Category Archives: Politics

FTAC: The Phantoms of Earlier Days

07 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Philosophy, Poetry, Political Psychology, Politics

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Anti-Semitism : Medieval Political Tool

Islamic Supremacists : Civilizational Narcissists

Why?

Isolation somewhere at some time

&

Because he could; because they could.

Later and latest: “Moscow” — today, a political police state, still fundamentally feudal.

Moscow-Tehran : Red-Green ; Brown-Green: all about force in power.

Mudar Zahran – Mahmoud Abbas has the KGB record, a record that represents a relationship that never disappears. It’s the KGB that set up Arafat and the PLO — and it has been the Palestinian main ranks that have been made to suffer on behalf of those who have mightily enriched themselves.

Nadiya Al-Noor – is there a “modern world” capable of opposing the persistence of the medieval mode in the lives of states?

I think the general conversation on the middle east conflict across the forums has grown way beyond the Che image and poetry of the “freedom fighter”.

We’re all freedom fighters these days.

We should take a good look around at “what was” and needs be no more.

The Soviet Union dissolved in bankruptcy officially on December 25, 1991, i.e., more than 25 years ago, and its offspring Putin strives mightily to sustain feudalism and associated motivations for conflict because his kind of narcissism loves appearing heroic amid the chaos and destruction he himself has created. He’s representative of the worlds so opposed to classical liberalism, justice, and life itself, and perhaps we may now dismiss the phantoms of earlier days.

Are we becoming public figures — are we public figures — enough for leaving the names in?

On this post, I think so.

There’s a lot alluded to in the excerpt, and I incline to leave it be but with the echo of its question:

Is there a modern world capable of opposing the persistence of the medieval mode in the lives of states?

–33–

FTAC: MEC – Passing Into History (One Hopes One Day Soon)

04 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestinia, Political Psychology, Politics

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Q: “Is it our psychology or our nature that prevents us from being peace loving people?”

A: As regards the “middle east conflict”: _malign and manipulated_ psychology.

Post-WWII, post-Nazi Germany, Soviet Era agitation-propaganda leveraging anti-Semitic sentiment –> “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation“, i.e., the myth that the Jews were out to take over the middle east —

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/

_Reflexive Control and the Encouragement of Absolute Nationalism_

Terrorism promotes intense concern with basic security wherever, however, and for whatever reason politically-focused violence takes place. In crayon fashion here (I’m pressed for time this morning), political violence associated with the Palestinian cause, from the air hijackings of the 1970s to the latest murder by car, essentially promotes Israeli nationalist fervor and the western program. The deeper problem: it never helped the Palestinians but rather the piratical leaderships drawing income from the sustaining of the conflict. Arafat passed away a multi-millionaire; Abbas has accumulated a similar share of wealth; Haniyeh and Mashaal have developed reputations as billionaires.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

Israelis and Palestinians genuinely tired of near 70 years of artificially sustained conflict — and the “information / disinformation psychology” has been a part of keeping things just as they have been — may need to bring these questions up with “Moscow”.

Historically, Moscow has been intensely anti-Semitic — https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/27/excerpt-1920s-the-spread-of-hate-russia-germany-laqueur/ — but under Putin’s guidance, somewhat opposite today. Things have changed even though Putin continues to foster or control or appreciate (choose any option) kleptocratic absolute power. This seems to me something Palestinian intelligentsia need to consider and research independently.

I often note that “the Hebrews are back in the Land of the Hebrews”, a trope that lends emphasis to authentic ethnolinguistic cultural affiliation with land. At the moment, there are fewer than 7,000 living language cultures on the planet, and each developed their language somewhere at some time. Baloch, Kurds, Hebrews, Pashtun have land claims as do others. I may grant that after 70 years of isolation and wicked disinformation, the Palestinians need not be the leading edge of “Arab pan-nationalism” which should have passed away with the Soviet Union (at the end of 1991). One may urge reconsideration for having become unique but perhaps misguided by the politics of a much earlier era and, all may hope, one passing finally into history.

 

End the Preoccupation With the Jews!

Easier said than done?

The world’s political science scholars may be unraveling the relationship between Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany in the first half of the 20th Century,  and today there’s plenty for reading as regards Moscow’s efforts to sustain a piratical feudalism even as it runs short on ready cash and the rest, less ready, appears sunk in western assets and banking institutions.

Change, so BackChannels may observe, must come slowly where it involves BIG Family, Military, and Religious Institutions.  In the feudal mode, money moves along more by way of relationships than by way of merit or virtue.  That’s life.  Such themes will never be black and white but they may be better balanced for ethical and moral merit — greater rule of law; greater real justice — in the long run.

Whether the latest assault on innocents will be quelled by security organizations or grown into an absurd set of what should be archaic struggles based in race and religion and any number of assorted lesser discriminators — black/white; Asian/European; gay/straight; single/married; poor/rich; etc. — we together shall see.

