“You will recall that even Saddam Hussein was once in the “useful tyrant” category, partly because of Iraq’s huge oil reserves and partly because he had been considerate enough to launch a war against Iran.’

This matter is still going on with our stolen $22,036.00

Goggle ‘admiral william h payne’ for details.

Lafeyette

You remind me of the Frenchman in “Monty Python’s, Holy Grail” who said,

Frenchman: You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs! Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Ah-thoor Keeng, you and all your silly English K-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-niggits! [makes taunting gestures at them]

And,

Frenchman: I don’t want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough water! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now leave before I am forced to taunt you a second time!

I’m reminded of Sir Galahad’s comment about the Frenchman,

Sir Galahad: What a strange person.

I realize that the context is wrong, your experience is more similar to that of Ben Franklin’s, (in the remotest possible way,) than it is to that of Lafeyette, but I’m reminded of Monty Python’s Frenchman just the same.

Your lengthy and flowery comments are not at all profound, which only confirms my contention that you are a light-weight, masquerading as an intellect.

ABOUT BRADLEY MANNING, you say,
“He is not in Gitmo, but on American soil. And one of the worst things that the Justice Department could do is to torture him, as you say. It would be colossally stupid to give him a credibility that he does not deserve by torturing him.”

As far as credibility goes, Bradley Manning does deserve credibility in my eyes, where you do not. As far as torture goes, being held in isolation is a form of torture, but you may not agree, what with your apparent lengthy time in lock-up. I suspect your experience comes from being locked up in a mental institution.

ABOUT PLUTOCRAT INFLUENCE, you say

“Yes, the American plutocrat class has undue influence in Washington. But that translates very much less into Foreign Policy today than in the past.”
“I doubt seriously, for instance, that ITT could connive today with the CIA to murder a Salvatore Allende in Chile. (See here.)  Under a Rightist government, yes; but I doubt Hillary would tolerate it today. She still has her eyes on the presidency and such Foreign Policy is highly explosive.”

“Most of us “saw there” decades ago, but thanks for the tip. “Yes, the American plutocrat class has undue influence in Washington, Aside from selecting large campaign donors as Ambassadors according to rank and influence, American foreign policy is no more favorable to plutocrats than that of any other nation,” and besides, Johnny’s mom, lets him do it.

And,

“In my time here in Europe, I have had the occasion to meet American Ambassadors. In fact, they make little effort to meet the American expat community. They are too busy hobnobbing with the local hoi polloi.
Far too many can be politely categorized as “a shame to America”. Some were unadulterated jerks.”

It appears to me that in your time there, you have spent some time attempting to “hobnobb.” Sorry about the rejection they have given you, maybe you should look for some adulterated jerks, in order to get your hob nobbed.

ABOUT WIKI-LEAKS, you say

“I figure it’s a good thing and has taken far too long in the making. I wish it were more accentuated upon industry than government, because it is in the former that it is far, far more necessary than the latter.

It should dump Assange whose highly contested leadership has led it down the wrong path. The guy has a problem, let him deal with it - and leave WikiLeaks to other management.”

(More)

Lafayette (Cont.)

Yeah, you’re right about that, as I understand it, he’s accused of sheathing without a sheath. My friend Jimmy Joe did the same thing when he visited Sweden last summer, so I wrote to Sweden about the incident, and they wrote back asking, “Jimmy who?” Regarding “dumping” Assange, there might be a problem with ownership issues, but I really can’t say, I didn’t know his leadership was being contested by any but by the likes of you, if you have some experience in “dumping,” maybe you should offer your expertise.

ABOUT THE PRHASSE “LOONEY-LEFT,” you say, 

“This phrase was first coined in the UK during the Labor governments that were so indescribably incompetent as to pave the way for Margaret Thatcher (a Conservative).”

