Biden’s Foreign Policy Teams Hints at War with China, Conflict with Russia — Alan Macleod

More of the crazy.

Mint Press News
Biden’s Foreign Policy Teams Hints at War with China, Conflict with Russia
Alan Macleod

The Foreign Policy Establishment Is Hijacking Impeachment — Jeet Heer

Trump should be impeached for using his office for corrupt purposes. Not for challenging the national security consensus.

In the US, the president sets foreign policy, not the Blob or the Borg (Deep State).

The Nation
The Foreign Policy Establishment Is Hijacking Impeachment
Jeet Heer

See also

John Solomon Reports
The 15 essential questions for Marie Yovanovitch, America’s former ambassador to Ukraine

John Roberts

Maj. Tulsi Gabbard receives surprise deployment orders to Antarctica [satire] — Yossarian

Pretty funny, and very apt. Tulsi is the only foreign policy realist that is running against endless, so far at least.

Duffel Blog
Maj. Tulsi Gabbard receives surprise deployment orders to Antarctica [satire]

Yossarian

America’s dangerous game of involving superpowers into their internal political struggles Drago Bosnic

So, how smart is it to antagonize and make such accusations against a superpower like China, given the fact that the Democrats have already antagonized and accused another superpower – Russia? The United States of America has long been divided between the two political parties and their struggle has shaped not just the recent history of America, but also that of the entire world.

Amen. Not only not smart, it is crazy. Except for the MIC (military-industrial complex) that profits from discord and conflict.

Fort Russ News
America’s dangerous game of involving superpowers into their internal political struggles
Drago Bosnic

The Citadels of America’s Elites: Fractured and At Odds with Each Other — Alastair Crooke

Summary: We are ruled by morons and nut jobs.

Strategic Culture Foundation
The Citadels of America’s Elites: Fractured and At Odds with Each Other
Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

Michael Hudson — Global Warming and U.S. National Security Diplomacy

Control of oil has long been a key aim of U.S. foreign policy. The Paris climate agreements and any other Green programs to reduce the pace of global warming are viewed as threatening the aim of dominating world energy markets by keeping economies dependent on oil under U.S. control. Also blocking U.S. willingness to help stem global warming is the oil industry’s economic and hence political power. Its product is not only energy but also global warming, along with plastic pollution....

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson: Global Warming and U.S. National Security Diplomacy
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Graham E. Fuller — Turning Point in US Foreign Policy?

Former CIA "operative" Graham E. Fuller comments on Stephen Kinzer's article posted previous at MNE today. Fuller post also contains a complete copy of the Kinzer article.

Once the financial and economic elite ("the wealthy") on the both sides of the political divide conclude that present policy is costing them more than they are getting out of it, policy begins to shift. The question is whether they have deeper pockets than Sheldon Adelson and the Mercer family.

Fuller is all for it, and he is a "deep state" insider.

Graham E. Fuller
Turning Point in US Foreign Policy?

Graham E. Fuller | adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University, formerly vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, and a former senior political scientist at RAND

So, Michael Hudson Calls It — Andrei Martyanov

Hudson, who, by my primitive criteria, is one of the best (true) economics and economic history brains of our time doesn't mince the words and calls it as he sees it (correctly): Trump’s Trade Threats Are Really Cold War 2.0. Hudson correctly identifies the issue….

Reminiscence of the Future
So, Michael Hudson Calls It.
Andrei Martyanov

Andrew Korybko — Russia Warned That America’s “Golden Age” Might Lead To “Energy Colonialism”

Igor Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft and one of the most powerful people in Russia, isn’t jumping on the Alt-Media bandwagon of speculating about America’s supposedly imminent demise but is instead warning that it might actually be about to enter a “golden age”, albeit one that could very easily lead to “energy colonialism” all across the world....

And this is what is now happening. Exhibit #1 is "freedom gas." More expensive, but, hey, "freedom" doesn't come without cost.

Eurasia Future
Russia Warned That America’s “Golden Age” Might Lead To “Energy Colonialism”
Andrew Korybko

Is Trump Capable of Launching an All-Out Cyberwar? — Jean Perier

Backgrounder on cyberwarfare, a step up from economic warfare and internal subversion in the arsenal of hybrid warfare.

In this endeavor, the US has merged the State Department, the Pentagon, the intel services, and the private technological companies, along with allies, chiefly "five eyes" – the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ together with the US as leader.

The basic idea is to avoid kinetic warfare insofar as possible owing to the high likelihood that kinetic warfare will quickly go nuclear, bring the Great Game to a final end in nuclear winter. The added feature is that hybrid warfare is much less costly economically and also less politically volatile.

For those that have not yet noticed, WWIII is already on.

NEO
Is Trump Capable of Launching an All-Out Cyberwar?

Jean Perier

Andrei Martyanov — Daniel L. Davis Hits It Out Of The Ball Park

Smackdown of US foreign and military policy and policymakers.

