Trump

[rowan]

The American presidency is like a good cop, bad cop routine. We all hate the bad cop, but the good cop is just as bad only he lies to your face - and generally gets away with it. So basically we hate the bad cop for being honest.

This is a good perspective on US-Russian relations:

Think about that for a moment. On one level, the long-time NPR commentator is right: US policy towards the government in Moscow has been remarkably consistent — and hostile — for 70 years, albeit with a few brief periods of at least relative friendliness, as during the early and mid 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But that gets to the other point: There was, recall, a fundamental change that happened in 1989-90, when the Communist state founded in the Russian Revolution of 1917 collapsed, and the Soviet Union splintered into Russia and a bunch of smaller countries — former Soviets in the old empire — including Byelorussia, Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and a bunch of stans in Central Asia.

The real question is, once the USSR ceased to exist and Russia, a rump country that, while geographically the largest in the world, is less than half the size of the US in population, found itself struggling to restructure it’s centralized state-owned economy into a modern capitalist one, shouldn’t the US have changed it’s “consistent policy” of hostility towards what remained of the old Soviet Union?

Instead of actively helping Russia recover, the US urged on President Boris Yeltsin a destructive “economic shock therapy” program of balanced budgets, open borders for imports and investment and, most importantly, a sell-off of state assets that quickly turned enabled corrupt former commissars into become insanely wealthy new capitalist oligarchs.

While Russians struggled to survive through a period of rampant inflation, economic collapse and epic corruption, the US, instead of lending a helping hand as it had to the collapsed countries of Europe and after World War II (including our former bitter enemies, Germany and also Japan in Asia,), Washington under the Clinton administration began a program of aggressively and threateningly expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (a Cold War relic of an outdated containment policy which should have, like the Warsaw Pact, been mercifully disbanded), forcing an economically strapped Russia to respond by still spending precious resources on restoring its hollowed out military.

Yes, there has been a 70-year consistent policy of hostility towards Russia, not to mention unremitting anti-Russian propaganda in the US, as Roberts says, but that’s because foreign policy in the US has been in the grip of a Republican-Democrat bi-partisan consensus that argues that the US must work to maintain absolute military superiority over all real and potential rivals, forever. And that consensus views Russia as a major potential threat to that superiority.

That’s why we have a military budget of $600 billion, nearly three times as much China ($215 billion, much of that for domestic control purposes), another country that poses no threat to the US, and as all the rest of the world spends, while Russia’s budget is just 11 percent of that amount at $66 billion, ranking it behind third-ranked Saudi Arabia ($87 billion).

While Obama Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and others in the Washington elite maintain that Russia poses an “existential threat” to the US, presumably because of the number of nuclear missiles it maintains, it’s important to note that Russia has those missiles because the US has a similar number, most of them pointed at Russia–the main difference being that the US has many of its nuclear-tipped missiles located just minutes away from Russia at sites in Eastern Europe, while Russia’s nukes are all on its own territory, thousands of miles and at least a half-hour’s flight away from the US mainland — a difference that means one country, the US, has the ability to launch a first strike and take out the other country’s ability to respond to an attack, while the other has no ability to make such a first-strike threat.

This is all by way of getting to a larger point. The hysteria about Russian hacking of the US election — an action which while it might have happened, is by no means proven — is a meaningless diversion, because there is no evidence at all that Russia is an aggressive nation. While the US is moving Abrams battle tanks and nuclear-capable mobil artillery up close to the Russian border in the waning days of the Obama administration, forcing Russia to respond by beefing up its own national border defenses, no one could argue seriously that Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin, have any interest whatsoever in invading any country of Europe, however small and weak.

What possible advantage could come to Russia from such an action? Even if Russia could succeed in invading Poland and grabbing a piece of that country, or invading one of the Baltic countries that were former Soviets, such an action would make developing trade relations with the rest of Europe impossible, and would force Russia to engage in a costly occupation which it can ill afford.

Why, one has to ask, would Russia be building, with up to $100 billion in Chinese financing, a bunch of super high-speed rail lines from eastern China and eastern Siberia all the way to rail hums in Germany and other European countries, to facilitate vastly expanded trade overland, if it were also secretly planning to conquer and occupy parts of Europe again, as it did in the pre-1990 era?

