The Latest: Iranian FM Says US Cannot Expect To ‘Stay Safe’

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

13 minutes ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

What matters is whether the idea has merit. 

That part is true enough!  Cheers.

[Meredith Poor + 883]

19 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Which motive is presumably why President Obama ordered an entire planeload of fresh cash flown to Tehran and delivered to the Ayatollahs. 

See, there the rub:   the Government's actions (when the govt is Democratic) belie the assumption that The US is concerned about Iran's presumed funding of "violent groups."  Then along come the Republicans and they take a different view.  Did Iran's policies do a flit-flop?  Nope.  Same Iran.  Same hotheads.  Same guys that humiliated the USA and paraded stripped Marines blindfolded through the streets. 

All sounds like partisan finger pointing. Can anyone explain the precise reason why the US sent a 'planeload of cash' to Iran? Or, at least, the reason stated in the media?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

3 hours ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

I'm not saying it's true; I'm just saying it wouldn't surprise me.  Selling out the country for personal profit is exactly what I'd expect from corrupt politicians. 

I'll also note that whether an idea sounds paranoid is irrelevant.  What matters is whether the idea has merit.

Both the Clintons and Obama spring to my mind.

My comment is not about partisan politics, it is about psychopaths.  And yes, I strongly believe both of the Clintons and Obama are psychopaths, despite their flowery rhetoric.

 

^ the book title is "The Post American World".

[TXPower + 643]

49 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

All sounds like partisan finger pointing. Can anyone explain the precise reason why the US sent a 'planeload of cash' to Iran? Or, at least, the reason stated in the media?

The reason was to secure the impotent little deal known as the JCPA.  The reason was to purchase what Obozo considered his legacy......  

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

44 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

All sounds like partisan finger pointing. Can anyone explain the precise reason why the US sent a 'planeload of cash' to Iran? Or, at least, the reason stated in the media?

I remain unclear as to the reference to "partisan finger pointing," yet I am unconvinced that it would make any difference.  As to your follow-up question, the cash was the result of an un-freezing of Iranian accounts, apparently sovereign accounts, held in banks inside the USA.  The Iranians ultimately agreed to the "nuclear deal" in exchange for at least some baby-steps towards normalization of relations.  That baby-step was the released of their cash.  The US Govt agreed that it would fly the cash to Tehran, instead of attempting to ship such large amounts through banking channels, and also the Iranians insisted that their funds come home, not stay inside some US bank where it could again be seized  (that part sounds reasonable enough to me).  So the plane was loaded up and shipped out. 

And sure enough, in the next  US election along comes The Donald and he proceeds to unilaterally unwind the nuclear deal, makes claims of "cheating"  (for which there does not seem to be any foundation, except that The Donald said so, which in Washington today seems to be quite satisfactory, any other aspect being deemed "fake news" or "Fake facts" or whatever you want to label it as. 

Whether or not The Donald will go throw bombs at the Iranians is anybody's guess.  You will note, however, that Iran, including the Revolutionary Guards units, are being ultra careful to create no provocation.  Equally, the Commanders of the US Navy fleets are being very careful to stay out at sea and avoid any possible repeat of that shoot-down of an Iranian Airbus out of Bander Abbas  (the "robo-cruiser_ incident).  SO the risk of war remains only with the outside edge of entanglements, which the professional militaries are avoiding, notwithstanding all the blather from Trump and the  Mullahs.  Trust this explains. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

28 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

And yes, I strongly believe both of the Clintons and Obama are psychopaths, despite their flowery rhetoric.

Very unlikely, Tom.  Don't let your politics cloud your assessments of psychology.  

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

15 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Very unlikely, Tom.  Don't let your politics cloud your assessments of psychology.  

We will never agree on this Jan.  That's ok.  I have strong opinions on this, and realize my views are pretty far afield from most.

But ...

There are psychopaths in the world.

This is evil in the world.

Flowery hearts and rainbows don't make psychopaths or evil magically disappear.

We Tracked Obama’s Movements For Over A Month And Based On His Meetings, It’s Time To Question Whether He Is Running A Shadow Government

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

There are psychopaths in the world.

This is evil in the world.

No question on that.  The real issue, which you seem to avoid, is that the "leaders" that get elected are narcissistic personalities, and that trait causes quite a bit of harm.  Whether it is Bill doing sexual-organ activities with some 20-year-old or The Donald doing more conventional sex with Stormy Daniels and reserving the kinky stuff for hookers in Prague, either way those are narcissistic personalities.  It is my conclusion that sober, reserved, basically dull leaders focus on getting the job done, and the others focus on themselves and various acts of preening.  

