Some long overdue skepticism about the whole Skripal saga and its alleged links to the latest incident in the mainstream media is to be found in an article by Simon Jenkins in The Guardian on 6 July 2018. Jenkins correctly points out many of the absurdities of the Skripal story and its many still unanswered questions. He points out that where knowledge is non-existent (as in both of these cases) ignorance is bliss. He says that does not apply to government ministers, for whom ignorance is not a sufficient condition for silence.[1]And . . .
The willingness to blame Russia in the absence of even remotely compelling evidence is a political instinct deep within the western political psyche.[2]
Robert Gore has a good take on this last point, the flimsiness of the evidence:
Some are inclined to write off the Trump-Russia collusion story as yet another fantasy, irrelevant to most Americans, but it’s much more than that. That it’s pure concoction finds ultimate confirmation in one simple fact: its proponents have not offered a scintilla of actual proof.NotesWe’ve had assessments, assertions, maybes, might haves, could haves, and “informed” speculation; a remote “hack” that couldn’t be a remote hack, but rather an onsite download because of the high transmission speed; a Democratic-funded dossier used as the basis of a FISA court surveillance request and its subsequent renewals; indictments against potential defendants who will never be tried; banner headlines for and endless media trumpeting of inconsequential developments, and prosecutions and plea bargains that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.
They’ve thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this gargoyle, but the kitchen sink for which reasonable people keep looking is any hard evidence from those who bear the burden of proof that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.[3]
[1] "Second Salisbury Alleged Poisoning: Still More Questions than Answers." By James O’Neill, OffGuardian, 7/10/18.
[2] Id.
[3] "Now or Never, by Robert Gore." Straight Line Logic, 7/28/18. H/t: The Burning Platform.
If there is any country with which Presidents and Congressmen collude and conspire, it is Israel. In the case of our Middle East policies, they have control.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Israel's a sovereign state but the choice of a landing zone for the Jewish people was a poor one. Israel is faced with an impossible task of reconciling a lot of Arabs to its presence and status. I don't lie awake at night over displaced Arab Muslims, as their ancestors have been quite happy to humiliate, enslave, or kill infidels they found in their murderous rampages in and around the Mediterranean, in Europe, and in the Indian subcontinent. People who were merely displaced were the lucky ones.
ReplyDeleteWhy Israel is considered our BFF in the M.E., if not the world, escapes me as does the apparent necessity for us to send it from $3-$15B per year. It's easily understood, however, if one pays attention to the power of AIPAC, Adelson, Saban, and others who, as you note, effectively control America. Let's talk about that why don't we.
Israel's claim to Palestine/Israel is itself flimsy. It's a rare people, tribe, or nation who or that does not have some memory of ancestral lands lost to conquerors. It's the only claim Israel can make as what is left is the uncomfortable claim of ownership by right of conquest (live by the sword, die by the sword) or, alternatively, by virtue of British "gift" when Britain itself had no sovereign or property claim to what they purported to give away.
Flimsiness is pretty much the brooding omnipresent condition underlying just about every national and international phenomenon. Can Israel survive? Can there be an alternative home for the Jewish people? Is America afflicted with exceptionalism and, if so, does it entitle America to wage endless war in pursuit of a laughable, contemptible concept? Does supposed humanitarian (ha) purpose allow the U.S. to ignore the U.N. Charter? Is globalism anything but a pestilence? Is the United States no longer a representative republic? Have multiculturalism and open borders been employed as a weapon to destroy the white, European majority in the U.S.? Who engineered the utterly catastrophic flooding of Europe with third-world primitives?
We've traveled on autopilot for a good many decades as the most basic precepts of our civilization and nation have been set one by one on the shelf. Autopilot is good if one adheres to the basics but it's been a disaster when the basics have been deliberately undermined. Promoting the evil of supposed Russian attacks on "our democracy" is laughable in the face of the beyond-obvious controlled media and one-dollar-one-vote system that we actually have.
It's entirely possible I strayed a bit from your point.