Since 9/11, The U.S. Has Been Involved In More Than 5 Wars … And They’ve All Been Disasters

Below, we demonstrate that the U.S. keeps “losing” war after war.

There are 3 potential reasons this might be happening:

• Is this chaos an intentional way to implement regime change and grab resources?

• Or is this a sign of the decline of the American empire … and we just can’t win a war anymore?

• Or do those in charge just not really give a damn about winning … and are they just focusing on one short-term goal after another?

We’ll let you decide why you think this keeps happening. But if you don’t believe that the U.S. has been losing its recent wars, read on …

U.S. Keeps Messing Up

We noted last year:

Since 2001, the U.S. has undertaken regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

All 3 countries are now in chaos … and extremists are more in control than ever.

Iraq

In Iraq, hardcore Islamic jihadis known as ISIS have taken over much of the country – shown in red as the new “Islamic State” or self-described caliphate – using captured American weapons:

USA Today notes: “Iraq is already splitting into three states“.

Christians are being rounded up and killed, and Christian leaders in Iraq say the end of Christianity in Iraq is “very near”. But as we documented in 2012, Saddam Hussein – for all his faults – was a secular leader who tolerated Christians.

Libya

Libya has also descended into absolute chaos. We reported in 2012:

Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya. Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(This is – again – in contrast to toleration of Christians under Gadaffi.)

The Guardian noted in March:

According to Amnesty International, the “mounting curbs on freedom of expression are threatening the rights Libyans sought to gain“. A repressive Gaddafi-era law has been amended to criminalise any insults to officials or the general national congress (the interim parliament). One journalist, Amara al-Khattabi, was put on trial for alleging corruption among judges. Satellite television stations deemed critical of the authorities have been banned, one station has been attacked with rocket-propelled grenades, and journalists have been assassinated.

***

Ever since the fall of [Gadaffi’s] dictatorship, there have been stories of black Libyans being treated en masse as Gaddafi loyalists and attacked. In a savage act of collective punishment, 35,000 people were driven out of Tawergha in retaliation for the brutal siege of the anti-Gaddafi stronghold of Misrata. The town was trashed and its inhabitants have been left in what human rights organisations are calling “deplorable conditions” in a Tripoli refugee camp. Such forced removals continue elsewhere. Thousands have been arbitrarily detained without any pretence of due process; and judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses have been attacked or even killed. Libya’s first post-Gaddafi prosecutor general, Abdulaziz Al-Hassadi, was assassinated in the town of Derna last month.

***

When residents of Benghazi – the heartland of the revolution – protested against militia rule in June last year, 32 people were killed in what became known as “Black Saturday”. In another protest in Tripoli last November, 46 died and 500 were injured.

Under militia rule, Libya is beginning to disintegrate. Last summer forces under the command of the warlord Ibrahim Jadran took control of eastern oil terminals …. These forces which hijacked a oil tanker this month, prompting threats from Libya’s prime minister that it would be bombed until US forces captured it this weekend. Clashes have broken out in Jadran’s home town of Ajdabiya. In painful echoes of Iraq’s nightmare, a car bomb exploded at a Benghazi military base last week and killed at least eight soldiers, and Libya’s main airport was shut on Friday after a bomb exploded on its runway.

One of the great perversities of the so-called war on terror is that fundamentalist Islamist forces have flourished as a direct consequence of it. Libya is no exception, even though such movements often have little popular support. The Muslim Brotherhood and other elements are better organised than many of their rivals, helping to remove the prime minister, push through legislation, and establish alliances with opportunistic militias.

Ominously, Libya’s chaos is spilling across the region. The country is awash with up to 15 million rifles and other weapons, and a report by the UN panel of experts this month found that “Libya has become a primary source of illicit weapons“. These arms are fuelling chaos in 14 countries, including Somalia, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and Niger.

***

There is a real prospect of the country collapsing into civil war or even breaking up. Unless there are negotiated settlements to its multiple problems, Libya will surely continue its descent into mayhem, and the region could be dragged into the mire with it.

No wonder western governments and journalists who hailed the success of this intervention are so silent. But here are the consequences of their war, and they must take responsibility for them.

28-year CIA veteran Paul Pillar – who rose to be one of the agency’s top analysts – wrote in May:

Just when one might have thought the mess in Libya could not have gotten worse, it has.

***

Saudi Arabia and several other Arab states have evacuated their diplomats from Libya, the United States is preparing for possible evacuation of U.S. personnel, and the country appears on the brink of a larger civil war.

***

Those in Libya closest to being called secular liberals seem to be associated with military officers of the old regime.

***

The intervention already has negatively affected U.S. interests, particularly in providing a disincentive to other regimes to do what Gaddafi did in negotiating an end to involvement in terrorism and an end to production of unconventional weapons.

And things have only gotten worse since then … and Benghazi has fallen to the jihadis.

(It should be remembered that the U.S. helped sew the seeds of chaos in several ways. Not only did we engage in direct military intervention against Gadafi, but also – as confirmed by a group of CIA officers – armed Al Qaeda so that they would help topple Gaddafi.)

Afghanistan

Opium production is at an all-time high under the American occupation of Afghanistan.

And the New York Times reports this week that the Taliban are currently making huge gains in Afghanistan … in some cases expanding even beyond their traditional areas of influence prior to 2001:

The Taliban have found success beyond their traditional strongholds in the rural south and are now dominating territory near crucial highways and cities that surround Kabul, the capital, in strategic provinces like Kapisa and Nangarhar.

U.S. troops are just now leaving, and so the worst may be still to come. In addition – as we discuss below – the U.S. previously imposed regime change on Afghanistan … and the results were bad.

