ON BRET STEPHENS’ HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE PUTIN
09.01.2017
Wall Street Journal’s editor neocon hawk and warmonger Bret Stephens just wrote an article that was intended to be like a “sum” of all evils of Putin and Christian Russia. In the best Neocon tradition of John McCain, Stephens cheers the warmonger Cold War II hawks with a case for keep playing the hard line against Russia.
Perhaps Stephens thinks that keeping the hardline and Cold War II will push the Russian military to execute a coup against Putin and bring in a new Globalist Voltaire like regime into Russia(?); or perhaps Stephens thinks that a hardline neocon line will make Putin “scared” of all the John McCains in the world and abandon the Russians in Eastern Ukraine to be massacred by the militias or the Christians in Syria to be massacred by the Sunni jihadists?
Whatever Stephens thinks the result would be (the Coup to bring a Cultural Marxist regime or scaring Putin) he tries to do a compelling case against Putin and to keep alive the Cold War II. (Not as complete as St Thomas’s “Sum” but he tries hard.)
Now, let’s see who Stephens is. Bret Stephens (aka Bret Ehrlich if his grandfather would not have changed his last name) is a 43 years old New Yorker neocon, former editor of the Jerusalem Post. An “academic” intelligence and foreign affairs “analyst” and editorial commentator who never has been a real analyst in any intelligence agency, never has been in the military, and was rewarded with a Pulitzer for defending the policies… that get rewarded by the Neocon world.
When we think of Stephens, immediately comes to mind what the great Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls the Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) class (https://medium.com/incerto/the-intellectual-yet-idiot-13211e2d0577#.kn5ignmkw) as in our ruling class of politicians, journalist and academics. The IYIs are those that control our media and government and we can identify every day by a list of easy to spot characteristics that the great Taleb describes for us: not being able to find a coconut in Coconut Island, being wrong about the imaginary WMDs of Iraq, supporting Gaddafi’s “removal”, always drinking red wine with meat (never white!), being wrong about the low carb diet, having the virtue of passing exams designed by people like them, and most important, never ever doing Dead Lift in the gym, are some of the key characteristics of IYIs.
Which bring us back to Stephens. He is the one that (despite being a “Republican” as in RINO Neocon) wanted Trump to get crushed by Hillary to teach a “lesson” to Trump supporters, aka the normal common sense people, the silent majority not poisoned by the Frankfurt School’ Cultural Marxism that dare to raise against the IYIs “recommendation”. This is something that old Rush did not like it very much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCeWmwMCqrU
He is the same person who has been advocating to bomb Iran nuclear facilities for years and years (did I mention he was the Jerusalem Post editor and was rewarded with a Pulitzer?), got crushed when Trump won, and is on pure rage (with the McCains of the world) because Trump wants to stop pushing and financing color revolutions in Russia’s backyard.
Bret is the man who still today, with Iraqi Christian almost evaporated after being massacred for more than 13 years, ISIS still alive and kicking in Iraq, and hundreds of thousands dead, still defends the 2003 invasion of Iraq of the imaginary WMDs: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/09/10/wsjs-bret-stephens-rewrites-history-of-iraq-war/195805 .
While Sean Hannity has strong words for Bret’s I.Q and vision (http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/08/05/sean-hannity-wsjs-bret-stephens-dumbass-head-ass/) the same as Greg Landen ( http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/11/29/so-when-did-the-wall-street-jo/ ) I don’t really think that is the case. I don’t question Bret’s higher than average I.Q nor fine education (please keep in mind that most of the IYIs are highly educated people and are above average I.Q idiots).
The real problem with Stephens, like I always say in my intelligence analysis seminars and conferences, is ideology. Ideology as in defending absurd utopias and corrupting serious analysis based on Disneyland’s like dreams is the worst enemy of strategic level intelligence analysis and of course… common sense.
Ideology is the great poison that destroys common sense as it plays with cognitive errors so typical in the intelligence community: mirror image, disregard for Analysis of Competing Hypothesis (ACH), accommodation of evidence into the wrong argument or hypothesis, and accommodate/spin conclusions to a poisoned worldview. This is how ideology corrupts the minds of professional intelligence analysts in real intelligence agencies and this is what makes the elitist IYIs of government, academia and journalism what they are. Actually the “I” of ideology is what makes the “I” of idiots as in “IYIs”.
