Worldwide Nightmare Theatre, Empire of Chaos Enhanced and Expanded

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Glenn Greenwald - who currently lives in Brazil but may well be rethinking that domicile choice - writes on that country's likely (pending a runoff) election of a genuine - as opposed to a Trump-style authoritarian oligarch-populist demagogue - right-wing fascist leader, congressman Jair Bolsonaro:

Brazil’s Bolsonaro-Led Far Right Wins a Victory Far More Sweeping and Dangerous Than Anyone Predicted. Its Lessons Are Global | The Intercept <snip>

But he must be OK. After all, the evangelical Christians are for him.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

Here is an ongoing case of projection: accusing others of the very things the US is doing. It also aims at a restarted Cold War, to try to break the Russian and Chinese economies though military spending. A question is, how long can the US continue feed our death merchants ever greater slices of the pie before its economy craters?
.

Pursuant to an article here, I clicked on the link to the recently-passed H.R.5515 - John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019. There is a possibly-amusing omission regarding the INF, which I have highlighted in bold. Paragraph (2) is, shall we say, legally suspect. The treaty has no provision for suspension, although it does provide for withdrawal.

<snip>
SEC. 1244. COMPREHENSIVE RESPONSE TO THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION’S MATERIAL BREACH OF THE INF TREATY.
(a) Sense Of Congress. -- It is the of Congress that --

(1) the actions undertaken by the Russian Federation in violation of the INF Treaty, including the flight-test, production, and possession of prohibited systems, have defeated the object and purpose of the INF Treaty, and thus constitute a material breach of the INF Treaty;

(2) in light of the Russian Federation’s material breach of the INF Treaty, the United States is legally entitled to suspend the operation of the INF Treaty in whole or in part for so long as the Russian Federation continues to be in material breach of the INF Treaty;
<snip>

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Hmm, no source.

<Google google>

This article has the right title...

Ouch. Up too late. Right article, different publication. Thanks, Doc.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50484.htm

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

Ouch. Up too late. Right article, different publication. Thanks, Doc.

I know what you mean about "up too late." I was so short of sleep myself when I read your post, I didn't even notice the post's title. I did notice there was no link, and took it as a challenge to find the source from the quoted text. So I googled on the phrase, "Therefore any multilateral arms control treaty that limits weapons and war tensions" and got the RT article at the top of the hit parade. (And, by the luck of the draw, according to the publication you link to, RT is where it was originally published.)

It was only after I posted, that I saw the title of your post, and realized it was also the article's title. Bwaahahaha! I edited my post accordingly.

I also visualized myself failing to give the source in the following manner, if I'm short on sleep: My mind slips a cog, and I copy the article's title, and then paste it as the title of the post -- instead of putting it into a link!

[kladner]

As we speak, NATO is in the middle of deploying 50.000 troops, 250 aircraft, 65 vessels and 10.000 vehicles all across Norway’s territory, as well as in some areas in Sweden, Finland, Iceland and other Baltic countries. More than 30 NATO members are participating in this exercise named Trident Juncture 18, the largest ever of its kind, surpassing all previous NATO exercises in Norway such as Cold Response (11 nations), Dynamic Mongoose (8 nations) and the Arctic Challenge (9 nations). Although NATO states that Trident Juncture 18 is to show that “it is capable of deterring any adversary, not anyone in particular, no particular adversary”, it should be obvious that the currently growing tension between the West and Russia stands as the main reason that can justify the sheer ampleur of this years’ deployment drill.