History Repeats

The U.S. carried out regime change in Iran in 1953 … which led to radicalization in the country. Specifically, the CIA admits that the U.S. overthrew the moderate, suit-and-tie-wearing, Democratically-elected prime minister of Iran in 1953. (He was overthrown because he had nationalized Iran’s oil, which had previously been controlled by BP and other Western oil companies). As part of that action, the CIA admits that it hired Iranians to pose as Communists and stage bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its prime minister.

If the U.S. hadn’t overthrown the moderate Iranian government, the fundamentalist Mullahs would have never taken over. Iran has been known for thousands of years for tolerating Christians and other religious minorities.

Hawks in the U.S. government been pushing for another round of regime change in Iran for decades.

Hillary Clinton and then-president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser have both admitted on the record that the U.S. previously carried out regime change in Afghanistan in the 1970s by backing Bin Laden and the Mujahadin … the precursor to Al Qaeda.

And look how that turned out.

Syria

The U.S. has heavily backed the Islamic rebels in Syria in an attempt to implement regime change in that country. The result?

As shown by the map above, they’ve taken a third of the country as part of their “caliphate”

And the jihadis are now busily crucifying, beheading and slitting the throats of Christians. (Yup, Syria was previously known for tolerating Christians.)

***

We can probably add Ukraine to the list of regime changed countries falling into chaos and murderous extremism, given that:

• The U.S. State Department spent more than $5 billion dollars in pushing Ukraine away from Russia

• The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (Geoffrey Pyatt) and assistant Secretary of State (Victoria Nuland) were recorded plotting the downfall of the former Ukraine government in a leaked recording

• Top-level U.S. officials literally handed out cookies to the protesters who overthrew the Ukrainian government

• The U.S. has been backing – militarily as well as monetarily – the Neo-Nazis who have plunged the country into chaos

Since then, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine have descended into still more hellish levels of chaos.

The U.S.-backed government in Ukraine is starting to lose the civil war.

Many of the U.S.-backed rebels in Syria have joined ISIS. And most of the weapons given to the “moderate” rebels have ended up in ISIS and Al Qaeda’s hands.

Mother Jones adds Yemen to the list:

So here’s my scorecard for American military interventions since 2000:

• Afghanistan: A disaster. It’s arguable that Afghanistan is no worse off than it was in 2001, but after losing thousands of American lives and spending a trillion American dollars, it’s no better off either. [Since the government has put a gag order on all military information, it’s hard to know what’s really going on.]
• Iraq: An even bigger disaster. Saddam Hussein was a uniquely vicious dictator, but even at that there’s not much question that Iraq is worse off than it was in 2003. We got rid of Saddam, but got a dysfunctional sectarian government and ISIS in return.
• Libya: Another disaster. We got rid of Muammar Qaddafi, but got a Somalia-level failed state in return.
• Yemen: Yet another disaster. After years of drone warfare, Houthi rebels have taken over the government. This appears to be simultaneously a win for Iran, which backs the rebels, and al-Qaeda, which may benefit from the resulting chaos. That’s quite a twofer.

What a sorry track record …

Comments

[drdolittle]

It's an intentional way to implement regime change. Divide and conquer. The smaller the groups become the less predictable they become. Pretty soon you're faced with groups that will not be bought off. This is not ISIS, isis is crap, our crap.

We're not losing yet, though Yemen is a loss thus far.

[John Law Lives]

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." - Major General Smedley Butler

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[TheRideNeverEnds]

The US is a nation of war.  It has been in a state of nearly constant war since its inception.  The longest consecutive term of non war for the US is five years.  

The total combined time the US has not been in war in all of its history is 21 years.  Leaving 218 years or 91% of its entire history in which the USA has been at war.

[Grimaldus]

Progressives are in charge.

Grimaldus

[The_Dude]

Lesson of Vietnam:   Long, drawn out conflicts are much more profitable to the MIC/TPTB then short, ferocious wars.....hence what we have today.

[exonomic halfbreed]

Next you are going to tell me that we were destroying our own equipment in Nam.  Oh yeah,  never mind.

[napper]

I thought even the US military / govt had made it quite clear that substantial quantities of US military hardware had to be destroyed in the Korean War and the Vietnam War to prevent them from falling into the hands of "enemies". Of course, when your military is collapsing in retreat, you don't always have the time and mind for this kind of stuff .... hence the extensive array of US military equipment captured in both wars. All the better for the MIC and TPTB. You know why.

[bunnyswanson]

Goal of 911 was bankrupt America.  What better way then to engage the nation in war after war as one past president stated.  Dual citizens in US govt is a Neon Sign announcing the silent coup. 

[exonomic halfbreed]

Do you mean like the bolsheviks in USSR?   Naw it couldn't be that.

[lakecity55]

They must "lose" the wars for the final confrontation between Islam and The West.

After WW3, moar devastating than WW2, a Man will appear who offers "Peace."

The world will unite.

Those who do not swear loyalty and get chipped get guillotined.

[Bay Area Guy]

As to  your three potential reasons, the answers are yes, yes and yes.

First off, I'm totally anti-war anyway, particularly these little excursions we go on in the Middle East and other places where there are brown folks we want to steal from.  That being said, the U.S. doesn't go into wars, including all the way back to Korea, with the intention of winning them any longer.  Someone abaove mentioned Grenada.  Yeah, we won that, probably by accident.  If you're going to wage war, and by that I mean TRULY wage war, you have to go in with the intention to win and you have to give your troops the ability to win.  We have gotten bled to death in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq (and probably countless others) because we're not waging war, we're waging "police actions"  As I said, I'm against war unless it's absolutely forced upon me, but in the event it is, my preference is that it be swift and brutal.  Hit as many military targets as you can, as fast as you can and literally beat the shit out of the other side.  We're so damn concenred about fighting antiseptic wars and war is meant to be dirty and barbarous.  It's meant to be that way so that it's avoided at all costs.

