US flag proudly flies over the SBU building in Kiev

Well, we all knew that the last floor of the SBU (the Ukrainian terror police) building in Kiev was fully occupied by US CIA agents and that no Ukrainians access to it.  But this is even better.  Apparently, the US decided to fly its flag on the building's main entrance, just next to the Ukrainian one.  See for yourself:

There is also a video showing the same scene: http://youtu.be/UffhTyUcUwc

The SBU, by the way, is an amazing organization.  In its entire 23 year long history it never caught a single foreign spy (except fake Russian ones, of course). The Russians even made a hilarious video about a SBU "capture" of a FSB agent:

(the video is in Ukrainian so please make sure to press the 'cc' button for English subtitles)


But, seriously now.  Not a single American, or German or Brit.  Not *one*.   In comparison, just in one year (2011) the Russian FSB officially caught 41 foreign spies and 158 Russian citizens who spied for foreign intelligence agencies.  Assuming that 2011 was a 'normal' year, that would be roughly the equivalent of catching 943 foreign spies and 3643 Russian traitors for a 23 year long period.  The SBU caught *zero*.  This is why I call it "terror police" and not "security agency".

But they did kill *a lot* of people, including politicians, journalists and activists.  They are also pros in various torture techniques.

And now the US flag flies over that building.

The entire US intelligence community can be very proud of this.

The Saker

Russian commander warns US could control whole Gulf of Mexico

How is that for a ridiculous headline?  You like it?

Well, it is just a little variation of a BBC headline today:

Nato commander warns Russia could control whole Black Sea

Here is an except from this article:

Russia's top military commander, Gen Valerii Gerasimov, has warned that US "militarisation" of the annexed Florida Peninsula could be used to exert control over the whole Gulf of Mexico.

Well, the real excerpt was just slightly different:

Nato's top military commander, Gen Philip Breedlove, has warned that Russian "militarisation" of the annexed Crimea Peninsula could be used to exert control over the whole Black Sea. 

So is there a difference? Of course not. Except one: American exceptionalism, of course.  Come to think of it, there is another difference: the US and NATO just tried to take control of Crimea via the Maidan color revolution whereas Russia did not try to take control of Florida.  That, of course, also begs the following question: if the US and NATO suspect that Russia might use the Crimea Peninsula to control the whole of the Black Sea, then would it be most unreasonable to ask what exactly the US and NATO were hoping to achieve had they succeeded in taking over Crimea?

This is, of course, absolutely ridiculous and yet another example of the mind-blowing hypocrisy western corporate media.  It goes like this: US in Gulf of Mexico - good.  US in Black Sea - also good.  Russia in Black Sea - bad.  Russia in Gulf of Mexico - unthinkable.

And the worst here is not the imperial hubris and arrogance of the USA, it is the willing subservience of the Europeans to Uncle Sam.  They all know it, but they pretend not to notice.

Still, does Gen Breedlove have a point?  Oh yes, he sure does.  Crimea will, indeed, give Russia total control of the Black Sea and even beyond.  Russia will station at the very least one missile cruiser, several ultra-modern diesel attack submarines (ideal for brown and green water operations), supersonic medium range bombers armed with cruise missiles, coastal artillery and cruise missile batteries, fast attack craft, anti-submarine rotary and fixed-wing aircraft, etc.  You can think of Crimea as a unsinkable mega-carrier.  Kind of like Florida.

The Saker

The AngloZionist Empire has truly become an "Empire of Illusions"

This is bizarre.  The recent two summits (APEC and G20) have, I would argue, ended up as a disaster for the US and its allies (see here, here and here) while Russia, China and the rest of the BRICS are clearly in control of the situation, yet there are still those who believe the western corporate media which wants to portray Putin are Russia as "weak".  

I suppose in our age of virtual reality perceptions are everything, and in this case such perceptions are clearly molded by exposure to the western corporate media whose brainwashing skills are nothing short of amazing.  But let's look at the facts.

The single biggest development which came out of these two summits is that Xi Jinping has clearly and, for the first time, openly shown that he fully support Putin and Russia.

I remember how earlier this year there were many who were doubting China's policies towards Russia, many were saying that the "Walmart-effect" (the magnitude US-China economic ties) would never allow China to side with Russia against the US and yet this is exactly what has happened on at least three levels:

1.  Economic: not only have Russia and China have signed what can only be called mega-contracts, but the Chinese were more than happy to offer Russian banks (under US/EU sanctions) access to Chinese credits.  China is also helping Russia to replace SWIFT.

2. Political: if anything, the Chinese went out of their way to show that not only was Russia not isolated, but that Putin was the guest of honor at the APEC - thereby openly defying the US/EU.

3. Military:  Russia and China are now engaged in regular large size joint military exercises including naval and ground operations.  Not only are these two training together, they are regularly practicing the creation of joint staffs.

This really should not have come as a surprise to anybody: Russia and China are truly *ideal* partners, and they perfectly complement to each other.  What one needs, the other has, and vice-versa.  Not only that, but both have been - and still are - bullied by the USA so much that I would argue that the Empire is literally pushing them into each other's hands. Obama has repeatedly and openly threatened both Russia and China, send them all sorts of ultimatums, tried to assemble coalitions against them and, of course, surrounded both with military bases and US anti-missile systems.

What Obama and his advisors have failed to realize is this: Russia and China (backed by the BRICS, SCO, CSTO, EEU) are far more powerful than the US/EU block in political, economic and military terms. This is the big news, the major strategic development, the geopolitical tectonic shift, which the Empire's corporate media is trying so hard to obfuscate.  As for western leaders, they are simply delusional and they have manifestly fallen into the old trap of believing their own propaganda. But, as the expression goes, "when your head is in the sand, your butt is in the air" and reality has now reasserted itself with a very powerful and painful bite.

The most ridiculous moment of last week's summit came when Obama, after having failed to achieve any of his objectives against Russia or China, made a speech where he seriously spoke of the importance of "American leadership".  It was comical to the point of being embarrassing.  On Russian TV the commentators where literally laughing when reporting this. 

As for Putin, obviously sure of his position, he openly poked fun at the idiocy of the US/EU leaders: "Have they thought about what they are doing at all or not? Or has politics blinded them? As we know eyes constitute a peripheral part of brain. Was something switched off in their brains?".  Combined with now an open warning that Russia would not allow the US/EU to crush the Novorussian resistance, Putin's message is blunt and clear: western leaders are driving their empire into a wall.  [If you have not done so already, I urge you to carefully parse Putin's recent interview with ARD].