–33–

Moscow’s Crimean Military and Nuclear Shell Game

21 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Politics, Ukraine

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Today:

http://uaposition.com/latest-news/russia-deploys-nuclear-warheads-crimea/ – 5/21/2017

Note and update 5/22/2017: BackChannels has trusted UA Position but hasn’t seen second source corroboration on the Crimea story.  Source seems to be Crimean Tatar via

http://news.liga.net/news/politics/14754659-dzhemilev_rossiya_razmestila_v_krymu_shest_yadernykh_boegolovok.htm – 5/20/2017.

Related by Euromaidan Press and published in April 2017:

An alarmist announcement in one publication associated with the justifiable want of sympathy in the maw of an invading force encourages doubt; however, as noted immediately below and in patched-in sections, open source headlines and reports suggest Russia has been revitalizing once abandoned Cold War Era assets in Crimea.

Within the past year:

June 2016: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russia-threatens-deploy-nuclear-weapons-crimea-13013

June 2016: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-europe-shield-idUSKCN0Z90WT

November 2016: http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/727788/Russia-Vladimir-Putin-Crimea-missile-bunkers-Soviet-Cold-War-global-attack-Nato-Ukraine – “Putin renovates Cold War Missile Bunkers in Crimea as Russia prepares for global assault.”

April 29, 2017: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/russia-weighs-heavily-in-americas-nuclear-plans/article/2621340

May 1, 2017: http://www.newsweek.com/stephen-blank-europeans-should-wake-russia-war-them-590408

May 5, 2017: http://www.newsweek.com/why-russia-nuclear-capable-bombers-flight-near-alaska-595256

Again: has Moscow really planted nuclear missiles in Crimea?

This note comes from the Federation of American Scientists and comments on similar web claims dating back to 2014:

The news media and private web sites are full of rumors that Russia has deployed nuclear weapons to Crimea after it invaded the region earlier this year. Many of these rumors are dubious and overly alarmist and ignore that a nuclear-capable weapon is not the same as a nuclear warhead.

Several U.S. lawmakers who oppose nuclear arms control use the Crimean deployment to argue against further reductions of nuclear weapons. NATO’s top commander, U.S. General Philip Breedlove, has confirmed that Russian forces “capable of being nuclear” are being moved to the Crimean Peninsula, but also acknowledged that NATO doesn’t know if nuclear warheads are actually in place.

Kristensen, Hans M.  “Rumors About Nuclear Weapons in Crimea.”  FAS, December 18, 2014.

Nuclear arms agreements may have comfort the public of an earlier day, but ambiguity would seem to bedevil the field.

From BackChannels’ open source perspective, there are no authoritative or official sources or statements.  What appears in the chronologically ordered headlines, however, suggests a course in the redevelopment of Cold War Era military facilities.

Additional reference:

Gertz, Bill.  “Russia Building New Underground Nuclear Command Posts: U.S. intelligence detects dozens of hardened bunkers for leaders.”  Free Beacon, August 15, 2016.

A few twists and turns further and the driver pulled over to the side of the road. He was saying something about a monastery, and pointing to a series of blue roofs that rose up above the trees ahead of us. Presumably, it was the only viable tourist destination that he could think of in this vicinity. He seemed friendly enough, so I risked blowing our cover – leaning forward to say, “Objekt Dva-Dva-Adin.”

Our driver laughed, repeated the name of the colossal ruin, once a well kept military secret, and turned the car around.

The Bohemian Blog.  “Inside Objekt 221: An Abandoned Soviet Stronghold in the Crimea.”  June 4, 2015.

It is a functioning military base with an anti-ship missile system,” the villager told a Reuters reporter who visited the area in July.

The bunkers are just one small part of a new Russian programme to militarise the Crimean peninsula. Based on recent site observations by Reuters, accounts from locals, media reports and official Russian data, Moscow has reanimated multiple Soviet-built facilities in the region, built new bases and stationed soldiers there

Reuters.  “In Crimea, Russia signals military resolve with new and revamped bases.”  November 1, 2016.

Related: Scandinavian Defense

I had started this separate post last night, but as things may move fast in Crimea and Syria — readers may wish also to take a look at Russia’s cash position as regards funding its aggression and barbarism against the autonomous, democratic, or western-leaning states of its surrounding world — this brief referencing may as well ride along on the same because, essentially, the material is about the same thing: Moscow’s brandishing its biggest gun, i.e., the threat of nuclear exchange and all that may follow it.

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2016/10/washington-quietly-reinforcing-europes-northern-flank/132656/ – 10/26/2016

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-challenge-of-shaping-a-21st-century-integrated-force-for-the-extended-defense-of-norway-the-perspective-of-lt-general-rune-jakobsen/ – 2/16/2017.

https://www.newsbytesapp.com/timeline/World/6909/41038/russia-threat-us-plans-additional-deployments-in-baltic – 5/12/2017.

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-norway-sweden-b-52-air-force-russia-ace-17-2017-5 – 5/19/2017.

https://toinformistoinfluence.com/2017/05/20/finland-norway-and-sweden-are-conducting-a-massive-air-exercise-amid-russia-tensions/ – 5/20/2017.

