Category Archives: American Domestic Affairs

FTAC – American Moderates – Caught in the Middle of the Great Divide

15 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation

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This past election season suggests that my fellow Americans have drifted — by way of whatever stimulus — into the “New Nationalism” represented by Trump and the toxic Far Left “Red-Green” impulses that have gotten deep into the Democratic Party.

When information is unreliable or the public can no longer make sense of it, political power may be shifted to a more informed elite of uncertain character. The uncertainty seemed about equal during the election season, but we all know that Paul Manafort proved an embarrassment and liability to the Trump campaign, and the relationship with Russia remains a presence as Moscow blithely participates in the barbarism on display in Syria.

I think Americans and others should be familiar with web searches along the lines of —

Trump, Manafort
Trump, Sergei Millian
Manafort, Kalimnik

I think Islamic Terrorism has been used to stimulate both patriotic nationalism in Moscow’s targets and to promote a loopy combination of interests representing “old comrades” and neo-Islamist Muslims.

What has happened to those closer to the “center of the aisle?

I think we’re here but positioned only to respond the amplification of politics as described — “Brown” vs “Red-Green” — across the two-party divide.

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Also in Media: Press | Newsroom | “Cardin Statement on Rex Tillerson’s Nomination as Secretary of State” | Ben Cardin – United States Senator for Maryland | December 13, 2016

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Politics, Russia, United States of America

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“I am deeply troubled by Mr. Tillerson’s vocal opposition to U.S. sanctions on Russia following its illegal invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea, Ukraine, and his close personal relationship with Vladimir Putin. Exxon Mobil also has a troubling history with climate science and the environment. Mr. Tillerson has demonstrated he knows the corporate world and can put his shareholders’ interests first, but can he be a respected Secretary of State that puts the national security interests of the American people first? It remains to be seen.“

I also want to know more about Mr. Tillerson’s worldview, because I found many of President-elect Trump’s foreign policy statements as a candidate, and now as the next President of the United States, to be disturbing at best and frightening at worst.  And I know many of our allies did and do as well.“

As the Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I look forward to meeting with Mr. Tillerson as I lead my Democratic colleagues through a thorough, thoughtful confirmation process where we will scrutinize his record, experience and qualifications for the job.

For the complete press release — Press | Newsroom | Ben Cardin – United States Senator for Maryland – 12/14/2016.

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FTAC – Briefly On American Secular Governance

11 Sunday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, A Little Wisdom, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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The Constitution emphasizes equality for all beneath the law and forbids the establishment of a relationship between the state and any church, mosque, synagogue, or other symbol of faith. ALL are free here to practice their faith — in private and at private expense — in a civil and lawful manner.

The United States is a Christian-majority state, but it is not a Christian state by law or even exclusively so within the spirit of its laws. It’s true inheritance may be characterized as “Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian”. To the extent that Islam has borrowed from Judaism and recognized Christianity and in the better aspects of the Qur’an, say those emphasizing freedom of religion (“There is no compulsion”) and integrity (Muhammad’s emphasis speaking the truth), we’re good as a secular humanist society.

If one were to take the coldest view of the political science attending “Allahu Akbar Terrorism”, it would be to note that each attack has naturally promoted traditional patriotic nationalist and religious responses.  “Damned Arabs, damned Muzzies” shouts a part of the public and off it goes to Brexit in one state and resurgent white bread Christianity in another.

The truth about that comfortable extremism — often our own! — may be anchored elsewhere.

Last week, BackChannels noted the data-in-press for Bashar al-Assad’s incubation of ISIS in Syria.

In light of or coinciding with Moscow’s KGB resurrection, BackChannels has promoted note of Soviet Era Russia’s long dalliance with terrorism and the engagement of the same in the agitation and propaganda dimension known as “Active Measures”.

Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Al-Monitor, “The Meshaal-Lavrov meeting shows Russia’s interest in the Palestinian cause and comes as a continuation of the periodic meetings held by Hamas with regional and international parties. However, there were no discussions in the meeting regarding the possibility of Russia playing the role of a mediator to reactivate the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, although Lavrov and Meshaal have stressed its importance in general.”

