Magic, Madness, Gaslighting, Lies

Do you believe in magic? I’d describe magic as the belief that verbal formulae (incantations) and/or ritualistic actions can by themselves govern reality, produce results in the real world. Clearly there’s a relationship between magic and madness or insanity—the continued repetition of actions or words that have proven ineffective in the real world, yet expecting different results. Or, the results that were originally hoped for. My father, a clinical psychologist, maintained that insanity can be a voluntary choice, a preference for madness as a defense against a reality that is viewed as unbearable, or a refusal to give up delusions that make life meaningful, whether on the personal level or on the level of collective action in history. Then again, words and actions that appear to fall into these categories may be utilized to fool (gaslight or BS) and manipulate others (rather that oneself). Often, in the real world, it’s not possible to strictly classify words and/or actions into just one category. As with lunatics—as described in Chesterton’s The Poet and the Lunatics—actors on the world stage may behave in ways that could be described as non-rational or irrational, but which are highly rationalistic. In other words, the delusion is presented in a rational form, but makes no sense in terms of actual reality. That is often the case with cherished national delusions, in which nations and their leaders exhibit a refusal to reevaluate their foundational narratives in the light of new circumstances or falsifying evidence.

First we have an example of outright madness:

Polish general threatens to bomb St. Petersburg

After a Russian victory in Ukraine, we would have a Russian division in Lviv, one in Brest and one in Grodno,” he said, as quoted by Bild, referring to the westernmost Ukrainian and Belarusian cities. He added that in this scenario, Poland and Lithuania would be effectively surrounded by Russian forces.

Read more

 Work begins on German military base near Russian border

In light of this, Andrzejczak said that Russia should be deterred from a potential offensive. “If they attack even an inch of Lithuanian territory, the response will come immediately. Not on the first day, but in the first minute. We will hit all strategic targets within a radius of 300 km. We will attack St. Petersburg directly,” he said.

Our next example, Zhou’s famous claim, “For God’s sake, we’re the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the history of the world!” is a it more complex. We could argue whether that claim was ever strictly true and, if so, in what sense. However, in current circumstances it would seem unwise to act on that proposition—as the current state of reality may require modification of policies based on an uncritical acceptance of that belief. And yet, there does seem to be reason to believe that some in our ruling class—and many ordinary Americans—do believe this and are willing to act upon that belief. Or … do some believe that projecting that belief to others can act as a powerful blunt instrument to bludgeon those others into following our wishes? Do they realize the limits of American power, yet believe that projecting this form of delusion may serve to enhance that power because others will step back from the consequences of challenging the delusion? Magic? Madness? Gaslighting?

Here’s another example. Trump is running as a peace candidate—in a sorta way.

Russians With Attitude @RWApodcast

You may find this humorous but this is literally what the US elites believe (both camps). They think they can say "alright, timeout :)" just before total defeat physically occurs and thus prevent said defeat at any moment of their choosing.

Quote

Baron of the Taiga @baronitaigas

Speaker Johnson believes the Ukraine war can be ended by saying to the Russian president "enough, that is ENOUGH Putin. No more war".

5:32 AM · Oct 12, 2024

Actually, if you examine Trump’s own presentation it appears that we can see here a clear example of gaslighting.

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump following a recent meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in New York expressed confidence he could broker a fair agreement between Ukraine and Russia to end the war if elected.

“We want to have a fair deal for everybody,” Trump stressed.

Trump is playing on cherished American narratives. Americans like to view themselves as peacemakers, defenders of the little guy, able to cut through outdated nationalism and enmities to arrive at common sense solutions. This narrative flows from our default libertarian mindset. Trump certainly knows better, but is playing on these national narratives/delusions for electoral purposes. The reality, of course, is that the real war is between America and Russia. Russia offered Ukraine a fair agreement, in an effort to decouple Ukraine from its proxy-masters and head off the American war on Russia. What Russia wants, has been demanding from the start, is indeed a fair agreement—but a fair agreement between Russia and America. It was all set out in December, 2021, in the proposed draft treaties that Russia provided to the West. Russia wants a new security architecture for Europe that takes into account Russia’s legitimate security interests. Trump knows he’s not fooling Putin. Rather, he’s appealing to Americans who are fed up with war, as well as positioning his hoped for new administration to cut Ukraine loose if they don’t submit to Russia’s terms.

The Zhou regime—which is openly, if somewhat tentatively, pivoting from the Ukraine front against Russia to the Iran front—is preparing in its own way to cut Ukraine loose. Larry Johnson deals with that this morning:

Why Is the Pentagon Now Pushing the False Narrative About Russian Casualties?

Larry presents alternative explanations for the laughable effort to fool people into believing that Russia has suffered vast casualties. I’m all in on the view that this is simply a ploy to declare victory—we weakened Russia on the cheap by destroying Ukraine, the Lindsey! claim—and proceed with the pivot to the Iran front, the southern front of the Global War. No one with any knowledge of the facts believes this narrative, but that’s not the point. To admit defeat in the Ukraine proxy war on Russia could lead Americans to call into question the pivot to a new war, so the gaslighting serves a strategic purpose. And most Americans are nothing if not eminently gaslightable.

Now, speaking of the Iranian or southern front against Russia, we get to more serious matters.

Ex-State Department Official Reveals Roadmap For "Striking Iran"

This article is much longer than what I’ll present. What I’ll focus on is the quoted sections from David Asher’s op-ed in the WSJ. So, you’re already being placed on your guard, but when I add that Asher is at the deep Neocon Hudson Institute then you know that gaslighting and lying are totally on the table. Readers should be easily able to pick those aspects out. The question remains, are we also in the realm of magic and madness, wilfull self delusion? Check it out:

Providing more color on what a potential IDF strike on Iran would look like is David Asher, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former US State Department official who has worked on counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East. 

Asher penned an op-ed in the WSJ on Thursday titled "A Strategy for Striking Back at Iran"... 

Asher noted:

The strategy Israel has successfully implemented against Hezbollah must now be applied against Tehran directly. The regime is the puppeteer behind Oct. 7 and the multifront attacks against Israel.

We note without surprise that Asher repeats Netanyahu’s favorite memes about puppets and puppeteers, but were you aware that Israel has “successfully implemented” its usual master strategy against Hezbollah and is now ready to move on to bigger game? In the next section, you’ll see that Asher also seizes upon the recent words of Israeli general Gallant about “precision”. A lot of people believe that Gallant, in describing Israel’s upcoming “surprise” and “precise” attack on Iran was signalling “decapitation strikes” against Iranian leaders. That’s a tactic Israel has used regularly over the years—with no success at all. Obviously these types of attacks speak deeply to something in the Zionist psyche, the thirst for revenge. Whatever, Asher is all in on “precision killing”. Especially puzzling, and this really does raise the issue of whether we’re in the realm simply of gaslighting or of real self delusion, is this sentence: “The precision killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran apartment demonstrates that Israel can strike anyone, anytime and anywhere.” The killing of Haniyeh doesn’t demonstrate anything of the sort. If it did, we’d have seen a lot more of that tactic over the years than we have seen. Actually, what we’re seeing in Gaza and Lebanon is the antithesis of “precision killing.” It’s indiscriminate genocide.

He explained:

Israel's most effective course of action would be to target key leadership, military support and financial infrastructure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Intelligence and Security Ministry. That would weaken the regime's pillars while avoiding direct harm to civilians, which could otherwise foster sympathy for the regime. Combined with attacks on Iran's external oil-export capacity to deprive the regime of its financial lifeblood, a top-down leadership-focused approach would pressure the regime without disrupting essential domestic services.

Israel should first neutralize the immediate missile threat posed by the regime. Striking Iran's leadership and nuclear facilities without simultaneously addressing Iran's offensive missile capabilities would allow the regime to retaliate aggressively. Iran knows this, which explains why its rulers are posting web images of their subterranean "missile cities." Next, Israel must attack the regime's headquarters, command facilities and military. No key Iranian leaders should be spared. The precision killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a Tehran apartment demonstrates that Israel can strike anyone, anytime and anywhere.

Then Iran's military training camps on the Iraq border should be smoked. For decades, these camps have been used to train Iranian, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi special-group operatives for campaigns against Israel, U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, and global antiterrorist operations. After that Iran's central bank and oil export facilities should be destroyed.

…

He said the combination of kinetic warfare and economic warfare could be a winning strategy for Israel to dismantle Tehran's financial apparatus, adding that only after "disrupting command, control, and financial and logistical infrastructure should Israel consider direct action against key Iranian nuclear facilities."  

Next we get into actual lying, which is intended to support the entire purpose of Asher’s op-ed—which is to get America to directly do the real heavy lifting, which Israel cannot do on its own, or it would have done so already. Regarding the Khobar Towers bombing, I highly recommend the Wikipedia article that I linked. Toward the end you’ll learn something very interesting. Clinton made a direct appeal to Iran shortly before he left office, the last in a series of reach outs, in which Clinton appealed for some type of reconciliation. It appears that there was essentially no evidence of Iranian involvement in the bombing, only the assertions of the usual Deep State suspects. However, Clinton yielded to Deep State pressure to indicate that the US held Iran resposible for the bombing. The result:

The attempt backfired. Although Khatami was reportedly happy with the American initiative, especially because it was accompanied by an oral message of strong personal support from Clinton delivered by the Omani envoy, the Iranian president’s colleagues in the leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reacted vehemently to the text of the letter. Two months later, the Iranians responded with a written denunciation of the allegation of culpability and a refusal to consider boosting bilateral ties under such circumstances.

Asher doesn’t do nuance. Instead he follows the Israeli lead of denouncing Iran as a ringleader of “international terrorism”, despite the lack of evidence. Evidence is beside the point:

Asher said Americans should not forget... 

The U.S. should provide direct and public support to Israel's counterstrikes, not just sit on the sidelines. America should never forget the large number of Americans who have been murdered by Iran and its terrorist action network since Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut multiple times in the 1980s and obliterated U.S. barracks there in 1983, killing 241 Marines and sailors. These attacks were followed by the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 and numerous Iran-directed attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq between 2003 and 2012 that killed and wounded thousands.

The U.S. military has a blood grievance against Tehran's regime. Yet there has been little retaliation beyond taking down Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in 2020. Now is the time to join Israel in retribution at scale and scope.

Now, as I continually remind readers, never forget that Russia is in this picture. We referred yesterday to Putin’s meeting with Iranian president Pezeshkian. Today there’s a lengthy statement from a (former) Russian general that clearly indicates that Russia is preparing for war in the Middle East. The general sounds like quite the hardliner, but this is worth reading. Gaslighting? You decide. PLEASE NOTE: This is from almost exactly one year ago. However, it still appears to be directly relevant in important respects. The general is correct in his overall assessments. Further, he makes the important point that Iran will by now be locked and loaded, with preparations for multiple scenarios in place. Asher’s idea that Israel and/or the US will be able to preempt any Iranian response is laughable.

DD Geopolitics @DD_Geopolitics

 Andrey Gurulev, Lieutenant General:

Israeli bombings have no effect militarily. Armed people in Palestine are in shelters, civilians are dying in residential buildings. We went through this in Syria, when in Damascus, for example, they sit in underground tunnels and come out only when necessary. Hamas prepared 100%, it was not without reason that they did this, they have reserves of weapons and food.

Israel strikes, destroy buildings, Hamas can immediately mine it carefully, it will be a good fortified area, ideal.

The Israelis are shown in columns on tanks, on infantry fighting vehicles, what are they waiting for? Waiting for drones to fly over them?

We went through this during a special military operation. Tanks in urban areas are practically ineffective. The main thing here is the action of the assault troops. What is this? Remember how they took Artemovsk (Bakhmut). Remember what losses there were. Something similar awaits the Israelis; it won’t work out otherwise here.

If we look more broadly, the Americans are trying to drag the Middle East into war; apparently, they decided not to stand ceremoniously [openly, publicly?] with Israel; in this case, the damage to Israel would be unacceptable. When they say that today some missiles were brought into Iran, I assure you such statements are a fallacy, because in military everything planned long ago, determined all the targets.

The visit of our leader Vladimir Putin to China, the Minister of Foreign Affairs to the DPRK (North Korea), the president’s visit to our command post in Rostov,- are synchronized events. The President heard the report of the Chief of the General Staff, probably the district commanders, personally listened to the reports in order to understand what problems there are and ways to solve them. I think the main topic was the presence of two aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean. [None currently. Lincoln is in Arabian Sea, but Truman is headed for the Med.] On board these ships, according to my calculations, there are approximately 750-800 Tomahawk missiles, which cover a decent amount of the territory of the Russian Federation. That's a decent amount of power. Our President immediately decided to put the Mig-31 with Kinzhal missiles on combat duty. For some reason, everyone imagines that one plane with one Kinzhal will fly somewhere, will fly along the Black Sea, but everything is much more global. Firstly, this is the use of all reconnaissance systems linked into a single information system with the issuance of specific target instructions to control points. If an aircraft enters the airspace of the Black Sea, then it must have a support echelon protecting it from enemy air attacks, air defense systems, and everything else. This is a global set of measures to deter the American aggressor from thinking of attacking the territory of the Russian Federation. In front of us are two aircraft carrier groups, equipped to the teeth, capable of hitting targets on the territory of our country, should we just stand there and pick our noses? We must react normally. Yes, the Kinzhal missile itself is extremely effective, capable of hitting any US warship, that’s true.

If the entire Middle East is drawn into the war, aircraft carrier groups try to strike the territory of Iran, then Iran will not remain silent, they have targets ready, all critical objects, they will attack them in different ways, despite the Iron Dome and everything else.

Drones and missiles from Yemen are not a provocation, but reconnaissance in force, revealing the ability of an aircraft carrier strike group to destroy an entire aircraft. They will see what happened, how and what. The SMO taught that you can shoot down 10 UAVs, you can shoot down 20, but when 100 are flying, then even modern systems are not able to resist. Therefore, America is hiding an aircraft carrier group behind Cyprus.

The Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin probably discussed the situation in the Middle East and most likely set tasks that could only be discussed and agreed on face to face.

There will be a lot of different theories about where we will go next, but there is no need to “run ahead of the locomotive”. Our Supreme Commander knows exactly where to go. We will monitor the development of events, the army is in combat readiness, carrying out tasks, today the initiative is on our side, this even recognized by our opponents. Victory will be ours, maybe not quickly, but we will definitely win.

⁃ Andrey Gurulev is a Russian military leader, Lieutenant General, politician and statesman. Deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and is a member of the State Duma commission for reviewing federal budget expenditures aimed at ensuring national defense, national security and law enforcement, and he is also a member of the State Duma Committee on Defense

One reason for hope is that we’ve heard repeatedly that, while the Neocons have broken off virtually all contact with Russia, the Pentagon has remained in touch with their Russian counterparts.

Iran is refusing to be intimidated. Iran’s parliament speaker has flown into Beirut. He met with the Lebanese PM but also visited the Dahiya neighborhood (cf. Dahiya Doctrine), which has been heavily targeted by Israel.