The AngloZionist Empire has truly become an "Empire of Illusions" (to use Chris Hedges expression) where facts matter much less than spin, where the normal way to cope with a challenge is to deny its existence, were self-deception is a way of life.

The writing is on the wall.  It has been there for a long while.

The problem is that nobody wants to read it.

The Saker

A "revisionist Russia" on "NATO's doorstep”

RT reports:

US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki and Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby have been challenged over the Department of Defense's claims that the US must “deal” with “modern and capable” Russian armed forces on NATO's doorstep.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu expressed “grave concern” and “surprise” at a Wednesday speech made by US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel during the Association of the United States Army’s annual conference. Hagel declared that US armed forces "must deal with a revisionist Russia - with its modern and capable army - on NATO's doorstep.”

Kirby was confronted by AP journalist Matt Lee over NATO expansion closer to the Russian borders at the State Department's daily press briefing on Thursday. Here is their exchange:

Making sense of Obama's billion dollar hammer

You probably heard it by now: Obama has pledged a billion dollars to what my "beloved" BBC called "European security". The official name for this initiative is the "European Reassurance Initiative".  You see, Obama and the BBC apparently believe that Europeans are really terrified and that they believe that the Russian tanks might roll into Warsaw, Athens, Rome or Lisbon at any time.  The good news is that Uncle Sam is here to reassure them that he will let no such thing happen and that this additional 1 billion dollars will deter the Russian Bear.

Have you ever read something more ridiculous?

So what is really going on here?

There is a wonderful American expression which says that "to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail".  Well, to Obama, the EU and the Ukraine sure do look like nails because the only instrument the USA has used in its foreign policy for many decades now is a "hammer" composed of money and guns.  But let's backtrack for a second.

I submit that the US policy in Europe is nothing short of a total failure.  Not only has the US-instigated coup in the Ukraine turned into a full-spectrum disaster, but the latest elections in Europe clearly show that the European public is becoming more anti-EU and more anti-US.  In fact, since the EU is nothing more than a US instrument of colonial domination over Europe, being anti-EU is being anti-US.  Bernard-Henri Levi, the hyper-Zionist clown who fancies himself a "philosopher" and who is the darling of the European elites, once said that "anti-Americanism is a metaphor for anti-Semitism".  To paraphrase him I would say that "anti-Europeanism is a metaphor for anti-Americanism" (at least if by "Europe" we understand that trans-national horror known as the EU and not the "Europe of the fatherlands" which de Gaulle, a true patriot of France and Europe, had called for).  And the folks in DC understand that too, they are not stupid.  Worse of all for them, time is running out and the situation on the ground is getting worse and worse not by the day, but by the hour.  France, in particular, might explode literally any day.

But the real problem is not in Europe or in the Ukraine, it is in the USA.  The US leadership, clearly intoxicated on imperial hubris and 1% class arrogance, has simply forgotten Bismark's motto that "politics is the art of the possible" and this is why instead of seeking some kind of best possible compromise leading to the best possible outcome, they are holding on with a desperate death-grip to an impossible outcome: a Europe run by the EU and a unitary state of Banderastan on the border with Russia.  That ain't gonna happen, of course.  In fact, the harder the US pushes for such an outcome, the less likely it is to ever become reality.  No need to read Hegel to understand that - a quick look at the recent events in Europe clearly shows that the AngloZionist imperial design for the ATTU (Atlantic to the Ural) zone is going nowhere and will end up in an embarrassing meltdown.

Faced with this prospect, the White House does what the French call "fuite en avant" ("fleeing forward" if you want, or "advancing even faster into the quicksands").  The Russians did not take the Ukrainian bait?  Fine - we will pretend like they did anyway and "reassure" the Europeans by declaring that "the security of America's European allies is sacrosanct" with enough gravitas to hopefully make them believe that they are really threatened. The neo-Nazi junta has just engaged in yet another massacre in the east? No problem, we will simply praise the regime for its restraint and "democratic nature".  The EU leaders are having a panic attack over the latest elections?  No problem either, we will just give them a one billion dollar bribe to show them that we will stand by them no matter what and regardless of whom those pesky Europeans might vote for the next time around.

Because, of course, this is what this billion dollar is all about.  It's just bribe money for the 1% in the US and the EU to be distributed amongst these plutocrats under the guise of "reassuring Europe".  In reality, the "European Reassurance Initiative" only serves to reassure the European elites and the Eurobureaucrats as they are the only ones who will truly benefit from it.  And were shall the money come from?  Well, hell, Uncle Sam can just create it out of thin air with a few keystrokes on the right computer.  And as long as the EU and the rest of the US-colonized planet continues to accept payments in dollars, they will be the ones really paying for this "EU plutocracy reassurance initiative".

You might retort that this is a stupid strategy which will only make things worse.  And you would be right.  But not in the very short term, which is really the only term which has ever mattered to capitalists anyway.  Besides, money and guns are the only two "policy instruments" the US elites understand, so why not throw some money at the issue and hope that guns will make the Empire look stronger?

It is as pathetic as it is immoral. The good news is that the AngloZionist Empire is really sabotaging itself and that it does so faster and better than any outside power could ever dream of.  And we are far from having seen the worst of it (just think of what a Hillary Presidency would look like!).

As for the people of Novorossia and Russia - they should keep their cool and realize that all this hot air blowing from the West is just that - hot air.  Yes, sometimes they *sound* scary, but that only because American politicians are the masters of make believe and that they are running what Chris Hedges so brilliantly called the "Empire of Illusions".  No matter what they say, the reality on the ground, in the real world, is that Kiev does not have any military option in the Donbass just like the AngloZionist Empire has no military option against Russia.  Yes, they can *pretend* like they have, but that does not make it so.

What we all should keep in mind is that neither money nor guns win wars.  Yes, they are important factors, but they cannot decide an outcome.  Willpower does.  The Americans, by the way, are quite aware of that.  The dumb ones really believe their own propaganda, but the smart ones know that the real purpose of the US "make believe propaganda" is not to really make it happen, but to demoralize the opponent and break down his will to resist.  The danger of that is that the moment your opponent really understands that he will immediately understand something else too: that your bark is far bigger than your bite.  This is what has happened with Hezbollah.