Amer, Adnan Abu.  “Is Russia Hamas’ bridge to global diplomacy?”  Cynthia Milan, Translator.  Al-Monitor, August 24, 2015.

And from whence derived the “Middle East Conflict”?

Have a look at BackChannel’s October 2016 note on “Palestinian KGB”.

This blog also may be searched for “Russia, anti-Semitism” for further enrichment — but as much may return this note to the wisdom of secular governance and its producing for all of its constituents equality under the law and zero, zilch, nada, never ever compulsion to either choose an “official religion” nor feel intimidated in the classroom or anywhere else as regards having by way of choice or legacy a different minority path.

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FTAC – Trump’s Choice and Moscow

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, North America, United States of America

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1. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-making-inquiry-ex-trump-campaign-manager-s-foreign-ties-n675881 – 11/1/2016.

2. http://uawire.org/news/media-manafort-s-deputy-was-linked-to-russian-intelligence – 9/8/2016.

3. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/08/meet-the-man-who-is-spinning-for-donald-trump-in-russia.html – 8/22/2016.

Alex Jones? “Active Measures” – confusion, disinformation, information warfare, manipulation — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

Track the themes – 1, 2, and 3 – and have your say as I’ve had mine.

Intervening and other variables:

— President Elect Trump may be getting the education through briefings that he seems not to have had when standing before the public as Candidate Trump.

–President Elect Trump has not “stepped off” as President in either action or words.

IF in his foreign affairs he gives NATO full support and continues blocking neo-imperial Moscow at Crimea and continues the struggle with Syria, good, but if he caves to his authoritarian narcissism in the manner of Erdogan and Orban, we may never recover our meaning or stature — and Moscow will happily continue spreading its absolutism and the chaos and destruction it pushes ahead of itself.

Not only America but the free world — EU, NATO, the “democratic open societies of the west” and other democratic societies worldwide — have worries with President Elect Trump.

Those who have suffered beyond imagination in Syria in relation to Bashar al-Assad’s shaping of that war into “Assad vs The Terrorists” exist today inside a purgatory special to totalitarian Hell, a place between Assad’s sadism matched by Moscow’s own and its military presence, and, sigh, “The Terrorists”, whom Assad helped developed (go ahead and click and look over the points and references made the earlier BackChannels post).

Ukraine, which “leaned west” in its revolt against Viktor  Yanukovych and his manner of little black book keeping, works with a different problem, i.e., Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, but it has the same worry: what does America mean today?  What does and what will “Washington” represent in the spectrum of politics between “political absolutism” — autocracy, fascism, kleptocracy, totalitarianism — and a responsible and responsive democratic governance possessed of integrity?

Reference

BackChannels.  “How Assad Helped Develop ISIL”.  November 12, 2016.

BackChannels.  “Syria — “Assad vs The Terrorists”: How ISIS Defends Assad.”  October 2, 2015.

Dilanian, Robert Windrem, William M. Arkin, and Tom Winter.  “FBI making Inquiry Into Ex-Trump Campaign Manager’s Foreign Ties.”  NBC News, November 1, 2016.

Mak, Tim and Katie Zavadski.  “Meet the Man Who is Spinning for Donald Trump in Russia.”  The Daily Beast, September 8, 2016.

UA Wire.  “Media: Manafort’s deputy was linked to Russian intelligence.”  August 22, 2016.

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Arson as Terror – Haifa: Known – Gatlinburg, Tennessee – Under Investigation

30 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, North America, Russia, United States of America

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Update – December 1, 2016

God may have given man imagination for fun —  and we may have given ourselves empiricism to outwit imagination and defend ourselves from our own God-given errors.

Accused of setting the Gatlinburg fires, or at least two of them: Keith Eugene Mann, 49, of Franklin, North Carolina.

http://www.ky3.com/content/news/Death-toll-climbs-to-7-for-wildfires-in-Tennessee-403858096.html – 11/30/2016

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdnc/pr/franklin-nc-man-arrested-federal-arson-charge – 11/30/2016.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article118033648.html – 11/30/2016.