[Monty Burns]

The concept of losing has meaning only when viewed from the perspective of the original objectives.  If you assume - for example - that these 'American' wars are really driven by Israeli objectives such as those outlined in the Yinon Plan, then the wars could be seen as highly succesful. If Syria can be economically destroyed and dismembered the plan will have taken another major step towards fruition.

[RickyJabbour]

Just a side note: ever noticed that Yinon has no mention in Wikipedia?

[Sir Edge]

Bingo...

Plus One Kabillion...

I only have so many Kabillions... although I am printing as many as I can thru Belgium... /s

[Element]

A little reading material, so maybe understand a little better what's been going on of late:

--

How Russia Is Revolutionizing Information Warfare
 
September 9, 2014 By Peter Pomerantsev The Atlantic
 
Putin's Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality.

By Peter Pomerantsev
 
At the NATO summit in Wales last week, General Philip Breedlove, the military alliance’s top commander, made a bold declaration. Russia, he said, is waging “the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the history of information warfare.”
 
It was something of an underestimation. The new Russia doesn’t just deal in the petty disinformation, forgeries, lies, leaks, and cyber-sabotage usually associated with information warfare. It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations that then translate into political action. Take Novorossiya, the name Vladimir Putin has given to the huge wedge of southeastern Ukraine he might, or might not, consider annexing. The term is plucked from tsarist history, when it represented a different geographical space. Nobody who lives in that part of the world today ever thought of themselves as living in Novorossiya and bearing allegiance to it—at least until several months ago. Now, Novorossiya is being imagined into being: Russian media are showing maps of its ‘geography,’ while Kremlin-backed politicians are writing its ‘history’ into school textbooks. There’s a flag and even a news agency (in English and Russian). There are several Twitter feeds. It’s like something out of a Borges story—except for the very real casualties of the war conducted in its name.
 
The invention of Novorossiya is a sign of Russia’s domestic system of information manipulation going global. Today’s Russia has been shaped by political technologists—the viziers of the system who, like so many post-modern Prosperos, conjure up puppet political parties and the simulacra of civic movements to keep the nation distracted as Putin’s clique consolidates power. In the philosophy of these political technologists, information precedes essence. “I remember creating the idea of the ‘Putin majority’ and hey, presto, it appeared in real life,” Gleb Pavlovsky, a political technologist who worked on Putin’s election campaigns but has since left the Kremlin, told me recently. “Or the idea that ‘there is no alternative to Putin.’ We invented that. And suddenly there really was no alternative.”
 
“If previous authoritarian regimes were three parts violence and one part propaganda,” argues Igor Yakovenko, a professor of journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, “this one is virtually all propaganda and relatively little violence. Putin only needs to make a few arrests—and then amplify the message through his total control of television.”
 
We saw a similar dynamic at work on the international stage in the final days of August, when an apparent Russian military incursion into Ukraine—and a relatively minor one at that—was made to feel momentously threatening. Putin invoked the need for talks on the statehood of southeastern Ukraine (with language that seemed almost purposefully ambiguous), leaving NATO stunned and Kiev intimidated enough to agree to a ceasefire. Once again, the term ‘Novorossiya’ made its way into Putin’s remarks, creating the sense that large territories were ready to secede from Ukraine when, in reality, the insurgents hold only a sliver of land. (For an earlier example of these geopolitical tricks, see Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency from 2008 to 2012, when Russia’s decoy leader inspired American faith in the possibility of a westward-facing Russia while giving the Kremlin time to cement power at home and entrench its networks abroad.)
 
* * *
 
The belief in the absolute power of propaganda has roots in Soviet thinking. Jacques Ellul, in his classic 1965 study of the subject, wrote, “The Communists, who do not believe in human nature but only in the human condition, believe that propaganda is all-powerful, legitimate (whenever they employ it), and instrumental in creating a new type of man.”
 
But there is one great difference between Soviet propaganda and the latest Russian variety. For the Soviets, the idea of truth was important—even when they were lying. Soviet propaganda went to great lengths to ‘prove’ that the Kremlin’s theories or bits of disinformation were fact. When the U.S. government accused the Soviets of spreading disinformation—such as the story that the CIA invented AIDS as a weapon—it would cause howls of outrage from top Russian figures, including General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
 
In today’s Russia, by contrast, the idea of truth is irrelevant. On Russian ‘news’ broadcasts, the borders between fact and fiction have become utterly blurred. Russian current-affairs programs feature apparent actors posing as refugees from eastern Ukraine, crying for the cameras about invented threats from imagined fascist gangs. During one Russian news broadcast, a woman related how Ukrainian nationalists had crucified a child in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. When Alexei Volin, Russia’s deputy minister of communications, was confronted with the fact that the crucifixion story was a fabrication, he showed no embarrassment, instead suggesting that all that mattered were ratings. “The public likes how our main TV channels present material, the tone of our programs,” he said. “The share of viewers for news programs on Russian TV has doubled over the last two months.” The Kremlin tells its stories well, having mastered the mixture of authoritarianism and entertainment culture. The notion of ‘journalism,’ in the sense of reporting ‘facts’ or ‘truth,’ has been wiped out. In a lecture last year to journalism students at Moscow State University, Volin suggestedthat students forget about making the world a better place. “We should give students a clear understanding: They are going to work for The Man, and The Man will tell them what to write, what not to write, and how this or that thing should be written,” he said. “And The Man has the right to do it, because he pays them.”
 
The point of this new propaganda is not to persuade anyone, but to keep the viewer hooked and distracted—to disrupt Western narratives rather than provide a counternarrative. It is the perfect genre for conspiracy theories, which are all over Russian TV. When the Kremlin and its affiliated media outlets spat out outlandish stories about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in July—reports that characterized the crash as everything from an assault by Ukrainian fighter jets following U.S. instructions, to an attempted NATO attack on Putin’s private jet—they were trying not so much to convince viewers of any one version of events, but rather to leave them confused, paranoid, and passive—living in a Kremlin-controlled virtual reality that can no longer be mediated or debated by any appeal to ‘truth.’
 
