

Any realist has to call the situation a strategic stalemate, with intense air campaigns failing to force capitulation or halt Iranian retaliations. While initial strikes damaged infrastructure, Iran has continued targeting energy routes in the Strait of Hormuz, leading to a protracted conflict with no clear endgame. Iran has successfully targeted global energy security, creating a protracted war.

The stalemate is causing major global disruptions, with oil prices rising over $100/bbl and increasing economic uncertainty in other regions, notes. It's hard to see how this ends except in a "draw" where both sides declare victory, or settle into a low-level, long-term confrontation that could reshape the region. Or not.

I would dearly love to be wrong. I would like to see the people of Iran liberated from the yoke of Islamist oppression. I have similar hopes for the people of Venezuela and (even more so) the people of Cuba. But we're not there yet... are we...

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.

VIDEOS: Peter Mansbridge retires: end of an era at the CBC - Part 2

Note from Ed.: This is the continuation and end of our look at the personalities who have anchored CBC-TV's National News (later rebranded as The National) from the beginning until the retirement of the current host, Peter Mansbridge, whose last newscast will air tonight. If you missed Part 1, click here to read that first.

Following the departure of Lloyd Robertson, the CBC resumed its search for a "real journalist", and in 1978 decided on Knowlton Nash, who had decades of experience in print journalism as well as broadcasting. He spent much of the hippy-dippy 1960s in the USA, covering virtually every major story of that time and that place. He stepped down from reporting in 1969 to join CBC's management in Toronto as Director of News and Current Affairs.

In 1978 he auditioned for the role of anchor, and was subsequently chosen. As a nod to his journalistic background, Mr Nash was given the title "Chief Correspondant" rather than "News Anchor". He continued in the role until his retirement in 1988, and died in March of 2014 at the age of 86.

Now it's time to acknowledge the news anchor who had the longest tenure, until Peter Mansbridge came along. That would be the comparatively little known George McLean, who in 1965 took over Rex Loring's role (see Part 1) as backup and weekend anchor. If the "regular" anchor wasn't there, not to worry, because George would get the job done. Known for his reliability and ability to stay calm in high-stress situations, Mr McLean would become one of the most recognizable faces and voices at CBC News. One reason for his success, some say, was that he looked and sounded a lot like Walter Cronkite! Here's a video of his goodbye newscast.



That telecast aired in 1988. George McLean, little remembered now, was on the job for over 20 years! He died in March of 2016, aged 92.

Now we come to Peter Mansbridge, seen here with Knowlton Nash, whose career with the CBC has spanned half a century. Really. As a callow youth of 19, he was working as a dogsbody at the airport at the end of the earth (Churchill MB) when he was called on to make an announcement over the public address system. The station manager for the local CBC affiliate heard his mellifluous tones and hired him on the spot! The rest, as they say, is history.

Peter Mansbridge debuted as the sole anchor of The National on 1 May 1988. He also served as co-anchor for CBC Prime Time News from November 1992 to the fall of 1995. During his 29 years as anchor, he has covered Canadian news stories including federal elections, party leadership conventions, the Meech Lake Accord negotiations, the Charlottetown Accord and its referendum, the 1995 Quebec referendum, floods in Manitoba in 1997, ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in 1998, the six days in September 2000 that marked the death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau, and the 2003 blackout across much of eastern North America.

He has also anchored coverage of many world events, both in the studio and on the scene. In the studio, he anchored coverage of the Gulf War, the War in Kosovo, the 9/11 attacks and the 2014 Parliament Hill shootings. He was on the air live when the 2003 invasion of Iraq began and anchored coverage of it. On the scene, he anchored coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the funerals of Princess Diana and Pope John Paul II, numerous royal, papal, and US presidential visits to Canada, numerous Olympic Games, and the inauguration of US President Barack Obama. He reported extensively from Normandy both 50 and then 60 years after D-Day and from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for the 50th and 60th anniversaries.

