Trump, Netanyahu, Putin

There were quite a few worthwhile videos out today. I won’t attempt to discuss them all, but I will excerpt from a two. Obviously, it all focuses on the Trump transition and attempts to undermine it. And, of course, that includes the ATACMS scheme.

One of the videos I won’t excerpt from is Danny Davis’ interview with Chas Freeman. Briefly, because this is a 45 minute video, Freeman sees the ATACMS scheme as fundamentally political. It makes no military sense and, since the US clearly maintains total control over the missile system, Freeman doubts that the US will take any steps that will lead to drastic escalation. Russia is winning, and so has little incentive to escalate. Freeman also, amusingly for a guy who clearly comes across as a Trump despiser, sounded a note that was rather Trumpian. He argued that the US needs to focus on its own many domestic problems and avoid all wars. Which is exactly what I take Trump’s view is.

A video that I will excerpt is Judge Nap’s discussion with Gilbert Doctorow. I mention that here because, while this won’t show up in the excerpt transcript, Doctorow is in broad agreement with Freeman.

We’ll start the transcripts with the conclusion to Judge Nap talking with Jeffrey Sachs. Sachs pulls no punches and offers a big picture perspective. Sachs, as befits an economist, really understands leverage—including in politics:

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Biden and Wider War.

Sachs: Netanyahu has done more damage to America than any of our miserable presidents have done in all of their failed policies. Because Netanyahu has used America, misused America, repeatedly. Because the Zionist Lobby is so powerful that Netanyahu basically has had control over the Pentagon to fight wars on behalf of Israeli extremism. The war in Iraq in 2003 is a Netanyahu War.

Judge: Right

Sachs: The attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, starting in 2011 and continuing 14 more years of war, is a Netanyahu War.

Judge: Right.

Sachs: The overthrow of Moamar Gaddafi in 2011--unleashing instability not only in Libya but across Africa--is a Netanyahu war. Netanyahu and his friends in the US government--these arch Zionists so-called--have had effective control over the US military. They have cost you and me and the rest of us as taxpayers trillions of dollars. It's quite a dandy deal that the Israel Lobby or the Zionist Lobby puts in, say, a hundred million dollars into campaigns and it gets trillions out--trillions, not billions, trillions out. And so when Netanyahu speaks it's bizarre to me. It's not who Trump is appointing or naming. It's that the United States of America has let itself be used by a band of extremists on serial wars that have been disastrous for America's interests. Fighting Israel's wars so that Israel can maintain its extremism and its occupation of Palestinian lands and its apartheid rule over Palestinian lands is not in America's interests. President Trump, who speaks for America, should be saying to Netanyahu, first day: 'I am president of the United States. You no longer run our country, Bibi.' That's what I hope President Trump will say.

Sachs: It's one thing that Israel has been taken over by extremist murderers---which it has--but it's another thing for the United States to give away its sovereignty and its military to that purpose. So I'm just asking for something more modest. I'm not asking for us to fix Israel. I'm just asking for us to say to Israel, to Netanyahu in particular, 'You are not running our country anymore. You are not leading us into wars anymore. You do your own thing, we'll do ours.'

Let me add one thing. In speaking of the Israel Lobby, the narrative misses another important aspect of Jewish political influence in America. Obviously the Israel Lobby draws support not only from Jewish Americans but also from a large number of Gentiles—not least, from Trump’s over 65 base. However, while Sachs correctly notes that Jewish political influence—in the specific form of the Israel Lobby—has led to Israel being able to lead the US into multiple disastrous wars, he leads another aspect of Jewish political influence unspoken.

We all know about people like the late Sheldon Adelson contributing mega bucks to Republican campaigns. The reality remains, however, that Jewish political giving is heavily tilted toward the Dems. Does this mean that liberal Jews are anti-war. Not exactly. If you look at the prominent Russia hardliners among politicians over the decades, you will find many Jewish politicians. Many of them are passionate on the subject. Are they going against the wishes of their mega donors, say, of Soros? No they are not, and those same mega donors are influencing Gentile politicians to be hardliners on Russia. If Sachs can call the Middle East wars Netanyahu’s wars, then in a real sense the the war on Russia is a Jewish war on Russia. It’s not a coincidence that so many of the leading bureaucrats (Nuland, Blinken) and opinion shapers happen to be Eastern European Jews by ancestry. Again, this isn’t black and white. Stephen Cohen comes to mind, for example. It’s a question of tendencies.

