Worldwide Nightmare Theatre, Empire of Chaos Enhanced and Expanded

[kladner]

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/...-Aramco-attack
It must always be remembered who started this genocidal war: The Clown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It should also be remembered what great powers have aided and abetted this ongoing atrocity. Why do we wonder that the Yemenis seek, and acquire means of striking back at their high-tech attackers?

I have read that Patriot radar arrays also have been destroyed by drones. As to the price of fuel, there's nothing like a price shock to reduce carbon emissions.

Yemen's military has warned foreigners in Saudi Arabia to leave Aramco's oil processing plants, saying they are still a target and can be attacked "at any moment."

The warning came after Houthis and their allies in the Yemeni army deployed as many as 10 drones to bomb Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities run by the Saudi state-owned oil company before dawn Saturday.

Spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, General Yahya Sare'a, said in a tweet Monday that the attacks in the kingdom's eastern region had been carried out by drones with normal and jet engines.

He said Saudi Arabia should stop its "aggression and blockade on Yemen," or see the Yemeni army hit the kingdom "anywhere and anytime" it chooses.

Other Yemeni officials dismissed claims that the country is incapable of carrying out on its own the kind of attacks that targeted two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, pledged that Yemeni forces will continue to pound the Saudi oil industry until the kingdom ends its deadly war.

The unprecedented attack knocked out more than half of Saudi crude output, or 5% of global supply, prompting Saudi and US officials to claim without any evidence that it probably originated from Iraq or Iran.

Bukhaiti told Iran's Tasnim news agency that blaming the attacks on other countries shows "cowardice" in facing up to the reality of Yemen's military power.

"Saudi Arabia declared war against Yemen on the grounds that our missile inventory posed a threat to its security," he said. "Today, we are surprised to see that when we hit Saudi oil wells, they exonerate Yemen from conducting these strikes and accuse others of doing them."

"This is viewed as an own criminal decree of conviction. It also shows their cowardice," Bukhaiti added.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo was quick to blame Iran for the brazen attacks, claiming there was no evidence the drones had originated from Yemen.
Bukhaiti mocked the proposition, saying Washington resorted to such rhetoric to hide the fact that their radars were simply incapable of tracking Yemeni drones.

OOPS. The above came from a link in the following Finian Cunningham piece.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52278.htm

September 15, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The devastating blitz on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has led to a flurry of accusations from US officials blaming Iran. The reason for the finger-pointing is simple: Washington’s spectacular failure to protect its Saudi ally.

The Trump administration needs to scapegoat Iran for the latest military assault on Saudi Arabia because to acknowledge that the Houthi rebels mounted such an audacious assault on the oil kingdom’s heartland would be an admission of American inadequacy.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars in recent years purchasing US Patriot missile defense systems and supposedly cutting-edge radar technology from the Pentagon. If the Yemeni rebels can fly combat drones up to 1,000 kilometers into Saudi territory and knock out the linchpin production sites in the kingdom’s oil industry, then that should be a matter of huge embarrassment for US “protectors.”

American defense of Saudi Arabia is germane to their historical relationship. Saudi oil exports nominated in dollars for trade – the biggest on the planet – are vital for maintaining the petrodollar global market, which is in turn crucial for American economic power. In return, the US is obligated to be a protector of the Saudi monarchy, which comes with the lucrative added benefit of selling the kingdom weapons worth billions of dollars every year.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia has the world’s third biggest military budget, behind the US and China. With an annual spend of around $68 billion, it is the world’s number one in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (8.8 per cent). Most of the Saudi arms are sourced from the US, with Patriot missile systems in particular being a recent big-ticket item.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/...-Aramco-attack

Actually, he threatened more (my emphasis):

"These attacks will automatically stop when Saudi Arabia ends its aggression and lifts its blockade against Yemen," he said. "These operations will only expand and target facilities that are more vital and more sensitive than oil facilities."

I'm guessing, desalination plants. You may recall that during Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein nearly incapacitated a major desalination plant simply by putting crude oil in the water. It came uncomfortably close to the intakes.

[kladner]

I'm guessing, desalination plants.