A cynic — or realist — might suspect that it is precisely this goal of economic integration of Europe and Asia, with Russia at the center, which lies at the root of US antipathy and hostility towards both Russia and China. If the US continues to cling to the insane, megalomaniacal idea of maintaining strategic dominance — military and economic — at all costs over all current and potential rivals around the globe, there is a certain logic to trying to ruin this grand plan for economic convergence on the Eurasian continent.

But let’s at least demand honesty about it.

Donald Trump has said, famously, that people who say the US should not be trying to develop friendly relations with Russia are “stupid.” He might not be eloquent, but he is absolutely correct.

Some of my liberal friends, who have drunk the Kool-Aid of anti-Russia hysteria, argue that the US should not even contemplate acting friendly towards Russia and its leader President Putin. As one put it, “We certainly at least must be in agreement that Putin’s cruel kelpto-capitalist-KGB rule has harmed tens of millions of innocents in the former USSR, no?”

Well, actually, no, we are not in agreement. Where do otherwise intelligent liberal-minded people get these tales of Putin evil? Nobody’s saying that he is a Jeffersonian democrat, but let’s at least get the history right. The “harm to tens of millions in the former USSR” and in Russia proper was done not during Putin’s tenure but during the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1999. That was when the entire Soviet Union was strip-mined by former Communist apparatchiks who enriched themselves by cutting deals to take over former state assets at fire-sale prices, or for nothing, robbing the Russian people, and the workers in those former state enterprises blind. The US encouraged this process, and Boris Yeltsin, a notorious drunk, oversaw it for two terms as Russia’s president. Vladimir Putin began his rise to power in 1999 when Yeltsin made him prime minister before suddenly resigning the presidency on New Year’s Day 1999.

GDP during Boris Yeltsin’s catastrophic first term as head of the new post Soviet Russian state collapsed by 40% between 1991 and 1996 — a worse disaster than the US Great Depression. By 1997, Russia, a huge agricultural producer, was importing one-third of its food. Nothing improved during Yeltsin’s second term, with GDP remaining flat through 1999. Remember, most of the ‘90s was a period of economic boom throughout the rest of the world, meaning that Russia, even standing still, was losing ground to everyone else.

As the British newspaper the Guardian, points out, in a way that you will be hard-pressed to find reported honestly in the US corporate media, Putin, during his decade and a half of running Russia, rebuilt the Russian economy, improved the lives of average Russians immensely, and equally importantly, restored a once great nation from the status of global basket case to a major international power again. Not surprisingly, he is now one of the world’s most popular leaders.

While wild swings in the exchange value of the Russian ruble vs. the US dollar make the figures a little squishy, Russian GDP in 1999, when Putin took over the government, was $196 billion, and rose to over $2 trillion in 2011, hitting a record $2.2 trillion in 2013. With oil and gas exports central to Russian international trade, the crash in oil prices in 2015 knocked Russia’s GDP back down to $1.3 billion, but it needs to be pointed out that for most Russians, who primarily buy goods from food to clothing to housing on the domestic market, unaffected by exchange rates, this has had little impact on their standard of living, only raising the cost of imported goods. Without question, in the view of most Russians, Putin has done a good job of managing the Russian economy.

That’s not to say he isn’t an autocrat. He is, and he’s got a nasty record on freedom of the press and on gay rights, but that begs the question: when has a country’s being headed by an autocratic leader or even a tyrant deterred the US from having friendly relations with it? There’s no room in this article to run a list, but let’s just mention the Shah of Iran, the Chilean military-dictator Augusto Pinochet, the Brazilian and Argentine juntas in 1964 and 1976, Salazar and Franco in Portugal and Spain, and then the dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and other countries of the Middle East. In comparison to these disturbing examples of American “friends,” Putin seems absolutely a paragon of democratic values.

In any event, let’s hope that the mostly liberal Democrats who are being taken in by the media-induced hysteria over an imagined Russian plot to destroy American democracy and to ensconce a Manchurian-candidate Donald Trump in the White House, will come to their senses soon. There are myriad reasons to organize resistance to Donald Trump as we head into a very challenging four years of reactionary Republican control of all the levers of power in Washington, but fear of Russian control over our next president isn’t one of them. In fact, let’s hope that he at least makes good on that one campaign promise to improve US relations with Russia!