Over the last decade, but especially the last 4 years, relations between Russia and the West have been worsening by the day – a current geopolitical climate that echoes all the way to the Arctic – historically a major military theater during the height of the Cold War. So are we amidst a new and revived Cold War, or what is this growing militarization of the Arctic supposed to be telling us? Right in the middle between NATO and Russia, Norway stands as a hotspot for a pending conflict.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/norway...rgames/5657722
This item took me by surprise. When I started looking for coverage, searches turned up quite a few non-US press and media stories. Mainstream US media: hardly any, other than military-related publications, if you call that mainstream.
I just find it interesting that domestic coverage is sparse, for such a massive operation. Perhaps they don't want people in the US wondering about the price tag for these games.
I searched the LA Times site for "Trident Juncture 18" and got 110 irrelevant results. A search for "NATO exercises" returned 0 results. Yahoo has a fairly extensive story on "The Largest Arctic Exercises Ever!" On NPR I got a 2017 reference to the previous Biggest Since the Cold War frolics.
https://www.npr.org/2017/07/26/53957...e-the-cold-war
Interesting to find repetition of the Biggest and Baddest theme in about a 14 month interval.
UPI covered this event, and AFP, which story Yahoo linked.
I found the screenshot rather far down the Duckduckgo page, after many Daily Mail entries, Al Jazeera, Telegraph, etc. It shows a hit piece from The Hill, and coverage by WSJ and MSN. Newsweek shows up at the bottom of the first page of results.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Trident+Ju...r=news&ia=news

[Dr Sardonicus]

There are several NATO pages. There's one from August here, and current ones here and here. There is a Joint Forces Command page with a time line here.

There's a short DOD blurb, dated October 18, here.

There's even a Wikipedia page here.

WRT "mainstream media," there was an article in yesterday's Washington Post here.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

There are several NATO pages. There's one from August here, and current ones here and here. There is a Joint Forces Command page with a time line here.

There's a short DOD blurb, dated October 18, here.

There's even a Wikipedia page here.

WRT "mainstream media," there was an article in yesterday's Washington Post here.

Those pages count with the "military-related publications", as far as I am concerned. I doubt if yesterday's WaPo was in my search results.
My point is that there is a lot more foreign coverage than US, specifically from the MSM, as in Profit or Non-profit sources of reporting. What you cite is boosterism, braggadocio, and bluster.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

My point is that there is a lot more foreign coverage than US, specifically from the MSM, as in Profit or Non-profit sources of reporting.

This has been true of just about anything going on outside the USA for quite some time. Newspapers have been closing their foreign bureaus for decades. Your "point" is news so old, it's historical.

[ewmayer]

Mark Ames: ShamiWitness: When Bellingcat and Neocons Collaborated With The Most Influential ISIS Propagandist On Twitter | naked capitalism

As it turned out, @ShamiWitness was a fake “Syria expert”. The millennial yuppie who ran the ShamiWitness account was as much an insider expert on ISIS as the western Syria hacks who boosted him. It wasn’t the “experts” like Bellingcat who unmasked ShamiWitness — quite the opposite, Bellingcat’s team played a major role in building him up as a credible expert. Rather, it was a Channel 4 report exposing ShamiWitness as a fake — but a very dark and dangerous fake, with very real world consequences. @ShamiWitness was run by a 24-year-old Indian marketing executive named Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who tweeted out ISIS and Syria “expertise” from his bachelor pad in Bangalore, India.

[NB: 'Shami' means Syria ... but parsing the Twitter handle as 'Sham I-Witness' fits nicely].

The propaganda-spewing regime-change creeps at Bellingcat, the Atlantic Council, etc, have a lot to answer for. As one reader notes: "As for that Michael Weiss – I’m pretty sure that there are laws on the book saying that it is a Federal crime to give support to terrorists or terrorism but the law never seems to apply to people like him for some reason."

[kladner]

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a8600886.html

I knew just what Jamal Khashoggi’s murder really meant in the context of the Middle East last week when I realised just who I’d have to call to explain it to me. Whom would I telephone to learn what was going on? Why, of course, I’d call Jamal Khashoggi. And that’s why his murder is so important. Because he was, as he knew, a lone and important Arab journalist who did not listen – not any more — to His Master’s Voice. And that, of course, was his problem.

I trust Fisk's knowledge and understanding of the Middle East more than any other authority I am aware of. He has been deeply immersed for decades.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices...-a8600886.html

I trust Fisk's knowledge and understanding of the Middle East more than any other authority I am aware of. He has been deeply immersed for decades.

I read the piece. To me, it was more a formulaic screed than news or analysis. I didn't really learn much from it. I summarize it as follows:

The Saudi regime is terrible. Western governments are terrible. The US is terrible. The UK is terrible. One can replace "terrible" with, or add to it words like "vile," "hypocritical," "repulsive," etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

I was surprised, though, at the figure of "only" 5,000 for the number of civilians killed in Yemen. Is that a typo?