With the retirement of Lloyd Robertson from CTV National News on 1 September, Mr Mansbridge became the longest-serving active anchor among the big three Canadian networks. Last night the CBC aired a well-deserved tribute to Peter. Here it is.

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.

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!

VIDEO: Meanwhile, in the Middle East, something big is on the horizon

Are we witnessing the beginning of a bigger Middle East war? ISIS seems to be just about finished, at least in the sense of occupying a defined territory. The Syrian government of Basher Assad has overrun the last ISIS stronghold and seems likely to turn its attention to putting the Kurds back in their place. The Kurds are also being attacked by the so-called Iraqi National Army. Those conflicts will continue, while the western powers dither about whose side they should be on. See "Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who", WWW 16/10/17 and "Why the Canadian Army is 'suspending' ops in Iraq", WWW 2810/17.

Here's the scary part. The fighting in Syria and Iraq is just a proxy war, a smaller part of the larger Muslim civil war between the Shi'ites (read: Iran) and the Sunnis (read: Saudi Arabia). Recent events suggest that an escalation of that conflict is imminent. This month has seen a huge purge among Saudi royals, accusations of Lebanese aggression, and threats by Hezbollah. Recent semi-secret trips by (((Jared Kushner))), President Trump's son-in-law and advisor to visit with the Saudi crown prince raise questions about the position of the USA. Israeli policy seems to be lining up with Saudi regional policy against Iran and Hezbollah. The Yemen war is at a standstill. Tensions are rising throughout the sandpit.

Is this the start of something big? In the November 7th edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report (running time 16:50) Dr. Paul and co-host Daniel McAdams analyze the signs and portents, and conclude that we are getting ever closer to a major conflict. Notice that I didn't use the word "Armageddon", but only because they didn't use it!



Walt suggests that you bookmark the Ron Paul Liberty Report. There's a new broadcast every day at noon, Eastern Time.

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).

Thinking about Charlie Hebdo: Kurt Vonnegut's views on freedom of speech and the role of the artist in society

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was an American writer -- one of Walt's favourite novelists. His works, such as Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973), blended satire, gallows humor, and science fiction. In spite of, or perhaps because of, his stint in the United States Army during World War II, he was until his death a committed pacifist. He was also a supporter of the ACLU and a crusader for not only freedom of speech but freedom of thought.

Kurt Vonnegut was born on 11 November 1922, eight years exactly after the Armistice that ended World War I. He dies on 11 April 2007, having lived through the Vietnam War and the first years of the Oil Wars or Gulf Wars or Wars Against Terrorism -- whatever you want to call them. I don't know if, prior to his death, he had ever read or even heard of Charlie Hebdo, but I imagine he would have applauded their lampooning of organized religion and secular sacred cows.

Back in 1973, Mr. Vonnegut was interviewed by Frank McLaughlin, for Media & Methods and by David Standish in Playboy, the magazine that men of my generation pretended to read. Perhaps we should have paid more attention when thinkers such as he cast pearls before us such as these comments about the role of artists -- writers, cartoonists and the like -- in our society.

From the Media & Methods interview:

I agree with Hitler and Stalin about a lot of things. Basic agreement with them and with...almost every dictator is that an artist should serve his society, and I would not be interested in writing if I didn't feel that what I wrote was an act of good citizenship or an attempt, at any rate, to be a good citizen.

What brought my ancestors over here from Germany was not oppression over there, but simply the attractiveness of the United States Constitution.... I was raised to be bughouse about the Constitution, and to be very excited about the United States of America as a Utopia. It still seems utterly workable to me, and I keep thinking of ways to fix it, to see what the hell went wrong, to see if we can get the thing to really run right.

[Now] I am heartbroken and confused.... I finally understand that I am not protected by the U.S. Constitution. I have never been protected by it, and it's only a piece of paper that we in America have always been dependent upon. The goodwill of those who govern us...that's all that has ever protected us....

We have entered a period now when our government doesn't really seem to like us much. I find this oppressive, and realize that the Constitution can't help much, can't help at all, really, if our leaders come to dislike us -- which they apparently do.