First, what’s a PHRASSE? I’ll assume you meant “phrase.” Apparently it was the coin of the realm, and it paved the way for Margaret Thatcher (A conservative.) Was she a conservative? I thought she was an elderly matron with a serious grudge against working louts, and Argentineans. I don’t think it’s a good idea to sell out the Left, in order to serve the Left. Doing so; seems looney to me.
You continue,
“And Not Necessary in the US, which is why I employ the term. It is to be avoided at all costs. When the Left in America gets laughable, it hands ammunition to an equally Risible Right. This is not the ground upon which we should be deliberating politics.”

If it’s “Not Necessary in the U.S.,” why are you employing the term? I’m confused, at the risk of being risible; I’ll ask that you clarify. If I get your gist, the Left is risible, and the Right is laughable, or is it vice a versa. Please don’t laugh, if I’m being risible.

And,

“A slanging match does not serve the Left’s progressive purpose. Not if we want to effectively motivate public opinion to our cause - which will require considerable seriousness in furthering our ideas/notions with the American public.”

A slanging match? Are you sure you’re an American expatriate? You appear to be a refugee from a British Headmaster’s paddle. I’m not above slanging(?) I can slang with the best of them, and I disagree that slanging is of no value, I’m doing my best to slang you right now.

MY POINT, you say

“The truth is somewhere in between the two extremes. Let us avoid the idiot hyperbole that is rotting political dialog in America.”

As a rule, I’d say the truth is at one end of two extremes, the truth on one hand, and the lie on the other hand, points between would be shades of truth, a half truth, or falsehoods, but all, except the absolute truth, would be false because they are not the absolute truth, or, the truth could be right in front of your nose, with untruths in each hand. Or, to create a three dimensional and a more scientific analogy, I’ll say that the truth would be a positive nucleus, while the untruths are frenetic negatives flying hither and yon trying to abandon the nucleus of the truth. I apologize for the idiot hyperbole, rotting the dialogue is something I too am opposed to. Did you ever try salting, or smoking your dialogue, that might keep your dialogue from spoiling, if you’re unable to keep it cool, or cook it.

Finally you say,

Let’s “Talk Softly, but carry the Big Stick of cogency”.

I CAN”T HEAR YOU!

Lafayette, (Cont.)

In conclusion, I’d say that I agree with the primary emphasis of what you’re saying, but I see the extreme left as being angry and nihilistic, and not hyperbolic, but it should be plain to see why some have become angry and nihilistic, with a tendency to exaggerate. Maybe you can’t tell the difference between angry nihilism and hyperbole because you’re frenetically flying hither and yon trying to get your hob nobbed.

Oh dear, Eugene.  Those wikileaks cables come in handy when you need to do
PR for the administration—

“A U.S. diplomatic cable written in February 2010, released last week by
WikiLeaks, describes how the State Department pressured Egyptian officials on
the Mubarak government’s indiscriminate use of the “Emergency Law,” which
allows indefinite detention. Officials from the Egyptian Interior Ministry
responded that the law is a necessary tool to combat an “acute terrorist threat”
from groups such as the banned Muslim Brotherhood.”

As Ms Clinton testifies, the USG has asked Mubarak for 30 years for democracy
in his country.  Now doesn’t that sound silly?  Right before that payoff—oops!
foreign aid—check was sent, the USG made sure to ask Mubarak about
reform.  And Mubarak would remind the USG about terrorists and the Muslim
Brotherhood to shut them up.  Define pressure.

The truth is that as long as no one said anything, Mubarak could get away with
it.  If there had been no uprising, his son would have inherited the throne with
the blessing of the USG.  But with this embarassing outcry for democracy, the
USG is confounded and must help facilitate that process no matter what.  It is
the reason, after all, the official reason, we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Remember how proud Laura Bush was when Afghanistan had its first
democratic elections?

The problem with handling Egypt is the problem of the Obama administration. 
There is no vision, none of the “innovation” he calls for in the workplace.  Can
you describe Obama’s point of view for his foreign policy program?  What he
thought was urgent to accomplish, to put in place, to change?  Without a
visionary framework, all one can do is pick up where predecessors left off,
inherit and manage the mess, put out fires as they arise. 