Sorry, Russia; sorry, Mr. Putin — on this one, BackChannels may have been wrong . . . but this is how it may go with “hybrid warfare” and the keeping of kleptocratic fellow travelers like that Ayatollah Khamenei.  With the appearance of a mysterious and large fire in an iconic American setting, one might well be found a little bit . . . touchy.

However, the Charlotte Observer piece wraps up with this note:

Officials have said some of the wildfires in the western part of the state are believed to be the work of arsonists. Gov. Pat McCrory has posted rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest of arsonists.

This note will have to be about national security and possibility in light of the “Phantoms of the Cold War” (e.g., Putin’s revival of the KGB, Russia’s behavior in Syria, and the invasion and, for the time being, annexation of Crimea) and the fact that “active measures”, “hybrid warfare”, the long Soviet relationship with terrorism and Moscow’s present inability to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organizations are real things.

Investigators (and armchair adventurers): leave no stone unturned.

Background — It Makes for Good Fiction, But It May Have Applied

Moscow Apartment Bombings

Satter, David.  “The Unsolved Mystery Behind the Act of Terror that Brought Putin to Power.”  National Review, August 17, 2016.

Two Major Fires

Haifa, Israel

Amid warnings from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel will consider arson an act of terrorism, Israeli police have arrested at least 13 people suspected of starting a series of wildfires that have burned around the country for four days . . . .

There is video evidence that the Haifa fire was an act of arson, a spokesman for the Haifa Fire Department told Israel’s Channel 2 Friday.

A blaze Thursday in Zichron Ya’acov, about 20 miles south of Haifa, also was caused by arsonists, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said Thursday.

http://www.wnd.com/2016/11/arrests-after-arson-terrorism-in-israel/#4qgbbg4LwUuFTwIy.99

Gatlinburg, Tennessee, USA

gat-prkhqtwcrpav

Google Maps, November 30, 2016.

Officials initially reported additional fire activity near the Park Headquarters area, as well as a spot fire between Elkmont and Newfound Gap Road off of the Sugarland Mountain Trail approximately 1 mile south of the Husky Gap Trail intersection.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/us/wildfires-lead-to-evacuation-of-gatlinburg/ar-AAkSBHh – 11/29/2016.

The fire that sparked the dozen other blazes was “human-caused,” National Park Service spokeswoman Dana Soehn said, without elaborating.

The blaze is under investigation.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/29/us/gatlinburg-fires/ – 11/30/2016.

Manipulation — “gaslighting” – has long been associated with “malignant narcissism“.

In  the original sense of the word, the narcissist would rearrange his intended victim’s surroundings without the victim’s knowledge, an effort made to drive the same into madness.

For the purposes of political psychology, BackChannels applies the term to the creation of an entire “theater of the real”, i.e., and as with the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” (cited for background at the top of this post), the intent is to produce an event and spectacle designed to promote a political outcome favorable to the actor.

A near example would be that of the fireman-arsonist who sets the fire, so that he may later show up and share in the heroic glory of putting it out.

The disconnections between Moscow, the encouragement of the terrorism produced by others (or Moscow would have refused to meet with PFLP – Nov. 2014) and would have long ago designated Hamas a terrorist organizations — it has so far refused to take that step), may make the discovery of empirical linkage all but impossible — but revisit the “Moscow Apartment Bombings” and then have a look at the almost under-the-radar firebombings of Haifa and, potentially, the fires burning in the mountains in the vicinity of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, one of America’s true heartland locations, Dollywood and all.

Stockholm, Sweden

The Scandinavian country has been plagued with arsonist thugs setting vehicles alight, with hundreds of cars burning out since 2015.

In 2016 alone, more than 70 cars have been destroyed as police struggle to combat the increasing violence and criminal activity in the famously liberal country.

The latest video shows three cars in Hallunda in southern Stockholm engulfed by flames as firefighters battle to put out the blaze.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/738151/Sweden-Stockholm-car-fire-epidemic-rage-no-go-zone – 11/30/2016.