From the Playboy interview:

I agree with Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini that the writer should serve his society. I differ with dictators as to how a writer should serve. Mainly, I think they should be...agents of change. For the better, we hope....
We [writers] are expressions of the entire society.... And when a society is in great danger, we're likely to sound the alarms.

I have the canary-bird-in-the-coal-mine theory of the arts. You know coal miners used to take birds down into the mines with them to detect gas before the men got sick. The artists certainly did that in the case of Vietnam. They chirped and keeled over. But it made no difference whatsoever. Nobody important cared. But I continue to think that artists -- all artists -- should be treasured as alarm systems.

Walt suggests that, now that a dozen canaries have been killed by fanatics of a "deviant form of religion" (to use the Pope's words), perhaps the "leaders" of the Western world will hear the alarm and take some action beyond mouthing platitudes about peaceful coexistence and the brotherhood of man. Or perhaps not....

Source for these quotes: Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, edited by  William Rodney Allen (University Press of Mississippi, 1988).

Why the Canadian Army is "suspending" ops in Iraq

The big guys with the beards aren't ISIS jihadis or Iraqi "soldiers". They're Canucks! You can tell because they have better camoduds, with their maple leaf flag (cleverly died green) on the shoulders. They are pictured "advising and training" Kurdish Peshmerga "fighters" somewhere in northern Iraq.

"Gee whillikers, Walt! You mean there are Canadians fighting alongside the brave American forces in Iraq?" Well, not exactly, Bobby. There are Canadian Armed Forces personnel in Iraq, all right, but not all of them are, errr, fighting. There are intelligence officers (as in that great oxymoron "military intelligence"), a helicopter detachment and a medical contingent based in Erbil, the Kurdish capital. Separately, in Kuwait, there is a surveillance plane and an air-to-air refueller.

But yes, there are several dozen Canucks out there in camos, holding guns and other implements of destruction. By way of apology for not jumping at the chance to join the first Iraq fiasco, the government of former Canuck Prime Minister Steven Harpoon in 2014 sent roughly 200 Canadian commandos to "provide advice and assistance" on the ground in northern Iraq in an effort to help defeat ISIS militants. This summer, when it looked like the war was finally going to be won, the alleged government of Junior Trudeau extended the mission for two years.

And then, just as Walt predicted (lifetime pct .991) the war against ISIS took a sudden but not unpredictable turn in another direction. Having cleared the Islamists out of Mosul, the Kurds decided that it was time to consolidate their victory and assert their independence from the rest of Iraq. They held a referendum of sorts and voted to declare their own republic, a formalization of the autonomous state which already existed (in theory) in northern Iraq. The so-called national government of that wretched country, dominated by Shia Muslims, did not take kindly to the challenge to its authority, and sent their army, along with Shi'ite militias, to put the Kurds in their place... or out of their place, looking at it from the Kurds' point of view.

The Arab Iraqis seized the northern oil city of Kirkuk from the Kurds, with surprising ease, a few days ago, and are expected to move against Mosul and the Kurdish capital, Erbil, at any time. That puts the Canadian special forces in an awkward position, since they are based in Erbil and, if the Kurds take a stand against the Arab Iraqis, would be expected to lead their "trainees" into battle against the Iraqi forces whom the Canucks have also been "training".

What would you do, if you were the peace-loving Canadian Minister of Defence (who happens to be a Sikh) or his pussified boss, Justin Trudeau? Would you take the side of the "national" government of Iraq or the separatist Kurds? (See "Gulf Wars drag on: Walt's guide to who's fighting who", WWW 16/10/17.)

Perhaps you have already guessed the answer. It is not the Canadian way to offend anybody... anybody! Canadians, or their government at least, see themselves as the great peacemakers who can bring sanity and stability to a world dominated by crazy warmongers like Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump. (That's M Trudeau's view, not Walt's!) So, rather than take sides, the clever and peace-loving Canadians have decided to do... errr... nothing, "until greater clarity exists".