There is also the matter that, from the time the great Jewish banking families came to prominence—at the time of the Napoleonic wars, when the Rothschild’s bankrolled the British war effort—the Jewish banking families have supported wars against Russia, especially by the British Empire. The Crimean War. The Russo Japanese War (British Jewish bankers funded the Japanese navy that was built by the British). The 1905 Revolution in Russia. The Bolshevik Revolution (Trotsky and Lenin were funded by New York and London Jewish bankers, among others). The Cold War and the aftermath. And now this war.

It’s a huge topic. Be aware of it. It’s not that all Jewish Americans—or British Jews—are war mongers. It is the case, however, that Jewish Americans are overwhelmingly the funders of American politics—the 2024 election was the most extreme example of pandering to Jews for money that we’ve ever witnessed, so one can only imagine to what point of disproportion matters of campaign financing have arrived. Jewish Americans also are, of any American demographic, the most disproportionately consumed by foreign policy. It has skewed American politics for the worse, as Jeffrey Sachs makes clear so eloquently.

Now we move to Judge Nap with Gilbert Doctorow. I begin the transcript with Trump’s full statement, and it confirms to me that Trump understands that MAGA as he envisions it means a decisive turning away from Empire as the Neocons see it. Again, like Freeman, I don’t think Doctorow is a particular admirer of Trump, but I think both were impressed by his statement:

Dr. Gilbert Doctorow: Kremlin Reaction to US Escalation.

Trump: We have never been closer to World War II than we are today, under Joe Biden. A global conflict between nuclear armed Powers would mean death and destruction on a scale un matched in human history it would be nuclear Armageddon. Nothing is more important than avoiding that nightmare. We will avoid it, but we need new leadership. Every day this proxy battle in Ukraine continues we risk global war. We must be absolutely clear that our objective is to immediately have a total secession of hostilities. All shooting has to stop. This is the central issue. We need peace without delay.

In addition there must also be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire Globalist Neocon establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad while they turn us into a Third World country and a Third World dictatorship right here at home. The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted. To fire the Deep Staters and put America first we have to put America First.

Finally, we have to finish the process we began under my administration of fundamentally reevaluating NATO's purpose and NATO's mission. The foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict with a nuclear armed Russia based on the LIE that Russia represents our greatest threat. But the greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It's probably more than anything else ourselves and some of the horrible USA hating people that represent us--these Globalists want to squander all of America's strength, blood, and treasure chasing monsters and phantoms overseas while keeping us distracted from the havoc they're creating right here at home, these forces are doing more damage to America than Russia and China could ever have dreamed. Evicting the sick and corrupt establishment is the monumental task for the next president.

Judge: My goodness, what a difference from the current occupant of the Oval Office! What do you think?

Now, Doctorow makes a very important point. While agreeing with Trump, he points out a matter that Trump may not understand fully, but which will mean that Russia will be in no hurry to end the conflict. Once the war began, Russia’s priority was to win it, and that means securing the new security architecture for Europe which is what this war is really about.

Doctorow: I agree with you. It's the most brilliant speech by Trump I've ever heard--succinct to all the points. I only have one little point--one little item--to call out. [Trump] can be forgiven saying that the most important issue with respect to Russia and Ukraine is an immediate end to hostilities. [But] from the Russian perspective that's unacceptable. No. There have to be a number of things all going at once. The Russians will not halt their move westward to the Dnieper and Beyond until they are satisfied the United States will deal with them on an equal basis--on addressing their security issues--which is where the war started in December, 2021, over a new security architecture. So, in that sense, it's simplistic to say that having a ceasefire is of utmost importance for the Russians. It isn't of utmost importance.

While Doctorow takes issue with a portion of what he believes Peskov (Putin’s spokesman) is saying, Peskov’s point remains—this escalation does mark a “qualitative” change in American involvement. That will require a qualitatively different response by the Russians. Did the Zhou regime really think this through?

Peskov: This decision is reckless, dangerous, aimed at a qualitative change, a qualitative increase in the level of involvement of the United States in this conflict.

Doctorow: I think basically the Kremlin is quite happy that the United States is identified publicly as the ones who are attacking Russia.

Yes, we discussed that concluding point, and it is important. The Anglo-Zionists have reached such a point of desperation that they’re no longer really pretending.