Honestly, we just went through eight years of insane non-stop Republican paranoia claiming the Barack Obama was a secret Muslim plant in the White House, or a secret Communist, or, incredibly, both. Some even thought that he was a secret fascist too! We on the left, including liberal Dems, used to laugh at the naive inanity of it all. Yet now, how different are the liberal Democrats who are breathlessly claiming that this new president is a puppet, wittingly or unwittingly, of the evil Russian puppetmaster Vladimir Putin?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/11/ ... on-russia/

[Sandydragon]

Hang on, are you accusing Trump of telling the truth? Really?

Trump is disliked for being a fucking idiot, not because he isn't Hillary Clinton

[morepork]

Disagree. The alt media is more likely to publish without corroborating evidence - sometimes they strike lucky but MSM does at least try to fact check (normally) as they have a real fear of libel action.

And of course, there is a lot of information which never makes it into the public domain, which the intelligence officers can use to try and persuade Trump.

The media completely shat the bed on Iraq and you fucking know it.

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

[Sandydragon]

The media completely shat the bed on Iraq and you fucking know it.

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

Some media were against the war on principle. The issue of Blair 'lying' still hasn't been resolved despite a full enquiry costing millions. If I were to clique the British media in general it would be that they rarely explore issues in depth.

[Len]

If Russia is trying to destabilize American democracy, they've done quite well thus far. Pearler of a job in fact.

[Digby]

If Russia is trying to destabilize American democracy, they've done quite well thus far. Pearler of a job in fact.

Getting a republican candidate into office seems quite a normal thing. And since that party has put for Bush Jnr and Palin for high office in the recent past even what seems a retarded, lying, narcissist candidate can't be that much of a surprise

[morepork]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

Some media were against the war on principle. The issue of Blair 'lying' still hasn't been resolved despite a full enquiry costing millions. If I were to clique the British media in general it would be that they rarely explore issues in depth.

Get off the fence FFS.

[rowan]

Hang on, are you accusing Trump of telling the truth? Really?

Trump is disliked for being a fucking idiot, not because he isn't Hillary Clinton

Both those comments miss the point entirely.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

The media completely shat the bed on Iraq and you fucking know it.

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

[Mellsblue]

Someone on the beeb made an interesting point about the political Henson playing a risking game attacking the people who make a living digging up dirt on people. It's a good point and I can't wait to see where it leads to.

As for him being thin skinned, it's like watching a playground meltdown every time. He just doesn't know how to be an adult. Thinking back to the live debates demonstrated that perfectly.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

My only hope is that he has accidentally managed to pick some gifted people who he might listen to.

We know he has. Billionaires are all incredibly intelligent people. We know this because a billionaire with the IQ and vocabulary of 6 year old said so.

[rowan]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

[Vengeful Glutton]

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

Like?

[Vengeful Glutton]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

Ah ok, so we can rely on you to inform us about whose right/wrong, and what's wrong/right about the world.

Grand, so. I'll sleep tonight.

[WaspInWales]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

Isn't that the same brush you tar others with? 'Brainwashed masses', gullible, unable to think for themselves etc, for anyone who may be swayed by MSM?

Not a personal attack, by the way.

[morepork]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

Fair enough, but the weight of justification was carried on balance by the main stream media. That mission accomplished banner was unfurled behind Bush in coordination with some generally accessed satellites polluted at least in part by the seed of Tony Blair.

[Sandydragon]

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

Ah yes, Pilger. Who mad unsubstantiated claims about the movement of terrorist material through turkey as I recall in a piece that was full of opinion and lacking in actual facts. He was award winning, but I think at least one other poster pointed out that he had some isssues along the way. Yet his word is good enough for the accusation to be totally proven.

If you don't look at counterpunch why do you quote that site daily?

And as for pidgeon holing, isn't that what happens to MSM?

[Sandydragon]

Hang on, are you accusing Trump of telling the truth? Really?

Trump is disliked for being a fucking idiot, not because he isn't Hillary Clinton

Both those comments miss the point entirely.

They really don't. The article suggested Trump is somehow more honest. That is a complete fallicy. Trump isn't disliked because he is the bad cop, it because he is a fucking idiot.

As for china posing no threat, I suggest the author speak to some of China's neighbours, some of whom are American allies. A classic one eyes piece.

[rowan]

Isn't that the same brush you tar others with? 'Brainwashed masses', gullible, unable to think for themselves etc, for anyone who may be swayed by MSM?



