Chris Hedges and Allan Nairn, two cautionary voices well worth listening to:
Leave a Reply --Link to Moderation Policy--
Only Logged in users can comment.
New Commentators Register here to comment.
Saker Message:
A depressing sequel to Saker’s article from yesterday – his Unz Review piece.
Well, I for one, for what its worth – don’t like Chris Hedges. I’m not even sure why. And I might like him to meet him, its just his presentation and where he stands with his views that I find creepy sometimes.
I like Allan Nairn, but he looks like a neo-con…I know he’s not, but he looks like one.
He talks very well, clear and un-chaotic. But his message is clear.
How sad.
The one thing I really hate about the Trumps is not daddy but his sons…either both, but certainly one of them is a fanatical trophy hunter and is killing the large wildlife in Africa with a disgusting show of sadism. It makes me sick….he takes selfies of himself with desecrated wildlife – holding up the tail of a dead elephant and cutting if off at the base with his super duper knife –
Puke.
Hedges is a 100% dishonest left wing gatekeeper, has been a defender of the 9/11 commission report narrative from day one, remains a staunch 9/11 denier. Establishment shill.
Entitlement and cruelty personified. Can all these people, who like me are relieved to escape the clinton dynasty, really thinking big bluster is anything but an oligarch?
I also am less than enchanted by Hedges. I am never certain that he has fully left the employ of the ‘Newspaper of (false, CIA) record’.
These two are moralists, above all. I think they don’t understand how Trump’s position on Russia saved us from Killary. They really seem to think that since both are for “murder” Hillary and Trump are basically the same. That is stupid. As for Sanders, if they think that milquetoast could have gotten anything done in the face of the neocons, they’re dreaming. Besides, look at the way he capitulated to Killary at the end. No substance.
Hedges already has a commitment to seeing the US reverting to outright fascism.
Trump has two big weak points: his blindness regarding corporate devastation of the environment. He is a city boy. And he seems to be blind regarding the solidarity of the Russia, China, Iran triangle.
These two are moralists, above all. I think they don’t understand how Trump’s position on Russia saved us from Killary. They really seem to think that since both are for “murder” Hillary and Trump are basically the same. That is stupid.
I agree 110%. But I thought that I would present their view simply because I might be wrong and because I fundamentally respect them. But yes, I don’t agree with them at all in this case. Their total rejection of Trump is waaaaaay premature. God willing, they will never be proven right…
Thank you,
The Saker
It seemed to me that what Nairne said about Putin and Russia was off the mark — seemed polluted with MSM propaganda.
Agree. His comments re the number of civilians that it is “permitted” to kill, with his citing of how many civilians were killed in the liberatoin of Aleppo, seemed disingenuous. First, he didn’t mention the need to liberate Aleppo. That need would never have arisein if the West and the USA had not inserted “moderate rebels” into Syria and armed them in the takeover of Syria’s largest city.
When Putin was questioned about the civilian deaths he regretted deeply the fact that civilians had been killed in the military actoin. But he said that this is part of war.
So, Don’t start wars and then cry crocodile tears when civilians get killed. That is the nature of warfare, of modern warfare, and of asymmetrical warfare.
So, the lack of context for the “civilian deaths’ meme kind of sets me against Nairn early in the interview, although he has certainly put his personal safety where his mouth was. And, if “willingness to kill civilians” is the measure of a regime (which I question, but for purposes of discussion), then let’s talk about civilians killed in the USA, namely, on 911.
Katherine
Hedges before the election was speaking a lot if sense.He now seems to have been ‘turned’ and is very hosfile towards Trump, ending his sentences with garbled warnings of authoritarianism and neo-fascism, etc.There is a lot of talk about 1984. Not a squeak about Yevgeny Zamyatin’s novel “We”(1921), Orwell’s plagiarism of this novel should be well known, he read it 6 months before. The fact that it is a Russian novel adds a certain charm & frisson to this silly idea that it depicts Trumps America.
Nairn couldn’t be more wrong. The US empire is not emulating the Russian model that is to prevent civilian deaths. That is why the US-backed terrorists use Syrian civilians in cages as “human shields”.
The US military is explicitly targeting and killing civilians with bombers and terrorist death squads. Military targets have the least priority.
“Air Theory for the Twenty-first Century
Col John A. Warden III, USAF
…
Fourth, our rings clearly show that the military is a shield or spear for the whole system, not the essence of the system. Given a choice, even in something so simple as personal combat, we certainly wouldn’t make destruction of our enemy’s shield our end game. Contrary to Clausewitz, destruction of the enemy military is not the essence of war; the essence of war is convincing the enemy to accept your position, and fighting his military forces is at best a means to an end and at worst a total waste of time and energy.
Fifth, and last, the rings give us the concept of working from the inside to the outside as opposed to the converse. Understanding this concept is essential to taking a strategic rather than a tactical approach to winning wars.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20130728005722/http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/battle/chp4.html
LeMay:
“We must be willing to continue our bombing until we have destroyed every work of man in North Vietnam if this is what it takes to win the war.”
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6b0_1235627650
“Spanish Fighter Pilots Admit NATO Purposely Attacks Civilian Targets”
http://web.archive.org/web/20010624173936/http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/de_la_hoz_interview.htm
“Belgrade will be like this table,” he declared. “We will immediately begin carpet-bombing Belgrade. This is what we will do to Belgrade,” and he repeated the gesture. A moment of silence passed, and then Ahtisaari added, “There will be half a million dead within a week.””
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI202A.html