Is the hand of Moscow behind “Islamic Terrorism” in the United States?

Is there a “meta”connection between fires set in Haifa, Gatlinburg, and Stockholm?

BackChannels invites readers to explore its references and sources and weigh for themselves the depth of the presence of the “Phantoms of the Cold War”, if any, in the recent spate of arson with the public as target.

Additional Reference

BackChannels.  “FTAC — ‘How ISIL Developed'”.  November 12, 2016.

BackChannels.  “It’s Not Islam — It’s Moscow.”  July 15, 2016.

Batchelor, Tom.  “Russian spies are influencing major EU decisions.”  Express UK, January 18, 2016.

Collinson, Stephen.  “Why the alleged Russian spy ring matters.”  CNN Politics, January 28, 2015.

McGreal, Chris.  “How Russian spies infiltrated suburban America.”  The Guardian, June 29, 2010.

Orton, Kyle.  “How Russia Manipulates Islamic Terrorism.”  The Syrian Intifada, September 8, 2015.

Staff.  “One-third of about 90 fires caused by arson, police estimate.”  The Times of Israel, November 27, 2016.

Wikipedia.  “Active Measures”.

Wikipedia.  “Illegals Program” (Russian Agents).

Wikipedia.  “Soviet espionage in the United States”.

Wikipedia.  “Spetsnaz” (Russian Sabateur and Special Forces).

Wikipedia.  “Terrorism and the Soviet Union”.

Related News – Updated

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/gatlinburg-officials-a-fire-for-the-history-books/357912872 – 11/30/2016/1347 (time is time first posted for the cited URL).

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/11/what_caused_the_gatlinburg_wil.html – last updated 12/1/2016.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/gatlinburg_fire_update_death_t.html – last updated 12/2/2016.

http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/gatlinburg-tennessee-fire-cause-arson-arrest-arrests-terrorism-isis-al-qaeda-terrorist-israel-fires-ember-bomb-suspect-forest-jihad/ – 11/30/2016.

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Lunev’s 1998 Statement – Moscow and the Mob

27 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Russia, transnational crime

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I have no fear of death now whether it comes from cancer or from a paid Russian assassin.  but I do feel I have an obligation to use my experience to warn America of the dirty tricks that can be played against her.  And if I have one message for my adopted country, it is this: the Cold War is not over; the new cold war is between the Russian mafia and the United States; and in this new cold war, the Russian mafia has every tool, every weapon, every intelligence asset at its disposal that the old Soviet Union had.  America is facing a nation led by gangsters — gangsters who have nuclear weapons . . . .

Lunev, Stanislav and Ira Winkler.  Through the Eyes of the Enemy:  Russia’s highest ranking military defector reveals why Russia is more dangerous than ever.  Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1998.

” . . . and some of those weapons are actually on American soil, as I will explain” finished the ellipses left in the quotation block.

One hesitates when typing such a sentence.

At minimum, the import calls for digression.

Was Lunev’s 1999 book disinforming as regards the “suitcase bomb” question?

Or has the matter been suppressed?

Or has the asserton been just too large and scary a possibility to hang on for long without donning the tinfoil hat?

That too is a possibility as searches for a related 60 Minutes report — “The Perfect Terrorist Weapon” — produces reference online, but to get at the episode appears to involve hitting one of dozens of iffy “torrent” type (illicit share site) web addresses.

BackChannels will plead with both the legal and faint of heart on that potentially disastrous next step — and not take it.

So one may toss Lunev’s page-turning statement into the “don’t know /won’t know” bin, at least, so BackChannels and its readers may hope, for a good long time.

Less questionable: the Russian state as a “mafia state” and international mafia enterprise:

Investigators in Spain have been at the vanguard of the fight against Russian organized crime, warning fellow NATO members for years of the dangers posed by what they call state-sanctioned syndicates, an issue that’s become more acute since the conflict in Ukraine rekindled Cold War distrust.

After a briefing by Grinda, one of the prosecutors, in Madrid in 2010, U.S. officials concluded that Putin runs a “virtual mafia” state where the activities of criminal networks are indistinguishable from those of the government, according to a classified cable from the U.S. embassy in the Spanish capital that was published by WikiLeaks.