For years the AngloZionist propaganda has presented the IDF as some kind of elite, almost invincible, force (which they never were, as anybody who has trained with them knows).  And that myth of Israeli invincibility has literally paralyzed the entire Middle-East until Hezbollah challenged it.  As Robert Fisk reported in 2006 "while in the past the Lebanese would jump into their cars and drive north as soon as an Israeli attack was announced, now they would jump in their cars and drive south".  That "switch" in the mind of the Lebanese is what really defeated the IDF in 2006, not some kind of Hezbollah super-weapon.

What does this mean for Novorossia?

It means that the people of Novorossia must truly believe in themselves and stop hoping for a Russian intervention which is not going to happen, at least at this moment in time.  Let Obama shake his billion dollar hammer until he drops in exhaustion, but never let that distract you from a victory which is very much within your reach.  Yes, the massacres in Odessa, Mariupol, Slaviansk, Kramatorsk, Donetsk and now Lugansk are disgusting atrocities which cannot be forgiven or forgotten, but they are not on the same scale as the horrors of WWII and yet the Russian people eventually also won that war.

Lies and terror have the exact same purpose: to defeat the will of their target and we can expect a lot more lies and terror from the neo-Nazis in Kiev and from the AngloZionist Empire.  But if we take heed of Hezbollah's example in Lebanon and if we keep in mind that time is very much on our side, we will prevail, sooner rather than later.

The Saker

Remembering the important lessons of the Cold War

If anything the past 24 hours have proved, once again, that the US and NATO are opposed to any form of negotiations, confidence-building measures or any other type of negotiations with the Donbass and with Russia.  Even though Putin tried really hard to sound accommodating and available for a negotiated solution, the US/NATO policy is clearly to provoke and confront Russia and its allies in every imaginable way.  The same goes, of course, for the junta freaks whose forces have acted with special brutality during repressive operations in the city of Mariupol.  As for the AngloZionist Empire, it is organizing all sorts of military maneuvers in Poland, the Baltic states and elsewhere.  Logically, many of you are coming to the conclusion that a war is becoming a very real possibility and I therefore want to repeat a few things yet again.

First, there is no military option for the AngloZionists in the Ukraine, at least not against Russia.  This is primarily due to three fact things: geography, US overreach and politics.  Geography, it is much easier for Russia to move a ground forces to the Ukraine than it is for the US/NATO, especially for heavy (mechanized, motor-rifle, armored, tank) units.  Second, simply too many US forces are committed elsewhere for the US to have a major war in against Russia in eastern Europe.  Third, for the time being the western public is being deceived by the corporate media's reports about the "Russian paper tiger", but as soon as the real fighting starts both Europeans and Americans will suddenly wonder if it is worth dying for the Ukraine.  Because if a shooting war between the USA and Russia really begins, we will all be at risk (see below).

Remember how the very same media promised that the poorly equipped, poorly trained, poorly commanded and poorly motivated Russian military could not crack the "tough nut" represented by the NATO-trained Georgian military?

Second, we have to remember that it is never possible to oppose to forces on paper and say that "A" is stronger than "B".  Afghanistan and Iraq are perfect examples of the kind of misguided conclusions a self-deluding political leadership can reach when it begins to believe its own lies.  So without committing the political "crime of crimes" and suggesting that the invincible US military is anything but invincible, let me suggest the following: if the Russian conventional forces were to be defeated you can be absolutely sure that Russia would have to engage its tactical nuclear capabilities at which point the situation would escalate into a well-known Cold War conundrum.  The theory of deterrence suggests that you should reply at the same level, but not above, then your adversary's first move.  So, a Russian tactical nuclear strike in, say, Poland or even the Ukraine would have to be met by a similar US strike.  But where?  Where is the Russian equivalent of Poland for the USA?  Belarus?  But that is much more like a Russian strike on Canada - really close to home.  Kazakhstan?  Ridiculous - too far.  Obviously not Armenia.  So where would the US retaliate?  Against Russian forces in the Donbass, but that is right across the border.  Maybe in Russia itself?  But that would mean striking at the Russian territory proper.  What will Russia do in this case - strike at Poland?  Germany?  The 'equivalent' response would be to strike at the US mainland, of course, but that would be inviting a full-scale US retaliation, which would inevitably be followed by a Russian one. And since neither side can disarm the other in a counter-force disarming strike, we are talking about a nuclear world war a la Dr Strangelove, with nuclear winter and all.

Some might find this kind of reasoning ridiculous, but anybody who has participated in the Cold War will tell you that the best minds in the USA and USSR were busy full time grappling with these issues.  Can you guess what they concluded?  That a nuclear won cannot be won.  But that, in turn, means that no war opposing the USA to Russia can be won because any war of this kind will inevitably turn nuclear before the weaker sides surrenders.  Let me put it to you in a somewhat silly but truthful way: the survival of the USA depends on Russia not losing a war.  Yes, that's right.  And the converse is also true: Russia's survival is contingent on the USA not being defeated either.

This is why Foreign Minister Lavrov has been repeating over and over again that no one side can achieve security at the expense of the other and that security has to be collective and even mutual.  But was anybody listening to him across the Atlantic?

Of course, for the time being and for the foreseeable future, this will only be true for a war directly opposing Russian and US military forces.  Proxy wars are okay, as are covert operations and wars against third parties.  But for the time being, only Russia and the USA have the kind of full-spectrum nuclear capabilities to be able to completely destroy the other side "no matter what".  Let me explain.

It has often been said that the Russian and US nuclear forces have to be on high alert and that to avoid being destroyed in a counter-force (counter military) first strike they would have to launch on warning i.e., to launch while the other side's missiles are incoming and before they hit their targets.  The fact is that both countries practice what is called "launched under attack" which is launching while some enemy missiles have already hit.  But the truth is that both the USA and Russia could afford what is called "riding out the attack" completely and still have enough strategic nuclear weapons to destroy all the key population centers of the other side.  This is due to their highly redundant strategic nuclear forces.  The fact is that even if, say, the USA managed to destroy every single Russian bomber and every single Russia nuclear silo, and every single Russian strategic nuclear missile carrying submarine, even those in port (who can launch right from there if needed), Russia would still have enough road-mobile ICBMs to wipe off the USA a a country.  The exact same can be said of a Russian first strike on the USA which, even if unrealistically successful would still expose Russia to a massive retaliation by USN strategic nuclear missile carrying submarines.  And in the real world no first strike is 100% successful.  Even 95% successful is not enough if the remaining 5% can still be shot back at you.