Reminiscence of the Future
Daniel L. Davis Hits It Out Of The Ball Park.
Andrei Martyanov

Eric Zuesse — Leaked: USA’s Feb 2018 Plan for Coup in Venezuela

What your government is up to. It is illegal under the UN Charter. Quite revealing that the US military high command would sign on to it. A foreign-mounted overthrow of a sovereign state's government without a UN Security Council resolution is a war crime. Calling it a "coup" is a misnomer. This is the overthrow of a government by a foreign state using its military to do so.

 There is no way to verify the document appended as genuine since it is labeled "Top Secret" however. But if true, this qualifies the US as a rogue state, and it appears reminiscent of Hitler's takeover of adjacent countries in the lead-up to WWII. This is one thing that the establishment of the UN was aimed at preventing. Serious stuff. "It can happen again," and it is happening. (See last link in this series.)

Congress should be on this immediately or the entire US government can be viewed as involved based on silence being consent.

I really don't think that the US politician get this. But the military high command certainly should. Following illegal orders is no excuse. This was decided international law at Nuremberg.

Off-Guardian
Leaked: USA’s Feb 2018 Plan for Coup in Venezuela
Eric Zuesse

Bullshit law.

Sputnik International
Pompeo Claims Any US Action in Venezuela, Including Military, to Be 'Lawful'
See also

It's certain that Trump and Putin had some words about this at their recent telephonic meeting.

RT
US attempt to topple Venezuelan govt by force would lead to grave consequences – Lavrov

Sputnik International

Lavrov Warns Attempts to Overthrow Venezuelan Gov't to Cause 'Catastrophe'

US' Real Actions Contradict Verbal Crusade Over Venezuela 'Humanitarian Crisis'

Rachel Maddow doesn’t think John Bolton is being hawkish enough.
John. Fucking. Bolton.

At the time, I thought MSNBC's hiring of Rachel was a great idea. Now I view it as an unmitigated disaster. The Democratic Establishment is digging a hole for themselves that will be impossible to haul themselves out of. That is a good thing. Time for the whole lot of them to do. They are all losers — born to lose.

Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
On Venezuela, Tucker Airs Anti-Trump Ideas While Maddow Wants John Bolton To Be More Hawkish
Caitlin Johnstone

Fort Russ
MAJOR: Inside How The Coup Was Foiled – Venezuela’s Army Chief Padrino TRICKED Trump & Abrams
Vladimir Dobrynin

In the aftermath of the failed coup which FRN has covered in depth, the White House is in clear disarray. U.S President Donald Trump has openly contradicted the statements of his senior officials on Russian “involvement” in Venezuela after a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin held on May 3.

Clown government.

Fort Russ
VENEZUELA REVERSAL: Trump Says Russia not Interfering – ditches Pompeo-Bolton line on Venezuela after Putin talks

Paul Antonopoulos

MISSING: Guaido now in hiding ADMITS COUP A FAILURE, blames military’s loyalty to Maduro

Joaquin Flores

Caitlin Johnstone — Rogue Journalist
Venezuela: Establishment Talking Points Translation Key
Caitlin Johnstone

Yes, it can happen again. Fascism is alive and well, even in quarters that may seem unbelievable based on history.

Sputnik International
'Yes, We're Racists': Rabbis Recorded Endorsing Hitler, Urging to Enslave Arabs

Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela & Killed Over 40,000 Since 2017 — Amy Goodman interviews Jeffrey D. Sachs

More than 40,000 people have died in Venezuela since 2017 as a result of U.S. sanctions, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research co-authored by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot. The report examines how U.S. sanctions have reduced the availability of food and medicine in Venezuela and increased disease and mortality. We speak with Jeffrey Sachs in our New York studio. In the report, he writes, “American sanctions are deliberately aiming to wreck Venezuela’s economy and thereby lead to regime change. It’s a fruitless, heartless, illegal, and failed policy, causing grave harm to the Venezuelan people.”

The human cost of economic warfare.

Democracy Now!
Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela & Killed Over 40,000 Since 2017

Amy Goodman interviews Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

See also

It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking....

Craig Murray Blog
Venezuela and Binary Choice
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Pepe Escobar — Pentagon Obsession: China, China, China

Another backgrounder, but more about the US and Russia than China.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Pentagon Obsession: China, China, China

Pepe Escobar

Michael Hudson — Venezuela as the pivot for New Internationalism?

Everything you always wanted to know about Venezuela.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Venezuela as the pivot for New Internationalism?
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of
Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University
Crossposted at Saker interview with Michael Hudson on Venezuela, February 7, 2019

Related

Reuters
Venezuela opposition will name new Citgo board this week: WSJ

See also

Medium
Venezuela’s collapse is a window into how the Oil Age will unravel

Nafeez Ahmed

Col. Patrick Lang — Trump and the Spookery

Col. Lang backs the intel chiefs rather than the neocons handling Trump.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Trump and the Spookery
Col. W. Patrick Lang, US Army (ret.)

At the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lang was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism, and later, the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. At the DIA, he was a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service. He participated in the drafting of National Intelligence Estimates. From 1992 to 1994, all the U.S. military attachés worldwide reported to him. During that period, he also briefed President George H. W. Bush at the White House, as he had during Operation Desert Storm.