* * *
 
Now Russia is exporting its reality-reinventing model through the hundreds of millions of dollars that it spends on international broadcasters like the rolling, multilingual news channel RT (Russia Today). Domestically, RT helps convince Russians that their government is strong enough to compete with the CNNs of the world. In the United States, RT isn’t taken too seriously (if the channel manages to sow some doubt among Americans, all the better in Moscow’s view). But in Europe, Russian propaganda is more potent, working alongside the Kremlin’s influence over local media as well as economic and energy pressures.
 
The situation is tensest in the Baltic countries, whose large Russian populations are serviced by Russian-language TV channels like the Latvia-based PBK, which receives Kremlin programs at very low rates. ‘‘Huge parts of our population live in a separate reality created by Russian media,” says Raul Rebane, an expert on propaganda in Estonia, where a quarter of the population is ethnic Russian. “This makes consensual politics impossible.” In his research on how Bulgarian media covered the conflict in Ukraine, Christo Grozev, of the Bulgaria-based Risk Management Lab, found that the majority of the country’s newspapers followed Russian rather than Ukrainian narratives about events such as the downing of Flight MH17. “It’s not merely a case of sympathy or language,” Grozev says. “The Russian media just tell more and better stories, and that’s what gets reprinted.” Organizations like the Ukraine-based StopFake.org have been working hard to expose disinformation in Russian and foreign media. But for every ‘fake’ they catch, Kremlin-allied news outlets produce a thousand more. These news organizations don’t care if they’re caught in a lie. They care only about clicks and being compelling.
 
Like its domestic equivalents, RT also focuses on conspiracy theories—from 9/11 truthers to thehidden Zionist hand in Syria’s civil war. Western critics often snigger at these claims, but the coverage has a receptive audience. In a recent paper, “The Conspiratorial Mindset in the Age of Transition,” which examined conspiracy theories in France, Hungary, and Slovakia, a team of researchers from leading European think tanks reported that supporters of far-right parties tend to be more likely than supporters of other parties to believe in conspiracies. And right-wing nationalist parties, which are often allied ideologically and financially with the Kremlin, are rising. In Hungary, Jobbik is now the second-largest political party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Front recently won 25 percent of the vote in elections for the European parliament.
 
“Is there more interest in conspiracy theories because far-right parties are growing, or are far-right parties growing because more conspiracy thinking is being pumped into the information space?” asks Gleb Pavlovsky, a little wickedly.
 
The United States, meanwhile, is struggling with its messaging to the outside world. America is in an “information war and we are losing that war,” Hillary Clinton told Congress in 2011, citing the success of Russian and Chinese media.
 
* * *
 
Just as the Kremlin’s international propaganda campaign intensifies, the West is having its own crisis of faith in the idea of ‘truth.’ It’s been a long time coming. Back in 1962, Daniel Boorstin, who would later serve as librarian of the U.S. Congress, wrote in The Image about how advances in advertising and television meant, “The question, ‘Is it real?’ is less important than, ‘Is it newsworthy?’ … We are threatened by a new and a peculiarly American menace … the menace of unreality.” By the 2000s, this idea had moved from the realm of commerce to the realm of high politics, captured in the now-legendary quote from an unnamed George W. Bush aide in The New York Times: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
 
The pressure on reality from capitalism and Capitol Hill coincides with an anti-establishment drive in the U.S. that likewise claims that all truth is relative. In a Prospect magazine review of Glenn Greenwald’s No Place to Hide, for instance, George Packer writes, “Greenwald has no use for the norms of journalism. He rejects objectivity, as a reality and an ideal.” (Similarly, RT’s managing director once told me that “there is no such thing as objective reporting.”) Examining the sins of omission, biased value judgments, and half-truths in Greenwald’s book, Packer concludes that “they reveal a mind that has liberated itself from the basic claims of fairness. Once the norms of journalism are dismissed, a number of constraints and assumptions fall away.” The ties that bind Greenwald and the Kremlin consist of more than a shared desire to ensure Edward Snowden’s safety. In some dark, ideological wood, Putin the authoritarian gay-basher and Greenwald the gay, leftist-libertarian meet and agree. And as the consensus for reality-based politics fractures, that space becomes ripe for exploitation. It’s precisely this trend that the Kremlin hopes to exploit.
 
Ultimately, many people in Russia and around the world understand that Russian political parties are hollow and Russian news outlets are churning out fantasies. But insisting on the lie, the Kremlin intimidates others by showing that it is in control of defining ‘reality.’ This is why it’s so important for Moscow to do away with truth. If nothing is true, then anything is possible. We are left with the sense that we don’t know what Putin will do next—that he’s unpredictable and thus dangerous. We’re rendered stunned, spun, and flummoxed by the Kremlin’s weaponization of absurdity and unreality.

--

Hence the surge of Russian pro-Putin trolls and fluffers into zero hedge and resulting dupes.

Unreality Central Station

[GMadScientist]

Next time just drop the link; much easier to ignore and scroll past your Wellesley close-reading drivel that way.

[indygo55]

The Atlantic? ATLANTIC Media Company, the publisher of several high-end magazines and news

services for the national and Washington professional classes. Company holdings include The Atlantic,

National Journal, Congress Daily, Government Executive and The Hotline. A wahhington propaganda machine. You can replace every reference to Putin and Russia with Obama and Washington and get a better perspective. 

[napper]

The Atlantic is no doubt a propaganda outlet. I wouldn't call it "high end" though. I consider the magazine to be just a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual, verbose collection of nonsensical rants and propaganda. It's not all that different from WSJ, NY Times, Washington Post, Washington Times and the likes.