I hope the next Democratic president can offer a viewpoint of the world and not
just a to-do list.

Lafayette—You haven’t shown that anything I have written is not cogent.  Your opinion of Hillary, etc., is not evidence of anything except your opinion of Hillary.

Normally, I would agree that torturing Manning would not be in the interests of the government.  But their response to Wikileaks has been so over the top that one can only conclude that for whatever reason it is very, very important to them to shut down the site and those like it, by whatever means.  The easiest path to that end would seem to be forcing Manning to implicate Assange by testifying that Assange solicited espionage.  Assange could then be brought to the U.S. and dealt with definitively.  The fact that Manning is being held incommunicado and without charges supports the idea that unusual methods are being applied to him.  We know that, for high American officials, torture is often defined as not torture, for example, George W. Bush defends waterboarding in his recent book.

I think it’s also possible, however, that the Manning-Assange project has simply ground to a halt.  Assange’s appearance on 60 Minutes made a good impression on a lot of people, and the U.S. ruling class may fear that the trial and the discussions that it would engender would go against them unless Assange could be properly prepared.  For Vyshinsky-style show trials it is better to have broken nut-cases in the dock, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The trouble with redirecting our foreign policy is that there will always be a lag time between the new policy’s inauguration and the first effects in the real world. Additionally, any redirection in foreign or domestic policy must be adhered to for a sufficient amount of time for the change to be perceived and allow those upon which it is focused to react.  Our political cycle and the recurring retasking of campaign financing almost guarantees that the necessary changes in our foreign policy will never take place.  Political hired guns and their sponsors will ensure this.

Yet, we can examine the world and imagine what it would be like if we had substituted a populous ideology based policy in the 1950s for Eisenhower era Corporatism.  Rather than an ever escalating series of proxy wars with the soviets, we could have engaged in a competition to bring the undeveloped world forward onto a par with the developed world.  Instead of a never ending parade of despots and tyrants, we could have been the sponsors of indigenous Patrick Henrys, Thomas Jeffersons, Ben Franklins, and Alexander Hamiltons around the world.  We would now see a world in which regimes such as Iran and No. Korea could not exist in the face of their people’s demand for “standard” liberty and democratic governance.

The domestic benefits would be astounding, as the monies we had invested in a global dominance military would have been spent in an infrastructure which would include high speed national rail, universal health care, universal free education, perhaps even a permanent base on the moon.

Instead we have guaranteed profits for the capital class and watched our industrial cities become decaying fields of rust.  Ideology sometimes does have obvious consequences in the physical environment.

THANK YOU

AC: The foreign policies of the American ruling class are intimately connected with the domestic policies.  Some of the connections are quite direct and short, others complex and tortuous.  For a short one, Bradley Manning is being held incommunicado and probably tortured because he supposedly sent information to Wikileaks.

Thank you for demonstrating precisely what I meant by the Loony Left.

ABOUT BRADLEY MANNING

He is not in Gitmo, but on American soil. And one of the worst things that the Justice Department could do is to torture him, as you say. It would be colossally stupid to give him a credibility that he does not deserve by torturing him.

ABOUT PLUTOCRAT INFLUENCE

Yes, the American plutocrat class has undue influence in Washington. But that translates very much less into Foreign Policy today than in the past.

I doubt seriously, for instance, that ITT could connive today with the CIA to murder a Salvatore Allende in Chile. (See here.)  Under a Rightist government, yes; but I doubt Hillary would tolerate it today. She still has her eyes on the presidency and such Foreign Policy is highly explosive.

Aside from selecting large campaign donors as Ambassadors according to rank and influence, American foreign policy is no more favorable to plutocrats than that of any other nation.

