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I sometimes wonder what the Founders, if they could return to life and see their creation, would think of today’s American Republic. President George W. Bush described the Constitution of the United States as “just a goddamned piece of paper” before he went on a rampage all over the world in what he called the... Read More
Last week I discussed the ironic role that America's dominant Neocons may have played in shaping recent world events, perhaps inadvertently producing a beneficial outcome exactly contrary to their aggressive intent. Over the last decade, prominent political scientists such as Graham Allison of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago had argued that... Read More
At this point, these government/media are just going nuts making up completely ridiculous bullshit because they know no one can question them. RT: That’s… mildly funny, actually. But this is so obviously fake that it makes me wonder if
A week ago I wrote a piece describing how Israel’s power over the US government is such that no American official will confirm that the Israelis have, and have had for years, a secret nuclear arsenal consisting of as many as 200 nukes. The situation is particularly odd in that the United States is on... Read More
John Bolton’s new memoir “The Room Where It Happened,” which came out two days ago in spite of White House attempts to block it, is the standard kiss and tell that senior American politicians and officials tend to write to make money for their retirement. There should be no question but that Bolton has done... Read More
Here in the Land of Oz, otherwise known as Washington, one continues to run into people who should know better who insist that they have a friend in the White House who confirms that President Donald Trump is really a man of peace being obstructed as he seeks to withdraw the United States from senseless... Read More
After months of rumors, John Bolton was finally fired from the White House but the post mortem on why it took so long to remove him continues, with the punditry and media trying to understand exactly what happened and why. Perhaps the most complete explanation for what occurred came from President Donald Trump himself shortly... Read More
The sudden and bitter departure of John Bolton from the White House was baked in the cake from the day he arrived there. For Bolton's worldview, formed and fixed in a Cold War that ended in 1991, was irreconcilable with the policies Donald Trump promised in his 2016 campaign. Indeed, Trump was elected because he... Read More
For a couple of decades I covered the military for various publications, as for example the Washington Times and Harper's, and wrote a military column for Universal Press Syndicate. I was following the time-honored principle of sensible reporters: “Ask not what you can do for journalism, but what journalism can do for you.” The military... Read More
One might be forgiven for thinking that the foreign policy of the United States is some kind of theatrical performance, like a comic opera, with new characters appearing on stage willy-nilly and then being driven off after committing an incredible faux pas only to be replaced by even more grotesquely clownish figures. Unfortunately, while the... Read More
President Trump might be his own man, but not when it comes to John Bolton and Israel. Trump is their man and is again being manipulated into starting a fisticuffs with Iran. Someone in Washington, most likely Ziocon warmonger Bolton, got the UK to commit an act of piracy on the high seas and seize... Read More
"For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." Donald Trump, circa 2016? Nope. That denunciation of John Bolton interventionism... Read More
I confess to being mystified by those Americans who lean conservative, like myself, who continue to think that President Donald J. Trump is somehow doing a good job. To be sure, the economy continues to add mostly low paying jobs but claims that the new tax law benefits the middle class are a bit hard... Read More
As I posted on June 22 ( ), the world still faces the danger of an attack on Iran by Washington acting as an agent of Netanyahu. Israeli agent John Bolton is already in Israel conferring with Netanyahu. It is a safe bet that a more serious false flag attack is being planned that will... Read More
Congress, and particularly the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, seems determined to see the end of the Trump Administration before the 2020 vote. Although House Speaker Pelosi claims she is not seeking impeachment, she’s accusing the president of “covering up” something. However, she won’t say what until she can do more investigating. But Trump’s opponents on... Read More
Last week, it was Venezuela in America's gun sights. "While a peaceful solution is desirable, military action is possible," thundered Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. "If that's what is required, that's what the United States will do." John Bolton tutored Vladimir Putin on the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine: "This is our hemisphere. It's not... Read More
An explosive report by Reuters confirms that John Bolton sabotaged the denuclearization talks between Kim Jong un and Donald Trump in Hanoi in February. According to a March 29 exclusive by journalists Lesley Wroughton and David Brunnstrom: "Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper" demanding that Kim surrender all... Read More
President Trump’s second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un last week was criticized by both parties in Washington long before Air Force One even touched down in Hanoi. Washington’s political class seemed terrified that the nearly 70 year state of “war” with North Korea might actually end. In the end the only positive thing... Read More
Observers of developments in the Middle East have long taken it as a given that the United States and Israel are seeking for an excuse to attack Iran. The recently terminated conference in Warsaw had that objective, which was clearly expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it failed to rally European and Middle... Read More
Consider it a marriage made in hell. Start with the groom, Donald Trump, the man who once wondered why in the world we make nuclear weapons if we can’t use them; who wouldn’t rule out using nukes, even in Europe; who insisted that a president should be “unpredictable” on the subject; who suggested that it... Read More
Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey. It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye. Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of... Read More
