{"id":27156,"date":"2015-10-08T11:23:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-08T09:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27156"},"modified":"2015-10-08T11:36:59","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T09:36:59","slug":"the-worlds-silliest-empire1234","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/?p=27156","title":{"rendered":"The World’s Silliest Empire"},"content":{"rendered":"

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ISIS: Made in the USA and a most convenient pretext to inflate the \u201cterror\u201d threat to justify more interventions. (Photo:www.greanvillepost)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When a Russian correspondent (Gayane Chichakyan from RT)<\/strong> asked the \t\t\tWhite House press secretary under what legal authority the US was \t\t \tbombing Syria, he at first pretended to not understand the question, \t \t\tthen babbled incoherently, looking rather silly. You see, the US \t\t\t likes to fight wars (or rather, its military contractors like to \t\t\t fight wars, because that’s how they make money, and they happen to \t\t\t own a big piece of the US government). But the US can’t win any \t\t\t wars, and that makes its entire war effort rather silly (in a \t\t\t murderous sort of way).<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Dmitry Orlov<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

October 06, 2015 „<\/a><\/span>Information \t\t\tClearing House<\/span><\/a>„<\/a> –\u00a0 I couldn’t help \t\t\tbut notice that over the past few weeks the Empire has become \t\t\textremely silly\u2014so silly that I believe it deserves the title of the \t\t\tWorld’s Silliest Empire. One could claim that it has been silly \t\t\tbefore, but recent developments seem to signal a quantum leap in its \t\t\tsilliness level.<\/span><\/h4>\n

The first bit of extreme silliness surfaced when Gen. Lloyd J. \t\t\tAustin III, the head of the United States Central Command, told a \t\t\tSenate panel that only a very small number of Syrian fighters \t\t\ttrained by the United States remained in the fight\u2014perhaps as few as \t\t\tfive. The tab for training and equipping them was $500 million. \t\t\tThat’s $100 million per fighter, but that’s OK, because it’s all \t\t\tgood as long as the military contractors are getting paid. Things \t\t\tgot even sillier when it later turned out that even these few \t\t\tfighters got car-jacked by ISIS\/al Qaeda in Syria (whatever they are \t\t\tcurrently calling themselves) and got their vehicles and weapons \t\t\ttaken away from them.<\/p>\n

General Austin’s \t\t\tprevious role as as Lt. General Casey in Tim Burton’s film Mars \t\t\tAttacks! <\/em>It was already a very silly role, but his current role \t\t\tis a definite career advancement, both in terms of rank and in terms \t\t\tof silliness level.
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The next silly moment arrived at the UN General \t\t\tAssembly meeting in New York, where Obama, who went on for 30 \t\t\tminutes instead of the allotted 15 (does Mr. Silly President know \t\t\thow to read a clock?) managed to use up all of this time and say \t\t\tabsolutely nothing that made any sense to anyone.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But it was Putin’s speech that laid out the Empire’s silliness for \t\t\tall to see when he scolded the US for making a bloody mess of the \t\t\tMiddle East with its ham-handed interventions. The oft-repeated \t\t\tquote is \u201cDo you understand what you have done?\u201d but that’s not \t\t\tquite right. The Russian \u00ab\u0412\u044b \t\t\t\u0445\u043e\u0442\u044c \u043f\u043e\u043d\u0438\u043c\u0430\u0435\u0442\u0435 \u0442\u0435\u043f\u0435\u0440\u044c, \u0447\u0435\u0433\u043e \u0432\u044b \u043d\u0430\u0442\u0432\u043e\u0440\u0438\u043b\u0438?<\/a>\u00bb can be more \t\t\taccurately translated as \u201cHow can you even now fail to understand \t\t\twhat a mess you have made?\u201d Words matter: this is not how one talks \t\t\tto a superpower before an assembly of the world’s leaders; this is \t\t\thow one scolds a stupid and wayward child. In the eyes of the whole \t\t\tworld, this made the Empire look rather silly.<\/p>\n

What happened next is that Russia announced the start of its bombing \t\t\tcampaign against all manner of terrorists in Syria (and perhaps Iraq \t\t\ttoo; the Iraqi request is in Putin’s in-box). What’s notable about \t\t\tthis bombing campaign is that it is entirely legal. The legitimate, \t\t\telected government of Syria asked Russia for help; the campaign was \t\t\tapproved by the Russian legislature. On the other hand, the bombing \t\t\tcampaign that the US has been conducting in Syria is entirely \t\t\tillegal. There are exactly two ways to legally bomb the territory of \t\t\tanother country: 1. an invitation from that country’s government and \t\t\t2. a UN Security Council resolution. The US has not obtained either \t\t\tof them.<\/p>\n

Why is this important? Because the UN, with its Security Council, \t\t\twas instituted to prevent war, by making it difficult for nations to \t\t\tengage each other militarily without all sorts of international \t\t\teconomic and political repercussions. After World War II it was \t\t\tthought that wars are rather nasty and that something should be done \t\t\tto prevent them. But the US feels that this is rather unnecessary. \t\t\tWhen a Russian correspondent (Gayane Chichakyan from RT) asked the \t\t\tWhite House press secretary under what legal authority the US was \t\t\tbombing Syria, he at first pretended to not understand the question, \t\t\tthen babbled incoherently, looking rather silly. You see, the US \t\t\tlikes to fight wars (or rather, its military contractors like to \t\t\tfight wars, because that’s how they make money, and they happen to \t\t\town a big piece of the US government). But the US can’t win any \t\t\twars, and that makes its entire war effort rather silly (in a \t\t\tmurderous sort of way).<\/p>\n