You seem to be translating that preening into psychopathy, and I think that is in error.  Cheers.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

9 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

This is evil in the world.

Your linked article in your post contains the following question:

     "  If they can get away with this level of corruption with the intent to incriminate a president, what chance does an ordinary citizen have once they’re targeted? "

And the answer to that is precisely zero.  

Getting railroaded by government actors is becoming common.  Only those with large pots of cash can fight that onslaught.  Prosecutors on both State and Federal levels use the limitless resources of governments to hammer on ordinary people just for personal self-aggrandizement.  You are going to see that on spectacular display once the US DOJ gets its claws onto Julian Assange, the Australian now in England.  I predict Assange will receive a kangaroo Court, and will die in US Federal Prison, caged in a concrete cell and kept in there for 23 hours a day, segregated, in Marion Penitentiary, a US "super-maximum" prison.  

That is what happens when you embarrass the government by printing stuff they would much prefer to stay out of the limelight. You get a lighter sentence for armed bank robbery.  In China, you embarrass the govt and you are dead.  IN the US, you embarrass the govt and you are dead, except that when it is the US Govt, they will hunt you down no matter what far atoll you are sitting on, and bring you back to their super-max jails in chains.  Just lovely. 

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

And sure enough, in the next  US election along comes The Donald and he proceeds to unilaterally unwind the nuclear deal, makes claims of "cheating"  (for which there does not seem to be any foundation, except that The Donald said so, which in Washington today seems to be quite satisfactory, any other aspect being deemed "fake news" or "Fake facts" or whatever you want to label it as.

The Public generally demands emotional reasons for these things, but to be ethically sound, did Trump really need a reason?  There's a long history of Middle Eastern nations exporting terrorism and regressive culture to the rest of the world.  I'd argue sanctions are justified on the principle that we shouldn't do business with such ideologies. 

Edited June 12, 2019 by BenFranklin'sSpectacles

[John Foote + 1,135]

On 6/10/2019 at 11:41 AM, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

Its a violent, unstable region populated by useless welfare recipients. 

Bad gross generalization. There is a strong element of patronage in Arab societies, they are at the core tribal, but mostly they are just good folks struggling to get by. The oil welfare states are pretty much limited to KSA, Kuwait, and the UAE. Iraq as a functioning country hasn't really happened since Bush43's adventure. Iran functions remarkably well consider the shit we put it through, and their lunatic government. But they are too poor to really export much violence on the scale we see from the Sunni side.

The region is overwhelming poor. KSA/UAE/Qatar might have funded a heck of a lot of extremism, but their own population within the borders, quite secure. A Houthie soldier is the best paying gig in town, but it's hardly anything. 

For so many poor and uneducated, the best paying job being a pawn to fundamentalists. Senator Paul is right, quit selling them arms. Doesn't matter who you sell them to, eventually those weapons are turned on us. 

People in the less developed regions were living more or less good lives. Injection of wealth not earned, and the western creation of Israel destabilized the place.  Too much oil and money to just turn it off.

[BenFranklin'sSpectacles + 762]

17 hours ago, John Foote said:

Bad gross generalization. There is a strong element of patronage in Arab societies, they are at the core tribal, but mostly they are just good folks struggling to get by. The oil welfare states are pretty much limited to KSA, Kuwait, and the UAE. Iraq as a functioning country hasn't really happened since Bush43's adventure. Iran functions remarkably well consider the shit we put it through, and their lunatic government. But they are too poor to really export much violence on the scale we see from the Sunni side. 

The region is overwhelming poor. KSA/UAE/Qatar might have funded a heck of a lot of extremism, but their own population within the borders, quite secure. A Houthie soldier is the best paying gig in town, but it's hardly anything. 

For so many poor and uneducated, the best paying job being a pawn to fundamentalists. Senator Paul is right, quit selling them arms. Doesn't matter who you sell them to, eventually those weapons are turned on us. 

People in the less developed regions were living more or less good lives. Injection of wealth not earned, and the western creation of Israel destabilized the place.  Too much oil and money to just turn it off.

I was thinking of the 1400 year history of the Middle East/North Africa invading foreign countries, committing atrocities, and enslaving anyone they could get their hands on.  There's more than enough history for me to write off the region as backward, dysfunctional, and violent. 

[Meredith Poor + 883]

26 minutes ago, BenFranklin'sSpectacles said:

I was thinking of the 1400 year history of the Middle East/North Africa invading foreign countries, committing atrocities, and enslaving anyone they could get their hands on.  There's more than enough history for me to write off the region as backward, dysfunctional, and violent. 

To say nothing of the what the Romans were doing before that.