Russian security services control criminal groups and use them to do things the government “cannot acceptably do,” Grinda was cited as telling U.S. officials at the time.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-29/putin-allies-aided-russian-mafia-in-spain-prosecutors-say – 6/29/2016.

At the base of this post is a 14-minute trailer for a 91-minute documentary (subtitled) about Russian mafia — “Thieves by Law (Ganavim Ba Hok).”

Additional Reference

CNN.  “Former Russian spy Col. Stanislav Lunev’s reaction to FBI agent’s arrest for spying.”  February 20, 2001.

Committee on National Security, Military Research and Development Subcommittee, House of Representatives.  “OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM PENNSYLVANIA, CHAIRMAN, MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT SUBCOMMITTEE”.  Inquiry into Moscow’s potential deployment of “man-portable nuclear weapons”.  August 4, 1998.

Drudge Report Archives.  “Lebed: 100 Nukes Missing in Russia.”  Norris Carden’s e-mail collection of Drudge’s Special Reports. September 5, 1997.

Meyer, Josh.  “Ex-Soviet Spy Testifies on Hidden Weapons.”  Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2000.

National Terror Alert.  “Suitcase Nukes”.

Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).  “The Perfect Terrorist Weapon.”  Comment on 60 Minutes program aired September 7, 1997.

Yablokov, Alexei.  “Comments on Russia’s Atomic Suitcase Bombs.”  Frontline, PBS, n.d.

PDF Format

Finckenauer, James O. and Yuri A. Voronin.  “The Threat of Russian Organized Crime.”  Issues in International Crime, NCJ, 2001.

Russia as Mafia State – Fast Links

In time, Louie and Z left the shores of the Atlantic for Zurich, Switzerland – and a far more menacing situation: A meeting with a high-ranking Russian General offering his government’s arsenal for sale.

“We’re talking long-range missiles, tanks, submarines, everything,” Z said.

The danger was driven home last week with the New York indictment of notorious Russian arms dealer Victor Boot, captured in Thailand in March. He was charged with selling weapons to a terrorist group to be used to kill Americans.

That’s hardly a scene from “The Sopranos.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/undercover-look-inside-the-russian-mob/ – 5/13/2008.

http://www.rferl.org/a/putins-mafia-statecraft/27329898.html – 10/27/2015.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/23/crimean-gangland-putin-s-seaside-mafia-state.html – 6/23/2015.

http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_security_concerns_russian_mafia_back_on_agenda7083 – 7/25/2016:

In the 1990s, the so-called “Russian Mafia” was Europe’s new nightmare, an overblown threat surging west into Europe instead of Soviet tanks. In the 2000s, it had become a cliché, the thriller-writer’s staple. Now it is back on the agenda, with serious concerns that organised crime has become a ‘fifth column’ of the Kremlin’s effort to undermine European security.

 

http://uatoday.tv/crime/mafia-friends-of-president-putin-wanted-in-spain-642267.html – 5/3/2016.

http://uatoday.tv/crime/seven-members-of-russian-mafia-arrested-in-spain-681260.html – 6/28/2016.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-29/putin-allies-aided-russian-mafia-in-spain-prosecutors-say – 6/29/2016.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/armine-sahakyan/the-export-other-countrie_b_11009200.html – 7/15/2016.

Wikipedia Entries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Lunev

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FTAC – A Note on ‘Trump – Manafort – Millian – Kilimnik’ and the Irrelevance of Old News

25 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology

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In paraphrase, the prompt was how would Hitler have been viewed if he had not produced the genocide of the Jews of Europe, i.e., The Holocaust.

Hitler would not have been Hitler without the ‘racial” foundations of Nazism already laid through the 1920s.

I’ve noted only recently the near concurrence of Stalin’s installation as the leader of the Soviet Union, the establishment in 1928 of the Muslim Brotherhood (in response to western colonial abuses, but also accessing religious supremacist thought in defense of Egyptian Muslims), and the already-built intellectual ferment — papers circulating in universities — for Nazism.

