Hopes for the Trump administration are not burning brightly. Trump’s military chief, Gen. Mattis, is turning out to be true to his “mad dog” nickname. He has just declared that Iran “is the single biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.” He has declared Russia to be the number one threat to the US. He has threatened intervention in China’s territorial affairs. I was wrong. I thought Gen. Mattis was a reasonable choice as he rejects the efficacy of torture, and, according to Trump, convinced Trump that “torture doesn’t work.” Apparently Mattis cannot reach beyond this realization to higher geo-political realizations. Trump needs to fire Mattis who has placed the Pentagon in the way of normal relations with Russia.
Category: Head Stories
A Russian joke goes like this: “Question: why can there be no color revolution in the United States? Answer: because there are no US Embassies in the United States.” Funny, maybe, but factually wrong: I believe that a color revolution is being attempted in the USA right now. Politico seems to feel the same way. See their recent cover: While I did predict that “The USA is about to face the worst crisis of its history” as far back as October of last year, a month before the elections, I have to admit that I am surprised and amazed at the magnitude of the struggle which we see taking place before our eyes. It is now clear that the Neocons did declare war on Trumpand some, like Paul Craig Roberts, believe that Trump has now returned them the favor. I sure hope that he is right. Let’s look at one telling example:
Even amidst a cacophony of nearly nonstop media fusillades against President Trump, the New York Times’ charge has stood out. After months of stories presenting Donald Trump as a sexual predator, business fraudster, puppet of Vladimir Putin, tax dodger, walking emolument disaster and whatever else it can dream up, the New York Times called Trump a liar in a prominent headline—proclaiming “Meeting with Top Lawmakers, Trump Repeats an Election Lie.” Speaking in a closed door meeting with congressional leaders, Trump had apparently claimed that he would have won the popular vote were it not for the votes of millions of noncitizens.
Since Donald Trump became President of the United States, we have been witnessing some interesting developments in Syria. We have only fragmentary and seemingly unconnected information at this time, but, as one puts the pieces of the puzzle together, it appears likely that some kind of deeper level of coordination between the US and Russia exists. While it cannot be said with certainty, Trump and Putin have probably agreed to cooperate in the fight against Daesh in Syria without making it publicly known. These represent only intentions, especially after the misunderstanding in recent days about joint strikes between Moscow and Washington against Daesh in Syria.
Draghi’s speech at an investment conference in London boosted markets at the time and forced down Spain and Italy’s borrowing costs after saying; “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough.” The markets responded because they were effectively being manipulated. Known as “Outright Monetary Transactions” the scheme was to have been deployed alongside a QE programme from March 2015, itself racking up ¢80billion a month. Several trillion euros later and the EU looks as precarious as ever with growth a distant memory.
During his inaugural speech, President Trump clearly and forcefully outlined the strategic political-economic policies he will pursue over the next four years. Anti-Trump journalist, editorialists, academics and experts, who appear in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have repeatedly distorted and lied about the President’s program as well as his critique of existing and past policies. We will begin by seriously discussing President Trump’s critique of the contemporary political economy and proceed to elaborate on his alternatives and its weaknesses. President Trump’s Critique of the Ruling Class The centerpiece of Trump’s critique of the current ruling elite is the negative impact of its form of globalization on US production, trade and fiscal imbalances and on the labor market. Trump cites the fact that US industrial capitalism has drastically shifted the locus of its investments, innovations and profits overseas as an example of globalization’s negative effects. For two decades many politicians and pundits have bemoaned the loss of well-paid jobs and stable local industries as part of their campaign rhetoric or in public meetings, but none have taken any effective action against these most harmful aspects of globalization. Trump denounced them as “all talk and no action” while promising to end the empty speeches and implement major changes.
By leaving Saudi Arabia and other key terrorism sponsors off his “Muslim ban,” President Trump shows the same cowardice and dishonesty that infected the Bush and Obama administrations. President Trump’s ban against letting people from seven mostly Muslim countries enter the United States looks to many like a thinly concealed bias against a religion, but it also is a troubling sign that Trump doesn’t have the nerve to challenge the false terrorism narrative demanded by Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israeli-Saudi narrative, which is repeated endlessly inside Official Washington, is that Iran is the principal sponsor of terrorism when that dubious honor clearly falls to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni-led Muslim states, including Pakistan, nations that did not make Trump’s list.
A top Donald Trump advisor has asked the mainstream media in the US to keep its mouth shut as the news organisations have been “humiliated” by the general elections results and he repeatedly described them as “the opposition party” of the current administration. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” Stephen K Bannon, Chief White House Strategist for President Donald Trump told The New York Times in a conference call. “I want you to quote this. The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the US,” Bannon said.
The Obama presidency ends after eight years of intense controversy. Elected on the promise to make a clean break with the previous Republican administration, to mitigate the effects of globalization, and to resolve social inequities, it instead exacerbated the global situation, in the process accelerating the decline of the United States. Barack Obama rode into office on a wave of enthusiasm encapsulated in the hopeful slogan ‘Yes We Can’. Soon, reality set in and forced the administration to deal with the influence exerted by the deep state. A mythological monster with five heads, it essentially includes Wall Street, large industrial corporations, the intelligence agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO, etc.), the military (war industry), and the mainstream media (large publishing groups and television).
British Prime Minister Theresa May told UK media that she would «press» US President Donald Trump to support the NATO military alliance when she visits Washington DC this week. May said she will remind Trump that NATO is the «bulwark of our defense». The meeting comes at an awkward time as news reports emerged also this week that a British nuclear missile test went badly wrong and targeted the US. The British submarine-launched intercontinental missile reportedly occurred last June. The test took place off the coast of Florida and the target area was supposed to be thousands of kilometers away in the southern Atlantic Ocean, apparently somewhere near the British colonial territory of St Helena, off Africa.