Related: Libya: Moscow Naval Launch Exercises

https://www.middleeastobserver.org/2017/05/18/what-is-russia-planning-to-do-off-libyas-eastern-coast-next-week/ – 5/18/2017.

https://www.rbth.com/defence/2017/05/19/russia-set-to-test-its-cruise-missiles-near-libyas-coasts_765511 – 5/19/2017.

Chess pieces, demonstrations, exercises, sales, and threats — there’s a mix of prudence and evil that seeps down into the economies of all Big Defense Production states, but Moscow has placed itself in the desperate position of wanting to produce a primary defense industry even while Russians suffer from the funds siphoned away for its foreign ambitions and apparently natural kleptocratic tendencies.

Related: General Russian Defense Industry

Putin is allocating unprecedented amounts of secret funds to accelerate Russia’s largest military buildup since the Cold War, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The part of the federal budget that is so-called black — authorized but not itemized — has doubled since 2010 to 21 percent and now totals 3.2 trillion rubles ($60 billion), the Gaidar Institute, an independent think tank in Moscow, estimates.

Stung by sanctions over Ukraine and oil’s plunge, Putin is turning to defense spending to revive a shrinking economy. The outlays on new tanks, missiles and uniforms highlight the growing militarization that is swelling the deficit and crowding out services such as health care. Thousands of army conscripts will be moved into commercial enterprises for the first time to aid in the rearmament effort.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/06/03/world/putins-black-budget-hides-shift-toward-war-economy-defence-security-absorb-34-spending/#.WSG-YtQrJlY – 6/3/2015

http://carnegieendowment.org/2017/05/03/assessing-russia-s-reorganized-and-rearmed-military-pub-69853 – 5/3/2017.

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

–33–

Israel, Kurdistan, Ukraine – President Trump’s Astonishing (and Breaking) Appearance of Betrayal

16 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics

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TrumpBetrays-170517-1313

Look at it.  Read about it.  Weep.  And then read the update . . . .

First, The Donald dissed Israel with the astonishing statement delivered by a diplomat that the Western Wall was a part of “the Israeli-occupied West Bank”.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-usa-diplomacy-idUSKCN18B2K2 – 5/16/2017

Similar: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/16/hr-mcmaster-trump-western-wall-238451 – 5/16/2017

Related: http://www.sixdaywar.org/content/ReunificationJerusalem.asp

Update on the Western Wall Remark – May 17, 2017

“This isn’t your territory. This is in the West Bank. It is a private visit by the president, and it’s not your business,” responded one US official, according to the Times of Israel.

Israel’s Channel 2 identified the official as David Berns, the political counselor at the US Consulate in Jerusalem, and said he was accompanied by economic adviser Jonathan Shrier, who also was involved in the row.

Source: http://www.pressreader.com/usa/new-york-post/20170517/281655370004552

BackChannels much appreciates the dogged primary journalism.

BackChannels also feels David Berns should have been briefed as to the significance and sovereign possession of the Western Wall.  If he had been apprised of the history involved, then shame on him with little mercy for what he may be suffering through today.

Notes Aaron Klein writing for Breitbart and angling for another knock at the Obama Administration: “Berns is a career officer at the State Department who has been working at the U.S. Consulate since August 2015. In other words, he received his position there during the Obama administration. According to his LinkedIn profile, Berns served from January 2002 until present as a foreign service officer with the State Department.”

Related: https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/88228/white-house-declines-say-whether-western-wall-part-israel/#j8wxPJz0UtICG96i.97

BackChannels News Pass-Along on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/BackChannels/

Next, The Donald as good as told the Kurdish forces now fighting ISIS — an invention partially produced by old Baathist military officers and Assad’s own wishes to produce the image of “Assad v The Terrorists” — that they were “PKK” — an all but defunct communist movement born in the late 1970s — and he would cooperate with Turkey in their suppression.

If you’re informed, you know what just took place, especially if you have been fighting ISIS as part of the “YPG” (People’s Protection Units) or “YPJ” Women’s Protection Units).

One correspondent noted that in the joint appearance, “The Donald cited PKK @ 5:20, whereas Erdoğan cited YPG/PYD @ 11:50.”

True.

In essence, Erdogan appears to have just gotten President Donald J. Trump to not only endorse his dictatorship but the potential for the continuing suppression and potential cultural annihilation of the Kurds who in his benighted opinion should have no defenses at all.

Regarding BackChannels statement about the Kurdish People’s struggle for a unified state:

. . . Turkey pretends on the surface that they are willing to help Kurdish President Barzani in Iraq but behind the scenes, they are doing everything in order to prevent an independent Kurdistan: “They view the Kurdistan issue as a matter of survival for them. As the Kurds of Syria move closer to America and walk away from the PKK and the Marxists, the Turks are trying to paint them as Marxists, Iranian agents, Assad agents and terrorists. It is all in order to prevent the Kurds of Syria from getting access to the sea. That is the primary reason why Erdogan came to the US.”

