Worldwide Nightmare Theatre, Empire of Chaos Enhanced and Expanded

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Unfortunately, it seems to be fighting for the enemy.

It brings to mind an old SF story, Superiority - by Arthur C. Clarke

It sure as heck does.
Of course, it does not matter if the F-35 is ever truly operational. In fact, it has been fully operational for a long time. Its true mission is to suck down a trillion plus dollars, and it is performing admirably.

[Xyzzy]

Imagine what a trillion dollars could do for America's crumbling infrastructure.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by Xyzzy

Imagine what a trillion dollars could do for America's crumbling infrastructure.

And a host of other civilized needs: college, single payer healthcare, supporting the transition to renewable energy, a meaningful professional diplomatic corps, and..... Our biggest national investment in the US, is in death.

[ewmayer]

Addressing civilized needs might cause the proles to start feeling less precarious and start getting uppity. Can't have that!

[kladner]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Addressing civilized needs might cause the proles to start feeling less precarious and start getting uppity. Can't have that!

Yes. That would be Very Bad Destabilizing ®.

[kladner]

Here are a couple of pieces regarding the USA's continuing blindness to the world as it now is.

Are You Listening, America? By Scott Ritter
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48909.htm

On Thursday, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s much-maligned president, delivered his state of the nation address to the Russian Federal Assembly (the Russian national Legislature, consisting of the State Duma, or lower house, and the Russian Council, or upper house). While the first half of his speech dealt with Russian domestic issues—and any American who has bought into Western media perceptions that Russia is a collapsing state, possessing a failed economy, would do well to read this portion of the speech—it was the second half of the presentation that caused the world to sit up and listen.

In this portion of the speech, Putin outlined developments in Russian strategic military capability. The developments collectively signal the obsolescence of America’s strategic nuclear deterrence, both in terms of its present capabilities and—taking into account the $1.2 trillion nuclear weapons modernization program President Trump unveiled earlier this year—anything America might pursue in the decades to come.

Putin Trumps Trump By Eric S. Margolis
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/48905.htm

In December, 2002, President George W. Bush proclaimed that the US would unilaterally pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty that had curtailed the development of nuclear missiles and anti-missile systems to defeat them.

The arrogant, dim-witted Bush believed that US space technology was advancing so rapidly that it would neutralize Russia’s force of ICBM missiles. Bush was just a puppet. The real power behind him was Vice President Dick Cheney, the leading neocon who sneered at Russia, dismissed it as a mere ‘gas-station,’ and was determined to see the US achieve global dominance.

In Cheney’s view, the ABM Treaty was holding the US back from this goal. Bankrupt Moscow would never be able to stand up to the mighty USA. Moscow warned that reneging on the ABM Treaty would re-ignite a ruinous arms race. A then little known politician, Vladimir Putin, vowed that Russia would never bend its knee to the US nuclear colossus.

This week, President Putin stunned the world by revealing a new arsenal of nuclear-armed weapons that have stolen a march on Washington and left the warlike President Donald Trump looking foolish.

EDIT: Putin declares that the long US attempt to gain nuclear superiority over Russia has failed and hopes Washington will “listen now.”
How Washington Provoked—and Perhaps Lost—a New Nuclear-Arms Race
-Stephen F Cohen, The Nation

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian Studies and Politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (Previous installments, now in their fourth year, are at TheNation.com.)

Cohen explains that President Putin’s speech to both houses of the Russian parliament on March 1, somewhat akin to the US president’s annual State of the Union address, was composed of two distinct parts. The first approximately two-thirds was pitched to the upcoming Russian presidential election, on March 18, and to domestic concerns of Russian voters, which are not unlike those of American voters: stability, jobs, health care, education, taxes, infrastructures, etc. The latter part of the speech was, however, devoted solely to recent achievements in Russia’s strategic, or nuclear, weapons. These remarks, though also of electoral value, were addressed directly to Washington. Putin’s overarching point was that Russia has thwarted Washington’s two-decade-long effort to gain nuclear superiority over—and thus a survivable first-strike capability against—Russia. His attendant conclusion was that one era in post-Soviet Russian-American strategic relations has ended and a new one has begun. This part of Putin’s speech makes it among the important he has delivered during his 18 years in power. (It is on the ACEWA website eastwestaccord.com.)

[kladner]

I am glad someone with wide exposure has raised this issue. Droning goes much further than crewed bombers in disconnecting from the actions. As Howard Zinn, who was WWII bomber crew, said, "You don't hear screams at 20,000 feet." I am sure one cannot hear them from Lincolnshire or Nevada, either.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ria-difference

The attempted murder of a former Russian spy is rightly condemned. Yet Britain advocates the execution of its own citizens in the Middle East. It’s sheer hypocrisy

In this opinion piece is a maxim quoted, with a comment by the author,

"The AK-47 is the poor man’s B-52." But the AK-47 is at least more accurate – as is Russian poison

.

In 2015 a British student from Cardiff, Reyaad Khan, was killed in Syria by an RAF drone bomb, presumably “piloted” from Lincolnshire. A House of Commons report later accepted that he was “orchestrating and inciting” terrorist attacks in Britain, but could not discover how imminent the attacks were or the legal basis for his killing. His British associate, Junaid Hussain, was killed by an American drone. Two years later, Hussain’s widow, Sally Jones, and their 12-year-old son were similarly wiped out. No trial preceded these executions of British citizens on foreign soil. They died by executive action for being a threat to national security. If we assume someone in Moscow took the same view of Russian spy Sergei Skripal, what is the difference?

For governments to go about the world killing people without judicial process offends every international law, even if not much can be done about it. But for a British government to kill its own citizens without trial defies Magna Carta. When, in 2011, President Obama authorised the drone execution in Yemen of the US citizen and al-Qaida propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, it provoked outrage as an offence against American liberty. Obama claimed Awlaki “posed a continued and imminent threat to US persons or interests”. The result was years of legal dispute, the case championed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times, no less.

[ewmayer]

Interesting continuation of the "Winter Olympic thaw":

Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un could signal major thaw in nuclear standoff | Politico

And here is the ensuing discussion among the NC readership.

[wombatman]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

Interesting continuation of the "Winter Olympic thaw":

Trump meeting with Kim Jong Un could signal major thaw in nuclear standoff | Politico

And here is the ensuing discussion among the NC readership.

I sincerely hope Trump, as much as I loathe him, can accomplish something positive here. But I just don't trust him to not fuck it up somehow and make things worse.

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by wombatman

I sincerely hope Trump, as much as I loathe him, can accomplish something positive here. But I just don't trust him to not fuck it up somehow and make things worse.

You'll get no argument from me there! I confess I find the notion of Trump-of-all-people accomplishing something positive w.r.to Koreas and the ensuing global wave of neocon head explosions as perversely amusing as it is unlikely.

Re. Kieren's notes/links on the poisoning of the Russian double/triple/whatever agent, the Moon of Alabama blog has an interesting tying-up-loose-ends take on the story.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Regarding Il Duce meeting with the Great Successor (or whatever they're calling him now), I will lightheartedly predict a press release something like the following:

A historic agreement was reached between the US and North Korea, allowing the construction of a new Trump Tower in Pyongyang, and a new Trump Golf Course, to be built on the site of the Pyongyang Folklore Park built by Kim Jong Un's uncle Jang Song-Thaek, which was destroyed after his execution...