Half-Light of the Antichrists

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arms business, Bush, Crimea, dick cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, General Electric, government corruption, Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, Military-industrial complex, Moscow, nuclear holocaust, oligarchy, paul william roberts, privatization of military, putin, Russia, russian collusion, russian spies, Syria conflict, the Ukraine, the United States, threat of war, trump, war-business, war-profiteering

 

 

 

Perhaps Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are not exactly friends in the normal sense of the word – which in any case is not something either man would understand less still seek – but let us theorise that they’re comrades-in-arms, at least inasmuch as they both represent an autocratic oligarchy which sees itself, and always has seen itself as rightful rulers of the earth. Accepting for the sake of hypothesis that this is so, what, you rightly ask, does either of them stand to gain from threatening a nuclear holocaust that would effectively render this planet uninhabitable for millions of years — unless of course you’re a hardy, adaptable and fairly basic organism? What indeed? As we stand at the threshold of what could well be the most serious east-west debacle since the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early sixties, it is worth looking at the benefits to both sides of, not actually going to war but of appearing to be contemplating it. I doubt if any government on the planet believes a nuclear war is winnable or even feasible – and this would probably be because it isn’t. Why then hold the constant threat of one over our heads, and spend trillions of dollars annually on preparing for one? What possible reason could there be for such insanity?

 

Here’s what. Firstly, it is a universally agreed truism that the most frightened populations always elect the strongest, most militaristic governments to protect them from usually unwarrantable fears. While this won’t affect Putin’s transparently phony democracy, the success or failure of Trump’s considerably less malleable but still far from truly democratic one will affect them both, for good or for ill. Secondly, the most profitable businesses in both Russia and America are involved in what we can loosely term the Military-Industrial-Complex (MIC), or in other words the privatized military-supply game, whose products now range from meals-ready-to-eat to missiles ready to fire (at $150,000 a pop). No product is so good a money-earner than a bullet or a missile, and everything in between that can only be used once before you need to order more. Now, both Trump and Putin are heavily invested in MIC companies, from, in America, Halliburton – once run by George Bush Junior’s VP Dick Cheney – to major hardware-builders like Lockheed-Martin and General Electric, for which Bush Junior’s Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld once worked in a senior capacity. In Russia the names are less familiar to us, but their owners or majority-shareholders are the same crew of oligarchs – some in Putin’s case operating partly as frontmen for him. Knowing this perhaps helps us to understand the continued and ubiquitous prevalence over the past seventy-odd years of wars around the globe, as well as the ceaseless threat of a superpower conflagration. That dwindled almost to nothing over the last twenty years, after the Soviet Union collapsed into bankruptcy, and the lull in business was clearly so disastrous that George Bush Senior even had to privatize the more mundane and utilitarian aspects of the lucrative army-supply business just to keep the dollars flowing into the hands of his friends and cronies. Even food was handed over to corporations like Halliburton, whereas things like peeling spuds were once an internal affair, and a useful punishment too. You’d think that security was one matter the army could definitely take care of itself; but no, now it is in the hands of private companies, whose operatives are paid ten times what the grunts get, and are also answerable to no government office at home. In Iraq, for example, these operatives robbed, raped and murdered with apparent impunity (at least none of them has yet be tried in a court of law). Putin et al were similarly busy in the resurrected and profligately capitalist Russia. One great advantage in this kind of business transaction is that the buyer never questions a seller’s price. It’s just taxpayers’ money so who cares?

 

It thus seems to me obvious that the astronomical profits to be made from war and, better still, the threat of war will be irresistibly attractive to those with the contacts and the funds to get involved in such enterprises – and usually to get involved fairly surreptitiously, so conflicts of interest and galloping corruption can be easily and vituperatively denied. Under Putin’s cunning aegis, the Russians got deep into cyberwarfare long before anyone else saw the virtues in it – and the results of this can now be seen almost daily in the west.