I have tried venturing toward the kind of conversation Stalin may (!) have had with Hitler in the course of coming to a delusional agreement over the parsing of Europe between them and then Hitler’s treacherous move against the same.

It’s too soon to draw the comparison “Stalin : Hitler” as “Putin : ? ” 　 , but that there is a conversation between feudal powers may be something that cannot be either doubted nor overlooked nor in content — i.e., what’s the story behind the public’s glimpses of Manafort, Millian, and Kilimnik? — known.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/paul-manafort-ukraine-kiev-russia-konstantin-kilimnik-227181

What appears to my _imagination_ is a conversation involving medieval lords and their knights, who are today well paid “nobility” suited up in suits and carrying briefcases full of explosive agreements. 　

From the Politico article:

Joking aside, Trump has demonstrated more interest in Russia’s affairs than in perhaps any other area of foreign policy. And his laissez faire approach toward Russia’s confrontational relations with its neighbors, combined with his open admiration of its authoritarian President Vladimir Putin and his employment of Manafort, have led experts from across the political spectrum to predict that a Trump presidency would augur to the Kremlin’s benefit.

How far passed is the election season “past” as America moves toward the inauguration of its new President?

The conversation prompted here is only quasi-public or constrained by the social distribution chosen for the original topic post. Therefore, we may be of the public, but we may also note in passing that this now old “Trump-Manafort” news has been discarded from the public conversation.

As news, it’s old news.

As a theme (for foreign policy wonks) it may remain relevant, but as much becomes a conversation between specialized journalists and researchers, and therefore politically irrelevant.

The public will rush on to the next day’s headlines, and the same will overlay, blanket, and suffocate the previous day’s curiosity and its items of interest.

The powerful and wealthy of the world have always inhabited a world greater than their own family, clan, tribe, and nation-state: whether Chinese political elites or Forbes-listed billionaires, the world has no boundaries and its laws must suit them for them to keep them, provided, lol, they keep a lot of other interested parties — above the table and quite some distance beneath it — interested in their success and largesse.

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FTAC – Conservatives – Duped by Putin? You Decide

18 Friday Nov 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Russia, United States of America

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“Russia is hitting the groups that we are backing.”

This is absolutely right — and here’s why:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/12/ftac-how-isil-developed/

Assad incubated the al-Qaeda types all the way to ISIL!

And he did exactly by preferring other strategies and targets — noncombatants, including the sniping of pregnant women, and, of course western-leaning Free Syrian Army (FSA) and others in the field. Providing leeway provided room for ISIL to develop and play the convenient foil in “Assad vs The Terrorists”.

Please don’t believe me, but rather check out the significance of “Russia is hitting the groups that we are backing” by using and questioning the same references and checking them as well.

I would beg conservatives not to ennoble Russian (Putin-Assad-Khamenei) barbarism in Syria.

Some reminders:

http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/05/19/how-putin-became-president/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_and_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures

Have conservatives been duped (along with everyone else) by Putin’s changing postures over time?

It’s a question worth asking this day.

Posted by Gladbecker, November 12, 2016.

Above — and within the “awesome conversation” — the inspiration for this post.

Beneath — what Assad, as flanked by Putin and Khamenei, have done to Syria in the “cause” of medieval political absolutism.

Posted by Muhammed Al Mousa, September 4, 2016.

BackChannels believes American and Israeli and other conservatives have been duped by Putin and the arc of a narrative that began 25 years ago with the dissolving of the Soviet Union and the initial touting of capitalism and democracy that produced confidence in Putin as a leader who would bring order and stability to Russia while producing a civil and free society.

Instead, President Putin has been busy reproducing the Soviet-style “security state”, demonstrating a complete lack of conscience in the engineering of the Syrian Conflict, and, in general, establishing legitimacy for “political absolutism” and barbarism.

In essence, Putin represents the rule of the strong as more powerful than the rule of law, and, ironically, the conservative “new nationalists” of the open democracies — those who should be fully supporting the rule-of-law and other classically liberal and western values — appear to be helping him do it.

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