Sherkoh Abbas speaking on behalf of the Kurdish People and as quoted in the following publication and URL:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/kurdish-dissident-erdogan-to-pressure-trump-into-opposing-kurdish-independence/ – 5/16/2017

Slinging mud stops working when one catches the spatter and gives it a good look.

By way of research a decade ago, BackChannels has come to view the PKK as a marginalized organization with its leader Abdullah Ocalan sitting in a Turkish jail.  The conflation of the old PKK with the whole of Kurdish forces and their aspirations may misguide the public.  BackChannels will try to obtain an up-to-date clarification involving the integration of Kurdish political movements across the several suzerains maintained by adverse hosting/subjugating states.

Millions of Christians in the United States and the Jewish People recognize political defamation and demonization — and readers worldwide should as well.  That the same may be meted to the Kurds by Turkish President Erdogan bodes ill for the western democracies against the feudal absolutism embraced and promoted by Moscow-Tehran.

President Erdogan has turned Turkey into a now de facto dictatorship while the ruling powers in Moscow have resumed their promotion of disingenuous speech — actually . . . lying — and the distribution of “active measures” and related propaganda (just look up “alternative media” and “alternative news” and the garbage that fills the minds of those who patronize the biggest dump of Orwellian “untruth” that has ever been milled out of a basement — where it should have stayed.

Update – On American Cooperation with Turkey on the Defeating of Kurdish Aspirations for Independence – May 17, 2017

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Armored vehicles flying American flags, American soldiers posing for photos with Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militants and incessant reports on US-YPG relations have been the top news in Turkey in recent days, all suggesting that the United States was heading toward an alliance with the Kurds on the Syrian battlefield.

Turkish officials reacted sometimes harshly, sometimes more guardedly, to this alliance in the making. The US administration finally said the last word with statements from their officials that Washington had decided to give direct weapons assistance to the Kurds. Although American officials tried hard to explain that the weapons will be going to the Syrian Democratic Forces, everyone knows that the backbone of that force is the YPG. This radical decision by the Trump administration has naturally become a topic of international politics.

“Will arming of YPG help open Kurdish corridor in Syria?” Al Monitor, May 15, 2017

Perhaps “The Donald” at the podium was schmearing President Erdogan after all.

Yesterday, the day of initial publication for this post, BackChannels installed in the title the hedge, “Appearance of Betrayal”.  With that, readers have perhaps entered a new era, not so much of “Fake News”, a term Trump’s Administration with autocratic tendencies has used to undermine faith in the mainstream media, but of high-level “Fake-Outs”.

Reference

Regarding ISIS

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/04/09/ftac-reprise-how-isil-serves-moscow-damascus-and-tehran/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/09/syria-assad-isil-background/

http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/573/pdf

Regarding President Erdogan Caliphate-Bound Turkish Dictatorship

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/turkey

http://www.dw.com/en/turkey-worst-country-for-media-freedom-in-2016/a-36924382

http://www.dw.com/en/turkeys-constitution-guarantees-press-freedom-but-thats-not-the-whole-story/a-37768976

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/12/15/turkey-silencing-media

https://rsf.org/en/turkey

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fraderike-geerdink-/turkey-election-suppression-blood_b_8420156.html

Regarding the Kurdish People

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21688857-turkeys-president-must-give-up-trying-crush-kurds-instead-he-should-reopen-peace – 1/21/2016

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/what-about-our-human-rights-kurds-feel-force-turkeys-crackdown – 10/6/2016

https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/20/turkey-crackdown-kurdish-opposition – 3/20/2017

Regarding Ukraine

2014: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/18/fact-sheet-us-support-ukraine

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/05/11/russian-actions-donbas-ukraine-foreign-minister/101550540/ – 5/11/2017

KYIV, Ukraine—Using artillery, tanks, and rockets, combined Russian-separatist forces attacked Ukrainian forces along the front lines in eastern Ukraine on Sunday and early Monday morning, highlighting, once again, that the February 2015 cease-fire has failed.

“This is barbarism,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Monday in response to the attacks, according to a tweet from his press secretary, Svyatoslav Tsegolko.

http://dailysignal.com/2017/01/30/this-is-barbarism-ukrainian-troops-on-high-alert-as-war-intensifies/ – 1/30/2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump cast doubt on whether Moscow is backing separatists engaged in the recent escalation of fighting in eastern Ukraine, appearing to side with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has long denied involvement in the conflict despite evidence to the contrary.