[OLD YELLER]

Certainly a war of words and conflicting propaganda from both sides is present. 9/11 was an inside job no matter how you slice it and dice it. I won't forget the nausea in my gut when it became a certainty to me that Rockefella and a large well organized group of traitors did the job for 'shits and gigglles'. The fact that there is no Walter Cronkite any more Virginia was also hard to take. We will watch again as the Cops of the World bring freedom and democracy to Ukrain because Amereeka really ,really Cares about the noble Ukrainian people! 

The grave diggers will be busy. Resistance is futile! We are the Borg! We see your very thought! 

Brought to you by the commity to elect Jeb Bush as Supreme Leader.

[Element]

9/11 was an inside job no matter how you slice it and dice it

Yup, as much as I wish is wasn't so the hard evidence of ACARs broadcasts that Pilots for 9-11 exposed prove that the jets that were claimed to have hit the buildings were in no way the jets that took off. The ACARs data logs are irrefutable, 9-11 was definitely an inside job, a giant integrated global deception operation.

Buying into another bunch of lying rat-bastards, doing the same, is not a viable solution for any of us.

[Rhal]

I'm sorry you got so many down votes, your post is an important counterpoint.

Although I think the "pro-Putin trolls" are mostly just anti-Obama/anti-Neo-con.

Personaly I think Russia is part of the system that needs to crash and make way for the people once more. But I do prefer thier media manipulation to the NATO false flag policy.

[Element]

"Although I think the "pro-Putin trolls" are mostly just anti-Obama/anti-Neo-con."

Yeah, that was one of the main wedges, not just Obama though, US Presidential clowns in general, it opened the door for Russia mainly through total rot and self-collapse of credibility of the western domestic and international propaganda. The confrontation over Syria in Sept 2013 in the eastern med was perfect conditions for bringing it all together for Putin as that edifice of lies was collapsing.

[Farqued Up]

Who is Pomerantsev? Sounds just like Dr. Strangelove.

[Miffed Microbio...]

Thank you Element for this and all you have posted. I appreciate it tremendously and stand with you. 1+ Good luck.

Miffed

It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”

- Joseph Goebbels

[dreadnaught]

ooh ha ha ha ha! The POT calling the KETTLE black

[OldPhart]

"In today’s Russia, by contrast, the idea of truth is irrelevant. On Russian ‘news’ broadcasts, the borders between fact and fiction have become utterly blurred. Russian current-affairs programs feature apparent actors posing as refugees from eastern Ukraine, crying for the cameras about invented threats from imagined fascist gangs."

In other words, EXACTLY like our war criminal government.

[Radical Marijuana]

All governments are relatively based on backing up lies with violence. One only has to look at how big any social organization is now to guess how much it successfully backed up dishonesty with violence in the past.

[Ckierst1]

RM, nice riff!

[dizzyfingers]

Element: Just like USSA!!

[Element]

I would say just like USSA, but much more effective, but only because the western (especially US) domestic propaganda simply stopped working. Too many people saw through it, so it's over, terminal, kaput. But some people hunger for outstanding propaganda and Putin is pimping really high-grade gear these days.

[Paveway IV]

"...but much more effective, but only because the western (especially US) domestic propaganda simply stopped working. Too many people saw through it, so it's over, terminal, kaput..."

Sorry, but I totally disagree Element. Away from ZH and the internet - in the meat world - I'm hard-pressed to find many people that feels there's any need to look beyond the MSM. Some might agree (without much conviction) that the MSM lies and censors content, but they seem OK with that "because everybody else lies, too". They figure it's close enough to the truth for them. I am always amazed how well propaganda still works on Americans. I would agree that propaganda - or more precisely MSM - is dying because people are otherwise distracted (Kardashians, etc.) or look elsewhere (internet) for news. Lack of trust is certainly another nail in their coffin, but I just don't see it as having the same destructive impact of boredom or alternative sources. Commercials destroyed cable news and nobody wants to pay for newspapers or subscription-fee sites. Peddlers of propaganda are dying, but propaganda isn't going anywhere because it works.

"...But some people hunger for outstanding propaganda and Putin is pimping really high-grade gear these days..."

Sorry, but he still can't hold a candle to the good ol' USA. He's much more effective because he is so popular with Russians, but propaganda is a whole damn industry in the U.S. by any measure. Russians want to listen to Putin and believe in Russia - I can't fault them for that. By and large, I think the people of Russia are much more critical thinkers than Americans. They support Putin and like him, but I don't think that means they are unwitting zombies that simply believe everything their government tells them at face value. Russians love to argue about the meaning behind what is being said just as much, if not more so, than Americans. Sure there are plenty of Russian sheeple, too - just like in the U.S. 

Propaganda in the U.S. or British media is subtle enough that it's almost hard to spot at times as an English-speaking American. I can see it immediately in English versions of some Russian news because of the contrast, but that's certainly not unique to Russia. Ukraine news is far more propaganda-driven and strikingly so. And since I only speak and read English, I only have access to a small slice of news from either country, so it's impossible (for me) to accurately characterize what Russians read or hear in Russain MSM. I certanly won't trust Western media's judgement of the amount of propaganda in Russian media. Pot calling the kettle blacker, I guess.

There are far too many rational, critically-thinking Russian journalists, bloggers and commenters on the internet for me to ever believe that they are a nation of brainwashed, propagandized zombies. That's the lie they loved to tell me about the Soviet Union back in the day - it doesn't work any more. 

[Element]

Thanks, thoughtful comment, as usual.

"I'm hard-pressed to find many people that feels there's any need to look beyond the MSM."

I think that's the point, the MSM polarizes people watching in each language. It is not the same mass-audience MSM, but it does have mass audiences. The trick is to get people to identify with a team, a side, to automate allegiance and consent with psyop tweaks.

Both MSMs are co-equal systematic lie mechanisms geared toward total global deception via sharper and sharper conflict between lies.

