Former Soviet States: Battleground For Global Domination

by Rick Rozoff
November 23, 2009 - As the United States escalates its joint war with NATO in Afghanistan and across the Pakistani border, expands military deployments and exercises throughout Africa under the new AFRICOM, and prepares to dispatch troops to newly acquired bases in Colombia as the spearhead for further penetration of that continent, it is simultaneously targeting Eurasia and the heart of that vast land mass, the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Within months of the formal breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December of 2001, leading American policy advisers and government officials went to work devising a strategy to insure that the fragmentation was final and irreversible. And to guarantee that the fifteen new nations emerging from the ruins of the Soviet Union would not be allied in even a loose association such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) founded in the month of the Soviet Union's dissolution...
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USA Sets Up Death Squads In Afghanistan

RedBedHead - November 23, 2009 - IN POLITE COMPANY THEY DON'T CALL THEM DEATH SQUADS, instead they are euphemistically labelled "anti-Taliban militias". And the USA is pouring millions into the secretive program - the details of which they aren't even revealing to their allies. But we've seen this counter-insurgency strategy many times before. The Americans used it in Nicaragua where they trained and armed Contras to fight against the leftist Sandinista government. Even earlier they used this strategy in Angola, funding the vicious UNITA army of Joseph Savimbi. And, of course, they used it in Iraq as part of their divide on conquer strategy by stoking up a near civil war between Sunni and Shia militias, then co-opting the Sunnis into the Awakening movement to crush Al Qaeda, then turning on them - or allowing the Shiite-led government to turn on them. In every case it has meant the most horrendous escalation of violence as village is turned against village, neighbour against neighbour....
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Orlov: This is where monsters come in handy: we all know what we must do to them

by Dmitry Orlov
ClubOrlov (November 23 2009)

A few years ago I bought a sailboat from a fellow who I am sure wishes to
remain unnamed, but who at the time made much of his boat restoration
skills. He had made a number of alterations to the boat, some ambitious,
some less so, while I was, at the time, quite inexperienced. In spite of
my relative inexperience, I was already able to discern certain
imperfections in the results of the seller's efforts. But I was very
impressed with the boat itself (and the boat did turn out to be quite
excellent) and so I chose to gloss over these slight imperfections in the
seller's workmanship.

For such a large man, the seller had a very soft and gentle tone of voice.
He did disclose some things along the way that should have alarmed me. I
believe that the reason they didn't was because his tone of voice had a
calming, soothing effect on me. For instance, he could have said something
like "I ran out of caulk while installing this thing, so I mounted it on a
slice of cheese from my lunchbox" and I probably would have thought
"Mmm ... cheese ... lunch?" Also, the boat had recently returned from an
extended ocean cruise, and the seller looked quite alive to me, leading me
to think that none of these imperfections was life-threatening. And so I
bought the boat.

As I already mentioned, it turned out to be an excellent boat, but I
turned out to be overly nonchalant about the non-life-threatening nature
of the seller's workmanship. During our shakeout cruise most things that
could break did break, causing me to question many of the seller's
practices and techniques. Is it proper to cut pieces out of random
structural elements with a reciprocating saw in order to make room for
one's head? (Apparently the seller was one or two inches taller than the
boat's designer had considered it to be humanly possible.) Is a piece of
Masonite an acceptable substitute when the manufacturer specifies that a
block of hardwood should be used to mount the autopilot? Is it
sufficiently safety-conscious to seal a disconnected through-hull by
plugging it with a rubber stopper from the inside? The good part in all
this was that I, in the process of tackling these questions, along with a
multitude of similar ones, one by one or in combination, sometimes in
circumstances when I had my hands full just sailing the boat, gained
immeasurably in knowledge and in confidence.

Although confronting these questions one by one, sometimes in challenging
circumstances, was an excellent (though sometimes unnerving) way to learn,
eventually I realized that there was an important first question that I
ought to ask of each thing on the boat: "Did the seller do it?" If he did
it, then the next question would be, "What does it take it to rip out and
replace it?" If it is neither very hard nor very expensive, then that is
automatically the next step. If it is, then the third question becomes,
"What's wrong with it?" If answering this question turns out to involve
ripping it out and replacing it, then so be it, but leaving a stone
unturned would not be conducive to either peace of mind or safety,
because, although there are now very few of them left, I am yet to find A
Thing He Did that does not have major issues.

To be fair, the seller did do one very good thing: he kept afloat and sold
to me a very good boat. Also, I can't fault him for trying to maintain a
boat on a shoestring (I actually have immense respect for people who are
able to do that well). Whatever he does, and however he does it, it
clearly works for him. I see him leaping about the spindrift-covered deck
in the midst of a howling tempest clutching a hammer and a screwdriver.
Maybe he is happy, maybe he is sad, who knows ...

