After years of Iranian provocations directly and through proxies, America’s defense machinery returned fire in no uncertain terms. President Trump’s order was no subtle back alley “hit” involving a dimly lit peripheral figure among the state’s proxies or some obscure but critical figure engaged in rocketry and nuclear arms development. Qassim Soleimani was Tehran’s top general and (second) most vigorous master of the levers and tools of the state’s diplomacy and conflict-inducing and war-fighting capacity. His taunt as quoted by The New York Times, “We are near you, where you can’t even imagine. We are ready. We are the man of this arena” was his invitation to his kind of party.
Washington will wake up later this morning to . . . what? “Heightened tensions with Iran”?
Call it what the strike represented: war.
BackChannels, ever strident and stubbornly independent, suggests that Left / Far Left Democrats and Always Right / Far Right Republicans should both can their bitter and frequently counterproductive and surreal partisan sandbox fight and take a moment to consider together the many acts of terror sponsored by Tehran, including attacks on American forces, the harangues and threats against the Democratic Liberalism of the West — and nonstop threats promising the annihilation of Israel, the seizing over many years of British patrol and other sea craft, and most of all the barbarism — the inhumanity — meted to all within and beyond Iran who have been abused, murdered, and subjugated by the regime.
“Displacement… & threats to Kurds have prevented us from being happy. Joy has no place in our hearts, as long as children’s cries fill refugee camps. We must not give up, &we must find a ray of hope, but our strength has been drained.” #Kurdistan#Rojavahttps://t.co/DC5BkVu2lU
The attack on the US Embassy in #Baghdad should serve as yet another reminder that the US should invest in values-based partnerships, & not abandon allies such as Kurds who are now hosting the fleeing US amabssador and only functioning consulate in #Iraq.
Moscow’s Phantoms of the Soviet Era — old friends, old state relationships, Kurdish political incoherence at the leadership level, and confusion over the idea of liberalism has produced a deadly and medieval quagmire in Northern Syria and opened the gate to thoroughly retrograde politics — thank the Turkish “sultan” Erdogan the (most-un-NATO-like) Egoist. In effect, America’s — and the west’s — chief allies in the fight against Islamic State in Syria have been betrayed to the extent that the west now looks on at their deprivation.
If integrity is to be an international standard, it is important to grasp how artificial and brutal an enterprise has been Bashar al-Assad’s civil war and “war on terrorism”. As BackChannels has commented on Assad’s nurturing of al-Qaeda types early in the Syrian Tragedy, it will list here just a sampling of posts asserting that the state’s theater of war has been developed and managed for totalitarian effects — “Syria – Assad – ISIL – Background (December 9, 2016). The “Kurdistan” and “Syria” categories of this blog contain other listings, of course, and here for convenience are a few quickly chosen URLs to posts that may be helpful to Kurdish political analysts asking the eternal political question: “Where from here”?
Yesterday, ASHARQ published “Syria Kurds Urge Moscow to Return Damascus to Constitutional Committee” (January 1, 2020) with naivete perhaps regarding Russia’s own deeply paternal authoritarian political habits and long-term rejection, so far, of constitutional power. In the days of the Tsar, the peasants found suggested arrangements for “constitutional monarchy” suspect 🙂 , never mind the monarch; the Bolsheviks appear to have produced power for the leadership (incidentally, Stalin himself had a turn in the Tsar’s secret political police, the Okhrana) and death and imprisonment for Russians, among others, by the millions; and, finally, KGB Colonel Putin has come to rule Russia with again despotic controls and with “liberalism” virtually removed from the discourse of the powerful who appear to prefer plunder (ask Khodorkovsky) to responsible political stewardship.
Suggestion for those now arguing about the character of a Syrian Constitution for which the troika of Assad, Putin, and Khamenei have no need as well as the character of a proposed Kurdish agreement between communities: err toward the compassion, complexity, and integrating liberal humanism owned by the rapidly evolving and modernizing west — take cues from the west’s most advanced (and happiest) states, not the ones sinking backward into feudal and nationalist fascism.
Start, perhaps, with Finland, so that what is to end does so where it began.
The raging question in the world today is who is the real Vladimir Putin and what are his intentions. Karen Dawisha’s brilliant Putin’s Kleptocracy provides an answer, describing how Putin got to power, the cabal he brought with him, the billions they have looted, and his plan to restore the Greater Russia.
Russian scholar Dawisha describes and exposes the origins of Putin’s kleptocratic regime. She presents extensive new evidence about the Putin circle’s use of public positions for personal gain even before Putin became president in 2000. She documents the establishment of Bank Rossiya, now sanctioned by the US; the rise of the Ozero cooperative, founded by Putin and others who are now subject to visa bans and asset freezes; the links between Putin, Petromed, and “Putin’s Palace” near Sochi; and the role of security officials from Putin’s KGB days in Leningrad and Dresden, many of whom have maintained their contacts with Russian organized crime.