Only those with obvious Russophobic prejudices. That obviously comes from your education and social environment, as well as the media.

Ah ok, so we can rely on you to inform us about whose right/wrong, and what's wrong/right about the world.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But you, also, completely miss the point.

And alt media has a record of getting it right every time? You don't have to look far to find complete distortions and downright lies which any basic editorial process would pick up on. Acting like Alt media is the only medium for getting the truth is a recipe for being completely deluded.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

Ah yes, Pilger. Who mad unsubstantiated claims about the movement of terrorist material through turkey as I recall in a piece that was full of opinion and lacking in actual facts. He was award winning, but I think at least one other poster pointed out that he had some isssues along the way. Yet his word is good enough for the accusation to be totally proven.

If you don't look at counterpunch why do you quote that site daily?

And as for pidgeon holing, isn't that what happens to MSM?

Sorry, I do look at Counterpunch. I meant Democracy Now. John Pilger is one of the most respected and experienced political journalists in the world and winner of multiple awards, notably in Britain. So I think I'll take his word over yours, or the mainstream media's for that matter. In saying that, his columns are regularly published in the mainstream media - I think quite regularly in the Guardian, while the American papers often pick them up as well. He was, in fact, quite right about the issue of 'terrorist material' and Turkey, and everybody here knows that, though the two journalists who broke the story are currently on trial for 'treason' (one was actually shot at outside the courthouse), and face life in prison. Robert Fisk, author of the seminal history on Middle Eastern politics, The Great War for Civilization, and many other renowned authors also feature regularly on Counterpunch, which is only a web site domain. Personally I enjoy the views of British MP George Galloway on the Middle East as well, even though he's given to a little hyperbole at times and is certainly not right about everything:

[Sandydragon]

Isn't that the same brush you tar others with? 'Brainwashed masses', gullible, unable to think for themselves etc, for anyone who may be swayed by MSM?



Only those with obvious Russophobic prejudices. That obviously comes from your education and social environment, as well as the media.

Ah ok, so we can rely on you to inform us about whose right/wrong, and what's wrong/right about the world.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But you, also, completely miss the point.

But you're attempting to pigeon hole the alternative media, when the description can be applied to a very broad field of media and commentary. & you seem to have the idea that those who subscribe to alternative media outlets are susceptible zombies drawn like moths to the lamp and lacking both discerning judgement and independent cognizance. Personally I read a lot of books, as well as the columns of experienced, award-winning journalists and commentators such as John Pilger, watch videos of Noam Chomsky speeches and Tariq Ali interviews. But I also run my eye over the mainstream media every day, including American, British, Turkish, Spanish and French publications. In fact, I listen to a little French radio every day, for practice, and also watch the independent Turkish news channel NTV whenever I'm at home. But I don't look at RT or Counterpunch, for example, and while Al Jazeera comes up with some great stories, I ignore everything they print about Syria - because they are a state-funded publication of Qatar, one of the main protagonists of that conflict.

Ah yes, Pilger. Who mad unsubstantiated claims about the movement of terrorist material through turkey as I recall in a piece that was full of opinion and lacking in actual facts. He was award winning, but I think at least one other poster pointed out that he had some isssues along the way. Yet his word is good enough for the accusation to be totally proven.

If you don't look at counterpunch why do you quote that site daily?

And as for pidgeon holing, isn't that what happens to MSM?

Sorry, I do look at Counterpunch. I meant Democracy Now. John Pilger is one of the most respected and experienced political journalists in the world and winner of multiple awards, notably in Britain. So I think I'll take his word over yours, or the mainstream media's for that matter. In saying that, his columns are regularly published in the mainstream media - I think quite regularly in the Guardian, while the American papers often pick them up as well. He was, in fact, quite right about the issue of 'terrorist material' and Turkey, and everybody here knows that, though the two journalists who broke the story are currently on trial for 'treason' (one was actually shot at outside the courthouse), and face life in prison. Robert Fisk, author of the seminal history on Middle Eastern politics, The Great War for Civilization, and many other renowned authors also feature regularly on Counterpunch, which is only a web site domain. Personally I enjoy the views of British MP George Galloway on the Middle East as well, even though he's given to a little hyperbole at times and is certainly not right about everything:

Fisk is hugely biased. He is also prone to the odd factual error. Pilger, as pointed out previously, has not provided any evidence to back his assertions and is relying on reputation. As for everyone knows that he is right, many in your region are convinced that 9/11 was a CIA and Mossad plot despite no credible evidence to back that up. Your government is currently doing a good job of blaming the west for everything so I'm not sure how much I'd trust popular opinion at the moment.