One hopes that the Saudis take that possibility into account. Who knows what the maximum ranges of the Yemeni missiles and drones are? Could they maybe put on a warning light show over inhabited areas, just to show their reach? On the other hand, with 100,000 dead compatriots, and many more starving, they might start moving on from the oil facilities. May the head and hand choppers come to some semblance of sense before such things happen. May the monsters in the mis-administration fall into internal discord and immobilize themselves,

Fond hope, I know. Too many of those now in power would rather pull down the temple on the world than admit their own decline

Here is one more bit to ponder.
How Russian And Iran Beat Their Opponents' Strategies
By Moon Of Alabama

U.S. allies are still asleep.

When NATO extended into east Europe and the U.S. left the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty Russia announced that it would develop countermeasures to keep the U.S. deterred from attacking it. Ten years later Russia delivered on its promise.

It had developed a number of new weapons that can defeat the ballistic missile defense the U.S. installed. It also put emphasis on its own air and missile defense as well as on radar and on electronic countermeasures that are so good that a U.S. general described as "eye-watering".

All this allowed Putin to troll Trump by offering him Russian hypersonic missiles. As we analyzed:

Trump is wrong in claiming that the U.S. makes its own hypersonic weapons. While the U.S. has some in development none will be ready before 2022 and likely only much later. Hypersonic weapons are a Soviet/Russian invention. The ones Russia now puts into service are already the third generation. U.S. development of such missiles is at least two generations behind Russia's.

That Russian radar can 'see' stealth aircraft has been known since 1999 when a Yugoslav army unit shot down a U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft. Russian air and missile defense proved in Syria that it can defeat mass attacks by drones as well as by cruise missiles. U.S.-made air and missile defense in Saudi Arabia fails to take down even the primitive missiles Houthi forces fire against it.

Yesterday, during a press conference in Ankara with his Turkish and Iranian colleagues, Putin trolled Saudi Arabia (video @38:20) with a similar offer as he had made to Trump:

Q: Does Russia intend to provide Saudi Arabia with any help or support in restoring its infrastructure?

Putin: As for assisting Saudi Arabia, it is also written in the Quran that violence of any kind is illegitimate except when protecting one’s people. In order to protect them and the country, we are ready to provide the necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia. All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system. They would offer reliable protection for any Saudi infrastructure facilities.

President of Iran Hassan Rouhani: So do they need to buy the S-300 or the S-400?

Vladimir Putin: It is up to them to decide.

Erdogan, Rouhani and Putin all laughed over this exchange.

U.S. allies, who have to buy U.S. weapons, have followed a similar defense investment strategy as the U.S. itself. They bought weapon systems that are most useful for wars of aggression but did not invest in defensive weapon systems that are needed when their enemies prove capable of hitting back.

[kladner]

https://fair.org/home/media-omit-con...missile-tests/
Having previously been pulverized by US airborne bombardment, with monsters Anti-Communist Heros like Curtis Lemay gloating over slaughtering 20% of the largely peasant population; the North Korean Despots are obviously totally deranged to act in such an unjustifiably threatening, frightening, and utterly incomprehensibly hostile and aggressive manner.
NUKE 'Em

In his 2004 book North Korea: Another Country, historian Bruce Cumings described the irony of corporate media’s perpetual narrative of North Korea as an unhinged or devious adversary of the US with hostile nuclear ambitions:

Almost always, media discussion of North Korea assumes that Washington is in a position of original innocence, and the North is assiduously trying to obtain and then to use “weapons of mass destruction”—the ubiquitous media trope for the arsenals of American enemies since the Cold War ended. Yet the American record in Northeast Asia since the 1940s is one of consistent use of, or threats to use, those same weapons.

Little has changed since then, as FAIR has documented the media’s one-sided tendency to cast Washington’s actions as defensive responses to “threats” from Official Enemies (internal links removed).

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by kladner

https://fair.org/home/media-omit-con...missile-tests/
Having previously been pulverized by US airborne bombardment, with monsters Anti-Communist Heros like Curtis Lemay gloating over slaughtering 20% of the largely peasant population; the North Korean Despots are obviously totally deranged to act in such an unjustifiably threatening, frightening, and utterly incomprehensibly hostile and aggressive manner.
NUKE 'Em

Curtis E. "Bombs away" Lemay didn't participate in Korea. He was commander of SAC from 1948 to 1957.

His quote, from a 1984 interview, that

We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?

was probably just his opinion on what had happened.

Other estimates indicate that "only" 10% of the civilian populace was killed.

Curiously, Japan, on which Lemay truly did visit "fire and fury like the world has never seen before" during WWII, in 1964 awarded him the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. Regarding the firebombing of Japan, Lemay said something to the effect that, if we had lost the war, he would probably have been tried as a war criminal.