 

Those who imagine things are so much better in Canada ought to think again. Compared with the hundreds of millions spent on worthy projects, the hundreds of billions, or even the trillions spent on machines or weapons of death take up a goodly portion of the GDP – or to put it more bluntly our tax dollars. Do we really know who the actual recipients of this largesse are? In some cases we do a little. But mostly we don’t. I have always thought that a useful thesis topic would be the study of and interrelationships found in the boards of certain mega-corporations. When I briefly and cursorily looked into it back in the nineties I was struck by the multiple presence of the same names on different but equally significant boards. Then there were the monikers of certain individuals with profound contacts in the Canadian government registered on the boards of US companies with who Canada was doing very big business. I imagine that the same thing would be true today. Although now more than then it must be remembered that corporate loyalties are not national but transnational. They go wherever the money goes; yet that still does not mean a board member cannot make a vast profit by urging a deal between his or her native Canada and another entity based elsewhere. In fact the rise and rise of interglobal finance makes all kinds of skullduggery and fiscal flimflam easier rather than more difficult to enact. I wish some enterprising post-grad student would pick up this study of what is essentially who runs what and run with it themselves.

 

To conclude the hypothesis: Over the past few years we’ve seen Putin’s Russia almost gleefully willing to play the bad guy, the provocateur and belligerent, whether in Crimea, the Ukraine, England, Syria or in America herself. Why such shamelessly provocative and hostile acts? Well, it could be in wise recognition of the fact that America is far better at playing the alleged good guy in international squabbles and conflicts, since this is what plays well with the notoriously fickle US public. And it certainly adds to Putin’s domestic prestige as tough guy, standing up to the motherland’s incessant bullying by western powers. A friend of mine in Moscow tells me that Putin now genuinely believes his new and improved nukes can slide in the US undetected and impossible to intercept. I doubt it, but much of chess is bluff – and Russia always turns out grand master after grand master. All we can be sure of is that the endless threats, provocations and proxy wars will continue, and continue to make trillions for those in the war-facilitation business. The pity is that we, the people seem incapable of putting a stop to our end of this despicable trade and those involved in it.

 

robertspaulwilliam@gmail.com

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C.I.A.: R.I.P.

Tags

castro, cia, cuba, dick cheney, fox news, george bush, United States of America

 

                ^{Some years ago I was talking with a man who had been Canadian Ambassador to Iran in the 1970s, before Ayatollah Khomeini’s Revolution. A decent, highly-intelligent man, with an open mind, he spent much of his free time in the holy city of Qom, discussing Islam with the mullahs, imams, and ayatollahs there. Returning one day from Qom to Teheran, he ran into then CIA Bureau Chief, Richard Helms, who asked him where he had been. After hearing the answer, Helms said, “Why do you waste your time with those guys; they’re of no account here.” As we know, the Iranian clergy were the heart and soul of the Revolution. I asked the Ambassador how it was that the CIA could have overlooked the radical influence of clerics, and he replied, “Well, Intelligence may be the Agency’s middle name, but it is not its modus operandi…”}

                ^{Fast forward to today, and we find:}

1. ^{The disastrous scandal of the Senate report on CIA torture practices.}
2. ^{The embarrassing failure of a CIA attempt to co-opt Cuban hip-hop artistes and train them in subversive activities, with cash incentives. This resulted in the Cuban government’s ban on a previously untampered-with hip-hop festival in Havana, thus defeating its own purpose.}
3. ^{Now, today we hear that the US Government intends to normalize relations with Cuba, a nation unjustly persecuted on ideological grounds for 55 years now, not only by trade embargoes, but by covert CIA operations, ranging from the Bay of Pigs fiasco to attempts to poison Fidel Castro, and even make his beard fall out by placing toxins in his shoes.}

^{Do we need to list all the other botched CIA operations, from coups and assassinations in Central and South America, to the laughable attempt to deploy New York abstract expressionist art, and Encounter magazine as a Cold War weapon against Soviet Russian social realism and the lack of creative freedom typical of totalitarian states?}

                ^{No, I think not. My memory is good, although my sight is non-existent, so I cannot check on the CIA’s rate of success in its dastardly operations, all – including the proven drug-trafficking – protected by the magic cloak of National Security, a shield behind which most political abominations hide. I have interviewed a couple of ex-CIA directors and found them to be pathological liars. George Bush the First was a CIA director, before becoming Vice-President, then President. As VP, he held important portfolios – rare to the post – including those of the so-called War on Drugs, to Terrorism, both of which activities flourished on his watch. It should, perhaps, thus not be so surprising to find out how many subsequent CIA directors were close friends of the elder Bush and his close buddy Dick Cheney.}