[Tomasz + 1,608]

On 6/10/2019 at 7:04 PM, Jan van Eck said:

The last great American thinker was George F. Kennan.  He crafted the policy of "containment."  Following up on that, if the West had any brains (and any balls) they would go into overdrive to deny any Russian supplier access to the EU market.  And they would move, in blitzkrieg fashion, vast numbers of stockpiled Abrams tanks to the Eastern Front in the Ukraine, specifically along the Kharkov front, and into the Baltics, to avoid getting them trapped far back in depots in Germany where they are useless. 

The Americans would also spend what it takes to rebuild and make seaworthy the Iowa class battleships, specifically to be able to take the Bosporus and the Kerch Strait by force, and slug it out with that Russian cruiser fleet located in Sevastopol.  And the reason you want a big ship like that is that they have 12-inch armor belt plate, so when the Russians go play their collision games you can bust those ships up and shrug it off.  The Russians are not going to get into some shooting war with the Americans; they don't have the muscle nor the staying power for that.  Remember, the entire Russian economy is about the size of Italy's.  The best they can do is use opacity like those green-suited mercenaries they deployed in Donesk.  Send in a fleet of 500 Abrams tanks and off they run. Nobody is going to go toe to toe with an Abrams; those things are so  massive, they are effectively indestructible. 

I agree with you strongly he was great thinker

So maybe l should remind you his legacy- NATO expansion is tragic mistake and it will create nationalistic resentment in Russia and finally will lead to new cold war. He only didnt foresee russian-chinese alliance,

If anyone thought Russia will ever allow Ukraine to join NATO he should be in mental hospital because he is dangerous for world peace and stability by making regime change in Kiev..

 

Quote

 

Foreign Affairs; Now a Word From X

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMANMAY 2, 1998

•  

His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate's ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America's successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer.

''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''

''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime.

''And Russia's democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries we've just signed up to defend from Russia,'' said Mr. Kennan, who joined the State Department in 1926 and was U.S. Ambassador to Moscow in 1952. ''It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.''

One only wonders what future historians will say. If we are lucky they will say that NATO expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic simply didn't matter, because the vacuum it was supposed to fill had already been filled, only the Clinton team couldn't see it. They will say that the forces of globalization integrating Europe, coupled with the new arms control agreements, proved to be so powerful that Russia, despite NATO expansion, moved ahead with democratization and Westernization, and was gradually drawn into a loosely unified Europe. If we are unlucky they will say, as Mr. Kennan predicts, that NATO expansion set up a situation in which NATO now has to either expand all the way to Russia's border, triggering a new cold war, or stop expanding after these three new countries and create a new dividing line through Europe.

Continue reading the main story

 

 

 

But there is one thing future historians will surely remark upon, and that is the utter poverty of imagination that characterized U.S. foreign policy in the late 1990's. They will note that one of the seminal events of this century took place between 1989 and 1992 -- the collapse of the Soviet Empire, which had the capability, imperial intentions and ideology to truly threaten the entire free world. Thanks to Western resolve and the courage of Russian democrats, that Soviet Empire collapsed without a shot, spawning a democratic Russia, setting free the former Soviet republics and leading to unprecedented arms control agreements with the U.S.

 

And what was America's response? It was to expand the NATO cold-war alliance against Russia and bring it closer to Russia's borders.

Yes, tell your children, and your children's children, that you lived in the age of Bill Clinton and William Cohen, the age of Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger, the age of Trent Lott and Joe Lieberman, and you too were present at the creation of the post-cold-war order, when these foreign policy Titans put their heads together and produced . . . a mouse.

We are in the age of midgets. The only good news is that we got here in one piece because there was another age -- one of great statesmen who had both imagination and courage.

As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ''This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.''

 

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by Tomasz

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

16 minutes ago, Tomasz said:

As he said goodbye to me on the phone, Mr. Kennan added just one more thing: ''This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.''

Thank you for sharing this interview, Tomasz.  And yes, the USA assuredly did screw it up.  

What the Russians did not understand, because it was not declared by anyone and was not written down somewhere or anywhere, was that "NATO" had evolved from some military alliance and mutual-defense pact into a quasi-trade-treaty type of alliance that did not need Senate endorsement via a treaty ratification pact.  In 1991 George Bush the Elder was the President and remember he used to be the Director of the CIA. Then in the turbulent years immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet, the President was our man Bill Clinton and he did not focus on these gigantic shifts, he was letting his eyes and his hands slide up and down and over the bodies of young women, still girls emotionally, for sexual pleasure  (I have the distinct impression that he was not sleeping with his wife any more).  When you have a national leader who is just not interested and just not paying attention and is thinking with his Willie then you get this erratic doings with NATO, and no effective leadership on Bosnia, and all the rest.  As Kennan notes, would the US have ever gone to bat for the Slovak Republic?  I don't think so.  IN which case, making some formal pronouncement is a bit silly. 