That's the word from Col. Jay Janzen, the director of military strategic communications for the Canadian Armed Forces, in a brief statement made while everyone was watching the World Series last night. "Given the fluidity of the current situation, Canada's Special Operations Task Force has temporarily suspended the provision of assistance to various elements of Iraqi security forces," he said. "Once greater clarity exists regarding the interrelationships of Iraqi security forces, and the key priorities and tasks ahead, the task force will resume activities."

Monitoring the situation without taking sides might seem like the sensible and moral thing to do, but, as with everything the Trudeau government does, there is an agenda behind the decision to put a temporary hold on their training of Iraqi and Kurdish forces in the wake of fighting between the two factions. The Canadian government is deathly afraid of two connected ideologies: separatism and nationalism.

Almost since the day of Canada's creation, just over 150 years ago, the federal government has been fighting to keep the people of Québec --
distinct ethnically, linguistically and religiously from the rest of Canada -- from seceding. In the most recent referendum on the question, in 1995, the people of La Belle Province voted by the narrowest of margins to not become un état -- an independent state. But the spark of separatist sentiment is hard to extinguish, and now it is being fanned into flame by the rise of separatist/nationalist movements in Scotland, Catalonia, and, yes, "Kurdistan".

Just yesterday, Junior Trudeau affirmed his support for a united Spain. Statements by Canadian politicians on the Kurdish question show that the only support for the ideal of Kurdish independence comes from the (federal) Bloc Québécois and the (provincial) Parti Québécois. If the independence of the new Catalan republic is recognized, if the Kurds succeed in driving the Arab Iraqis out of their region, Canada's Liberals will have yet another battle to fight to uphold their ideal of a post-national society. Stay tuned.

What's actually in the leaked Clinton e-mails?

Walt (and many others) can't under why the attention of the lamestream media is focused on stories about Donald Trump's alleged locker-room banter and slap-and-tickle which go back decades and have nothing to do with business or politics. Meanwhile, while serious political and moral lapses on the part of Shrillery Clinton and her top campaign staffers are being revealed every day through the e-mail leaked by Wikileaks, and no-one cares.

What's the reason for the media's willing participation in this massive misdirection orchestrated by the Democrats? Could it be that people bust their wrists changing channels to see stories about groping, or avoid stories about serious politics? Or could it be that the pundits who are paid to tell us what to think don't really understand the implications of the e-mails? Assuming the latter, Walt's reposting, below, a useful guide to what's in the Clinton e-mails, originally prepared and published by Canadian Press. [We do this under the "fair use" doctrine. Besides, we don't make any money on WWW. We don't even allow advertising! Ed.]

The emails are being released in batches. So far, they mention:

—President Barack Obama: Obama exchanged messages with Clinton on her private email, according to an email purportedly from a senior aide. Obama has said he only learned the same way everyone else did that Clinton never used government email — in the news. To Trump, this is damning. He alleges, without evidence, that the reason Clinton never got charged by the FBI for mishandling classified information is that the FBI’s boss, Obama, also used to email her now-notorious personal account.

—Foreign lobbyists: The Clinton campaign debated whether to accept donations from Washington lobbyists representing foreign interests. They considered making an exception for friendly countries — they cited Canada as an example. In the end, they accepted everything. An email purportedly from Clinton’s communications director says: “Take the money!!”

—Secretary of State Bloomberg? An aide to Michael Bloomberg responded, when asked by a Clinton friend whether the billionaire-ex-mayor was interested in an administration job under Clinton: “Secty of state. Which ain’t gonna happen.” The friend Neera Tanden, head of a progressive think-tank, forwarded the email to campaign chair John Podesta and said: “Something to know for down the road.”

—Qatar connection: The Persian Gulf state donated $1 million to the Clinton Foundation for Bill Clinton’s birthday in 2012. A year later, Hillary Clinton told an audience at Goldman Sachs, according to leaked transcripts, that Qatar and other Gulf states were funding jihadist groups in Syrian’s civil war.