And that is Bret Stephens! He is the one who wrote that John Kerry “always had a terrific soft spot” for Syria’s al-Assad, eighteen months after Kerry compared Assad to Hitler, the same that (like all elitist New Yorker’s IYIs) called for Trump’s defeat in the Never Trump Neocon wagon (http://nationalinterest.org/feature/neocons-trump-voters-drop-dead-17344) . And this is the same that now gives us the complete list of why the US should keep provoking Christian Russia into a fist fight that might end up in a possible nuclear war that will give us over 500 million dead and the end of the world as we know it (if any left at all).
Now, let see in detail his case to keep poking the Bear in the eye:
1. Bret Stephens (B.S): Putin ordered a false flag terrorism act in Russia to promote himself as Yeltsin’s successor.
REALITY: This conspiracy theory, based on “circumstantial evidence” as he admits in an interview, is the made of the same stuff as the ones that says that 9-11 was a Bush insider job, that no plane crashed in the Pentagon but a US missile did, etc. The only difference between one nonsense and the other nonsense is that if one nonsense helps to attack Putin, then that is a Neocon approved nonsense.
The 1999 bombings in Russia were an act of Islamic terrorism and somehow a residual of the old Soviet war against what later became and mutated into (regardless of the “experts” saying the contrary) the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The bombings were carried out by Chechen and Islamist terrorists and led by Achemez Gochiyaev, Ibn Al-Khattab and Abu Omar al-Saif and other jihadists. Al-Khattab, a Saudi veteran from the war in Afghanistan was invited by Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev to set up an army base in Chechnya for the training of Mujahedeen (Jihadists) fighters in 1995. According to the BBC, Al- Khattab's posting to Chechnya had been arranged through the Saudi-Arabian based Islamic Relief Organization.
In an interview published in AP in September 15 1999, Al-Khattab said that "From now on, we will not only fight against Russian fighter jets and tanks. From now on, they will get our bombs everywhere. Let Russia await our explosions blasting through their cities. I swear we will do it."
The conspiracy theory that Stephens defends is mostly based on allegations from Putin’s archenemy, the late Boris Berezoysky. According to researcher Gordon Bennett, the conspiracy theory has no base and Berezovsky nor his team (which included Alexander Litvinenko) provided any evidence to support it. In a TV interview of May 2002, Berezovsky was also unable to present any evidence for his claims. Additionally, Berezovsky didn’t come to the conclusion that the FSB were responsible for the bombings until about a year after they had occurred, at about the same time that he also saw that Putin had the support of the most of the FSB as presidential candidate.
Mike Bowker, from the University of East Anglia, also said that the theory that the bombings were carried out by the Russian authorities is uncorroborated by evidence. According to Bowker, the theory also ignores the history of Chechen terrorism and public threats by various Chechen rebels following their defeat in Dagestan – which included al Khattab telling a Czech and a German newspaper, a few days before the bombings in Moscow, that "Russian women and children will pay for the crimes of Russian generals … this will not happen tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow". Conspiracy theorists and the Neocons. like Stephens, that support them (because of ideology) ignore the key fact that Putin's attack on Chechnya in 1999 was preceded by a Chechen insurrection in Dagestan.
2. BS: Putin ordered the dead by polonium poisoning of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko and this is proven by an inquiry.
REALITY: Unless the official inquiry has access to Putin’s private phone line or someone in the inner circle of Putin turned and talked about it to the “inquirers”, it has no way in the world to know that Putin was behind it, knew about it, or much less ordered it (the same goes with the declassified report that Obama ordered his political appointees to release on January 6 to delegitimize Trump, just days before leaving office; if no phone interception nor someone in his inner circle talking there is no way to know Putin was behind it).
The official “inquiry” made by British Neocons has no base to point to Putin without any of those 2 elements. It is probable it was payback from isolated FSB ex comrades that felt betrayed by his treason and turn.
3. BS: Russian intelligence services hacked the emails of members of Germany’s Parliament.
REALITY: Surprise! Intelligence services specialist in SIGINT intercept emails and phones just as Angela Merkel’s telephone well knows: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-nsa-spied-on-merkel-cell-phone-from-berlin-embassy-a-930205.html . Apparently, Bret is not aware of what intelligence agencies do and what their mission is.