                ^{Now, however, it seems that the Agency is in its death-throes, with even its most reliably, if irrationally, hated of foes, Cuba, being extracted from the hoary old hit-list. One must conclude that the cowboys of Langley, Virginia, will soon be seeking employment in the booming private-sector security business – if, indeed, anyone there can concoct a resume demonstrating skilled success in any aspect of their previous career. I await with keen anticipation the well-researched book detailing all CIA operations since 1950, revealing the resounding successes – if any – and the ignominious failures, of which we seem to know already so much more, implying that either success is modestly concealed, or failure is laudably admitted to.}

                ^{If the American people could tune out Fox “News” and the rest of their propaganda machine – whose success is measured by its apparent objectivity: lies don’t work if you know they’re lies – and, possibly read some reputable sources, like Gore Vidal or Noam Chomsky – or Counterpunch.org — they would be hollering for a full investigation of their own terrorist organization, condemned by half the world, yet still operating with impunity in the USA. Such an investigation would, and, I believe, will, result in the arrest and prosecution of many, and the dismantling of this lair of bungling criminal half-wits at Langley, who have lied to the taxpayers funding their calamitous, illegal schemes for over sixty years.}

Love from Paul William Roberts.

Facebook and Other Media Travesties

Tags

amazon, cia, dick cheney, facebook, kindle, literature, media, publishing, social media

                Full disclosure: I think Facebook is crap, possibly of use to businesses, inchoate revolutions, the socially-challenged, and those too lazy to personally contact their ‘friends’ or family. My wife, an artist, admittedly uses it, and had one of her paintings, featuring a nude – or, in fact, merely bare-breasted female taken down from the site for ‘obscenity’. Like any fascist state, no explanation was offered, nor any appeal possible. One wonders what would happen to any national art gallery. Yet, on hearing that Dalhousie University male dental students could post a Facebook page detailing how they would chloroform and ‘hate-fuck’ some of the female co-students, one also wonders who or what is in charge of censorship on the staff of this overrated, self-important, tyrannical, and utterly ill-thought-out website, whose negatives far outstrip its positives. There are far better ways of communicating with clients, relatives, or friends – such as personal websites lacking arbitrary censorship, e-mail, the telephone, and, god-forbid, actual letters, which few admit they still enjoy receiving because they reveal genuine affection. When Facebook has to remind you of someone’s birthday, you don’t really care about that person at all.

 

Kindle and Amazon

 

When I hear that an author has received an e-mail from Amazon telling him that his online Kindle book has been taken down because it contains too many hyphenated words – 100 or so in 90,000 – I wonder into whose hands we have placed our literary culture. The author referred the writer of this ludicrous e-mail to the Oxford English Dictionary’s section on the rectitude of hyphenated words, only to receive an automated reply claiming that terms like ‘blood-soaked’ and ‘razor-sharp’ must be deprived of their hyphens. The mind is boggled. For a start, there are no grammatical rules in literary fiction – need I cite but two of the 20^th century’s very greatest authors, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett? What would Kindle Publishing do with Finnegans’ Wake, for example? Secondly, upon what criteria do the illiterates at Kindle-Amazon base these risible decisions? Evidently, we learn, upon a reader’s complaint that the book in question had too many hyphenated words. This is like banning Ulysses – consistently voted the best novel ever written – because some functionally-illiterate idiot complained that the last 100 pages contained only two sentences and no punctuation at all. I suggest that, unless these vast corporations start employing staff familiar with literature, with the appropriate qualifications to prove it, then they ought be boycotted by any serious author, if not legally prevented from publishing themselves altogether. A cultural decline like this is a slippery slope, although I have just heard that Kindle Publishing is trying to make amends to the author in question. Readers still ought to keep an eye on these monolithic cultural tyrants.

 

Dick Cheney, CIA, Media

 

Is it just my connection – which works fine on other sites – or is their a problem with every website featuring the Dick Cheney confession, justification of, and scapegoating regarding the CIA’s torture program? From CNN to Al-Gezeera, the video of his desperate attempt to escape criminal prosecution – which, being blind, I could only listen to – stopped every few seconds, and for up to a minute, before continuing for a few more seconds, making it unintelligible and impossible to tolerate. We know that anyone can slow down or stop a site by flooding it with traffic, so why not the CIA? There is also now a curious media silence regarding this monstrous scandal. Perhaps it is just paranoia, but readers can judge this for themselves when I put Mr. Cheney on trial in an upcoming entry. A very bad man, and a disgrace to his country.