—Primary favours: Leaked emails suggest the Clinton campaign asked the Illinois state government to move back the date of the primary, to hurt Republicans. They feared an early Illinois primary would benefit moderate Republican candidates. A purported email from Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook says the Clintons, “won’t forget,” what friends do for them.

—Obama push poll: Outside groups endorsing Clinton’s 2008 bid conducted a whisper-campaign against Obama. In a January 2008 email, a polling-firm employee tells friends of Clinton that it added anti-Obama questions to a poll “as requested.” The questions refer to his past use of cocaine; his Muslim father; and him not wearing an American flag lapel pin.

—Media relations: A Democratic party official who occasionally comments on CNN told the campaign during the primary that she occasionally gets advance notice of questions for network town-hall events. Donna Brazile now says she never got actual questions. Also, the New York Times went back-and-forth with the Clinton campaign last year over which quotes it could use. In a piece this week, Times writer Mark Leibovich says he’d tried getting Clinton to do an on-the-record interview; she agreed to speak off-the-record; he later convinced her team to let him use some quotes from the off-the-record chat.

—'Get a life,' far left: A transcript says Clinton voiced frustration with her party’s left-wing fringe, in a private event with a union: “They come to my rallies and yell at me.... They say, ’Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?’ No. I won’t promise that. Get a life, you know.”

—'Needy Latinos': Clinton’s campaign chair urged her to call “needy Latinos” who required some attention before endorsing her, include former cabinet secretary and governor Bill Richardson.

—Catholics: Clinton aides are being accused of disparaging Catholics. That’s because an employee at a think-tank emailed Clinton aides disparaging Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, over baptizing his kids as Catholic; he suggested rich conservatives were attracted to Catholicism’s outdated gender roles. Clinton aide Palmieri replied. She suggested the rich might deem Catholicism more socially acceptable than evangelicalism.

—Collusion: Trump says there’s proof of collusion between Clinton and the Justice Department. That’s because her aide, Brian Fallon, wrote that a department contact informed him of a court date related to a freedom-of-information case on Clinton’s records. Fallon says that doesn’t mean collusion; there were also public records and media reports about the upcoming hearing.

—TPP — policy or politics: Opponents accuse Clinton of a cynical flip-flop over the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal — she worked on it in government, opposed it in her primary. Clinton says she withdrew her support after seeing the final details. An email exchange among campaign staff suggests a political calculus. It shows a conversation right after the agreement was announced. Clinton would oppose it — yet they discuss whether to wait a few weeks until the final text is released, to use that as a pretext.

—Bank ties: In paid appearances at financial institutions, Clinton vaunted her good relationship with banks. She said she represented them for eight years as a New York senator. She got annoyed at campaign staff when they insisted her husband cancel a speech to Morgan Stanley, the week of her campaign launch. Transcripts also show she told bankers they needed to toughen regulations and respond to public anger after the financial crisis.

—Thoughtful exchanges: Clinton offered candid and detailed analysis of world events, in events at Goldman Sachs. According to transcripts, she discussed hearing a screaming match between Chinese and Japanese leaders; the re-emergence of Japanese nationalism; Russian distrust of the Chinese; how a Syrian no-fly zone could kill civilians; and the multiple causes of U.S. legislative paralysis.

Walt was sorely tempted to add emphasis to certain points, but there were so many of them that it seemed like overkill. Please, dear gentle reader... just read this stuff thoroughly and tell me how on earth any patriotic American concerned about the future of the US of A could possible vote for That Woman.

Footnote: Where IS Mrs Bill Clinton, anyway? The Donald is campaigning in WI today -- a hard row for him to hoe -- but Hellery, according to her staff "has nothing planned". You're running for POTUS, with three weeks to go until Election Day, and you have nothing planned??!! Could it be that La Clinton is being hidden from the people, lest her appearance give more clues as to her serious health problems? Just askin'....

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?!