Mr. Trump said he did not take offense at the outbreak of a lethal bout of fighting in Ukraine that came within a day of a phone conversation he had with Mr. Putin, saying of the recent clashes, “we don’t really know exactly what that is.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/06/us/politics/ukraine-trump-putin-separatists-poroshenko.html – 2/6/2017

According to multiple accounts, the Trump campaign has successfully worked behind the scenes to make sure the new Republican platform would not pledge the lethal defensive weapons Ukraine has been pleading for from the United States. Trump’s forces have tabled a platform amendment that would call for maintaining or increasing sanctions against Russia, and have substituted “appropriate assistance” for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine’s military. Removing sanctions and blocking lethal military assistance to Ukraine are the two primary goals of Putin’s foreign policy. The Republican platform is handing those goals to Putin on a golden platter.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/07/18/trump-deferring-to-putin-deleted-gop-platforms-call-to-supply-ukraine-with-lethal-defensive-weapons/#1236d19a30ba – 7/18/2016 (election season maneuvering)

Related: http://politics.blog.mystatesman.com/2017/03/06/how-diana-denmans-singular-stand-for-ukraine-revealed-the-trump-campaigns-soft-spot-for-russia/ – 3/6/2017

https://www.unian.info/politics/1819686-us-military-assistance-to-ukraine-opening-up-portals.html – 3/13/2017

http://en.interfax.com.ua/news/economic/419801.html – 5/5/2017

–33–

Also in Media: “Ukraine Freedom March set for May 20 in Washington” | The Ukrainian Weekly | May 14, 2017

14 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in Also in Media, American Domestic Affairs, Politics, Ukraine

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The march – with a full police escort – is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. at the Washington Monument and conclude at the Holodomor Memorial, near Union Station, where a vigil is to be held, concluding at approximately 5:30 p.m.

Among the invited guest speakers are analyst Paul Goble, Peter Borisow, president of the Hollywood Trident Foundation; other noted Ukraine advocates are expected and, at the time of writing, were still being confirmed, among them Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.S. Valeriy Chaly. Clergy from the Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Catholic Churches, as well as leaders of the Jewish and Muslim faiths in Ukraine have been invited to properly represent the people of Ukraine.

As stated by Mr. Skibicki: “We demand that the Russian-backed terrorists immediately vacate the Donbas region and that Crimea be returned to Ukraine. If these demands are not met, we insist on the American government to stick to its promise made in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which is to provide the full and immediate defense of Ukraine by providing modern defensive weapons in order to help the Ukrainian people restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine. We are NOT calling for American troops to be deployed to Ukraine.”

Read More: Ukraine Freedom March set for May 20 in Washington | The Ukrainian Weekly

Notice on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ukrainianfreedommarch/

–33–

Orwell in America – President Trump’s Sudden Firing of FBI Director Comey

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Political Psychology, Political Spychology, Politics, Psychology

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“It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission,” Mr. Trump wrote in a letter to Mr. Comey.

“The FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them,” he wrote.  “Having refused to admit his errors, the director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.”

Ballhaus, Rebecca.  “Trump Fires FBI Director Comey.”  The Wall Street Journal, A1, A4, May 10, 2017.

Comey’s errors?

Publicly commenting after close of investigation on Clinton’s e-mails, an act with which then candidate Trump and later President Trump appeared to have had no issue.

That’s one error.

That’s it.

One possible other, not cited as an error, might be Comey’s heading up the investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 campaign effort and Moscow.

The format of Trump’s ire and its delivery appears to BackChannels that of j’accuse, the Jacobin’s pointing the finger at all suspected of political heresy.

Regarding the President’s claim of having had no business with Russia — it might be true; however, the query may be also complicated by Russia’s feudal gaming over time plus the business class in which he resides.

 

At this point, the reader may wish to keep in mind Moscow’s duplicitous and manipulative feudal character and its kleptocratic ends:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/03/11/reflexive-control-process-allahu-akbar-terrorism-new-nationalism-neo-feudalism/

Motivation?

Feudal wealth; feudal power; absolute and above and beyond questioning — if not rule by divine right, then by way of most worldly thuggery.

Reminder: Flynn

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/donald-trump-2016-russia-today-rt-kremlin-media-vladimir-putin-213833 – 5-6/2016:

I saw the relation with Russia as necessary to the U.S., for the interests of the U.S. We worked very closely with them on the Sochi Olympics. We were working closely with them on the Iranian nuclear deal. We beat Hitler because of our relationship with the Russians, so anybody that looks on it as anything but a relationship that’s required for mutual supporting interests, including ISIS, … that’s really where I’m at with Russia. We have a problem with radical Islamism and I actually think that we could work together with them against this enemy. They have a worse problem than we do.

Flynn’s statement sounds true enough on the surface, but place it beside this analysis of ISIL and it’s role in the east v west, feudal v modern contest:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2017/04/09/ftac-reprise-how-isil-serves-moscow-damascus-and-tehran/

BackChannels thesis: Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran ditched a mild revolutionary opposition in favor of the al-Qaeda type organizations, so as to produce for themselves and the west a political spectacle, “Assad v The Terrorists”, certain to aggrandize themselves while blackmailing and goading the west in the direction of complicity with — or weakness in the face of — each their own totalitarian dictatorships and kleptocracies.