Civilians often complain that Russia and the USA have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over as it that was a sign of insanity.  In reality, it is exactly the opposite: it is because both Russia and the USA have the peacetime ability to destroy the planet several times over that in wartime neither side can have any hopes of achieving a first strike successful enough to avoid a massive retaliation.  Yes, in the world of nukes, more is better, at least from the point of view of what is called "first strike stability".

This what sets Russia and the USA really apart: no other nuclear power has a nuclear force whose first strike survivability is as high as Russia and the USA" for the foreseeable future all other nuclear-weapons possessing powers are susceptible to a disarming first strike.

Let me give one more example of how nuclear warfare is counter-intuitive in many ways.  We often hear of alert levels (DEFCONs in the USA) and the assumption is that a lower level of defense alert is better.  It is not.  In fact, a higher alert level is better from the point of view of first strike stability.  Here is why:

In complete peacetime (DEFCON 5), most bombers are sitting on the tarmac, most crews doing their training, most subs are moored in port and most critical personnel busy with normal daily tasks.  This is exactly when these forces are the most vulnerable to a disarming first strike.  At higher levels of alert, the crews will be recalled to their bases, at even higher levels they will be sitting in their planes with engines running and at the highest threat level the bombers will be airborne in prepared holding positions, submarines will be flushed out to sea, all personnel in wartime command posts and, in the USA, the President has his key aides either in the air in Air Force 1 or deep inside a bunker.  In other words, a higher degree of alert means much less vulnerability to a first strike and that, in turns, means more time to negotiate, find out what is really going on, more time to avoid a war.

What I am trying to illustrate here is that both Russia and the USA have developed a very sophisticated system to make it impossible for the other side to "win" a war.  That system is still there today, in fact Putin has just invited the other heads of state of the CSTO to be present during a large-scale test of the Russian strategic deterrence forces (not because of the Ukraine, this exercise was scheduled over a year ago).

In other words, this means that the US/NATO know that they cannot "win" a war against Russia, not a conventional one and not a nuclear one either.  Those who claim otherwise have simply no idea what they are talking about.

Which leaves two possible explanations for the current behavior of the West, and neither of them is encouraging.

First, Obama, Merkel & Co. are lunatics, and they are hell-bent into starting WWIII.  I frankly cannot imagine that this is true.

Second, Obama, Merkel & Co are playing a reckless game of chicken with Putin hoping that he is bluffing and that Russia will accept a neo-Nazi run Banderastan which would be hysterically russophobic, a member of NATO and generally become an AngloZionist puppet state like Poland or Latvia.

That, my friends, is not going to happen.  This is why on March 1st of this year I wrote an article warning that Russia was ready for war.  And it has nothing to do with Putin, Russian imperialism or the kind of nonsense the western corporate media is spewing and everything to do with the fact that the US wants to turn the Ukraine into an existential threat to Russia while keeping together by brute violence and terror a fictional country invented by the deranged minds of western Popes and Jesuits which has no existence in reality and which would implode in less than 24 hours if left by itself.

What makes me believe that we are in a crisis potentially much more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis is that at that time both the US and the USSR fully understood how serious the situation was and that the world had to be brought back from the brink of nuclear war.  Today, when I listen to idiots like Obama, Kerry, Psaki & Co. I am struck by how truly stupid and self-deluded these people are.  Here they are playing not only with our existence, but even with theirs, and they still are acting as if Putin was some Somali war lord who needed to be frightened into submission.  But if that tactic did not work with Somali warlords, why would they think that it will work with Putin?

I will want to force myself to believe that behind all these crazy and ignorant lunatics there are men in uniform who have been educated and trained during the Cold War and who still remember the many hours spent running all kinds of computer models which all came back with the same result over and over again: a victory is impossible and war was simply not an option.

It is also possible that the Empire wants to escalate the situation in the Ukraine enough to force a Russian intervention but not enough to have a shooting war.  If so, that is a very risky strategy.  I would even call it criminally reckless.  It is one thing to engage in all sorts of macho sabre rattling with the DPRK, but quite another to try the same trick on a nuclear superpower.  The scary fact is that the bloody Democrats already have such a record of utter recklessness.  Do you remember when in 1995 Clinton sent in two US aircraft carriers into the Strait of Taiwan in a cowboy-like show of macho force?  At that time the Chinese wisely decided against responding to a stupid action by a equally stupid reaction, but what if this time around Obama decides to show how tough he really is and what if Putin feels that he is cornered and cannot back down?

It is scary to think that the fact that Russian and Chinese leaders are acting in a responsible way actually entices the US to act even more irresponsibly and recklessly but this does seems to be the case, especially when a Democrat is in the White House.

When is the last time you remember a US President taking upon himself to make a constructive proposal to avoid military action or a way?  I honestly cannot recall such an instance.

In conclusion I can only repeat what I said so many times: there is no military option for the US/NATO against Russia.  As for whether the AngloZionist plutocracy of the 1% who rule over us has gone completely crazy - your guess is as good as mine.

The Saker

John Kerry and the "last resort" rule as a cause for optimism

[First a small announcement: I will contact the "Saker correspondents" over the week-end with details about how we will get organized and the kind of stuff we will do.  Over 40 people have responded to my offer and I am happy to announce that we got all five continents covered.  Another seven candidates have not answered my request to confirm their desire to participate: "fsd", "cc", "sl", "y", "aa", "ov" and "fg".  If you are still interested, please email me over the week-end.]

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Listening to Kerry today I went through a series of rather contradictory emotions.  First, I felt disgusted, then my disgust turned to anger, then to outright amazement and, by the end, I actually felt rather happy.  Let me explain why.

First, of course, my stomach turns every time I hear this prototypical representative of the 1%er plutocracy speaking to the world as if he was some kind of Emperor-schoolteacher scolding a class of rather dumb and unruly kids for their bad behavior and promising them a spanking.  We all know that folks like Obama or Baby Bush are just puppets, a mostly empty shell shown to the zombified public as "The President and Commander in Chief" while in reality these guys are basically spokesmen.  Not so Kerry.  He is in the Dick Cheney or James Baker class, not quite at the top of the power pyramid, but much higher up.  These are the folks who step in when the mindless puppet makes a mess and some brains are needed on the frontlines.  I find these people profoundly repulsive (though I could not help admiring James Baker's fantastic diplomatic skills).