VIDEO: Ron Paul looks at the year that was and the year to come

It's been some time since we've reposted a video featuring Dr Ron Paul. Thanks to President Trump's surprise announcement of an imminent pull-out from the Middle East, there seems to be... at last... the prospect of disengagement from the Muslim civil war. See "Getting out of the Muslim civil wars - about time!", WWW 21/12/18.

In this review, Dr Paul and Daniel McAdams discuss what the Ron Paul Institute has accomplished in 2018 and what they have planned 2019. Spoiler alert! There's a new book coming out -- The Individual versus the Collective -- and they tell you how to get an advance copy, FREE! And you'll learn how you can help spread the message of peace and prosperity. Running time: 10:27.



Naysayers (including some Republicans!) are calling on the President to reverse his decision to remove all US troops from Syria and several thousand from Afghanistan. The neocons, lametream media, and even some progressives suddenly find themselves defending the endless and pointless Gulf wars. A strong voice for the principles of disengagement and non-intervention in foreign affairs is needed now more than ever. Ron Paul is that voice, and Walt urges you, dear reader, to give him your support.

"Religion of Peace": in Egypt, Muslims kill 100s of other Muslims

Islam, the self-styled "Religion of Peace", is not monolithic, any more than Christianity or the Catholic Church itself is monolithic. The two main branches or divisions of Islam are Sunni Islam and Shia Islam. The Shi'ites [Ed., please check spelling.] are the ones who dominate in Iran and Iraq, although you could get an argument about Iraq. [No kidding. Ed.] It is believed that the mad mullahs of Iran want to establish a "Shia crescent" all the way from their country through Syria and Lebanon to the Mediterranean.

The Sunnis are the other ones, a persecuted minority (?) in Iraq, but the dominant group in most of the Gulf States and, most dangerously, Saudi Arabia. Extremist Sunnis are the core of ISIS. As Junior Trudeau, who loves all Muslims, says, "Sunni ways, my friends. Sunni ways."

There are others, like Sufists or Sufi Muslims. Non-Muslims often mistake Sufism as a sect of Islam. Sufism is more accurately described as an aspect or dimension of Islam. Sufi orders (Tariqas) can be found in Sunni, Shia and other Islamic groups. Sufism is often defined as "Islamic mysticism", "the inward dimension of Islam", or "the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam", not unlike the "charismatics" of both Protestant and Catholic Christianity. Although the overwhelming majority of Sufis are adherents of Sunni Islam, there strands of Sufi practice can also be found within Shia Muslim communities.

There are fewer Sufis today than there were yesterday, in Egypt, where officials are investigating the massacre of 305 (and counting) worshippers at a Sufi mosque in the town of Bir al-Abed, in the Sinai. Witnesses say the attackers were carrying the flag of the Islamic State (ISIS) and (of course) yelling "Allahu akbar!"

They bombed the Al-Rawda mosque, driving survivors outside where dozens of gunmen opened fire on those trying to escape. The assailants reportedly set parked vehicles parked in the vicinity on fire to block off access to the building, and fired on ambulances trying to help victims. Thirty children are among the dead and more than 100 people were wounded.

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has vowed to respond with "the utmost force", and the Egyptian military says it has already conducted air strikes on terrorist targets. Egyptian security forces have for years been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai peninsula, and militants affiliated with ISIS have been behind scores of deadly attacks in the desert region. "What is happening is an attempt to stop us from our efforts in the fight against terrorism," Mr Sisi said in a televised address. "The armed forces and the police will avenge our martyrs and restore security and stability with the utmost force."

And so the Islamic civil war continues. Walt wonders why we are investing financial and human resources in trying to bring peace (???) to that perpetually troubled part of the world, especially when we can no longer be sure which side is the right side to be backing. (See, for example, "Why the Canadian Army is 'suspending' ops in Iraq", WWW 28/10/17.) Why not just get our troops and matériel out of the sandpit, and let the Islamists duke it out? Answers on the back of a postage stamp, please, to the usual address.