Kurdish leaders should take note of Russia’s early and Imperial history and the character of the state under Putin’s sway, and they should ask whether the same is today authentically interested in their health and well being.
BackChannels knows the historic response: “No friends but the mountains.”
This blog’s editor hopes that the time-honored expression of abandonment and isolation is either no longer true today or that it becomes untrue as EU/NATO and perhaps others take interest themselves in Kurdish aspirations, bravery, hopes, and ideals for a greater and more just and more autonomous state.
Russian dissident Olya Misik featured in Financial Times YouTube video, August 20, 2019.
The Phantoms of the Soviet may be found making messes and stumbling around the places long associated with the Soviet Bloc, its captive states, sphere of influence, and its key trading partners, all linked then by their devotion to a nominal “Communism” and a realpolitik of theft by Party elites, the “nomenklatura” that effectively ran — or rubber-stamped policy — through the Soviet Era. The basket cases that come most quickly to mind: Crimea, Ukraine; Syria, whatever is left of it; Venezuela, where the well-behaved “socialists” beneath the boot of the Maduro regime have been reduced to starvation and flight while the mafia and military and state officials continue to clean up quite nicely between shipments of cocaine bound for El Norte and sex slaves trafficked out to the Caribbean Basin or beyond it.
The Phantom — and the phantoms — have multiple roles to play as the world either continues winding down down into feudal chaos, which is the way some (with the loot) would seem to have it, or as it turns and with anger and resolve recovers from the “Active Measures”, “Hybrid Warfare”, and “Reflexive Control” methods that have brought post-Cold War East-West Conflict back to life with frightful — and unfolding — prospects for the world’s future.
Moscow has returned itself and much that it touches back to political horror. It has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan; committing murder in Great Britain (and elsewhere); courting Islam and brutalizing it at the same time (in a cosmic sense); ditto for Turkey; and to what end? Only God and Putin know, and of the two and who might know Russia’s future best, I’d rake the chips over to Putin.
Alexander Litvinenko, Boris Berezovsky, Sergei Skripal come to mind as victims of “hits” by Russian security forces operating on British soil, but other deaths have been similarly associated with or suspect in relation to Russian operations.
Earlier this week, we revealed that US spy agencies had handed the British government high-grade intelligence that the Russian whistleblower Alexander Perepilichnyy, who died in Surrey in 2012, was likely assassinated on the direct orders of the Kremlin – but the authorities sidelined that and other evidence pointing to murder, instead declaring that he had died of natural causes. Today, we can reveal that US intelligence officials suspect a further 13 people – including Berezovsky and eight members of his circle – have been assassinated on British soil by Russia’s security services or mafia groups, two forces that sometimes work in tandem.
The same would seem to be the work of the “phantoms of the Soviet” — GRU, KGB/FSB not only remain in business as in the Soviet Era but may be perhaps insufficiently challenged on their host’s turf. ” The story of this ring of death illuminates one of the most disturbing geopolitical trends of our time – the use of assassinations by Russia’s secret services and powerful mafia groups to wipe out opponents around the globe – and the failure of British authorities to confront it,” wrote Blake back in 2017.
So here on the anniversary of the official announcing of the passing of the Soviet Union into Russia’s history — and the world’s — it would seem the more nefarious of old habits — creating wars, operating in the shadows, dominating and plundering political space with barbarous violence and ruthless ambition remain intact — and, according to BuzzFeed, more covered over by authorities than given the play deserved.
“I think we had forgotten how organically ruthless the Russians could be,” said Peter Zwack, a retired military intelligence officer and former defense attaché at the United States Embassy in Moscow, who said he was not aware of the unit’s existence.
Bukovsky, Vladimir. Judgment in Moscow: Soviet Crimes and Western Complicity. California, 2019.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005.
Grigas, Agnia. Beyond Crimea: The New Russian Empire. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016.
Pipes, Richard. Russia Under the Old Regime: The History of Civilization. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974.
Pipes, Richard. The Russian Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990.
Polishchuk, Arkady. Dancing on Thin Ice. Los Angeles, Doppel House Press, 2018.
Remnick, David. Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. New York: Random House, 1993.
Smith, Hedrick. The Russians. New York: Times Books, 1983.
Soldatov, Andrei and Irena Borogan. The New Nobility: The Restoration of Russia’s Security State and the Enduring Legacy of the KGB. New York: Public Affairs, 2010.