My initial disgust turned into rage when I heard Kerry speak such lies that out to make even a politician feel ashamed of himself.   Most of what Kerry said could quite literally be turned around by 180 degrees and become true.  Even though I am now 50 years old and I have seen all sorts of lies, deceptions, betrayals and falsehoods over the years, I still have a naive voice in me screaming "how can he say that?", "does he not feel horribly ashamed?", "how can he live with himself?".  I know.  I am naive and idealistic.  I just cannot get used to it.  Even after 50 years.

Eventually, my rage turned into outright amazement.  At this point, I was beyond good and evil, I was marveling at the nerve it takes to go on world-wide TV and basically state that he earth is not round, but triangular, that 2+2=317 and that black is pink with green dots.  He even added that it was impossible to turn black into grey, that black was just that, black.  At this point I was awed.

And then, suddenly, it hit me.  Kerry and the interests he represents are really terrified and frustrated.  His statement is a desperate attempt to do what the lawyers call the "last resort rule".  It goes like this: “If you have the law, hammer the law. If you have the facts, hammer the facts. If you have neither the law nor the facts, hammer the table”.  Kerry was hammering the table really very, very strongly and that, I realized, was an implicit admission that neither the (international) law nor the facts were on his side.  Had the facts or the law been on his side, there would have been no need for table hammering, of course.

His panic and frustration also showed in his rather clumsy attack on the Russia Today TV channel.  Here is what he said:

In fact, the propaganda bullhorn that is the state-sponsored Russia Today program, has been deployed to promote – actually, Russia Today network – has deployed to promote President Putin’s fantasy about what is playing out on the ground. They almost spend full time devoted to this effort to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine. Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk.

But think about it:  Russia Today does not broadcast in Ukrainian or Russian.  It broadcasts in English, Spanish and Arabic.  The only thing RT does broadcast in Russian are its documentaries on its dedicated website: http://doc.rt.com/on-air/.  This is a tiny fraction of what the channel really does and its audience in Russia or the Ukraine is minute compared to the one of the big Russian TV channels.  So why did Kerry single our Russia Today?  The answer is obvious, of course, it is because Russia Today is a very popular TV channel outside Russia or the Ukraine.  According to Wikipedia,

The network's signal is carried by 22 satellites and over 230 operators, which allows some 644 million people to watch the channel in more than 100 countries. RT America is available to 85 million people in the United States.  In 2011 it was the second most-watched foreign news channel in the U.S. after BBC World News, and the number one foreign station in five major U.S. urban areas in 2012. It is also very popular among younger American people, U.S. college students, and in U.S. inner city neighborhoods. In 2013 RT has become the first TV news channel in history to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. According to the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board between 2.2–2.3 million Britons tuned their televisions to RT during the second half of 2012, making it the fourth-most watched rolling news channel in Britain, behind BBC News, Sky News and Al Jazeera English.

Remember the candid admission of Walter Isaacson, chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, who openly declared that,

“We can't allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies, you've got Russia Today, Iran's Press TV, Venezuela's TeleSUR, and of course, China is launching an international broadcasting 24-hour news channel with correspondents around the world [and has] reportedly set aside $6 -10 billion dollars – we have to go to Capitol Hill with that number – to expand their overseas media operations.”

So there you have it.  The problem is not that Russia Today is stirring up the people of eastern Ukraine, the problem is that thanks to Russia Today the people in the West are beginning to see through the official propaganda!  That is the real reason for Kerry frustrated outburst.

So, to sum things up:

1) The law is not on Kerry's side.
2) The facts are not on Kerry's side.
3) The people in the West are beginning to see through the lies of the propaganda machine.
4) There is nothing the Empire can do about any of that.

If any confirmation of that was needed, it came today with the amazing performance of Mark Levine on today's CrossTalk show.  It's not on YouTube yet, but you can watch it here: http://rt.com/shows/crosstalk/154788-ukraine-info-war-russia/.  Levine turned CrossTalk into CrossShout, another clear case of "table hammering".  Why - for the same reasons as Kerry.  Nothing else works for him anymore.

Ever since Putin came back to power, Russia is not playing by the same set of rules as the ones drafted by the Empire.  Both in Syria and the Ukraine, Russia has been very carefully but steadily pushing back the international AngloZionist plutocracy and loosening its grip on the planet and this is directly reflected in the impotent rage of Kerry and his fellow 1%ers.

This, I think, is very good news indeed.

Cheers,

The Saker

And now, please stand for a message from our Imperial Overlords

Latest goofy "sanction" out of the White House

In a new twist of absolutely staggering stupidity, it appears that NASA has decided to suspend all cooperation with Russia in a move to express its disapproval of the reunification of Crimea with Russia.  Apparently, some delusional megalomaniac in the Administration seriously believes that Russia depends on NASA for its space program while, of course, this is very much the other way around.  Just like the US needs Russia to safely get its "boys" out of Afghanistan, the US fully depends on Russia to get an astronaut into space and yet it is NATO and NASA which as suspending all cooperation with Russia and not the other way around.

I wonder what they would do if Russia decided to call their stupid bluff and really suspend all cooperation with NATO and NASA...

Mind you, Russians are hyper-realists and not easily offended.  As long as they don't care - and they don't - they won't take any harsh measures and let the crazies in the White House huff and puff about how they are "isolating Russia".  From the point of view of the Kremlin, the more the US adopts absolutely ridiculous and outright idiotic "sanctions", the clearer it is that nothing truly dangerous will happen.

Though, who knows, in despair the Obama Administration might take a truly dramatic decision.

Close the McDonald's on Pushkin square perhaps?

The Saker

The BBC and Russian aircraft - a small but telling example.

Since nothing dramatic is going on (thanks God for that!), I can mention little things which want to share with you.  This time, yet again, its the BBC which triggered my disgust.  This is the BBC article about the airplane crash which took place in Algeria today:

An Algerian military transport plane has crashed in the north-east of the country, killing all but one of the 78 people on board. The Hercules C-130 crashed into a mountain in Oum al-Bouaghi province, en route to Constantine, in bad weather conditions. One survivor is being treated for head injuries, reports said. The government and military say 78 people were on board - not 103 as reported by officials and local media. Most of those on board were military personnel and their family members. "I saw the military plane crashing, and it was cut into two pieces," a firefighter, Mohamed, told Reuters news agency at Ouled Gacem, near the crash site. Women and children were among the 77 bodies recovered from the crash site. Dozens of rescue workers reached the scene, despite the mountainous terrain and wintry weather conditions (...)

Nothing special, right?   True.