General Michael T. Flynn, proving less than one-hundred percent honest with Vice President Pence in relation to his Moscow-related experience got himself fired in much the same brusque manner as now former FBI Director Comey.

Here’s a smattering of related URLs, but the main thing here is to remind of Flynn’s connection to Trump’s denial of his initial team having had nothing to do with Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/08/15/trump-adviser-michael-t-flynn-on-his-dinner-with-putin-and-why-russia-today-is-just-like-cnn/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-michael-flynn-russia-money-20170316-story.html – 3/16/2017

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/russians-paid-mike-flynn-45k-moscow-speech-documents-show-n734506 – 3/16/2017

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/31/michael-flynn-new-evidence-spy-chiefs-had-concerns-about-russian-ties – 3/31/2016

Reminder: Manafort

The header alone should operate like Proust’s fabled taste of Madeleine, for Manafort falls into place with Yanukovych, Putin’s puppet deposed by cause of his own corruption in Ukraine, and then Sergei Millian — http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/donald-trump-russia-sergei-millian (1/19/2017), Konstantin Kilimnik — http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-russia-manafort-235850 – 3/8/2017 – and on to the dreaded “Steele Dossier”, which has done Trump’s reputation some damage while being simultaneously dismissed for appearing itself beyond corroboration — http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/08/comey-intel-community-could-not-corroborate-trump-dossier/ – 5/8/2017.

Still, “kompromat” aside, there’s Manafort — and then question of how the leading consultant to the world’s bloodiest dictators got on to Trump’s campaign team in the first place.

One may leave that question in the shadows because that’s where it’s bound to live given the silence prized by political mafia and political consultants alike.  However, one may take note of this passage in the Politico article:

Manafort stressed that his work in Ukraine was intended to steer Yanukovych towards more pro-Western policies and more engagement with the European Union. And Kilimnik told POLITICO that “one thing that was grossly under-reported to date is the effort that Paul Manafort undertook to help Ukrainian leaders defend Ukraine’s interests and move the country towards [a European Union] Free Trade Agreement.”

Yet Yanukovych in 2013 backed away from a commitment to that agreement, and fled Ukraine for Russia under the protection of Russian President Vladimir Putin amid widespread protests over government corruption.

We’re a suspicious lot, we Americans, a condition amplified always by missing datum.

At the same time, we have been also subject to traditional KGB “Active Measures”, i.e., efforts to massively disinform and misguide EU / NATO constituencies, and it may take both an army of responsible editor-readers and plain curious and independent Americans to get a true measure on states of affairs.

Here’s the problem:

Manafort could be the “good guy”, a guy making great money transitioning the world’s worst leaders toward western and conscionable standards.  

How would BackChannels or the public know?

It seems in the President Trump “Trust Me” stories — on the economy, foreign affairs, immigration — that suspect alleys dead-end in political space.

It also seems to BackChannels that former FBI director Comey’s tenure has been particularly scrupulous as regards the investigator’s legal permit to share information with the public.  As much appeared in play before the public last month during the “House hearing on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election.” The same may be shared in closed sessions with select elected public representatives: is the public to trust whom it has elected to oversight?

The public has no choice beyond what it has with its vote, and it either elects its officials for their integrity or it fails and suffers endless doubts.

The leftward Mother Jones has gone full tilt on news of Comey’s firing.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/donald-trump-james-comey-firing-watergate-russia-1 :

Not since Watergate.

How else can one start an article about President Donald Trump summarily firing FBI chief James Comey?

. . . This is reminiscent of when President Richard Nixon dismissed Archibald Cox, the special Watergate prosecutor who was getting too close to the truth. Nixon canned Cox rather than cooperating with his investigation.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/donald-trump-firing-james-comey-investigation-fbi-russia (by David Corn, May 10, 2017):

Last month, Comey appeared before the House intelligence committee, and his testimony put Trump in a bad spot. Comey noted that the FBI had no information to support Trump’s baseless charge that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump before the election. He was practically calling Trump a nut or a liar. Then Comey, in an unprecedented move, revealed that the FBI had been investigating interactions between Trump associates and Russia since last July. It was a stunning moment: the FBI chief disclosing his bureau was running an investigation that could lead to his boss, the president. All of this showed the Trump-Russia scandal was still on fire.

If Trump fired Comey to impede the Russia investigation, he possibly engaged in obstruction of justice. That is a crime. That is a case for impeachment.

Naturally, Trump was enraged. He has dismissed the Russia story as fake news and a hoax. Comey said it was nothing but.

What don’t we know?

In an Orwellian society, the matter would end with authoritarian contempt, Orwell’s communist-socialist totalitarian “boot in the face”, a world in which the government’s monopoly on information and continuous diversion and suppression of criticism and truth were so notorious that interpreted through the work of the socialist George Orwell — Eric Arthur Blair — the same has left its stamp indelible on the informed western conscience.