 

Love from Paul William Roberts.

The C.I.A.: An American Inquisition

Tags

cia, dick cheney, george w bush, torture, United States of America

The Senate report on the CIA and torture has the George W. Bush administration, in the word often used by Donald Rumsfeld, “unravelling”. You know things are bad, very bad, when ex-Vice-President Dick Cheney gives an interview at all, let alone one calling Bush a liar, who authorized the illegal torture program, knew its details, and then told the American people that “we do not use torture”. CNN called this Cheney “throwing Bush under the bus” – this bus presumably being the one heading to cart Cheney off to jail and a trial at the International Criminal Court for knowingly violating international laws prohibiting torture.

Without getting into the fact that Cheney, in effect, ran the White House, with one of the Bush family’s herd of black sheep as personable figurehead, who signed anything shoved under his nose without reading it – partly because he was too lazy, and partly because he’s functionally illiterate – let us examine Cheney’s panicked defense of his collusion with CIA in authorizing what are euphemistically known as “enhanced interrogation techniques”.

Incomprehensibly, he compared torture with the events of 9/11, which is like comparing Spandau with Auschwitz. He then complained that the Senate report was a politically motivated and Democratically-biased piece of propaganda, which failed to interview any of the people actually involved. What he failed to say was that this 7000 page report uses and cites the hundreds of thousands of pages of actual CIA documents, including oral testimonies taken from agents at the time of the events detailed, and memoranda by the unqualified ‘psychologists’ and untrained operatives, paid a mysteriously excessive $80 million to devise and oversee the new versions of torture they had been hired to create, with Dick Cheney’s blessing. Ignoring the report’s statement, based on the CIA’s own files, that no useful information was gained through torture – a maxim known since the 16^th century – Cheney next claims that it was not torture, and then, to foul the waters, that the President did know of it, which the report said he did not – making the report, not himself and Bush and the CIA, the real liar. Fatuous and desperate, I would say; and worse than Nixon’s response to Watergate, which this scandal is going to dwarf in damage to Washington. Cheney’s last effort entailed denying that techniques used – often to get information from innocent men – were not, in his opinion, torture – as defined by whom, he didn’t say.

Let us settle the issue once and for all, yes? Have Cheney, Bush, and the others, submit to the ‘enhanced techniques’ themselves, and then decide if it was torture or not. Live on prime time, of course. Now, this is not going to happen, but I shall volunteer myself, along with anyone willing to join me, to undergo the following:

1. Being chained naked to the floor of a freezing cold room.
2. Being force-fed rectally with mush of some sort.
3. Being forced to stand for 48 hours on one leg with your hands in the air.
4. Being drowned, just to the point where you would be forced to inhale water and die.

Not torture?

We shall add to the list as more information comes in. Any takers?

Cheney termed rectal force-feeding a ‘medical procedure’, yet doctors questioned by CNN deny this is so.

My fellow Americans, you have a dilemma here: whether to arrest a president, vice-president, and other senior members of an administration, sending them off to court in Brussels, and thereby salvaging your reputation as global gunslingers, planetary outlaws; or else, as you usually like to do, try to forget about it all and hope it will go away. The choice is, allegedly, yours.

I shall get to the arch-criminal Dick Cheney in future blog entries, but anyone interested in this man’s many crimes ought to look at the astounding rise in his bank-account since he left Halliburton – accorded most privatized army business in Iraq – and became vice-president. A staffer of his said that no one had to be told in writing who accounts would go to – because they knew. Based now in tax-free Dubai, Halliburton has taken care of its old CEO, Dick, handsomely. Check out his tax returns. Let us hope this vile humanoid is behind bars before we are forced to reveal, with sources and references, Cheney’s betrayal of his office and country.

Read the 7000 page report, noting references and sources, before believing anyone calling it Democrat propaganda. Were the Nuremberg Trials British propaganda?

I highly recommend counterpunch.org for the most thorough examination of this subject I have yet encountered. It features numerous essays by people with unimpeachable credentials, diligent research, and penetrating insight. The website ought to be mandatory reading for anyone desiring a more than just superficial account of news events and contemporary issues.

Love from Paul William Roberts.