And yet, there is something very obnoxious here.  The article says "Hercules C-130".  It does not say "US-built Hercules C-130".  So what?  Why should the BBC specify that the C-130 is build in the USA?  I don't see a reason for that too.

But my question is this: why is it that when a Russian-built aircraft crashes the BBC always, always, absolutely *always* writes "Russian-built Tupolev" or "Russian-built Antonov".  If you do not believe me, look in the BBC archives for yourself.  Western-built aircraft are always designated by model only, but if the aircraft is Russian, then it is always referred to as "Russian-built".  Why?

To associate Russian aircraft with crashes, of course.  Nevermind that in fact Russian aircraft are mostly more reliable than their western equivalents, that they are easier to maintain, and that they can take infinitely more abuse.  And nevermind that the Russian air transport industry has a safety record pretty much on par with the West.  If it crashes, its because it is Russian-built.

Think I am paranoid - check for yourself.

I even wrote to the BBC a few years ago.  Never got a reply.

Does that mean that the BBC has some kind of minder which sits there and makes sure that every time a Russian-built aircraft crashes its country of origin is mentioned? Of course not.  It's much worse than that.  This has become a cultural automatism.  Reporters do that automatically, without even thinking about it.  

It's a little thing, of course, but it is typical of an imperial, of not racist, mindset.

Next time an aircraft crashes, see for yourself is this "Saker law of BBC coverage" holds or not.

Cheers,

The Saker

The tip of the immense iceberg of US diplomatic stupidity now spotted off the Chinese Pacific coast

written specially for the Asia Times

Do you remember President Clinton ordered two US aircraft carrier battle groups into the Strait of Taiwan in 1996 to "send a message" to China?  Well, it appears that Barak Obama, the lame duck spineless multi-humiliated and multi-defeated President of the US of A just had a surge of testosterone and decided to provoke China yet again by mocking its decision to extend its air defense zone over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands.  The way Uncle Sam sent his usual message of imperial contempt was to send two B-52 bombers to flout the Chinese air defense zone.  Not content to do something so mind-bogglingly stupid and irresponsible, the Americans also decided to make sure to add an inflammatory statement.  According to the BBC, (emphasis added)

US Colonel Steve Warren at the Pentagon said Washington had "conducted operations in the area of the Senkakus". "We have continued to follow our normal procedures, which include not filing flight plans, not radioing ahead and not registering our frequencies," he said. There had been no response from China, he added.

Brilliant, no?

The geniuses at the Pentagon sent two strategic bombers (capable of nuclear strikes) directly into an airspace which the Chinese have just declared "air defence identification zone" in which non-compliance with Chinese rules would trigger "emergency defensive measures" and to make sure to inflict the maximal amount of loss of face on China they have essentially mocked the Chinese for not taking any measure.

I would qualify all these actions as criminally reckless and phenomenally stupid.

First, imagine just for a second that the Chinese had shot down the two US bombers.  Then what?  Would the US which did not even have the balls to strike Iran or Syria attack China?  The US sure could not go to  the UNSC for support where they would be laughed out from the Council chambers by both Russia and China and, probably most other UNSC members too.  So did the Americans count on the Chinese doing the right thing?  If that is the case, then the only message sent to Beijing is "look, we are irresponsible and reckless, and we count on your sanity".  This is most unlikely to impress anybody in China.

Second, now that the Chinese did the smart thing and ignored the US stupidity, what has this move achieved beyond alienating China even further?  One really ought to know absolutely nothing about Asia to believe that you can impose a major loss of face on a superpower like China and not have to pay dearly for it.  The big difference between the US and China is that the former acts like a spoiled teenager brat with an attention and memory span in the 5-10 minutes range:  "The Chinese did not attack our bombers - that must mean that we taught them a good lesson!".  Wrong.  The Chinese will make you pay - dearly - for each such humiliation (and God knows there have been many such humiliations the past couple of decades -  remember the Chinese embassy in Belgrade?), but they will make you pay on their own time, when they decide, and that could take literally centuries.  Chinese diplomats and politicians have 4000 years of experience dealing with uneducated and uncivilized barbarians and they know how important it is not to act in haste but with slow focused determination.  And they will remember that humiliation for as long as it takes to avenge it.

Third, does anybody in the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom or the White House really think that US colonies allies in the region will be positively impressed?  Of course not!  Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese diplomats will be horrified to be associated to a such a sorry bunch of nuke-wielding cowboys, but they will keep their mouths shut because they all know that their countries are simply vassal states of the USPACOM province of the US Empire.

Lastly, what has the US proven to the rest of the world.  That is is powerful?  Hardly.  Having lost the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, having lost control of Libya, and having been defeated by Russia and Iranian diplomats over Syria and Iran, the US is an obese and obnoxious giant, but hardly a powerful one.  Yes, it is reckless to send bombers literally into China's backyard (or doorstep - pick you metaphor), but recklessness is not a quality which impresses anybody in Asia and the Americans are deeply deluded if they think that they "scared" the Chinese.  Truly, the one thing that this latest US provocation has achieved is to prove to the world and, especially, Asia, the US simply does not understand the nature and purpose of diplomacy.

I am personally take no position whatsoever on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute itself.  What I am saying is that type of dispute can only be resolved with careful and time consuming diplomatic negotiations and measures and that if Japan truly wanted to get China to give up its claim on these islands the best way to do that would be to make sure that this does not involve any loss of face.  But for a country which has not had Administration capable of diplomacy since the years of George Bush (senior) the kind of provocation we have just witnessed is par for the course.

In conclusion, I would like to say here that US politicians are wrong to be ignorant of Hegel's dialectics and its rules.  Gradual quantitative changes (over time) do eventually result in qualitative changes and this very much applies to the Chinese military which is currently embarked on a huge program of deep modernization and reform which, when completed, will result in a profound strategic shift in the Asian-Pacific Ocean region.  In contrast to the aging and completely overstreched US armed forces, the Chinese armed forces are catching up and catching up really fast.  Yes, in the 1980s the Chinese military did look at lot like the Soviet military of the late 1950s, but the economic boom of China has deeply changed this and today the Chinese armed forces are gradually acquiring more and more 21 century characteristics and soon they will easily surpass the capabilities of the ROK and Japan.  Next,  and before the folks in the White House fully understand it, the US will be facing a large and technologically equal or even superior Chinese military.  China is also being very smart in forging and informal but truly strategic alliance with Russia which, unlike the USA, does every effort possible to show respect and support for its large neighbor.  Should it ever come to a shooting match between the US and China there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Russia will offer its fullest support for China short of actually attacking US targets.
 