[rowan]

Isn't that the same brush you tar others with? 'Brainwashed masses', gullible, unable to think for themselves etc, for anyone who may be swayed by MSM?



Only those with obvious Russophobic prejudices. That obviously comes from your education and social environment, as well as the media.

Ah ok, so we can rely on you to inform us about whose right/wrong, and what's wrong/right about the world.

Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. But you, also, completely miss the point.

Ah yes, Pilger. Who mad unsubstantiated claims about the movement of terrorist material through turkey as I recall in a piece that was full of opinion and lacking in actual facts. He was award winning, but I think at least one other poster pointed out that he had some isssues along the way. Yet his word is good enough for the accusation to be totally proven.

If you don't look at counterpunch why do you quote that site daily?

And as for pidgeon holing, isn't that what happens to MSM?

Sorry, I do look at Counterpunch. I meant Democracy Now. John Pilger is one of the most respected and experienced political journalists in the world and winner of multiple awards, notably in Britain. So I think I'll take his word over yours, or the mainstream media's for that matter. In saying that, his columns are regularly published in the mainstream media - I think quite regularly in the Guardian, while the American papers often pick them up as well. He was, in fact, quite right about the issue of 'terrorist material' and Turkey, and everybody here knows that, though the two journalists who broke the story are currently on trial for 'treason' (one was actually shot at outside the courthouse), and face life in prison. Robert Fisk, author of the seminal history on Middle Eastern politics, The Great War for Civilization, and many other renowned authors also feature regularly on Counterpunch, which is only a web site domain. Personally I enjoy the views of British MP George Galloway on the Middle East as well, even though he's given to a little hyperbole at times and is certainly not right about everything:

Fisk is hugely biased. He is also prone to the odd factual error. Pilger, as pointed out previously, has not provided any evidence to back his assertions and is relying on reputation. As for everyone knows that he is right, many in your region are convinced that 9/11 was a CIA and Mossad plot despite no credible evidence to back that up. Your government is currently doing a good job of blaming the west for everything so I'm not sure how much I'd trust popular opinion at the moment.

Who's my government supposed to be? I'm Hong Kong born, NZ raised and also have UK citizenship, as well as Turkish residency. So that comment was a little ambiguous, to say the least. By my region I would have to assume you mean Turkey, and I don't know of anyone personally who is blaming the CIA and Mossad for 9/11. I certainly don't. Plenty of other things, yes, but not 9/11. Still, given all the lies America has told to the world, you can hardly blame the world for its conspiracy theories. That's the cry wolf syndrome. & then there's the glass houses syndrome, because you really would be pressed to find a country responsible for more war crimes in modern history that Britain, and that's ongoing as it rides along on America's coat-tails. Meanwhile, if you're going to disregard the views of the foremost writers and experts in the field, that's your prerogative. Pilger and Fisk are very experienced and widely respected, and are just two of my favourite commentators. I have plenty of others. But I do keep an eye on the mainstream media as well, of course, while taking it all with a pinch of salt.

[kk67]

Trump is now threatening a trade war with China. As China holds trillions in US debt I'm thinking it's a war he's already lost.

[jared_7]

I'm not. But Iraq was the mother of all failures by the established "4th estate".

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

Fair enough, but the weight of justification was carried on balance by the main stream media. That mission accomplished banner was unfurled behind Bush in coordination with some generally accessed satellites polluted at least in part by the seed of Tony Blair.

The BBC and ITV both admitted to ignoring multiple independent articles released on the AP, verifying there were no WMDs in the "black site" list provided by Bush and Blair. All the mainstream news outlets ignored an interview with the Head of the UN Weapons inspection team who stated point blank it would have been impossible for Iraq to be carrying WMDs at the time, just 3 years after he had signed off that they had none. The BBC did play the interview on BBC2, at 3am in the morning; once.

The former head of BBC news has said on camera she no longer believed they needed to verify, corroborate or investigate government press releases; they deemed the statement itself news. It was up to the people at home to investigate the legitimacy of official press releases, somehow.