4. BS: Russia’s intelligence services are trying to influence politics in the West…as per the European intelligence services.
REALITY: Since the Brexit and Trump’s victory, the IYI political class of the Voltairian West is in desperation trying to find a scape goat for their defeats and trying with urgency to prevent more defeats. They see in the Russian services a perfect scape goat and bogeyman to scare the public. Keep in mind the “intelligence” reports on Iraq’s imaginary WMDs courtesy of political manipulation by neocons. Prediction: once the non IYIs take power in those countries, their intelligence services will change those assessments.
Furthermore, if a country is “bad” because it uses soft power to provoke regime change, then Bret Stephens is in trouble as he will be in shock once he finds out what he needs to know about Victoria Nuland and the illegal 2014 Coup against the democratically elected government in Ukraine (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957 ) and of course not to mention color revolutions and regime change as something that the great Pat Buchanan is very familiar with:
“While U.S.-funded democracy promotion is portrayed as benign, the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, DNI and Freedom House have been linked to revolutions that brought down regimes in Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and nearly succeeded in Belarus.
People who pride themselves on bringing about revolutions should not whine when targeted regimes treat them like troublemakers. And who directs these “pro-democracy” groups? …. The IRI is chaired by John McCain, who pushed for U.S. intervention in the Russia-Georgia war and is clamoring for air strikes on Syria. The DNI chairman is ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who says: “We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”(http://buchanan.org/blog/outside-agitators-5607 )
5. BS: Solely because of “greed” Putin ordered taking control of the assets of Yukos and sent Mikhail Khodorkovsky to prison.
REALITY: After the collapse of the Soviet Union, during the semi anarchy days of Yeltsin, a class of oligarchs was born in Russia who took control of the country’s natural resources, exploiting them for pure greed with complete disregard for the future of the country and in connection with those that wanted a weak and defeated Russia. Those vampires like oligarchs took advantage of the lawless times of Yeltsin to steal as much as they could and even befriended Russia’s enemies in order to dismantle and destroy what remained of Russia as a functioning state. Putin placed a full stop to that vampire style capitalism.
About Khodorkovsky: he paid $309 million for Yukos and a few years later in 2003 the same company was assessed as worth more than $30 billion…
Khodorkovsky built some impressive ties in the West. He set up a foundation modeled on US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society and invited Henry Kissinger and Jacob Rothschild to its board. He also developed ties with some of the most powerful circles in Washington DC where he befriended Cold War like Neocons. Some analysts say he was planning on taking over the Duma in 2004 by using his enormous wealth in order to change Russian laws regarding ownership of oil in the ground and of pipelines transporting same. He was at the time of his arrest for tax crimes, in the process of negotiating the sale of 40% of Yukos to foreign companies to dealt a crippling blow to the one asset left to Putin in order to rebuild Russia: oil and export via state-owned pipelines to the West. While he served many years of his sentence for tax related crimes, Putin ended up giving him a Presidential pardon and now he lives in Switzerland where he is an anti-Putin political activist.
6. B.S: Again, out of pure greed, Putin ordered the government to take control of Shell’s $20 billion gas project on Sakhalin Island and in 2008, Bob Dudley, was run out of Russia.
REALITY: Once again, Putin was determined to rebuild Russia’s catastrophic kind of economy with the most likely asset of the country, as in oil and export via state-owned pipelines to the West for dollars. Foreign owned companies controlling Russia’s oil were a show stopper to Russia’s resurrection from its ashes.
Shell had a large project in Sakhalin Island and the Russian government wanted most of the shares of the project (at that time owned at 55% by Shell). At one point, the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources sided with the Sakhalin Island environmentalists, pointing to irregularities as in environmental regulations, revoking permits and delaying work on twin 400-mile pipelines with a threat of a $50 billion lawsuit. After renegotiation of the ownership and removing the environmentalists restrictions, Shell got it shares reduced from 55% to 27.5%.
About Dudley: In 2003, he became CEO of TNK-BP, a joint venture with Russian company AAR. Over the years, tensions mounted between BP and the Russians as the Russians wanted higher returns on their investment, while BP wanted to invest more profit back into the company. It became a power struggle and in July 2008 Dudley fled the country. His visa was set to expire, and it seemed that the Russians weren't keen on renewing. In September, BP and the Russians signed a deal agreeing that Dudley would be out as CEO. The move, along with other provisions of the agreement, put the venture into Russian control.