And the incessant mental noise is created to further that end. It's a ruthless deliberate sabotaging of minds via filling them with Lie-War. That is what I find most objectionable, the deliberate injection of lie noise into human beings, to create dysfunction and incapacity. It is a criminal act, and a literal act of war against humanity.

MSM addicts are extremely disappointing and problematic people, I really can't counter that fact, but I've become even more disappointed in non-mainstream people, especially ones I see in here these days, who shamelessly suck down alternate MSM's koolaide then come out grinning zealots who want to fight for a respective TPTB's 'side' in that Lie-War. They don't even have sufficient awareness remaining to grasp that they were led by the nose and manipulated to it.

We will be better served by not fighting anyone's Lie-War for them, because the battlefield is only ever going to be us, our mind, our future, a deliberate destructive unceasing barrage designed to prevent clear thinking or analysis so that the lies can penetrate through to their targets.

A concerted attack by governments and groups against the very thing we need most to function better than any time in the past, just to survive.

The people set on doing that are no different to Goebbels. I would not hesitate to hang 100% of them, as enemies of human beings. They deserve no more consideration or mercy than the ebola virus.
 
 

[Paveway IV]

"...I really can't counter that fact, but I've become even more disappointed in non-mainstream people, especially ones I see in here these days, who shamelessly suck down alternate MSM's koolaide then come out grinning zealots who want to fight for a respective TPTB's 'side' in that Lie-War..."

In the absence of critical thinking skills, herds look for a bullhorn to follow - human nature. I cringe every time I hear someone talk about being 'awakened'. Critical thinking isn't a cult, it's a skill and one I've grown to admire. I'm an amateur and a hack at best - being critical and sarcastic does not equal critical thinking. 

"...We will be better served by not fighting anyone's Lie-War for them, because the battlefield is only ever going to be us, our mind, our future, a deliberate destructive unceasing barrage designed to prevent clear thinking or analysis so that the lies can penetrate through to their targets..."

I totally agree, but it's like complaining about commercial advertising. The barrage works - they're not going to stop on moral grounds. It's incumbent upon the victim of the barrage to try to make sense of it. But you can't argue either stupidity or gullibility or herd instinct out of people - you will lose every time. Either they get it or they don't. 

"...A concerted attack by governments and groups against the very thing we need most to function better than any time in the past, just to survive. The people set on doing that are no different to Goebbels.  I would not hesitate to hang 100% of them..."

I would because it's absolutely futile. Psychopaths love to use propaganda because it's such an easy control mechanism and maintains their power. When you kill enough of the current psychopaths, a new group of them with a different agenda will try to seize power.

The script is always the same: demonize the old psychopaths and their propaganda while new psychopaths crank up their savior propaganda and establish power.

"...They deserve no more consideration or mercy than the ebola virus..."

Why? Would that be your plan for controlling ebola - keep killing anyone infected until it magically disappears? Psychopathy is not a football team - it's a communicable disease. Propaganda and the absence of critical thinking skills are only the enablers, not the underlying cause of psychopathy.

Repeatedly relying on amputation as a cure has certain undesirable consequences - especially after the fourth time. And everyone is still just as vulnerable to psychopathy after the fourth amputation - nothing is cured and no immunity has been established. 

[Element]

Thanks for the views.

I totally agree, but it's like complaining about commercial advertising. The barrage works - they're not going to stop on moral grounds. It's incumbent upon the victim of the barrage to try to make sense of it. 

A barrage can be suppressed and the target hardened to it, it's not a case of nothing can be done. A barrage can also be deterred. 

When you kill enough of the current psychopaths, a new group of them with a different agenda will try to seize power. The script is always the same: demonize the old psychopaths and their propaganda while new psychopaths crank up their savior propaganda and establish power.

I see it as a management issue, you only have an issue turning into a problem if you don't manage it and manage it well. It will get much worse. Think mowing lawn, it's growth is tolerated until it needs mowing, then you crop it very short.

Propaganda and the absence of critical thinking skills are only the enablers, not the underlying cause of psychopathy. Repeatedly relying on amputation as a cure ... And everyone is still just as vulnerable ... nothing is cured and no immunity has been established.

Agree, you can't do much about gullibility and poor processing, or total lack of interest or disposition to getting better at it. But people can and do learn new cognitive skills, and a brain does remain plastique and adaptable all through life.

But things that can't be ultimately remedied get managed. That has happened from stone-age small groups until now.

It can not be just a 'mowing' exercise. That's a transient, a reboot opportunity, for civil processes that help people recognize they need their thinking to work as best it can. If they don't have much ability, they have to make good use of what they do have.

A clear understanding of how manipulation by suggestion of an imagination via idea works to manipulate and exploit. We can become resistant. Immune? I think I am, aren't you? So we don't know what we can do about this yet. Maybe a lot more. We do need clear understandings of how imagination was and is used against us by states and groups to manipulate and how insidious it becomes.

The other major item is the role of venal behaviors which lead to fabrication to deceive becoming commonplace, due to insufficient personal deterrent to it.

If we are going to live in cites (will), and operate online (will), we need his to not be so easy to bring us undone via a Govts and groups all wanting to construct a mental manipulation tool to gain power and control over duped people, groups and countries.

That's much too easy to do, at present, both by our governments, and by a foreign government or group.

It's not clear we can ever trust authorities to do that for us. Letting them do stuff, for us, is where stupidity, ignorance and laziness are exploited and taken the most advantage of. we can trust commercial actors to do it, they're worse again.

So it has to be an interconnected civil society that does it. In a stone age small group tribes they did just that. Aboriginals were very clear about it, that people that worked against the interests of all, didn't have a good time and usually didn't live long. It wasn't going after them that was the point, it was to prevent them for doing damage to others.

Maybe that's food for thought.

