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Not an Amercian's avatar

Excellent compilation. Gives bird's eye view with hawk-like vision.

Fitts talks about businesses unable to plan ahead. No wonder, uncertainty is what they sense and that means being very risk averse.

It's more than that though, we should all be worried sick. This could flip into madness in an instant.

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Joe's avatar

.

Unfortunately it appears I was at least in part correct

Iran Insists on No Compromise, Won’t Shutter Nuclear Sites After U.S. Talks

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2025/05/16/iran-insists-on-no-compromise-wont-shutter-nuclear-sites-after-u-s-talks/

.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who has led the delegation to Oman-mediated talks with Washington for the past month, eliminated the possibility on Thursday that Iran will stop enriching uranium, a core demand of the administration of President Donald Trump for any agreement to lift sanctions on the world’s premier state sponsor of terrorism.

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Joe's avatar

.

why would they - they would be insane to do it

as I stated previously - among reasons

JPOAC was ripped up by Trump

AIPAC controls congress and senate and perhaps Trump

You never know who will be elected after Trump maybe they control next president more

absolutely no none zero future guaranty

.

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Ray-SoCa's avatar

What’s going on with the fbi?

Undoing Mueller’s centralization?

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Velociraver's avatar

Iran doesn't need nuclear warheads to irradiate tiny Israel with dirty bombs or hypersonic strikes on Dimona.

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Tristam's avatar

Straight talk from Trita Parsi.

Parsi observed that Iran is "surviving" forty years of US sanctions, but while others in the region are advancing, "Iran is not. ... It will take two generations to catch up." (Pondering this in light of Jeff Sachs on China's re-emergence.)

USA has kept Iran in "Cuba-light" status for forty years.

Parsi mentioned that Saudis and Persians are gradually mending fences; that Iran's emerging friendships with Russia & China are useful but not enough to bridge economic gaps, and there is not a lot of trust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwxztQxBFiU

--

The other day Ray McGovern blasted "the cowardice of the Arabs."

Ray is old. So is Wilkerson & & &. They've not only 'aged-out' in my view, they have lost credibility.

Aaron Bushnell was not speaking in Arabic when he self-immolated.

It is America's Shame, Ray.

Every few years a new film about Dietrich Bonhoeffer is released, to remind the populace how "evil" Hitler was.

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aDoozy's avatar

IAfter watching Max Blumental's video reports from his recent visit to Iran, I cannot say that Iran "has not advanced".

Take a look:

https://substack.com/@thegrayzone/posts

Also, I cannot dismiss a man because "he is old". A person does not lose credibility because he has "aged out".

Ray McGovern is 85 years old. He has college degrees, 27 years' experience as a CIA analyst, and since his retirement from that agency, he has been a commentator on intelligence-related issues. From Wikipedia: "He, together with other former CIA employees, founded the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which is dedicated to analyzing and criticizing the use of intelligence, at first concerning the Iraq War". This has kept Ray busy.

Because of his schooling, job, and life experience, I see Ray McGovern as a wise and respected sage in the arena of geopolitics.

The man should not be disregarded because of his age. He has value.

"If you've got it, flaunt it!" ...as Ray does.

(quote written by Mel Brooks for his 1967 movie "The Producers")

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Tristam's avatar

I started to watch the Max Blumenthal tour through an Iranian graveyard but stopped early on. I've visited homes in very rural Iran where posters of then-young men who died in Iran-Iraq war still mark doorways. In a flight from Frankfurt to Tehran my seat-mate was an Iranian woman returning from visiting her brother in a German hospital. She held images of his lungs, scarred from gas attacks in that same war. USA supplied the gas & targeting information. I have some awareness of the price Iran has paid in US foreign policy devised wars.

In a 2008 stop at a restaurant near Mashad, I met young Afghanis who pleaded with us Americans to help them get to USA: they had been (among the 2 million) refugees in Iran since childhood. They had been able to attend schools in Iran, but were not able to study at Iranian universities and feared for their lives should they return to Afghanistan.

In 2009, shortly after publication of his book, Treacherous Alliance, I hosted Parsi on a book tour in my town. Earlier, when I lived in Charlottesville, I attended lectures by (the late) Ruhi Ramazani, dean of Middle East studies at U. Virginia and Parsi's mentor, and Ramazani's wife, who discussed the Iranian state's support for women in terms of reproduction and family life, etc.

In short, my bias is to trust Parsi rather than Max or wikipedia.

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aDoozy's avatar

Tristam, I thank you for replying to my post, and clarifying your position and thoughts about Iran. You have firsthand experience, and I do not. My information comes from independent journalists and analysts~people that I have read and listened to over years, and so trust what they have to say.

I have not traveled abroad, nor have I spoken with learned citizens of Middle Eastern countries. You have had in-depth conversations, and have spent fruitful time with professionals and scholars. This is why I always read the Comments after the Substack articles~I learn even more.

As to my inclusion of a piece of information about VIPS from Wikipedia, I added it in my comment because it is a way of further showing that Ray is active mentally...he is not just an aging man who is sitting around 'armchair quarterbacking'. As Rush Limbaugh used to say, Ray is a

'seasoned citizen'.

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Tristam's avatar

This is Mark's blog, not mine, so it's best not to expand on my gripe with McGovern.

CosmoTCat's comment here: https://meaninginhistory.substack.com/p/about-that-trump-netanyahu-rift --"the over 65 crowd who are steeped in Jewish myth's and holocaustianity of eternal victimhood."

alludes to the phenomenon.

Ray's comment @ ~ 1:10 is a glaring examples. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0IIJmULuh8

When the people we rely upon for their "wisdom and experience" in geopolitics reinforce readily refutable narratives, it's time to be more critical.

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Manul's avatar

Trump: Problem: “Palestinians are starving and Ukrainians and Russians are dying. “

Trump: Solution: We’ll keep providing Israel with bombs to destroy Gaza and those who survive the bombings will be deported to Libya. And we’ll keep providing intel and arms and advisors to Ukraine to attack Russia.

This is not a credible foreign policy. It is insanity. What will Trump’s position be next hour?

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Joe's avatar

.This is Truly a Horrible Time To Be Alive - And What I mean by that is Trump appears to be re-writing what will be acceptable government behavior in the future ------

We Don't Intend to Destroy Them - WE Just Intend To Remove Them

.

Trump probably will be able to evade a legal accusation of the Crime of Genocide by dancing around intent. This means that while ethnic cleansing might involve killings, displacement, or harm, it becomes genocide only if the perpetrators’ goal is the group’s physical or biological destruction, not just their removal from an area.

The scale of destruction (92% of roads, the homes the hospitals the infrastructure), the blockade’s impact on food and water, and now the explicit relocation plan with Trumps prior statements about rebuilding Gaza without Palestinians returning of course the Riveira and the Kusner statements is all Clearly Ethnic Cleansing and actionable

And thus arguably Trump has '''' Redefined '''' acceptable political policy and the killings of citizens - this will be a precedent set for the actions of governments everywhere ---

No Longer Like a Group religious or other - in your Country

Kill them, destroy their homes, Move the survivors out - and that is all OK

. Unfortunately the UN - in 1948 or thereabouts possibly never thinking this would ever happen again

did not define Intent well enough or destroy well enough

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with

intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as

such:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

Genocide

https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with

intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as

such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its

physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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Richard C. Cook's avatar

Western rot. Fun to watch, yes?

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History Lass's avatar

I suspect that the next confrontation between a US Global Hawk and the Russian Federation will not end with a polite dumping of jet fuel

....sheer idiocy

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Mark Wauck's avatar

I searched and searched but couldn't re-find two items that I'd wanted to include:

1. The "negotiations" in Istanbul were conducted without a translator. How? In Russian. I saw this from a Ukrainian source.

2. One of the claims by German political police made against AfD was that by criticizing Bill Gates the AfD was being anti-semitic. Weird.

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aDoozy's avatar

Alex Christoforou, in his video report from Cypress this morning, May 17, talked about the translator requested for the Istanbul talks between the Russians and the Ukranians. He chuckled as he explained that since the Ukranians all speak Russian, the translator was not needed.

https://theduran.com/shock-russia-istanbul-terms-trump-offers-putin-off-ramp-simion-macron-meddling-romania-elections/#comments

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Elle's avatar

Gates is Jewish, but why criticizing one, or a group, is taken as criticizing all is just a trap they use.

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Mark Wauck's avatar

That's not true.

https://thekosherhub.com/is-bill-gates-jewish/

There has been a misconception or rumor that Bill Gates is Jewish, but this is not true. Gates comes from a Protestant background, and there is no Jewish heritage in his family.

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Elle's avatar

He hasn’t joined then? I saw his picture and article dressed as such for initiation with the head of Chabad Lubavitchers. My mistake. I knew his background but people do change. Sorry for the misinformation.

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Elle's avatar

Besides that, if the was why would it offend everyone? Do people not have the right to disagree with members of their old tribe, ethnic group, political leanings? Must all be judged by one? Don’t we have individual responsibility and minds, actions,and faults/ virtues! Individual Choices and actions aren’t make as a the whole, millions of people. That applies to all people. We are not all identical.

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Richard C. Cook's avatar

Bill Gates: "Everybody's always pickin' on me..."

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Cosmo T Kat's avatar

He’s the classic nose, the 98 pound weakling, and with his wealth gained from chicanery gives him the resources to exact his revenge. Bill Gates is an easy guy to despise and pick on like a nose. Get rid of that snot clouding the stench he exudes.

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