In my time here in Europe, I have had the occasion to meet American Ambassadors. In fact, they make little effort to meet the American expat community. They are too busy hobnobing with the local “hoi polloi”.

Far too many can be politely categorized as “a shame to America”. Some were unadulterated jerks.

ABOUT WIKI-LEAKS

I figure it’s a good thing and has taken far too long in the making. I wish it were more accentuated upon industry than government, because it is in the former that it is far, far more necessary than the latter.

It should dump Assange whose highly contested leadership has led it down the wrong path. The guy has a problem, let him deal with it - and leave WikiLeaks to other management. 

ABOUT THE PRHASSE “LOONEY-LEFT”

This phrase was first coined in the UK during the Labor governments that were so indescribably incompetent as to pave the way for Margaret Thatcher (a Conservative).

And Not Necessary in the US, which is why I employ the term. It is to be avoided at all costs. When the Left in America gets laughable, it hands ammunition to an equally Risible Right. This is not the ground upon which we should be deliberating politics. 

A slanging match does not serve the Left’s progressive purpose. Not if we want to effectively motivate public opinion to our cause - which will require considerable seriousness in furthering our ideas/notions with the American public.

MY POINT

The truth is somewhere in between the two extremes. Let us avoid the idiot hyperbole that is rotting political dialog in America.

Let’s “Talk Softly, but carry the Big Stick of cogency”.

Lafayette, February 5 at 1:04 pm:

REMONSTRATE & DEMONSTRATE

  RL: “we must actually uphold the values of freedom and democracy we claim to promote worldwide!”

Yes, of course we should, but rabid ranting of the Bleeding-heart Left (that despises BO & Co) is beyond the pale.

Uncle Sam does what he can or should do what he can. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt, should Uncle Sam do an “Iraq” on Egypt. Of course not. If he is working “behind the scenes” with the Egyptian Army (the only lever he has in the country), to arrange for a orderly transition into a democracy, so much the better.

So, let’s pull our blinders off and look at the larger picture in the Middle East. What is happening in Egypt and Tunisia could well happen in some places where we want it to happen. Like Syria and Iran. It could even push the Saud family to loosen the reins in SA. (Do you know many countries named after one family?)

So, we should support democracy movements at least verbally where they have a chance of working. Whatever policy Uncle Sam had in the past is irrelevant. It is today’s policy that matters and Hillary is handling it just fine - with some help from Obama.

The Loony-Left (in this blog) is barking up the wrong tree. As Foreign Policy, it is correct. And Foreign Policy is distinct from Domestic Policy. ...’

As a member of the loony, bleeding-heart Left, that is, those who don’t believe in murder for profit and political advantage, I’ll take issue with that.  The foreign policies of the American ruling class are intimately connected with the domestic policies.  Some of the connections are quite direct and short, others complex and tortuous.  For a short one, Bradley Manning is being held incommunicado and probably tortured because he supposedly sent information to Wikileaks.  Wikileaks’ revelations appear to have contributed substantially to the present uprisings in the Middle East.  The American ruling class wants to smash Wikileaks because of that and similar inconveniences.  If Manning can be forced to testify that Julian Assange or Wikileaks solicited espionage, they can extradite him from the UK and, shall we say, neutralize him, and, they hope, thus frighten other truth-tellers into silence.

There are longer chains, like the ones connected petroleum use and depletion, the development of suburban sprawl, racism, wars and other operations in the Middle East, the growth of huge corporations and banking systems able to more or less control the government, the prison-industrial complex.  As you may recall from the past, the tangle even reaches domestic crimes against humanity like the Drug War, which was used to support clandestine imperial operations in Southeast Asia and Latin America.  That was a generation ago, but not everyone has forgotten.

If you want a different kind of society, you cannot support the people who do these things.  You need to think about how to oppose them.  I’d suggest one vulnerable point: the aforesaid Manning.  Demand his release.  Let’s force his captors—and torturers?—out into the open.  We know who they are; now let’s make them own up to and defend their real actions and beliefs.