We simultaneously need to make false-flag manipulations and fear campaigns a lot less effective at polarizing us, and thus a lot less attractive to attempt, with serious lethal repercussions if ever caught.

That's not happened for a very long time, and we clearly can not rely on Govt or even courts to regulate government excesses. I think nation wide strikes will be very effective at this, because revolutions are usually self harming and self defeating. Why destroy everything and harm innocents via revolution when you can achieve almost any thing via national strike the totally stops the economy cold, but in recoverable ways?

Maybe some more food for thought.

[Paveway IV]

Thanks for your comments as well, Element.

"...We do need clear understandings of how imagination was and is used against us by states and groups to manipulate and how insidious it becomes..."

Which is exactly how I discovered Lobaczewski. Many others have said as much, but it didn't click for me until I read his explanation: psychopathy is an infectious disease, and it can infect BOTH individuals and organizations. A healthy individual is miserable in an environment where most of the organizations are already psychopathic. If your employer, government, religion and educational organizations are psychopathic, you can resist but you will not be happy. You start to appear sociopathic because you have an unconscious, protective desire to avoid diseased, unhealthy organizations. People with a dulled sense of humanity don't see the disease or don't care. To them, you are a paranoid tin-foil-hat nutter, a conspiracy theorist, anti-government, anti-authority and anti-social. How could you possibly be right? You're f'king miserable! 

The insidious part: if you will only drink the Kool aid (become infected), then everything could get better for you. Psychopathy seems like the cure, not the disease. 

"Get your ass out there and claw your way to the top. It's WAR. You don't want to be one of the little people, do you? Screw them - they exist to work for you. You are a leader - they are meant to be led. To hell with doing what you like - do whatever gets you ahead. Look for the angle, find the loopholes, take the shortcuts. Victory through deception. Find powerful allies and help them crush weaker rivals. Then dump them when they're useless and you have enough power. Every other human being is your enemy and ultimately needs to be controlled for your own protection. When you have enough power, the wanna-be powerful will be drawn to you. Use them to further your power - they will be grateful for the opportunity. Never trust them though; they ultimately want what's yours. Screw that! Short leashes. Some day, you can put all this aside, relax and reap the rewards of your struggle. You'll be able to sit on a sunny beach somewhere for the rest of your days sipping the umbrella drinks you truly deserve, as you were one of the chosen."

I'm not singling out the rich and powerful. The exact same mechanism applies to a twelve-year-old kid in the ghetto watching drug dealers and gang bangers all day. The same exact mechanism applies to fifteen- and sixteen-year-old immigrant Somali Muslims looking at ISIS. The exact same mechanism applies to a frustrated, despondent, unemployed Ukrainian guy looking at Right Sector Nazis. The same thing applies to a morally-healthy Jewish guy growing up in Israel prior his IDF psychopathy indoctrination. These are not evil individuals about to make a rational choice - they are healthy individuals pushed to self-chosen or socially-enforced extremes to end their depressing condition.

Now the psychopathic organizations you are part of are not prisons of evil and misery, but pathways to happiness. All you have to do is work hard an claw a little harder. The carrot is dangling right in front of you. I obviously don't think that't the answer, but I can 100% completely understand why people make those choices. 

"...The other major item is the role of venal behaviors which lead to fabrication to deceive becoming commonplace, due to insufficient personal deterrent to it..."

Exactly. If you're surrounded by reasonably healthy individuals and are part of reasonably healthy organizations, the psychopathy isn't rewarded but shunned and considered evil. A society can tolerate the inevitable crop of individual psychopaths and some psychopathic organizations if they are in the minority and are still embarrassed to be outed. Your caveman example works well for illustration. Once a certain large enough proportion become infected, then the healthy are shunned and society becomes intolerable except for the psychopathic. 

"...That's much too easy to do, at present, both by our governments, and by a foreign government or group..."

That's what the founding fathers thought, too. Their approach was to limit the power of government to certain, necessary administrative functions of state. Such a government wouldn't be attractive to psychopaths - not enough power to bother with it. That's why they also considered corporations inherently dangerous to the nation.

"...We simultaneously need to make false-flag manipulations and fear campaigns a lot less effective at polarizing us, and thus a lot less attractive to attempt, with serious lethal repercussions if ever caught..."

Understand the nature of evil. Treat it as an infectious disease that needs to be managed. Stay healthy yourself. Identify and shun psychopathic individuals and organizations when you see them. Reward healthy individuals and organizations when you see them.

How ironical that Google of all organizations provided the shortest, most concise version of that in their former slogan, "Don't be evil."

"...I think nation wide strikes will be very effective at this, because revolutions are usually self harming and self defeating..." 

I agree, but not unless the people understood what they were fighting against. If they don't understand evil and psychopathy, then you're just using herd mentality to chase the current psychopaths out of one psychopathic organization and hoping the next ones are less corrupt or not evil. Ukraine has been doing this (the equivalent of national strikes) for a couple of decades now. They will do this again when they run Porky and Yats out of town and they'll get Right Sector and Svaboda in return.

Non-violent change is better than machine guns, but both are useless if they don't fix the problem. I don't hate the idea of voting, I hate the idea of useless voting - over and over and over again.

Hell, I would vote for Jesse Ventura for president if he ran on a ticket of "Cherish and protect morally healthy people and organizations; punish anyone who fucks with them in the harshest terms; open season on psychopaths and psychopathic organizations - no limits."

[centerline]

Thank you Element and Paveway.  Great posts.  I sort of missed the timing for the conversation, but am really enjoying catching up.  Some of this I might just have to copy for future reference.  My hat is off to those of you have not only have the literary skills but also put in the effort to contribute this sort of material. 