7. B.S: Rex Tillerson (Trump Secretary of State designee) supports removing the sanctions to Russia and recognizing its territorial “conquests” in Ukraine in exchange for a Russian promise not to invade NATO member states.
REALITY: Yes, Tillerson is not a warmonger Russophobe and that has the Neocons IYIs infuriated. Yes, Trump will remove the sanctions and there is nothing the Neocons can do about it. And NO, Russia will not invade NATO countries because NATO has a stronger conventional military force, and it might very fast escalate to a nuclear war that would destroy the world as we know it with hundreds of millions dead. And yes, Russia wants the world to know that Crimea is theirs, the Black Sea Fleet is not going anywhere, and no NATO conventional forces will ever be stationed in Ukraine, next to Russia’s sensitive territorial areas (reason why Russia needs at all cost, and is willing to sacrifice a lot in order to keep Ukraine acting as buffer against conventional NATO land forces).
8. B.S: Putin said in 2013 that foreign intervention in Syria was bad, but 2 years later Russia intervened in Syria, therefore, Putin cannot be trusted.
REALITY: In 2013 Putin (this is so kindergarten level simple!!) was talking about U.S strikes AGAINST the Syrian Government made of Alawites, Shias and many Christians groups. A strike that could bring the government down and promote the total victory of the Syrian Sunni jihadists with the respective massacre of Alawites, Christians and Shias, the takeover by jihadists of the Syrian arsenal of chemical weapons, place Israel in existential danger (via those weapons), and give dangerous chemical weapons to potential European based terrorists. In 2015 Russia acted in Syria to SUPPORT the government of Alawites and many Christians groups (NOT to destroy it), and kill the radical Islamist jihadists, both the “free” and independent ones (ISIS and AQ branch) and the ones that work for the Sunni Gulf countries (please keep in mind that the so called “moderates” rebels are a psyops press plant and a non-existing myth; they just don’t exist like a functional relevant force in the ground). As simple as that.
Again, common sense is the worst enemy of intelligence analysis, and common sense is the IYIs worst disease and weakness just like Superman’s kryptonite.
In 2013 Putin wrote in the New York times:
“The potential strike by the United States against Syria, despite strong opposition from many countries and major political and religious leaders, including the pope, will result in more innocent victims and escalation, potentially spreading the conflict far beyond Syria’s borders. A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism. It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa. It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance...Syria is not witnessing a battle for democracy, but an armed conflict between government and opposition in a multi religious country. There are few champions of democracy in Syria. But there are more than enough al Qaeda fighters and extremists of all stripes battling the government. The United States State Department has designated Al Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, fighting with the opposition, as terrorist organizations. This internal conflict, fueled by foreign weapons supplied to the opposition, is one of the bloodiest in the world. Mercenaries from Arab countries fighting there, and hundreds of militants from Western countries and even Russia, are an issue of our deep concern. Might they not return to our countries with experience acquired in Syria?”
By the contrary, as result of Russian pro government intervention, the Sunni jihadists and mercenaries are defeated in Aleppo, the perspective of Christians being massacred is lower than ever, and the Cathedral of Aleppo just had the first open and public Christmas mass in years.
Yes, a 1972 Volkswagen Bug and a 2017 Ferrari are both cars. But there are cars and there are CARS. Yes, there are “foreign interventions” and there are FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS.
9. B.S: In March 2014 Russian defense minister Shoigu told the U.S Defense Secretary that Russian military exercises would not lead to an invasion of eastern Ukraine but crossed the border later that year, therefore Russia cannot be trusted.
REALITY: “Crossing the border” vs invasion is the key here. The Russian military did not conduct an invasion of Eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian Army is no match for Russian forces. If Russia wants to invade Ukraine it will take Kiev in 2 weeks. Ukraine would be completely defeated and the Ukrainian Army crushed. Russia did not invade Easter Ukraine like Stephens suggests. Russia sent logistics and advisors to ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine that were fighting against the Ukrainian military and civilian militias. (Please look as the cars vs CARS example in the B.S number 8 above).