THE DEVIL WE DIDN’T KNOW

Or at least until recently.

The Moubarak family fortune is estimated at between 40 and 70 billion dollars. Most of it was “earned” supposedly from military contracts. (See here.)

we can only guess with which nation ...

Israel’s stranglehold over our foreign policy needs to end.Israel has enough nukes to destroy the world several times over—the rest of the world doesn’t need to be enslaved to protect it.

REMONSTRATE & DEMONSTRATE

RL: “we must actually uphold the values of freedom and democracy we claim to promote worldwide!”

Yes, of course we should, but rabid ranting of the Bleeding-heart Left (that despises BO & Co) is beyond the pale.

Uncle Sam does what he can or should do what he can. If the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt, should Uncle Sam do an “Iraq” on Egypt. Of course not. If he is working “behind the scenes” with the Egyptian Army (the only lever he has in the country), to arrange for a orderly transition into a democracy, so much the better.

So, let’s pull our blinders off and look at the larger picture in the Middle East. What is happening in Egypt and Tunisia could well happen in some places where we want it to happen. Like Syria and Iran. It could even push the Saud family to loosen the reins in SA. (Do you know many countries named after one family?)

So, we should support democracy movements at least verbally where they have a chance of working. Whatever policy Uncle Sam had in the past is irrelevant. It is today’s policy that matters and Hillary is handling it just fine - with some help from Obama.

The Loony-Left (in this blog) is barking up the wrong tree. As Foreign Policy, it is correct. And Foreign Policy is distinct from Domestic Policy.

POST SCRIPTUM: Cabernet Sauvignon Party

If you want BO & Co to go after the American Plutocrats, get yourself out from behind a computer screen and do some public R & D (Remonstrate & Demonstrate). Get grassroot support for your convictions and Washington will follow suit (maybe).

Try, at least ... see how very difficult it is to politically motivate people in a US that is very largely FD&H. (Fat, Dumb & Happy)

If the Rabid Right could create a Tea Party, why shouldn’t the Loony Left establish a Cabernet Sauvignon Party! Which just might trigger a movement towards a Social Democrat Party in a country that badly needs one.

REALPOLITIK

No one should be shocked to learn that Mubarak is, in fact, a dictator. He has been a dictator since the moment he assumed power following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. But the United States and its allies have taken the position that despotism is acceptable in the Middle East, as long as the despots in question provide useful services.

Some people are never happy. Some Left-leaning journalists as well.

What would ER have preferred? That his son/daughter be sent in to “clear up the mess”, like we did in Iraq or Afghanistan. Oh, no! We can’t have that American militarism either!

So comments like the above are tantamount to pissing in the wind.

Which “despots” are next in line to go? The Saudi-family in SA? And if some fundamental Islamic government takes control, where do you think the US will get its oil from?

If the US and the EU tolerated Mubarak, it was to help Israel. ER blithely overlooks the fact that Egypt provides Israel with 40% of its gas and petroleum supplies. The country would stop dead in its tracks without them. Our client-state, Israel, got along just fine with Mubarak.

Stop bitching-in-a -blog, ER. What is your long-term solution to the problem of dictatorial regimes in many Muslim countries?

Because the first step towards a solution has been taken by some pretty brave individuals in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Whilst Americans sit on the sidelines watching the action - fat, dumb and happy in their little cocoons.

POST SCRIPTUM

Where’s the Million Man march for a more fair and just American society? Let’s take care of our own plutocrats first, before pointing the finger of blame on Uncle Sam’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

@Robespierre
” The US will see how it can manipulate the situation for its own ends, but Pentagon planners and Obama won’t be waking up in the morning thinking “we must actually uphold the values of freedom and democracy we claim to promote worldwide!””
This is unfortunately the brutal truth about so-called American values. It’s reduction of democracy to free enterprise imperialism and the trivialization of the word ‘value’ to stock points.

