“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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ellison stories speak to his relationships with CAIR, ISNA, Farrakhan, and others who have either articulated anti-Semitic and racist positions, especially Farakhan, or have been associated with questionable organizations, as for example CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.
However . . . let the man speak.
In our online lives in the information ocean, all have been subject to surrounding currents and related choices in content selection. As I have had some time and understand that few have that luxury — and I don’t really have it (although I’m available for less public research tasking) — it may help at times to overview information about a subject and its tributaries. With that in mind, here also is an article about a 2016 Muslim Student Association (MSA, and in Minnesota) decision to REJECT BDS and anti-Semitic cant in its campus work.
Of course, there’s a slew of articles that analyze Keith Ellison’s leanings quite differently.
I may suggest that in the way of “reparative narcissists”, that their joining or including movements, organizations, or personalities with histories of discomfiting views — look up Farrakhan’s assistant Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad, and listen to his rant for a few minutes — intends drawing the same away from hate and violence because that is the character of a repairing personality.
Let the politician work — or even work his magic.
Here are a few “fast links” to opinions about politician and how he’s been seen in several ranks, especially the conservative and Jewish political communities.
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.
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.
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.
But if the grass ever did look greener, which political party do you think you’d be more comfortable with? Well, if I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican–and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative. But the working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows.
It was too good a quotation not to share on this blog.
There are others nuggets as regards the Trump show, the promotion of extraordinary egotism (on this blog, the same may be interpreted and developed as a malign or reparative narcissism), admiration for the Chinese government’s show of strength at Tienanmen Square, and obsession with nuclear war:
I’ve always thought about the issue of nuclear war; it’s a very important element in my thought process. It’s the ultimate, the ultimate catastrophe, the biggest problem this world has, and nobody’s focusing on the nuts and bolts of it. It’s a little like sickness. People don’t believe they’re going to get sick until they do. Nobody wants to talk about it. I believe the greatest of all stupidities is people’s believing it will never happen, because everybody knows how destructive it will be, so nobody uses weapons. What bullshit.
“As I have repeatedly said, it is not our fault that Russian – American relations are in that poor condition.”
If you’re a BackChannels regular or an enthusiast in political psychology, you know that the “malignant narcissist” — autocrat, bully, or dictator — is never wrong.
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”
Lest any forget, there’s plenty of reading at hand (these days: Amazon One-Click shopping may be the next best thing) for guarding against forgetting.
Posted by The Guardian, November 9, 2016.
BackChannels has framed contemporary conflict in terms of time, i.e., whether confronting Assad or, for a domestic example, the Ku Klux Klan, the modern person is actually rejecting the reappearance of the past in his own path.
For the most part, whether involving the aggressive Muslim Brotherhood aspect in contemporary Islam, the barbarism on display in Syria — and do “thank” Assad, Putin, and Khamenei for choosing that evil path — or the Russian invasion of Crimea, one is actually aiming the finger back at the world of Medieval Political Absolute Power, i.e., AKA the divine right of rule, rule by a presumptuously superior nature, rule by thuggery, and, most certainly, unquestionable authority, or authority beyond criticism and beyond law.
Putin : Medieval Political Absolutism
vs
Trump: Modern Democratic and Checked Distribution of Political Power
Choose.
Posted by VICE News, March 3, 2014.
While “western” political success and related productivity and affluence provide for western humanism and other aspects of idealism, “eastern” barbarism and suffering have left behind a world in which fear and insecurity appear to threaten those who should be in the most confident and secure of internal psychological states. Leadership in tribal cultures and states tend toward a winner-take-all — and loser-lose-all — position in their politics, and it may be that we mistake for a better politics and ennoble with the term “realpolitik”.
Our world pays a high price in general suffering — suffering associated horrors beyond imagining — for the emotional care and feeding of its “malignant narcissists” — its most damaged bad boys, the same that make themselves known as political and war criminals.
So:
Bashar al-Assad: war criminal?
Vladimir Putin: war criminal?
Ali Khamenei: political criminal?
As a class, dictators “exceed limits” — just as Muhammad warned 🙂 — and in doing so free themselves from other normative restraints while at the same time condemning themselves to remaining in political power at any cost (always to others).
In effect, the worlds of despots become worlds of political absolutes, and if for no other reason than the near impossibility of the retreat of their authors.
If over the past five years you had been a Syrian noncombatant, would you wish to see Bashar al-Assad a) remain in power, b) exiled, or c) hung in public?
If you had been swept off the streets of Tehran and dumped in Evin Prison (say for wearing that hijab a little to far to the back — or for being Baha’i or gay or western in outlook) , or if you had had family murdered by the Iranian regime, would you care to see Ali Khamenei’s term in power a) modified, b) truncated, c) “terminated with extreme prejudice”?
Has Putin a graceful retreat today — Syria was al-Assad’s war and armies, flyers especially, make mistakes; and Ukrainian autonomy was Khrushchev’s mistake, which was made with the confidence that Kiev would remain forever bent to Moscow?
Putin may have that.
And Trump may be wise to see that Putin, the Russian State, and the Russian People (of Russia proper) have that “out” — but to horse trade Ukraine, the European Union, the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization?
“Nyet” to all that!
(Liberal politics have come to mire judgment, unfortunately. Biography.com maintains a page titled “Political Criminals” but begs credulity by placing side-by-side J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon, both of whom may have exceeded some boundaries in power, with Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Fidel Castro, and Idi Amin all of whom plainly represent the most reckless of minds and murderous of despots).
Historian John Bew suggests that much of what stands for modern realpolitik today deviates from the original meaning of the term. Realpolitik emerged in mid-19th century Europe from the collision of the enlightenment with state formation and power politics. The concept, Bew argues, was an early attempt at answering the conundrum of how to achieve liberal enlightened goals in a world that does not follow liberal enlightened rules.
If, as the poet says, America is not the world, then the world is surely owed an apology for the lack of attention paid to what ought to have been, and are, a series of alarming developments throughout Europe and the Middle East. Perhaps appropriately, all have involved or implicated a revanchist authoritarian power for which the incoming commander in chief has repeatedly professed his admiration and which, after having done all it could to facilitate an upset American electoral outcome—“maybe we helped a bit with WikiLeaks,” as pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov put it Wednesday morning—offers its hearty congratulations on his victory. Meanwhile, Russia’s alleged “wet work” and maneuvering outside the United States in the last two weeks has been even more impressive.
BackChannels 