Additionally, Bret forgets that in December 2013 Putin signed an agreement with the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Yanukovych, establishing a lower gas price and a multibillion dollar loan. Still the Coup organizers (plus the ones who coordinated, promoted and funded them) did not accept that and carried on their illegal coup in February 2014, reason why the Russian military was training there in March in the first place.
10. And the final B.S: In 1987 Russia signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty but in October 2016 the U.S. accused Russia of producing a cruise missile in violation of the agreement. Therefore, Russia cannot be trusted.
REALITY: Both sides has accused each other of violating the Treaty first (BTW It was the Soviet Union back in 1987, but ok, Russia is following the Soviet Union commitments of the past). According to Russia the other side broke the Treaty first and they just answered by developing the new missile.
The Russian position is that NATO violated the Treaty first by deploying Aegis Ashore missiles in Romania, and soon in Poland as well. These missile uses the naval Mk-41 launching system, which is capable of firing long-range cruise missiles. Mk-41s deployed in Europe may launch short and intermediate range cruise missiles deep into Russian territory. Russia has also said that armed drones violate the treaty and a NATO plan to arm tactical aviation in Europe with modernized B61-12 guided warheads will virtually nullify the Treaty as the aircraft could fly from bases in Lithuania, Estonia and Poland to Russia’s largest cities in 15-20 minutes. What B.S needs to research is not what kind of violation Russia did, but WHO began the violations.
Conclusion: As I am enjoying my semi-retirement in Europe, had been out of the game as in the CIA and the Pentagon for some time now, and have other issues and family to attend, I really don’t have a lot of time for B.S.
That is why I only can recommend him to study a basic law of nature: action/reaction. He has to understand that kicking a man down has consequences once the man stands up again.
Russia, the Third Rome (hopefully Bret would know what I mean, as Catholic with Faith in Fatima, with that) was occupied by Communists for many decades, became the center of evil in the world, and was the natural enemy of the free world. When it got rid of evil Communism, Russia went down into extreme poverty and desperation in the nineties. Instead of helping it to stand up again, now without the Communist poison, many countries, kicked it while down, inflicting pains and humiliations that are fresh in the memory of millions.
Now that Russia is no longer Communist but is at high speed finding its Christian roots once again (tip: read the brilliant article by Pat Buchanan “Whose Side is God now” - http://buchanan.org/blog/whose-side-god-now-6337 -) there is no reason why truly Christian Western countries (not those occupied by Godless globalist Cultural Marxists) can be good friends and partners with Russia. Keeping the mentality of the Cold War and Russophobia alive now that is in no way needed, is a mental illness IYIs Neocons must to get rid of, even if it means shock therapy.
Again, B.S can perhaps begin with the great Buchanan’s article on who began Cold War II (http://buchanan.org/blog/pjb-who-started-cold-war-ii-1048 ) and continue with refreshing Justin Logan’s “Can Neocons Learn?” (http://reason.com/archives/2014/12/08/can-neocons-learn ) and James Carden’s article on anti-Russia Hysteria (http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clintons-exploits-in-mccarthyism/5555969 ).
The point is that the world is moving away from globalist Cultural Marxists as the Frankfurt School is beginning to fall and many countries are divorcing from the menace that has been the rule of the Godless for decades. That is how I explain Trump´s victory as a cultural Counterrevolution that took 50 years in the making against the Frankfurt School but is finally happening (http://thedailyjournalist.com/the-historian/trump-the-frankfurt-school-and-the-counterrevolution-a-manifesto/ ).
That means that a new America, divorced from the New World Order, anathema to the Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School, will, under Trump fight for Christian Civilization once again; which means relations with Christian Russia, will improve and get healthier, to the dismay of both the Godless Cultural Marxists and the neocons hawks IYIs.
That is what Donald Trump explained via social media:
“Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. Only "stupid" people, or fools, would think that it is bad! We have enough problems around the world without yet another one. When I am President, Russia will respect us far more than they do now and both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!”
And no: the hasty WMDs in Iraq like “Intelligence Report” that stated US Presidential elections happened on November 6 (not 8) and reported that Russia hacked into John Podesta’s email is not changing anything as it looks like a desperate attempt against the clock to publish whatever in order to delegitimize Trump just before Obama leaves office. Let’s see what future reports have to say 3 months after Trump has been in the White House. That, most likely, and with “high confidence” will not be B.S.
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