Of course, he had a difficult problem in Japan: A lot of the civilian residences he burned were also being used to manufacture small parts for planes and other war equipment. That's probably why he also said there were no innocent civilians.

Lemay was probably an inspiration for the character of General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove. The scene where Ripper (portrayed by Sterling Hayden) puffs on his cigar as he explains his lunatic ideas about fluoridation to Lionel Mandrake is a memorable one.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Trump admin shifting to privatize migrant child detention

SAN BENITO, Texas (AP) — On a recent day in a remodeled brick church in the Rio Grande Valley, a caregiver tried to soothe a toddler, offering him a sippy cup. The adult knew next to nothing about the little 3-year-old whose few baby words appeared to be Portuguese. Shelter staff had tried desperately to find his family, calling the Brazilian consulate and searching Facebook.

Nearby, infants in strollers were rolled through the building, pushed by workers in bright blue shirts lettered “CHS,” short for Comprehensive Health Services, Inc., the private, for-profit company paid by the U.S. government to hold some of the smallest migrant children.

Sheltering migrant children has become a growing business for the Florida-based government contractor, as the number of minors in government custody has swollen to record levels over the past two years. More than 50 babies, toddlers and teens were closely watched on this day inside the clean, well-lit shelter surrounded by chain link fences.

<snip>

Just over a year later, DC Capital Partners bought CHS, a company with a troubled past. The firm agreed in 2017 to pay out $3.8 million to settle an investigation involving allegations that it double billed and overcharged the federal government for medical services.

Despite the fraud settlement, CHS went on to win a no-bid contract to operate Homestead. At the time, federal officials said they didn’t have to open the bidding to competitors, typically the way taxpayer dollars are spent, because there was “unusual and compelling urgency.”

The government’s justification for the no-bid contract said there could be increased “industry participation” in bidding for migrant child care contracts going forward.

No-bid contracts can lead to higher costs. CHS, a contractor, typically hires locally, staffing up as quickly as it can, hiring hundreds of people through online ads and at community job fairs. In contrast, nonprofits typically are paid through grants. They have screened staffers on call, who can be flown in if a shelter needs to care for a sudden increase of children for a short period.

As a result, although Homestead temporarily closed in August, there are still about 2,000 people working there, said Hayes. In contrast, a nonprofit that operates a now-empty 500-bed shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, has just two security guards onsite but is ready to ramp up as needed.

CHS’s business plan going forward depends on having more kids in their shelters, according to a prospectus its parent company Caliburn filed last year to go public with a $100 million stock offering.

“In a recent shift, the U.S. federal government has started to transition to utilizing private contractors for medical and shelter maintenance,” said the prospectus. “We believe that as a result of our past performance and longstanding relationship with HHS, we are positioned to be a leading provider of these services.”

<snip>

[ewmayer]

"CHS, a company with a troubled past" -- Were this a case where the government had been performing the function in question competently, I might be more alarmed. But I certainly wouldn't put it past Trump to take an already-horrific problem and make it worse.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

"CHS, a company with a troubled past" -- Were this a case where the government had been performing the function in question competently, I might be more alarmed. But I certainly wouldn't put it past Trump to take an already-horrific problem and make it worse.

Perhaps it's a case of making it worse to the second power: First, screw up the government's handling of a problem. Then (based on the government's poor performance) say, "Gee, better turn it over to the private sector!" Then, of course, it's "Out of sight, out of mind."

The issue of how the contracts are assigned is an interesting one. On the one hand, no-bid contracts will likely cost more. On the other hand, bid contracts usually go to the lowest bidder, a practice which has produced a cornucopia of jokes.

On the gripping hand, given a total lack of oversight,...

[ewmayer]

o The ‘War’ for the Future of Middle East | Strategic Culture

o Winter Is Coming: Castle Black, the Syrian Withdrawal, and the Battle of the Bases | LobeLog -- The rundown of the various euphemisms for US overseas military bases is useful. Per the article, here is the list of military bases which are not really military bases (the 'really' ones are the so-called Main Operating Bases in Pentagon-speak):

Military Support Sites
Initial Contingency Location
Temporary Contingency Location
Semipermanent Contingency Location
[full-fledged] Contingency Location
Forward Operating Site
Cooperative Security Location
Combat Outpost
Fire Support Base
Patrol Base

The official definitions of these various kinds of not-really-a-base outposts routinely gets stretched to the extreme:

Such U.S. non-bases also include Forward Operating Sites (FOSes), which are officially defined as “scalable” locations intended for “rotational use by operating forces.” While “rotational use” might make such a place sound like a distinctly temporary location, possibly one abandoned for long stretches, that’s hardly the case. Camp Lemonnier in the sun-bleached Horn-of-Africa nation of Djibouti, for example, is not only an FOS, but also America’s largest base on the African continent and the headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), which includes soldiers, sailors, and airmen, some of them members of the Special Operations forces. The camp — which also supports CENTCOM — couldn’t be less temporary, having expanded from 88 acres to 600 acres, while the number of troops stationed there has jumped by more than 500%, to 5,500, since 2002.

Another type of outpost is a cooperative security location, or CSL, which is supposedly neither “a U.S. facility or base.” According to the Pentagon’s official definition, it has “little or no permanent United States presence” and “is maintained by periodic Service, contractor, or host nation support.” This, too, is completely disingenuous. A CSL in the remote smuggling hub of Agadez, Niger, for example, is the premier U.S. military outpost in West Africa. That drone non-base, located at Nigerien Air Base 201, not only boasts a $100 million-plus construction price tag but, with operating expenses, is expected to cost U.S. taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars by 2024 when the 10-year agreement for its use ends.

[kladner]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52526.htm

"Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left"

Spoiler Alert: Escobar does get down to the elephant: the Military. Lula could be put back in prison, or simply assassinated.

Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution.

His first speech to the nation after the prison saga – which is far from over – could never be solemn; in fact he promised a detailed address for the near future. What he did, in his trademark conversationalist style, was to immediately go on the offensive taking down a long list of every possible enemy in the book: those who have mired Brazil into an “anti-people agenda.” In terms of a fully improvised, passionate political address, this is already anthology material.

Lula detailed the current “terrible conditions” for Brazilian workers. He ripped to pieces the economic program – basically a monster sell-out – of Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy and Pinochetist who’s applying the same failed hardcore neoliberal prescriptions now being denounced and scorned every day in the streets of Chile.

He detailed how the Brazilian right wing openly bet on neo-fascism, which is the form that neoliberalism recently took in Brazil. He blasted mainstream media, in the form of the so far all-powerful, ultra-reactionary Globo empire. In a stance of semiotic genius, Lula pointed to Globo’s helicopter hovering over the masses gathered for the speech, implying the organization is too cowardly to get close to him on ground level.

And, significantly, he got right into the heart of the Bolsonaro question: the militias. It’s no secret to informed Brazilians that the Bolsonaro clan, with its origins in the Veneto, is behaving as a sort of cheap, crude, eschatological carbon copy of the Sopranos, running a system heavy on militias and supported by the Brazilian military. Lula described the president of one of the top nations in the Global South as no less than a militia leader. That will stick – all around the world.

[ewmayer]

Propaganda Narratives Are Custom-Made For Each Ideological Echo Chamber | Caitlin Johnstone, TheAltWorld

Every political sector has been given a custom-made reason to hate Assange by the narrative management network whose sole interest is imprisoning a journalist for telling the truth. And it’s been done so brilliantly that people never even stop and question who these new beliefs they’ve suddenly espoused are really serving. The science of propaganda is truly awe-inspiring sometimes…. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because it will hurt the Deep State. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a Russian agent. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a rapist. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a fascist enabler. The only common denominator in all these wildly different narratives is the belief that it’s good for Assange to be locked up. Which tells you that this is all it’s really about. Turn off the narrative soundtrack and what do you have? A man locked in a cell and no one coming to his rescue.
...
It’s just like the illegal US occupation of Syria. US troops need to be in Syria because of humanitarian concerns. US troops need to be in Syria because of chemical weapons. US troops need to be in Syria to stop ISIS. US troops need to be in Syria to counter Iranian influence. US troops need to be in Syria to counter Russian influence. US troops need to be in Syria to protect the Kurds. US troops need to be in Syria because of oil. There’s a different reason for every ideological echo chamber.

But take away the narrative soundtrack and what do you have? US troops staying in Syria. That tells you what this is actually about.

Simply mentally muting the narrative soundtrack that babbles about all the endless justifications for the US-centralized empire’s behaviors, and instead looking at the actual behaviors themselves, is a great way to see the empire’s true motives for yourself. Ignore all the stories about why things need to be as they are and you just see things as they are.