No civic-minded American, nor anyone else in the world, need miss this historic day’s process, so take here BackChannel’s relay with an appropriate tonic: high-speed Internet has made journalism’s “second-row seat to history” — what I once called news-watching at the desktop — a front-row sport.
“If a president undermining our national security and using the federal government for his own selfish personal gain is not impeachable conduct, then, Madam Speaker, I don’t know what is,” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Rules Committee.
Representative Jeff Flake jumped the gunwales of the Republican Ship as it swung toward the rocky coast of Trumpian Autocracy. For his conscience and his faith in the American and western liberal project, it must have looked better to swim off alone than stay aboard to go along and get along with the New Boss so apparently fond of unsavory associates. However, it appears that some left behind have been driven to mutiny outright — and God bless ’em!
“Patriotism and the survival of our nation in the face of the crimes, corruption and corrosive nature of Donald Trump are a higher calling than mere politics,” the founders of the Lincoln Project wrote in a New York Times opinion piece published Tuesday. “As Americans, we must stem the damage he and his followers are doing to the rule of law, the Constitution and the American character.”
BackChannels strongly suggests the Lincoln Project connect with Malcolm Nance ASAP to reestablish radically moderate Democratic and Republican positions in a way that both competes the Parties while assuring Americans of desired progress, prosperity, and security in either direction and in keeping with the bedrock of American ideals, freedoms, principles, privileges, and values.
The Bull has been gored and The Party is bellowing, which it does through denial, obfuscation, nitpicking, and ridicule — and for what it does to defend its Reality-Defying / Reality-Evading Highness — and does so badly and baldly — it has now made a habit of treating moderate, independently observant, and thinking Republican voters with contempt.
Fox 10 Phoenix, December 9, 2019.
BackChannels’ view: The IG report has been accepted on major observations while “irregularities” have been regarded by Trump’s opposition as minor “nits”. Nonetheless, the GOP’s bull has been gored, and The Party has been bellowing about what it may deny but cannot change.
I’ll go further here: The Republicans, who for fear of The Donald may well be referred to as “The Party (Sycophantic)” — they have earned that much — appear to have become the Party of Power (Now Matter What — and Absolute) while the Democrats have soldiered on to become the Party of the American People (Empathizing, Listening, Watching, Reasoning, Judging).
Notwithstanding the justified concern over aspects of the FBI’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to investigate onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, make no mistake: The dual headlines of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report are: 1) the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia was adequately “predicated,” i.e., had a lawful factual basis, and 2) no agent acted out of animus toward President Trump or his campaign.
Those two findings should put to rest persistent allegations from Trump and his champions that the bureau’s scrutiny of the contacts with Russia was illegal or, worse, a plot of the “deep state” to derail his candidacy. And whatever valid beefs Page may have with the investigation, they have nothing to do with Trump.
The grammar-school-civics-class version of our Revolution is that it was a rebellion against monarchical tyranny, and that in framing our Constitution, one of the preoccupations, the main preoccupation of the Founders, was to keep the executive weak,” Barr told the audience. “This is misguided.” Instead, Barr advocates for what is known as the “unitary executive theory,” which challenges the long-established doctrine that the president’s control over his branch of government is shared, to some degree, with Congress and the courts. “Whenever I see a court opinion that uses the word share,” Barr said, “I want to run in the other direction.” Critics say that in its maximalist form, the theory is a license for authoritarianism — a concern that Barr dismissed with ridicule.
If the observations were less than cogent, frank, honest, and prescient, I’d have to make them myself.
🙂
The Bull has been gored and The Party is bellowing, which it does through denial, obfuscation, nitpicking, and ridicule — and for what it does to defend its Reality-Defying / Reality-Evading Highness — and does so badly and baldly — it has now made a habit of treating moderate, independently observant, and thinking Republican voters with contempt.
” Trump’s ex-Russia advisor Fiona Hill blasts Ukraine election interference conspiracy theory”, Los Angeles Times, and posted to YouTube November 21, 2019.
As we know, the Grinch is a cartoon. So is the Trump administration’s view of life in America. In this cartoon version, everyone has access to well-paying full-time jobs that can support a family. Those jobs are plentiful even for those who lack education, transportation, and skills, or have criminal records. In this cartoon country, the only people who don’t take advantage of this prosperity are just too lazy and prefer to live as dependent on the largess of the federal government.
Fariborz Pakseresht, Oregon’s Department of Human Services director, said the rule change would make things worse “for those already facing difficult circumstances.”
“It also will result in an increased burden on food banks and other community resources to fill the void,” Pakseresht said.
As BackChannels — in fair blogger fashion — tries to knock out posts in hours as opposed to weeks, the quick look-see into themes produces impressions and summations but on the outside of the machinery.