What surprises me is that Putin, who is himself a very sharp guy and knows how the world stage is played, would pay any attention to talk about NATO.  He knows the West is not going to go to war with anybody over territorial disputes over Poland or Estonia, they did not in 1939 and they won't today either.  So Russia does not need to go invading places with troops and tanks, that is so old-fashioned.  All it has to do is bury itself into the economies of those States and Russia takes over as a practical matter - just as China has done with Sri Lanka  (Ceylon) with its construction of a big port.  Russia does not do this except with natural gas, and the reason is that Russia is basically a poor rural country, and China was poor in the past but now has developed serious financial muscle  (mostly due to selling its stuff to the USA). 

In any event, there it is.  Will Ukraine join NATO?  I predict yes.  Will the US move 500 Abrams heavy battle tanks into the Eastern Ukraine, complete with American tanker personnel to drive and fire them?  Yes, it will.  Will Putin do anything in response?  No, he won't, at least not overtly.  But the response will be a continuing effort to sabotage the US and its putative allies, and all that does is hurt the civilians. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 6/15/2019 at 8:37 PM, John Foote said:

For so many poor and uneducated, the best paying job being a pawn to fundamentalists. Senator Paul is right, quit selling them arms. Doesn't matter who you sell them to, eventually those weapons are turned on us. 

I often wonder how the world would look today if the West collectively had cashed the peace dividend and invested some of that money into trading fairly with Africa and the ME to let them develop... 

[Falcon + 222]

On 6/10/2019 at 9:27 AM, Jan van Eck said:

The US has indeed declared war - just not in the traditional format.  Today, with Trump, war is declared by Twitter feed. And what is the real US goal with its (economic) war?  It is to overthrow the current "mullah" government in Iran.  The motive for that is "revenge."

For those of you either young or with fading memories, back in the days of President Carter, some serious hotheads invaded the US Embassy and overran the place, taking all the marines and the remaining US diplomats and staff hostage.  Those folks were held, blindfolded and imprisoned, for some 444 days.  Carter ordered a military commando rescue mission that went totally off the rails in the Iranian desert, with the Navy Sea Stallion helicopters disabled by sand blowing into the engine intakes, and a helicopter and a transport plane colliding and burning. The rescue mission was a fiasco, total failure.  

Now, there are very long memories inside Official Washington about all this.  Those hothead Iranians are now the Government there.  So the players have remained, but instead of protests over medical treatment for the Shah, it is US resentment, using the nuclear stuff as basis for fomenting new conflict. Can the Iranians placate the US?  No.  What Washington wants is to overthrow the hotheads that run the place, and preferably imprison or kill them.  So, I predict these stand-offs are going to go on for a long time, until all the participants of 1979 are dead. 

No ! Not revenge. 

Iran is the world's number one antagonist.  Iran is the world's number one state sponsor of terrorism.

Obama was Iran's "Patsy".  Gave them whatever they wanted just to say he did something. Legacy builder.

OBAMA GAVE IRAN $150,000,000,000 THAT THEY COULD HAVE USED TO ADVANCE THEIR ECONOMY AND JOIN THE WORLD A GOOD CITZEN.

INSTEAD THEY INVESTED IN MISSILE SYSTEMS AND FUNDED TERRORIST.

Beyond me why Iran would rather build nukes vs develop their extensive oil and gas resources and develop economy with their highly educated population.

Former Senator Kerry has been encouraging the Iranian regime to holdout until 2020 election . 

. . . .  and the Dems in unison repeat the same mantra, the same talking points.  " We need to work with our allies ".  Right.  Just like Obama's "Coalition of the willing" .  They all were willing to sign . . .  but don't dare to ask them to put some skin in the game.

And do not forget that US hostages held for 444 days would have spent an additional 4 to 8 years imprisoned if not for one thing . . . . The election of Ronald Regan.  As soon as he won the Iranians released the hostages.  They know what a strong leader would have done.  That's the only thing Iran understands. 

Later when Iran targeted oil tankers during Iran / Iraq war Reagan wiped out their navy.

Different now.  Iranian forces are formidable.  No match for US but can do some damage. 

The Iranian people a very nice, well educated and reasonable.

It's the leadership that is F'n crazy.

Would you trust those nuts with a nuke ?

Edited June 19, 2019 by Falcon

[Captain America 0]

To the Mullahs....America May Not "STAY SAFE".....But When We're Done......Your Regime Will NOT STAY