He was also the head of intelligence analysis for the Middle East for seven or eight years at that institution. He was the head of all the Middle East and South Asia analysis in DIA for counter-terrorism for seven years. For his service in the DIA, Lang received the Presidential Rank Award of Distinguished Executive. — Wikipedia

See also

Sputnik International
Intelligence Community 'Wrong' About Iran, 'Should Go Back to School' - Trump

Thomas Wright — Trump’s Foreign Policy Is No Longer Unpredictable–Gone Are the Days of a Divided Administration

After he won, Trump had a problem. He was completely unprepared to govern and had hardly anyone on his team who was qualified to hold high office in matters of national security. This dearth, coupled with his continuing grudge against the establishment experts who opposed him during the campaign, led him to turn to retired generals and captains of industry, including James Mattis as secretary of defense, Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, Gary Cohn as director of the National Economic Council, and, after a few weeks in office, H. R. McMaster as national security adviser.…

Paradoxically, the advent of a more unified and predictable U.S. foreign policy is likely to weaken American influence and destabilize the international order. A deeply divided Trump administration was the best case for those who believe in the United States’ postwar strategy, defined by strong alliances, an open global economy, and broad support for democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. Because Trump was never going to change his worldview, his administration has had to be marked by either division or agreement on his terms. We now have the latter. Thus begins phase three—the impact of a unified Trump administration on the world.

Now the neocons and war hawks are now in charge.  May as well have elected HRC and the liberal interventionists. The Establishment in either case. Elections count?

Foreign Affairs (published by CFR)
Trump’s Foreign Policy Is No Longer Unpredictable–Gone Are the Days of a Divided Administration

Thomas Wright

Alastair Crooke — It's Not Just A Trade War; And It's Not Just China...

So, what is going on? Well, the US military complex is ‘for real’ on this. They are gearing-up for the coming military-standoff with China. The constant harking on themes that China is stealing America’s technology, its knowhow and its data – and now the barrage of allegations about China ‘hacking’ and (shades of the Russiagate) interfering in US elections, essentially (but not wholly) is about shaping a casus belli versus China. The rude fact is that the US military were shocked to find how far they were falling behind Russia and China in high-tech weaponry....

Strategic Culture Foundation
It's Not Just A Trade War; And It's Not Just China...
Alastair Crooke | founder and director of the Conflicts Forum, and former British diplomat and senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy

SouthFront — US-Style “Troops Withdrawal”: Pentagon Plans To Keep Special Forces In Syria

The first cracks appear.

SouthFront
US-Style “Troops Withdrawal”: Pentagon Plans To Keep Special Forces In Syria

Craig Murray — Continued American Occupation of the Middle East Does Not Suppress Terrorism, It Causes It

Even the neo-con warmongers’ house journal The Guardian, furious at Trump’s attempts to pull US troops out of Syria, in producing a map to illustrate its point, could only produce one single, uncertain, very short pen stroke to describe the minute strip of territory it claims ISIS still control on the Iraqi border.

Of course, the Guardian produces the argument that continued US military presence is necessary to ensure that ISIS does not spring back to life in Syria. The fallacy of that argument can be easily demonstrated. In Afghanistan, the USA has managed to drag out the long process of humiliating defeat in war even further than it did in Vietnam. It is plain as a pikestaff that the presence of US occupation troops is itself the best recruiting sergeant for resistance. In Sikunder Burnes I trace how the battle lines of tribal alliances there today are precisely the same ones the British faced in 1841. We just attach labels like Taliban to hide the fact that invaders face national resistance.

The secret to ending the strength of ISIS in Syria is not the continued presence of American troops. It is for America’s ever closer allies in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf to cut off the major artery of money and arms, which we should never forget in origin and for a long time had a strong US component. The US/Saudi/Israeli alliance against Iran is the most important geo-political factor in the region today. It is high time this alliance stopped both funding ISIS and pretending to fight it; schizophrenia is not a foreign policy stance.... 

The chaos of this incoherent and counterproductive strategy is, peculiarly enough, what the neocons actually want. Perpetual war and destabilisation in the Middle East is their goal. One of the findings I had not expected to discover in writing Sikunder Burnes was that the British had been deliberately exploiting and exacerbating the Shia/Sunni divide as early as 1836 to the Imperial purpose. Today, by keeping Arab populations poor and politically divided, the neo-cons believe that they enhance the security of Israel, and they certainly do facilitate the access of western companies to the oil and gas of the region, as we see in destabilised Iraq and Libya.… 

I have written before that Trump may be a rotten President for Americans, but at least he has not initiated a major war; and I am quite sure Hillary would have done by now. For a non-American, the choice between Hillary and Trump ended up in balancing on one side of the scale the evil of millions more killed and maimed in the Middle East and the launching of a full on, unreserved new Cold War, against on the other side of the scale poorer Americans having very bad healthcare and social provision and America adopting racist immigration policies. I do hope that the neo-con barrage today arguing for more American troops in the Middle East, will help people remember just how very unattractive also is the Hillary side of the equation....

Craig Murray Blog
Continued American Occupation of the Middle East Does Not Suppress Terrorism, It Causes It
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee