There was so much to read today that it had my head spinning. Rather than let it pass by, I want to at least point to some of what I thought were thought provoking posts and videos. Let’s start with a must watch video:
Naturally, Morris has a lot of good stuff to say about the significance of this Tucker interview. In a way a high point, however, is what he says about the Neocon reaction. Morris digs back and plays the infamous—but not famous enough—clip of Bill Kristol, smug as only a Neocon can be, advocating for replacing Americans with migrants. The same guy who’s suggesting that Tucker not be allowed back into the country—Rules based border crossings for citizens? Hey, that’s a new concept! Question: What is it about Bill Kristol that allows him to say stuff like that without anyone suggesting that it’s a dog whistle of some sort? If Trump had said that … Something’s going on there.
Toward the end Morris also makes an eye-opening prediction—expansion of the war on Russia to Scandinavia. Well, we’ve been point to the insane machinations of the Scandis, so …
The Middle East Is a Costly Distraction
No American interests are served by our current posture in the region.
For those of us who live and breathe the swamp air in Washington, it is easy to miss a puzzling fact: the Middle East regularly sucks the oxygen out of the Beltway, despite its limited importance to U.S. national security. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack and the Israeli response in Gaza, all other foreign policy issues in the United States—and most other domestic issues—have taken a back seat. Why does the Middle East command such outsized attention in Washington?
Weird. Who can figure this one out?
Consider: As a New York Times article revealed, on Oct. 7, President Biden conducted six separate meetings with his national security team and made eight one-on-one phone calls to different leaders. The Netanyahu adviser Ron Dermer was hosted at the White House for a 4-hour meeting with the American secretary of state and national security advisor the day after Christmas to discuss his country’s war. Through the beginning of December, the war featured on more than 90 percent of the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Well, I guess I’m guilty, too.
Are Americans Headed Toward a Civil War?
The cycle Kevin Phillips saw from the 17th century to the 19th may resurface in the 21st.
As Phillips writes, history is not made by class, it’s made by clash. That is, the conflict of one group against another, which can include rich against rich and poor against poor. Just as the Puritans mostly fought the Cavaliers (the forces of Charles I in England, the forces of Robert E. Lee in Virginia), so now the secularized New Englanders, broadened out to Yankees and other denizens of Democratic blue dots, find themselves in conflict with the Republican red zones.
On the other side of the blue-red divide, contending beliefs flourish, and the reds are duly energized. Committed Christians, evangelical and Catholic, have hardly disappeared amidst the MAGA, and they have all joined together in the GOP. There they have been joined, like it or not, by a smattering of alt-right sectaries, including Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Groypers, and Pepe the Froggers. Just one thing unites this motley crew: antipathy to Blue.
If we wish to update Phillips, we can see the fighting faiths that could be the basis of—portentous drumroll here—the next Cousins’ War. Will it be actual combat? Or just a lot of angry tweets?
Matt Hoh, who’s a regular with Danny Davis and Judge Nap, has a provocative article at Antiwar.com today:
The format of the article is Hoh’s responses to a series of questions from Polish-American (based in Poland) Mike Krupka on geopolitical matters. I call his responses “provocative” because I don’t agree with all of them. He begins with some shrewd observations regarding the Middle East. I say “shrewd”, but that doesn’t mean I agree. As Hoh himself admits, “I’ve long been a fan of Yogi Berra’s maxim: predictions are hard, especially about the future.” Here, a bit out of context:
Nations with US military presence, like Jordan, UAE and Bahrain, hope no one notices the US bases and the warplanes and drones that fly from them. Lebanon sits and awaits what war might bring. Hezbollah is prepared for sustained battles along the border or a decisive war.
This all might push Turkey, Egypt, and/or Saudi Arabia to acquire a nuclear weapon, with Turkey the most conceivable to me (see more below on this).
The current government in Tel Aviv sees an opportunity to enter the final phases of an 8-decade-long campaign for Greater Israel. Depending on if the current government holds will determine whether that goal of ethnic cleansing is achieved to include, eventually, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Regardless of whether the current government stays in power or not, Israel as Fortress Israel will only become more entrenched.
For reasons of politics and the pseudo-religious melding of American exceptionalism and American evangelicalism, the US will go along with Fortress Israel for many American election cycles to come (see more on this below). A failing empire, the US will only be able to offer its firepower and promises of money to those in the region as nations, individually and collectively, work to escape American hegemony. Structures like BRICS and de-dollarization, admittedly a long process, chief among efforts to weaken the Empire.
The Russians sit aside their ally in Damascus and hope to see the Americans enter into a quagmire that will make the US occupation of Iraq seem like a puddle in comparison.
Lots to discuss there. How long term is BRICS and de-dollarization? Can the American Empire avoid a quagmire—and at what cost to itself or to others? Nuclear Turkey?
Hoh also addresses the effect of the Middle East war on the 2024 elections:
Party loyalty and identity politics are entrenched as well and those loyalties and identification will supercede issues. For example, while 76% of Democrats may want a ceasefire and half of 2020 Biden voters say Israel is committing genocide, 88% of Democrats still say they will vote for Joe Biden. For voters outside the party, the White House doesn’t believe that Palestine will be the issue that will win over either independent or Republican voters. The White House believes voters will have put Palestine behind them by the November election, that voters will have other concerns that they will prioritize over Palestine and that Democratic voters will be fearful of the Republican candidate.
Regardless, the prime issue for the White House and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the money. Even if the calculation is that Biden and the Democrats will lose 3, 4 or 5 million progressive votes because of the Biden Administration’s complicity with genocide, the greater fear is that the Israel lobby will pull its support of Biden and put that money and resources behind the Republican challenger.