In the meantime, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel that China's extension of its air defense zone was  "destabilising attempt to alter the status quo in the region" while the White House said it was "unnecessarily inflammatory".

Yeah, right.

Have these cowboys ever looked into a mirror?

The Saker

Kerry's "here is our evidence" moment: imperial hubris at its most pathological and compulsive

I took the time to listen to the full "here is our evidence" press statement by Kerry (full transcript here).  This was a very discouraging experience.  The bottom line is this: it appears quasi certain that the Americans will attack Syria essentially because "we are America" and because "its just gotta be Assad who did it".  Imperial hubris at its most pathological and compulsive.

It is also rather clear that the Americans will go for the "sissy option" which they refer to as "shooting across the bow".  Do these clowns not know that when you shoot across the bow you don't hit anything?!

The other amazing thing today was the amount of caveats Kerry put around this upcoming attack. Speaking about the decision Obama is supposedly about to take Kerry said:

It will not involve any boots on the ground.It will not be open-ended. And it will not assume responsibility for a civil war that is already well underway. 

 Really?

This tells me that the American are about to do what is called "declare victory and leave".  They will destroy a number of (now empty) buildings, kill a few Syrians, and then declare that Assad as been taught a good lesson and that he will not use is chemical weapons again.  And since he never used chemical weapons to begin with, it will appear that he "learned the lesson".  And then the Americans will be pretty much done because after that they will have very few options left.  This is why Kerry added:

And ultimately, ultimately, we are committed – we remain committed, we believe it's the primary objective – is to have a diplomatic process that can resolve this through negotiation, because we know there is no ultimate military solution. It has to be political. It has to happen at the negotiating table, and we are deeply committed to getting there.

Yeah, in other words - we don't have what it takes to take on the Syrian military.

Good!

Lastly, and this is both disgusting and pathetic, is that the Americans appear to be totally out of touch with the rest of the planet, including the normally arch-faithful United Kingdom.  This really is a crucial sign of decline that the US policy in the Middle-East got so crazy, so confused, so out of touch with reality that even the Brits are refusing to go along.  And instead of pausing and asking themselves how they ever got here, the Americans want to go ahead at it pretty much alone (I know - Hollande and Fabius are so totally in the hands of the French Ziolobby that they want a "piece of the action"; and the Turks are still harboring delusions of regional relevance.  But it is quite clear that the vast majority of NATO/EU countries want nothing to do with this folly).

Since the attack appears to be inevitable and imminent, we can at least find some solace in the fact that it will be largely symbolic and that the US will be alone in this - both of which are very strong signs of imperial decline.

The Saker

Imperial hubris and plain stupidity

I have to say that I am both amazed and amused at the fantastically stupid manner in which US politicians have reacted to the Snowden affair.  Without pausing for a single second to think of the possible reaction to their attitude, they began to demand, threaten and otherwise bully not only China and Russia, but even any other country which in the future might render some assistance to Snowden.  Apparently, US politicians fail to realize a few very simple things:

a) By openly bullying and threatening China and Russia they are making it impossible for Chinese or Russian politicians to cave in to their demands and render Snowden back to the USA.

b) The White House is threatening Russia and China with unspecified "consequences" as if for the past several decades the USA did not use very dirty trick in the book to threaten, subvert, confront, antagonize, blackmail and otherwise piss off not only the Kremlin but the entire Russian population.  Seriously - what else could the USA possibly do to Russia?  As for China, Snowden just made public that the US had been engaged in a massive spying program against China, something which the Chinese authorities definitely knew, but which the Chinese general public did not know for a fact.  And now they want to make demands on the Chinese about the person who revealed that?

c) The USA and the UK are chock full with Chechen terrorists, Jewish oligarchs and even Russian bankers who have all run away from Russian justice and who have all received political asylum (yes, even bankers on the run!).  And, of course, there are plenty of real Russian defectors there too.  How can they seriously think that they can ignore any and all demands from the Russian justice system and then have Snowden rendered just because they now are banging their fists on the table?!

d) In legal terms Russia has no extradition treaty with the USA and therefore no obligation at all to render Snowden.  But then, the Brits actually had the arrogance to demand that Russia extradite a Russian citizen (Andrei Lugovoi) even while they were refusing to extradite Boris Berezovsky.

What amazes me, and diplomats all over the planet, is that, simply put, this is not how "things are done".  Normally, a request for extradition is made rather quietly, in as low  profile as possible, and usually after behind closed doors political consultations.  In the case of defections from intelligence/security organizations there is an "understanding" between the countries that these are never subject to rendition.  Take Poteev for example, a truly huge defection with nothing short of apocalyptic consequences for the Russian external intelligence agency SVR: neither Putin, nor Medvedev nor Lavrov have even mentioned his name in any public statements.  The only exception was Putin who said that "traitors always end up living miserable lives" and he did that to a domestic audience.  But Russian diplomats are mature enough to understand that once a guy like Poteev makes it to the USA, they have to accept the loss, correct the mistakes they made and turn the page.  What you do not do is have hysterical fits of rage and indulge in threatening the entire planet with fire and brimstone if they help your traitor.

The way the USA treats this Snowden affair shows that US politicians are poorly educated idiots with an insular mentality combined with a god complex.  They have the mentality of a bully who simply cannot accept that there are rules which everybody else follows and which apply to him too.  Beyond any doubt, the US diplomatic corps is the worst, most illiterate and incompetent of any major power and as a result of all that, the US foreign policy is clumsy, irrational, self-defeating and fundamentally dysfunctional.  Hence the long series of political defeats the USA had to cope with recently.

Long gone are the days of James Baker who truly was a born diplomat, an effective and refined negotiator and a politician with an acute sense of "the other" who brilliantly succeeded in putting together a large international coalition against Saddam Hussein (which even included the Syrians!).  Following Baker all the USA had is a mix of arrogant and bellicose women like Madelaine Albright, Condi Rice or Hillary Clinton, or spineless fake-heroes like Colin Powell or John Kerry who were supposedly war heroes but who never showed any individual courage or leadership qualities and who, as a result, were easily bullied into doing that which they fully knew was the dumb and wrong thing to do.