 

http://www.george-orwell.org/

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

President Trump’s imperious and sudden decapitation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation smacks of the feudal approach to criticism and threat to authority.  Instead of allowing James Comey and his organization to come up empty handed, which result may have required only the President’s inaction, President Trump will now forever have appeared to have lashed out at someone he perceived as an actor and source intending to undermine this authority.

MOSCOW (AP) — He visited imperial palaces and construction sites. He presided at a Miss Universe pageant. He hobnobbed with city officials at gala functions and seemed to particularly enjoy dining on Russian sausage.

But Donald Trump did not strike any real estate deals here.

The New York real estate tycoon has his name on hotels, resorts and other properties from South Korea to Turkey to Panama, but none in Russia, though he repeatedly said he wanted to build a Trump tower in Moscow and discussed various deals in three visits dating back to 1987.

Vasilyeva, Nataliya.  “Russian real estate deals never materialized for Trump.”  AP, March 4, 2017.

One more excerpt, this from Reuters:

A Reuters review found that at least 63 individuals with Russian passports or addresses have bought at least $98.4 million worth of property in seven Trump-branded luxury towers in southern Florida.

Layne, Nathan, Ned Parker, Svetlana Reiter, Stephen Grey, Ryan McNeill.  “Russian elite invested nearly $100 million in Trump buildings.”  Reuters, March 17, 2017:

The Reuters review of investors from Russia in Trump’s Florida condominium buildings found no suggestion of wrongdoing by President Trump or his real estate organization. And none of the buyers appear to be from Putin’s inner circle.

Addendum – Odd ‘n’ Ends

http://www.salon.com/2017/05/10/russia-is-trolling-the-u-s-over-james-comeys-firing-accusations-of-trumps-russian-connections/ 5/10/2017.

FTAC – On the Persistence of the Feudal Mode in Statecraft

05 Friday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, transnational crime

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The Kingdom is not a NATO member, much less one applying for European Union accession. It’s alliance with the west may be based on its defense of its own power and prestige in Sunni Islam (vs the Shiite anchorage in Iran) and on related defense, development, and trade needs.

Turkey no longer teeters on the “brink of Islamization”.

Over the course of many years, President Erdogan has managed to eviscerate the pillars of the westward-leaning government developed by Kemal Ataturk, starting with the neutralization of the generals and ending just about with the throttling of Turkey once free press. When President Putin leveraged Erdogan into an apology over the shooting down of a trespassing Russian jet, that signaled the end of common western interest within Ankara as regards the NATO agreement.

This one video clip foreshadows more recent events and serves as illustration of Moscow’s deal making realpolitik:

So Moscow has won, eh?

Not necessarily.

The anachronistic feudal systems that Putin (and Khamenei) wish to sustain in services to their own politically absolute power (dictatorship / kleptocracy) have ways of losing money and pissing off modern constituents. Moscow has been running down its state cash reserves for some time by way of criminal behavior that has spurred capital flight for years, induced the west into the application of sanctions, and promoted alternative energy sourcing that has driven down the oil revenues on which Moscow had counted for growth. Here’s the kicker: the less immediately fluid wealth of the Russian Federation has been parked in WESTERN banking institutions and valuable assets protected by rule of law!

Russia cannot expect to move to conventional war. It hasn’t the money to support related industry and troops. Instead, if offers its nuclear threat, which is a potent headache for everyone, and the more criminal and insidious permutations of combined “hybrid warfare”, which really combines the most underhanded methods in the subversion of target states while also totally managing the image of conflict and enjoy the benefits of transnational crime.

🙂

I smile because I — and you — should cry.

As I tire of making the same assertions over and over again as regards the “end of the end of the Cold War” (but we would like to avoid a “hot war”, right?), I may only suggest here a visit to my blog — https://conflict-backchannels.com/ — and perhaps spending some time with Agnia Grigas’s book on Crimea — http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300214505.

The world on display in the Moscow Grand Mosque video is the one held together by President Putin and arrangements he’s made that serve the interests of a now privileged social set using hyper modern tools of political repression. They have gone back to secret police, centralized power, and both a nervous and reactionary class of immensely patronized wealthy.

The People?

Who cares?

In the feudal states, The People will have their patriotism and religion, just like in the olden days . . . .

Reference: The Power of Money

Several of the following news reports appear to feed from the same source but with each their own flavor.  No matter.  The point made here is that Russia’s easiest money has been hit hard by time: capital flight; reduced oil revenues; sanctions –> depleted ready cash.  Other wealth rides in banks, luxury assets, and markets, but for both western conflict analysts and Russian citizens outside of the “systema”, the money appears to be running out and domestic hardship appears already in the numbers.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2016/12/19/how-to-win-the-new-cold-war-without-firing-a-shot/#c8037fd7967e | http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/16/news/economy/russia-cash-reserves-depleted/ | http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-money-reserve-fund-2017-assets-oil-prices-recession-sanctions-a7313236.html | http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/economics/28-12-2016/136533-russia_reserve_fund-0/ | https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/russia-could-run-out-of-cash-reserves-in-2017/ar-BBwhUe9

Here’s an excerpt from observations published over the winter:

According to the Russian Finance Ministry, only 10 of Russia’s 85 official regions — most of them commodity producers and metropolitan areas with substantial tax bases — are economically or financially stable, down by half since 2015. Of the country’s remaining regions, 30 manage to scrape by because direct federal subsidies make up at least 33% of their revenues. Half of the $3.5 billion in subsidies that the Kremlin disburses each year goes to just 10 of those regions: Dagestan, Chechnya, Yakutia, Kamchatka, Crimea, Altai, Tuva, Buryatia, Stavropol and Bashkortostan. That leaves more than half of Russia’s regions struggling to fulfill their social obligations and meet the federal government’s demands for funding.