Again, it seems shrewd. It may be true. I would only observe that leverage is everything in politics. You can win a presidential election in America without winning the popular vote. That means that one or two Blueish states with large Middle East populations—Michigan, New Jersey?—could swing the election if those Middle Eastern voters are as angry as they tend to sound.
To finish the article off, Hoh turns to Russia, and here I have reservations. For example:
Russia and the Ukraine war have given NATO renewed purpose and justification. Whatever talk there was of NATO being historically irrelevant is no longer occurring. The identity crisis that may have befallen NATO has been remedied. Ukraine is now NATO’s raison d’être and the Donbass is NATO’s Jerusalem.
The obvious question? What you mean “NATO”? This is a classic war of the ruling class, not of the population. I saw a video yesterday of some guy standing on a busy street in Paris, wrapped in a Russian flag. People were shaking his hand, fist bumping, asking to have their photo taken with him, etc. Has Hoh paid any attention to political shifts in Europe? It’s true that among the population that is too old to serve—rather as in America—antipathy for Russia remains strong. That won’t win you a war, and NATO’s military is a joke, compared to Russia’s.
Here, too, Hoh, to my mind, misses the obvious points:
While the Russians have achieved limited territorial objectives, those achievements have not achieved larger strategic goals and, in some ways, reduced Russia’s position. US missiles that can reach Moscow in less than ten minutes are still in Poland and Romania, and NATO is expanding, including a new 800-mile-long Finnish-Russian militarized border. The Ukrainian military has been terribly mauled*, but the US and European countries, to especially the latter’s economic and financial detriment, are going to invest many billions into new armaments and factories.
Who’s going to man that 800 mile Finnish-Russian border? The Russians certainly can. The Finns? Please. And when will those “new armaments and factories” appear? Don’t hold your breath.
Then this:
I don’t believe the Russians have an interest in invading, conquering and subjugating non-Russian-speaking lands and being an army of occupation. Their strategic objectives never were to do so.
For starters, Hoh doesn’t understand Ukraine. Virtually all of Ukraine is a “Russian-speaking land.” Russian is the most used language on the Ukrainian internet. Even the infamous Azov battalion was criticized by minority Ukrainian nationalist fanatics, because of their prevalent communication in Russian. Nationalities in Ukraine are nowhere near as clear cut as Hoh imagines. Further, Russian strategic objectives always included demilitarization of Ukraine. I’m not predicting, but nothing would surprise me less than a Russian breakthrough through the fortress cities in the east leading to an offensive to the borders of the former USSR.
Lastly, Jonathan Turley has finally weighed in on the Texas situation:
Open Borders and Closed Courts: How the Supreme Court Laid the Seeds for the Immigration Crisis
It’s thoughtful, even if you may not agree with everything. This second half portion is the best part:
Congress is not blameless in any of this. The court has virtually invited Congress to pass laws giving people greater standing to sue the government. It could also apply more stringent conditions on spending and block confirmations.
Yet this crisis is the result of decades of court rulings expanding executive powers while limiting the ability to challenge those policies. The court’s decisions narrowing standing have been deleterious, limiting those who can challenge unlawful or unconstitutional acts by the federal government.
States such as Texas are absolutely correct that this is a breach of the original understanding with the federal government. The combination of the sweeping preemption by the courts and diminishing enforcement by the agencies has left states as mere observers to their own destruction. It is like watching your house burn down as the fire department works primarily to prevent anyone else from putting it out.
The Biden fire department is claiming that, just as it has the authority to put out fires, it has the authority to let them burn.
The question is whether states have finally reached a point of near-total disempowerment, becoming effective nullities or nonentities in dealing with this overwhelming influx across their own borders. While they can patrol the border, they are powerless to exercise inherent powers to protect their citizens and society. It runs counter to the original federalism guarantees used to secure ratification of the Constitution. States were viewed as partners in our federalism system, not mere pedestrians.
One can see why this looks like a bait-and-switch for states, who were offered something very different when they agreed to abandon the Articles of Confederation. They understood the need for a stronger federal government and that states could not act as separate sovereign powers. States yielded authority to the central government, including interstate matters.
Yet, the Constitution would have likely failed in ratification if they had been told of the degree to which they would become dependent on federal authority within their states.
Clearly, the federal government will continue to determine who enters the country. However, Congress has repeatedly tried to impose limits on such actions through express legislative mandates.
That brings us back to the courts. Members of Congress have been told that they cannot sue to enforce mandatory provisions, while states are told that they cannot sue to secure their own borders. It reduces our system to a mere Potemkin Village, a facade of constitutional powers with little ability to protect them.
This is the destruction of the most basic foundations of our constitutional order.
Another terrifying thing which Mark's post raises is the prospect of NATO stationing troops and missiles, including nukes, on the Finnish/Russian border. Although nobody is talking about it, placing troops and materiel on the Finnish border will likely be perceived as just as much an existential threat to Russia as the West's takeover of Ukraine. Will Russia tolerate this?
Another thing. I find the idea that Russia would ever invade the former Warsaw Pact states (for the purpose of conquest) simply inconceivable. I believe Putin has said so. But if the US/NATO poses an existential threat to Russian security, who knows?
One extraordinary aspect of the Clayton Morris clip which Mark posted is the extremely thoughtful and well-informed comments of ordinary Russians in the street about Tucker's visit.
It is hard not to wonder whether our politicians, media and schools haven't created a propagandized American population so dumbed down, so stupid, that the future of our country itself is at extreme risk. You can't be this stupid, can you, and survive?