So here we have it.  The USA, biggest superpower on the planet, is reacting to a fundamentally minor annoyance like some crazy mix of a women with PMS and a 5 year old spoiled brat.  In a way, of course, it is funny.  But in a deeper way, this clearly illustrates something very serious.

Any good student of history will tell you that regardless of the moral and ethical merits of any political system, one can judge the viability of that system by the kind of people it promotes to its top positions.  The better the ability of any system to identify, promote and place the correct people at the correct position, the better the overall viability of the system.  Judged by this criteria, the USA clearly has lost its former ability to place the best people possible to key position.  Instead all it offers is a long list of mediocre, arrogant, ignorant and outright nasty individuals who simply do not have what it takes to get things done.

Yet another welcome sign that the Anglo Empire is running out of gas.

The Saker

"CF->CYA" - the magic formula of the Empire of Illusions

Well, it sure looks like the United States of Amnesia have rapidly recovered from the use of a so-called "weapon of mass destruction" (a pressure cooked) in Boston and has turned to more important topics like Angelina Jolie's breasts.

And yet, the official narrative is being challenged by so many facts that it is really worth at taking a short look at it.

There was already the Hollywood-like one billion dollar per day lockdown of Boston which managed not to find a severely wounded and bleeding teenager which, as soon as the neighborhood he was in was declared "checked", was found by a private citizen. There was the photos of the naked but otherwise totally healthy Tamerlan Tsarnaev formally recognized by his mother which were shot in the exact location which the cops were searching and which were dismissed by the FBI as "coincidence".  Instead, the cops declared that Tamerlan had been shot and run over by, no, not by cops, but by his younger brother Dzhokhar.  There was the "yes, the Russians did warn us "zig" followed by the "but they gave us no actionable intelligence "zag" episode.  Then, after the eventual capture of the young Dzhokhar, there was the "he has confessed" statement by the FBI contradicted by Dzhokhar's parents ("he cannot speak, how can he confess?!").

Then the action shifted to Orlando, Florida, where a friend of the Tsarnaev brothers - Ibragim Todashev - who, after being interrogated by 4 armed FBI agents suddenly attacked them with his bare hands and got shot six times, including one bullet in the back of his head.  Unsurprisingly, his father now claims that he son was executed.

In the meantime, the two FBI agents who arrested Tsarnaev were taken by helicopter 12 miles off the US coast were they both "fell out" of the FBI helicopter and died.  Later, official sources denied that these two special agents had participated in the Tsarnaev arrest.  (They did not explain what exactly the FBI special agents were doing right on the limit of the US territorial waters though or how they "fell out"...).

Still, bad luck seems to strike "arresting" agents of the US government.  Remember how 22 of the 23 members of the SEAL team who "killed" Bin Laden then all died in a helicopter accident in Afghanistan? That would leave one alive?  Nope - Nicolas D. Checque died in combat December 2012, also in Afghanistan.  That is 23/23.

Ok, some of the info above might be false, based on rumors, uncorroborated or outright fabricated.  That is the problem when everything is classified "secret" - it does not leave the general public many means to find out the truth other than, of course, simply accepting the official narrative.

As for Uncle Shmuel and his hyper-subservient corporate media, they simply deny it all, but without giving any substantiation to their denials.

Take the (immediately forgotten) case of the "lost nuclear warheads and series of  mysterious deaths in the USAF".  Or the most convenient death of the most inconvenient WTC7 witness, Barry Jennings.  I won't even go into the Kennedy assassinations.

Personally, and unlike in the case of the 9/11 events which were clearly the result of an 'inside job" and  controlled demolitions, I don't necessarily see a big conspiracy in the Boston bombings case.  This looks to me like an all-American specialty: a "CF" (clusterf**ck) followed by a desperate attempt to "CYA" (cover your *ss).  In the case of the SEAL team which supposedly killed Bin Laden, this looks more suspicious to me, if only because I am convinced that OBL died in 2004 (several Russian officials - including the very well-informed head of the State Duma's international affairs committee, Sergei Pushkov,  - have confirmed this).  And yet it looks that something or somebody was involved in a firefight in Abbottabad.  Probably not OBL himself, but somebody did return fire and was killed.  And the assault team did make a determined effort to clean up the place from key evidence before leaving the place.  So something happened that night, and all (most?) the key witnesses are dead.  Maybe just to protect them from retaliation, but maybe not.  I don't know.

The same "CF->CYA" model is now being implemented in preparation of the (very partial) US withdrawal from Afghanistan.  If that topic interests you, I highly recommend the superb documentary "This Is What Winning Looks Like" in three parts on Youtube.

None of this is very surprising, really, the USA has truly become an "Empire of Illusions" (to borrow Chris Hedges excellent expression).  Or think of recent Presidents: if beyond any doubt the Presidency of Baby Bush could be summarized as a massive "CF", is Obama's presidency an endless exercise in "CYA"?

Now think of the situation in Syria?  Remember how, two years ago, Uncle Shmuel have Assad just a couple of month?  And then how all the Takfiri crazies from Libya naturally moved from "conquered" Libya into Mali and, mostly, Syria.  And now that the situation looks really dangerous, Kerry is coming to Moscow with a contrite smile on his face, and speaks about the Geneva Accords while the insurgency, the EU and Congress want nothing to do with any peace conference at all.  What is this if not a grand "CF->CYA" operation?

This "CF->CYA" is literally all over the policies of Uncle Shmuel and his corporate nightmare.  Nothing works out as planned and, just as a person stuck in quicksands, each effort to "CYA" only makes the situation worse and worse and worse and worse again.

This model really extends far beyond the borders of the USA, it also is the key formula to understand the policies of the USA's western colonies (aka "Europe).  There is, of course, the iconic example of Mr. Hollande, the most incompetent, passive or, to use a most appropriate expression, flaccid French President ever.  I have no idea where they found this guy, but I don't think I have ever seen somebody so comprehensively clueless at the helm of a country with a 1'500 year old history and nuclear weapons.  And what does Mr. Hollande do with this time?  Yup, "CF-CYA" of course!  And its not only him.  It is the entire EU which looks like The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.  Having "successfully" mugged Cyprus, they are now seriously considering using the same trick elsewhere in the EU.

This would all be funny if it did not spread death and chaos all over the planet.  For an Empire fully centered on illusions, consequences on the ground really don't matter.  As long as CNN says it is a success, it is a success.  The illusion becomes the goal.  And as long as the consequences of these illusions are not shown on TV, they do not really exist.  Simple and neat.

Orwell would be proud.

The Saker