Seventy of Russia’s regions send 63% of the income they generate to the federal budget, keeping only the remaining 37%. The federal government, meanwhile, returns at most 20% of the money by way of subsidies and intergovernmental transfers.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/russia-is-a-mess-the-poverty-rate-is-soaring-and-only-10-of-85-regions-are-financially-stable-2017-01-31

Related World Bank data, albeit covering Russia’s expanded impoverishment only through 2015: http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/country/RUS

Reference: The Russian “Mafia State”

As the fabulously wealthy – such as Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich – buy ever bigger yachts and build ever bigger mansions, the average Russian is becoming ever poorer.

Many ordinary men and women live in desperate conditions and last year a staggering 19.2 million people – or 13.4% of the population – were officially living in poverty .

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/inside-vladimir-putins-new-russia-9976578 – 3/6/2017

Belarus, Chechnya and Russia are virtual “mafia states” and Ukraine is going to be one. For each of those countries, one cannot differentiate between the activities of the government and organized crime groups. Economic influence, sooner or later always reaches political power. a key factor in a government’s ability to combat OC depends on the extent to which the country’s best attorneys and law firms represent the mafia.

The vory v zakone do not engage in racketeering and murder, preferring to distance themselves from this activity and focus on crimes that are further up in the hierarchy, such as corruption of high-level ministers. The level of power that vory v zakone operate at is indicated by their level of interaction with these public servants, because cabinet-level officials do not spend time with unimportant people and cannot be tempted by those who do not have something important to offer.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/russian-organized-crime.htm – 2/18/2017 by David Cay Johnston

Also:

http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_security_concerns_russian_mafia_back_on_agenda7083 – 7/25/2016 Republished in Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/putin-welcomes-return-russian-mafia-484083 

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FTAC – Part of a Starter Kit for New Progressives

02 Tuesday May 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Extreme Brown vs Red-Green, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics

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Mr. Barsamian might enjoy tracing back Moscow’s role in the engineering of the profitable business that has been made of the Middle East Conflict and its efforts to sustain feudal political absolutism throughout the region.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/10/03/palestinian-kgb/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/12/ftac-tip-to-the-kgbs-amplification-of-middle-eastern-anti-semitism/

Most Americans — most of the international public — has never heard of “active measures” and “framing” as employed by Imperial, Soviet, and today post-Soviet Moscow, but it may help improve qualities of living worldwide — and help to preserve our ecosystem — if environmental and social progressives were to take stock of Moscow’s autocratic-totalitarian methods proven, so far, consistent across regimes and their revolutions.

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Peace_Council

From KGB defector Ion Mihai Pacepa:

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/28/a-short-page-referencing-works-by-or-associated-with-ion-mihai-pacepa/

BackChannels regards itself as “progressive” but never “those progressives”.  It endorses a fuzzy “Qualities of Living” concept, believes in the husbanding of the earth, counsels resistance to extremism, Far Left and Far Right and Other, and suggests always looking at presentations of problems twice.

Wikipedia also supports a page on “Active Measures”, and included on it is this observation:

“According to Stanislav Lunev, GRU alone spent more than $1 billion for the peace movements against the Vietnam War, which was a “hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost”.[3] Lunev claimed that “the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad”.

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

I was young for the Vietnam War and on the draft rolls for just one college semester before Nixon brought to a close America’s role in the tragedy, but it’s easy to recall the “Mobilization Against the War”, the “kids” dressed up in beads and fatigues, in essence the alternative culture of the Baby Boom generation, so here decades later and learning of Moscow’s cynical application of plain old money in producing that zeitgeist comes as a surprise.  Of course, it comes as no surprise that much of the more truly revolutionary and independent Left took note of Moscow’s tanks on the streets of foreign capitals (ref., as noted above, Wikipedia’s recounting of the history of the World Peace Council).

As regards the Middle East Conflict as a pretty good business for Palestinian leaders (Arafat and Abbas: multi-millionaires; Haniyeh and Mashaal: billionaires) but not for Palestinians, there’s much data online regarding corruption in the PLO/PA camp and plain exploitation by Hamas.  Whether made rich by political corruption or bald crime and political repression, the basis for the “political absolutism” may be linked to the sustained feudal character of the societies involved and the related “malignant narcissism” of their leaders.

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