@morongobill… Robinson “is expressing his opinion.”

As long as his opinions are within the parameters set by his corporate masters. He’s just another corporate media shill.

Its really not that much difference from the likes of Robinson and those reporters on Egypts state controlled media.

By associating with the devils you know, you become “THE GREAT SATAN”.

“When push comes to shove, American officials must uphold American values.”

What American values?  Capitalism’s endless greed?  Devil take the hindmost?
Some people don’t “deserve” to eat, to have a house to live in and a job?  To be
able to get health care, eat uncontaminated food, drink clean water?  To avoid get
zonked out on pills, courtesy of endless Pharma ads encouragiing addictions? 
Kids to schools that don’t support “American values or the Constitution.  To be
iinnocent till proven guilty?  Twisted media?  Hatred and hopelessness?  All this,
and more?

I have to put the onus on capitalism, a system which is
wasteful, corrupt, disorganized and inhumane.  (Calm
down Fat Freddy.)

To be optimally efficient on a world-wide scale,
foreign governments that threaten to nationalize a
resource(s) have to either be prevented from doing so,
replaced, or never allowed to take power. Thus we end
up having to support governments which are “wasteful,
corrupt, disorganized and inhumane.”

Earlier these remarks were made by a commenter:

“Poor Eugene, this idiot actually believes his golden god Obama will actually move against pro-US dictators because of “our American values.”

“Seriously Eugene, you’ve been a sad, deluded liberal microphone for a fantasy that was never real. Go f—k yourself. “

Heh man- you need to layoff the double Starbucks and give it a break. Whether or not Mr. Robinson is deluded as you say or needs to, well I won’t go there,is beside the point. He is expressing his opinion, in a thoughtful and organized way, lucid points I might add, and compared to what you wrote,
he’s writing like a university professor, and you are writing like a student he just failed.

I don’t agree with a lot of the writing on this site, but that doesn’t give me or you the right to curse the writers out. We can comment with intelligence and respect, and still get our points across in a witty and engaging way, as well as our disgust for an article.

Having said that, I must confess to saying harsh things about elected and non-elected officials on my blog, from time to time.

But those things were said on MY SITE where I call the shots and take full responsibility.

Cut off aid? Israel says we can’t do that, even if it means billions of dollars we could have for our own retirement and health. Israel trumps everything, and cut aid to Israel itself? Oh, my, the thought of it gave six U.S. Senators the vapors, who immediately wrote some piece of garbage letter saying not one penny of aid to Israel should be cut. The great “populist” Sherrod Brown signed it, even as his own state of Ohio is desperate for aid. Debbie Stabenow signed it, even she talks about how badly her state of Michigan needs help. Those are just two examples of our great Democratic, AIPAC-butt-licking representation in Washington.
Robinson writes: “If the Egyptian regime can be challenged by ordinary citizens demanding freedom and democracy, any regime in the Arab world can be so challenged.”
No. Any regime ANYWHERE can be challenged, and it’s time we challenged the three corrupt branches of our own government: the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court.

“If the Egyptian regime can be challenged by ordinary citizens demanding freedom and democracy, any regime in the Arab world can be so challenged. The United States will not be able to dictate events, but neither will it be able to stand idly by—not where our non-democratic allies are concerned.

  When push comes to shove, American officials must uphold American values. We made a bargain whose term has lapsed. Settling final accounts will not be pleasant.”

Poor Eugene, this idiot actually believes his golden god Obama will actually move against pro-US dictators because of “our American values.” Internationally they’ve been the same values since the country was still a newborn, just ask Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti etc. The US will see how it can manipulate the situation for its own ends, but Pentagon planners and Obama won’t be waking up in the morning thinking “we must actually uphold the values of freedom and democracy we claim to promote worldwide!”

Seriously Eugene, you’ve been a sad, deluded liberal microphone for a fantasy that was never real. Go f—k yourself.