Nonetheless — the tea leaves:
The Trump Administration’s stance with regard to the decay of the American street is that it would rather not see it, and it appears to believe that what is unseemly may be plainly hounded, starved, or threatened out of existence — or, eventually, thrown into Federal camps or prisons. Its actions, policies, and “vision” have each tended tend toward the promotion of greater desperation for America’s afflicted, marginalized, and struggling souls.
In addition, the Trump Administration’s War on the Poor this Christmas / Solstice Season hardly stops with the latest food stamp debacle. “Medicaid Work Requirements”, a draconian ploy certain to enserf the more miserable and altogether vulnerable of Americans, has been strongly contested by physicians and advocates for the poor. Other Dickensian steps take by the Administration have included deep cuts in Public Housing and Public Transportation budgets, both increasing the discomfort of America’s poorer citizens while threatening their independence as well (at least from the Federal standpoint — states have budgets too, and not all of the 50 are so dumb in relation to providing basic transportation services).
In California, the Trumpian State has been playing tug-of-war with the state’s ability to keep the most vulnerable of its citizens off the streets. Predictably, the President has withheld funding for housing vouchers that would reach some 50,000 souls, according to Governor Gavin Newsom.
One state noted — 49 to go — but here BackChannels may choose to listen to related complaints than dwell in the Patch of Social Issues with other than blog-like focus.
Cuts to Public Housing and Public Transportation Budgets
For HUD, the budget requests $44.1 billion in discretionary funding, a 16.4 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels. For DoT, the budget requests $21.4 billion in discretionary spending, a 22 percent decrease from 2019 funding levels.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – In the latest skirmish over California’s homeless crisis, the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, asked President Donald Trump on Thursday to stop withholding federal housing vouchers that could benefit 50,000 homeless people.
Inspiration: the claim that Palestinians are struggling to end the occupation and establish peace and democracy.
From the (Still) Awesome Conversation
Fatah and Hamas should then establish peace and democracy where they live and govern by holding fair and free elections with regularity; by eliminating political repression for ordinary Palestinians who question policy; by addressing widespread corruption and related thuggery; by policing and neutralizing invasive terrorist organizations with agendas of their own; by working as hard for Christian and other faith communities as has been done for Muslim ones; by investing in Palestinian entrepreneurship — I, of all people, have been approached for that (Rx. given: international “crowd funding”, and it worked); and perhaps by encouraging an open public discussion about image, power, and wealth and what it means to look powerful while leveraging others and what it means to be powerful by being authentically good, noble, and virtuous; and, finally, by keeping earmarked Palestinian funding at home in the Palestinian Territories, Principalities, or Unified State rather than parked abroad.
The litany of keyword searches seems seldom good: “Palestinian Corruption”; “Palestinian Human Rights”; Palestinian Political Repression”; etc. Is it so strange to think that all of that might be reversed by Palestinian popular insistence on democratic governance, free and fair elections, human rights, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, Palestinian internal investment and development?
Further on in the conversation, and from BC’s side of it:
Israel in no way bars Palestinians in the Preoccupied Territories from enjoying the benefits of democracy, rule of law, and responsible and responsive governance. Palestinian “leaders” — or related personalities and organizations — do.
The conversation moves along, and I am fully standing on my boards in this part of the world’s virtual open mall —
Then let US address the “Eastern” side of the “East-West Conflict” to which any nascent Palestinian polity has to refuse further power to be itself authentically liberated — and from what? A) the Palestinian role in serving as a block and goad to the West, its faith in mankind, and its consequent and related civilizational liberalism; B) some propensity in Arab and other feudal realms to dominate and plunder the politically weak by evading law (all but one’s own) and aggrandizing one’s self — the leader’s self – at the expense of all.
I’ve been able to visit a certain surface in history — the Roman anchorage and expansion far into Europe from the south of the continent x the Norse — the Viking — push from the north bearing south and raiding and trading east at least to Baghdad. It’s a helluva story even in outline — but fast-forward to this day, and it turns out the Palestinians that have borne the weight and press of the same / similar civilizational tectonics.
The truth is the “Middle East Conflict” has been engineered and milked for all it has been worth, and the base of the Palestinian Community has paid the price for being on the border between the FOUR distinctly different worlds — the Medieval and the Modern; the Arab and the Greco-Roman/Judeo-Christian West — but with the exception of some who have gotten a good deal of money (plus ersatz political family and cachet) out of it.
Note: I hit enter inadvertently, but it’s about right. The Big Picture bears down on the small one. 😦 IMHO, the Palestinians should pursue a course independent of the concerns of so many powerful global players. Eject old polemic and everyone might ask, what would be cautious, prudent, and good today for peace, for work with dignity, for trade, and most of all a modern, responsive, and responsible governing culture?
BackChannels 