Saying it was just the tabloids is a load of codswallop, as usual the mainstream press dished up a ton of superficial alternative opinions that gave the guise of choice, whilst deliberately manipulating the evidence the public had to weigh those opinions against.

[rowan]

Pilger's latest is a good read:

The Issue is Not Trump. It is Us

'According to a Council on Foreign Relations survey, in 2016 alone Obama dropped 26,171 bombs. That is 72 bombs every day. He bombed the poorest people on earth, in Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan.'

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/17/ ... -it-is-us/

[kk67]

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

Fair enough, but the weight of justification was carried on balance by the main stream media. That mission accomplished banner was unfurled behind Bush in coordination with some generally accessed satellites polluted at least in part by the seed of Tony Blair.

The BBC and ITV both admitted to ignoring multiple independent articles released on the AP, verifying there were no WMDs in the "black site" list provided by Bush and Blair. All the mainstream news outlets ignored an interview with the Head of the UN Weapons inspection team who stated point blank it would have been impossible for Iraq to be carrying WMDs at the time, just 3 years after he had signed off that they had none. The BBC did play the interview on BBC2, at 3am in the morning; once.

The former head of BBC news has said on camera she no longer believed they needed to verify, corroborate or investigate government press releases; they deemed the statement itself news. It was up to the people at home to investigate the legitimacy of official press releases, somehow.

Saying it was just the tabloids is a load of codswallop, as usual the mainstream press dished up a ton of superficial alternative opinions that gave the guise of choice, whilst deliberately manipulating the evidence the public had to weigh those opinions against.

That sounds like the sort of thing Laura Kuessenberg would say.

On the subject of newspapers, there was a fantastic piece in Private Eye's Crimbo special drawing the map of intrigue between the Barclay Bros, Farage and Trump.
It appears that one of the Barclay Bros is now keen to offload the Telegraph because it's bringing them such bad publicity. The other isn't so keen on dumping it, partly because having bought the Tele' for £650m it now seems they'll be lucky to get £240m for it.
Despite the total genocide of talent in recent years it seems that keen to buy at a knockdown price are Aaron Banks (Farage's pet moneybags), Syrian tycoon Wafic Said and tory peer Michael Ashcroft.

[Digby]

Not in the UK. Sure the red tops were mainly pro-war but plenty of the rest were either hostile or sceptical.

Fair enough, but the weight of justification was carried on balance by the main stream media. That mission accomplished banner was unfurled behind Bush in coordination with some generally accessed satellites polluted at least in part by the seed of Tony Blair.

The BBC and ITV both admitted to ignoring multiple independent articles released on the AP, verifying there were no WMDs in the "black site" list provided by Bush and Blair. All the mainstream news outlets ignored an interview with the Head of the UN Weapons inspection team who stated point blank it would have been impossible for Iraq to be carrying WMDs at the time, just 3 years after he had signed off that they had none. The BBC did play the interview on BBC2, at 3am in the morning; once.

The former head of BBC news has said on camera she no longer believed they needed to verify, corroborate or investigate government press releases; they deemed the statement itself news. It was up to the people at home to investigate the legitimacy of official press releases, somehow.

Saying it was just the tabloids is a load of codswallop, as usual the mainstream press dished up a ton of superficial alternative opinions that gave the guise of choice, whilst deliberately manipulating the evidence the public had to weigh those opinions against.

I recall an awful lot of coverage and debate about whether or not there actually were WMD in Iraq, and whether there was a legal case for war. Though at the time that was in a context of a society still in large part in shock from 9/11 and looking to lash out and perhaps not being mindful, and that their anger was used is perhaps why there's been such anger to the various failings over the Iraq war/debacle. Now I don't swear I heard all that debate around the existence of weapons, including interviews with Hans Blix, and the legality of the war on the BBC, but I can't think it feasible I'd have gone 2-3 days without hearing Radio 4 whenever in the UK.

And I don't see what's wrong with BBC news reporting the government statements on the build up to Iraq war, they are news, as they would be with any story.

'tis possible that BBC TV news was somewhat dumbed-down, and certainly there would have been a feeling of support the armed forces in the red tops. and 'tis possible the BBC and ITV didn't carry everything Blix and others commented on that ran contrary to the government's claims (as I doubt they reported everything the government said), but it's simply not the case there was no coverage of claims we shouldn't go to war and there was no justification (legal or moral)