"Stop the ENDLESS WARS!" implored President Donald Trump in a Sunday night tweet. Well, if he is serious, Trump had best keep an eye on his national security adviser, for a U.S. war on Iran would be a dream come true for John Bolton. Last September, when Shiite militants launched three mortar shells into the... Read More
Depending on what criteria one uses, there are between 200 and 600 groups in the United States that wholly or in part are dedicated to furthering the interests of Israel. The organizations are both Jewish, like the Zionist Organization of America, and Christian Zionist to include John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, but the funding... Read More
On October 21st there will be a Women's March on the Pentagon hosted by the Global Women’s Peace Action. My wife and many of our friends will be going and even I will tag along in support in spite of my gender. We participate with some reservations as we have only demonstrated publicly twice since... Read More
The nuclear war doomsday clock maintained on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website has advanced to two minutes before midnight, the closest point to possible atomic apocalypse since the end of the Cold War. In 1995 the clock was at fourteen minutes to midnight, but the opportunity to set it back even further was lost... Read More
Imagine that a nominee for secretary of state had shared platforms with white nationalist Richard B. Spencer and been given a major award by his National Policy Institute, which describes itself as "an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States and around the world."... Read More
Honestly, if you’re trying to grasp our strange new world, this Washington Post headline gets you at least part of the way there: "New NSC Chief of Staff Is From Group That Believes Muslims Are Plotting to Take Over U.S." No, that NSC isn’t the National Student Clearinghouse or the Norfolk Southern Corporation or the... Read More
In 2004 I published an article in the journal, Middle East Policy that was entitled “Drinking the Koolaid.” The article reviewed the process by which the neocon element in the Bush Administration seized control of the process of policy formation and drove the United States in the direction of invasion of Iraq and the destruction... Read More
In March 2003, Pat Buchanan wrote a groundbreaking article entitled "Whose War?" in opposition to the Bush Administration fueled growing hysteria over Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction which was producing demands for an armed intervention to disarm him. Buchanan rightly identified a number of prominent Jewish officials and journalists closely tied to the... Read More
The simple truth about John Bolton’s appointment to national security adviser is that the Republicans need Sheldon Adelson’s money in order to be competitive in the coming midterms, and John Bolton is a tool of Sheldon Adelson. The appointment of course is a complete reversal of Donald Trump’s declaration during the campaign that the Iraq... Read More
One of the most discouraging aspects of the musical chairs being played among the members of the White House inner circle is that every change reflects an inexorable move to the right in foreign policy, which means that the interventionists are back without anyone at the White House level remaining to say “no.” President Donald... Read More
We live in a political environment where nothing is any longer real. Allegedly apolitical Amnesty International issues a 48 page report stating that 13,000 political prisoners have been hanged in Syrian government prisons “a crime against humanity” and then it is revealed that the document was fabricated in London based on unconfirmed rebel sources and... Read More
I am reluctant to write about the “Israel problem” at the heart of U.S. foreign policy two weeks in a row but it seems that the story just will not go away as the usual suspects pile on the Barack Obama Administration over its alleged betrayal of America’s “best and greatest friend and ally in... Read More
Bernard at Moon of Alabama has a most timely and interesting post on the fate of Jose Bustani, the Brazilian diplomat who ran the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , recently awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize. Bernard relates how Bustani was subjected to the unwelcome attentions of John Bolton, the abusive ass... Read More
Judging from a couple of items by Syria Comment, China Matters is entitled to a little preening. Concerning the target of the September 6 Israeli raid on Syria, I wrote yesterday: Per Syria Comment, Raw Story reports: Israel did not strike a nuclear weapons facility in Syria on Sept. 6, instead striking a cache of... Read More
Update, September 16, 2007 I was hoping the North Korean nukes in Syria story was an opportunistic bit of Boltonian nonsense that would be put to rest with a bit of State Department pushback. I found the subsequent statement from the State Department’s Andrew Semmel—who is apparently a non-doctrinaire arms control professional— to be reassuring... Read More
Thanks to readers David and BB, I had a chance to read John Bolton’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. I had anticipated a laborious and tedious fisking might be required, but there’s not a whole lot of there there. Owing to frustration, despair, or an emotion familiar to many people covering the Banco Delta Asia saga—boredom—the... Read More
There are encouraging signs that the bizarre inability of the world’s only hyperpower to enable the remittance of $25 million to North Korea is attracting more and more skeptical interest. And there are signs that the hardliners are getting desperate. John Bolton has been summoned to muddy the waters with a conspiracy theory op-ed. Arms... Read More
China Matters goes meta, summarizing dozens of posts and tens of thousands of words written over the last six months to explain why Banco Delta Asia matters—and why the mainstream media should and actually might begin covering it critically and responsibly. As the Banco Delta Asia farce groans into its third month, it should be... Read More
From the May 3 Financial Times: So it looks like the lump sum approach is going ahead, no doubt to the chagrin of Bush administration hardliners who hoped to force North Korean account holders to present themselves (if they could or dared) to withdraw their funds in person with a suitcase. And I’m not surprised... Read More
With the departure of John Bolton and (most of) his cabal from the State Department, there has been an orgy of making hay while the sun shines e.g. quickly executing policy and personnel initiatives that would have been 86’d by the moustachio’d one and his White House cohorts if they still held power. And it’s... Read More