As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, consistency is "the hobgoblin of little
minds". I agree, but I would go a step further and ardently wish that each
and every little mind had such a hobgoblin to call its own. If someone's
work is consistently excellent, that is better than sporadically excellent
work. Although much excellent work can be undone by a single
reputation-destroying, career-ending blunder, short of that, sporadic
excellence is better than none at all. But if someone's work is more often
than not of an abysmally ghastly quality and in general a monstrous
travesty, then consistency can still be its one redeeming quality. If it
is consistent, then one knows what to do with it, all of it, at once, and
not waste any time trying to cherry-pick salvageable exceptions where none
might exist.

Allow me to present an example. Suppose you are wondering whether a
particular public institution has any particular merit that would serve to
justify its continued existence. It might be the health care system, or
national defense, or the tax code, or any number of other similar
boondoggles. We might consider each institution in and of itself, apart
from all the others, to see whether it is consistently bad, or whether it
has some redeeming qualities. Or we might save ourselves a lot of time by
asking ourselves just one simple question: "Is it Bolshevik?" Because if
it is Bolshevik, then that tells us right away that it is just one element
of a perfectly monstrous entity called the USSR. This particular monstrous
entity is already defunct, and so there is no need for us to go out and
slay it, but were it not, we would know immediately that none of its
institutions are in need of reform, because what would be the point?
Making a perfect monster into an imperfect monster does not seem like a
worthy goal.

Allow me to present another example. Currently in the USA we now live
surrounded by institutions that many of us readily concede are quite
broken, but it still takes most of us considerable effort to declare any
of them irredeemable. It is natural for us to look for redeeming
qualities, to think that a certain negative outcome is the result of a
mistake rather than the fullest possible expression of its true nature. It
takes time and effort to collect enough evidence to be able to declare,
based on a preponderance of evidence, that what we have here is something
perfectly monstrous, and then to be ready to debate people who hold
opposing viewpoints. Few of us are equipped to handle the task of outright
condemnation. There are some experts whose job it is to condemn buildings,
to decommission vessels, and to sentence people to death, and they
sometimes have to exercise judgment, but mostly they just follow rules.
And when there are no rules to follow, we are all helpless.

This is where monsters come in handy: we all know what we must do to them.
Like so many things that bedevil our lives, they have a notional rather
than a physical reality, but in spite of that the effect they have on our
lives can be quite real. Take corporations: the term "corporation" is
actually a clever misnomer, because a corporation is, in fact, incorporeal
- lacking a body. It has many of the same rights as a person, but in place
of a body it has a "corporate veil" which, once pierced, usually reveals
some cringing nincompoop who screwed up the paperwork and is now
personally liable for his corporation's debts and transgressions. Since a
corporation has personhood but lacks a body, it is, in a technically
precise way, a phantom. Like other kinds of monsters, it is immortal, and
very specific steps must be followed in order to kill it. Now, not all
phantoms are monsters, but I hope you will agree that the potential is
there.

Just like us, monsters must follow certain rules. Vampires must drink
human blood and stay out of the sun. Werewolves must turn into wolves and
start mauling people at the sight of the full moon. Zombies must eat
brains. Corporations must produce high share prices and dividends for
their shareholders. This last one seems comparatively innocuous, but it is
sufficiently abstract to make the transition between mere immortal
phantomhood and complete monstrousness quite automatic, because usually
there are both monstrous and non-monstrous ways to create value for
shareholders, and the monstrous ways are often more profitable in the
short run. Some corporations may not seem particularly monstrous at the
moment, but given their monstrous propensities we can never let down our
guard.

Monsters require different treatment from most other things out there. We
don't generally try to reform them. There is hardly a point in teaching a
vampire good hygiene (rinse between meals, please!) or in muzzling a
werewolf and clipping its claws, or in making zombies eat a balanced diet
and observe Lent. Rather, we generally prefer to slay them. There are
specific ways to kill various monsters. A vampire is dispatched by driving
an aspen stake through its heart. Werewolves are shot with silver bullets.
Zombies require a shotgun blast to the head. Corporations dissolve upon
being doused with red ink, a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Now, a question arises with regard to the USA: is it more of a country
(like, say, France) or is it more of a corporation (like, say AIG or GM or
GS)? Looking at its politics, it is apparent that it is more of a country
club than a country. Corporations are clearly the ones in charge, through
electoral campaign donations, lobbyists, and the revolving door between
corporate and government positions. The periodic electoral monkey-business
and fake media frenzy are just there as an ad campaign to keep the brand
fresh. It does seem more and more like a corporate entity, with a small
and shrinking number of shareholders, whose latest scheme (now that the
whole thing is spiraling the drain) is to have the government print lots
of money just so that they can pocket huge sums of it.

Just as a vampire must drink blood, the USA is compelled by its corporate
nature to produce value for its shareholders, and the only way it can do
so in a collapsing economy is by printing money. Monstrous, isn't it? So,
how many more buckets of red ink will it take before we all get to hear
"I'm dissolving! I'm dissolving!"? If you are not quite ready to hear
that, then I recommend that you run home immediately, bar the door and get
busy with the garlic and the crucifixes. Slaying monsters is not for
everyone, you know.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/11/giant-monsters.html