[Lin S]

This is my workplace, described to a tee:

"...psychopathy is an infectious disease, and it can infect BOTH individuals and organizations. A healthy individual is miserable in an environment where most of the organizations are already psychopathic. If your employer, government, religion and educational organizations are psychopathic, you can resist but you will not be happy. You start to appear sociopathic because you have an unconscious, protective desire to avoid diseased, unhealthy organizations. People with a dulled sense of humanity don't see the disease or don't care. To them, you are a paranoid tin-foil-hat nutter, a conspiracy theorist, anti-government, anti-authority and anti-social. How could you possibly be right? You're f'king miserable!"

[Element]

Thanks Paveway, respect your considered views plus that you take the time to write more than shallow spiels. And thanks for the heads-up re Lobaczewski.

[stacking12321]

you claim that 50% of zhers believe putin is a saint. i would guess that's not an accurate statement. no one at the head of a country can be a saint. but i am rooting for russia and the brics because at this time the ussa is a monstrously evil and aggressive empire, and they are counter-balancing it.

also, it's pretty clear, that while both ussa and russia are supplying their own sides with arms, and have their own propoganda campaigns, that it is nonetheless the ussa that initiated the aggression in ukraine, starting with overthrowning their government and putting nazis in power.

it's clear that our govt is stirring up trouble on russia's border, and i hope that all the blackwater ops that washington has sent in  there, end up coming home in body bags.

[Crawdaddy]

Well said. Its like the whole media world is one giant pysop.

[Paveway IV]

Heh... beat me to it, dizzyfingers. I couldn't help mentally blurting that out about every third sentence.

[George Washington]

The Atlantic has long been warmonger fishwrap ...

[Element]

I have no doubt that it and other media are anything that's required.

But it also has the ring of good analysis and accurate assessment, in this case, which is the credibility that was sought to take the initiative, no? Are you afraid of something George? Will it leave an impossible to remove stench attached to various of your narratives? (narratives which I often find are little more than dementing propaganda, too, some of the worst around at times)

You don't object to blinkers being ripped away, do you? You wouldn't want Putin's Orwellian deceptions and enabling contraptions to go unchallenged, would you?

I see Obama, Washington and deception media, like The Atlantic, mirrored in Putin, Moscow and RT - co-equal systematic mechanisms of Total-Global-Deception.

All sides need to be exposed co-equally.

That isn't happening. So how about this. Instead of looking for fault or excuse in the medium of delivery, address the content honestly, and I'll take you as possibly being an ingenuous person who wants people to not be deceived, by any side.

[napper]

Element has been so thoroughly brainwashed by the Establishment's propaganda apparatus that barring a sustained intensive back-propagation reversal process (to borrow a term from the field of Neural Networks in computer science), it would be a complete waste of time to present him with facts, or argue with him. Element is but one of the many sheeples in the country. That's why blatantly outlandish garbages like the 9/11 Commission report could be thrown around the country with little protest.

[Ckierst1]

I try to focus on looking for truth and fact, distinguishing those from realities.  Frequently, apparent realities are all that media and authority leave for you.  It takes a lot to dodge the consequences of interaction with those realities, particularly as regards wealth preservation.

[Monty Burns]

All of the media everywhere are lying propagandists.  Just different lies, that's all.

[Element]

Exactly Monty, all of them, but it's time Putin's little dog and pony show was put under the microscope. There's well over 50% of allegedly intelligent aware people at zh who have 100% bought into the idea that Putin's a saint, a noble man, a man of vision and reality, instead of a dirty huge sewer rat with a gleaming gold tooth, and an army of concerted deception planners and actors. Take one look at how he walks in public, have a good look, you'll see that it's a totally contrived walk, meant to suggest the movement of someone with a rifle over their shoulder, and one arm used to steady it, as he dutifully walks. All deliberate, all designed to send a subtle message that I am here to watch over you, I am the only choice for you. He's a comprehensive artificial construct, a crafted illusion of something that's not. Constant massaging, constant acting, constant deception, all as staging for the bizarre narratives, what was it this week? Oh yes, the conspiracy of the West funking with the weather. This silly crap will continue, Putin will continue to play the misunderstood aggrieved erratic noble. Collective dementing of 100% of people is the aim and it's been working pretty well, the easily seduced have bought completely into it, hook-line and sinker. The tactic then is to use thuggishness to bludgeon any signs of dissent from their illusion-making. Thus a reactive knee-jerk of Putin-loving zealots, alert to counter-revolutionary reversal, is being imposed, especially against free speech, free thinking and any refusal to be polarized. The whole aim of propaganda and false flag is to polarize people, to cause them to instantly identify with a particular 'side'. Why would any of these governments ever stop doing it when it's working so well from people just giving in to it, and allowing themselves to become completely polarized? That process is the very mechanism needed to enable and trigger global war. Don't participate, on any side - ever.

[Miffed Microbio...]

Sejanus: I have no need of a trial to prove your guilt.

Gallus: A song sung by every small-town corrupt policeman, which is what you are and what you should have stayed.
I've watched your career with fascination.
It's bean a revelation to me.
I never fully realised before how a small mind, allied to unlimited ambition, and without scruple can destroy a country full of clever men.
I've seen how frail a civilisation is before the onslaught of a gust of really bad breath! Yes.
But I suppose you're not really the destroyer.
We must look elsewhere for that.
You're merely the putrefaction that spreads after death - the outward and visible sign of its presence.
You're a lesson in history to me, Sejanus.
Proving that above all. That mankind needs it sense of smell.

Sejanus: Bring him around. We will begin again.

Miffed

[Victory_Garden]

"Just different lies, that's all."

Indeed!

10 Signs That ISIS is a Scripted Psyop:

http://www.activistpost.com/2014/09/10-signs-that-isis-is-scripted-psyop...

[FIAT CON]

Diasasters for whom?

The MIC, and the politicians who own shares in the MIC did not lose, The politicians who get hired by the MIC companies after office will not lose.

 Remember members of congress are immune from insider trading!

If you become an US politician you haveit made in the bag!!!!!!!!!!