In spite of American recalcitrance, the UN does in fact prevent \t\t\twars. Recently it prevented the US from mounting a \u201climited strike \t\t\tagainst the Assad regime in response to the brazen use of chemical \t\t\tweapons\u201d (or so said Obama during his UN speech). This was helped by \t\t\ta deft bit of Russian diplomacy, in the course of which Syria \t\t\tvoluntarily gave up its chemical weapons stockpiles. Undeterred by \t\t\tdiplomacy, the US squeezed off a couple of cruise missiles in the \t\t\tgeneral direction of Syria, but the Russians promptly shot them out \t\t\tof the sky, triggering a major rethink at the Pentagon and, of \t\t\tcourse, making the US look rather silly.<\/p>\n

But once you make a fool of yourself, why stop? Indeed, Obama shows \t\t\tno intention of stopping. Just about the entire audience at the UN \t\t\tGeneral Assembly knew that the Syrian government’s chemical attack \t\t\ton its own people never happened. The chemicals were provided by the \t\t\tSaudis and were unwittingly used by the Syrian rebels on themselves. \t\t\tLying, when everybody knows that you are lying, and knows that you \t\t\tknow that you are lying: what could possibly be sillier?<\/p>\n

Ok, how about continuously prattling on about \u201cfreedom and \t\t\tdemocracy\u201d\u2014in the Middle East, after throwing the whole region into \t\t\tchaos through their brain-dead interventions? The only voice of \t\t\treason in the US seems to be that of Donald Trump, who recently \t\t\tdeclared that the Middle East was more stable under Saddam Hussein, \t\t\tMoammar Khaddafi and Bashar al Assad. Indeed it was. The fact that \t\t\tthe only non-silly politician left in the US is Trump\u2014that \t\t\tbloviating moneybag\u2014sets a rather high bar for silliness for the \t\t\tcountry as a whole.<\/p>\n

Prattling on about \u201cfreedom and democracy\u201d in the Middle East is \t\t\talso silly because the entire region is tribal\u2014has been tribal for a \t\t\tfew thousand years, and will be tribal for a few thousand more. In \t\t\teach locale, some tribe is on top. If the idea is to carve it up \t\t\tinto sovereign territorial units (none of which qualifies as a \t\t\tnation, because each one ends up being multinational) then each \t\t\tterritorial unit ends up being ruled by some tribe while others \t\t\tgrumble. Blunder in and exploit their grumbling to bring about \t\t\t\u201cregime change\u201d\u2014and the whole place invariably burns down.<\/p>\n

A case in point is Israel: it’s got the top dog tribe\u2014the Jews, and \t\t\tthey can shoot or bomb anybody else with impunity. It is considered \t\t\t\u201cdemocratic\u201d because the Jews get to vote, which is very nice for \t\t\tthe Jews. The Alawites in Syria get to vote too\u2014and vote for Bashar \t\t\tal Assad\u2014so why isn’t that good enough? Because of American \t\t\thypocrisy and double standards.<\/p>\n

It’s like that right down the line. Saudi Arabia is owned by one \t\t\ttribe\u2014the House of Saud, and everybody else is disenfranchised. Iraq \t\t\tused to be run by the Sunnis from Saddam Hussein’s tribe, but the \t\t\tAmericans dislodged them, and now what remains of it is ruled by the \t\t\tShia from the south of the country while the Sunnis ran off and \t\t\tjoined ISIS. This can all seem like super-simple stuff, but not for \t\t\tthe Americans, because it runs counter to their ideology, which \t\t\tdictates that the world must be remade in America’s image. And so \t\t\tthey keep trying to do this (or keep pretending to be trying, \t\t\tbecause results don’t matter as long as their military contractors \t\t\tget paid) and don’t seem to care one bit that this is making them \t\t\tlook very silly.<\/p>\n

And so the typical pattern has been this: the US bombs a country to \t\t\tsmithereens, mounts a ground invasion, sets up a puppet regime and, \t\t\tpromptly or not so promptly, pulls out. The puppet regime falls \t\t\tapart, and then you have either ungovernable chaos or some new, \t\t\tespecially nasty form of dictatorship, or a little of each: a failed \t\t\tstate, like Libya, and Yemen, and much of Afghanistan, Iraq and \t\t\tSyria. It doesn’t much matter that this is the result (as long as \t\t\tthe military contractors are getting paid) because America’s motto \t\t\tseems to be „Look Silly and Carry On.“ Wreck a country\u2014and it’s on \t\t\tto the next bombing campaign.<\/p>\n

But this is where it all gets meta-silly: in Syria they can’t even \t\t\tachieve that. The Americans have been bombing ISIS for a year now; \t\t\tmeanwhile, ISIS has gotten stronger and occupied more territory. But \t\t\tthey haven’t gotten around to overthrowing Assad; instead, the ISIS \t\t\tboys have been busy prancing around the desert in black head rags \t\t\tand white basketball shoes taking selfies, blowing up archaeological \t\t\tsites, enslaving women and beheading anyone they don’t like.<\/p>\n

But now it appears that the Russians have achieved in five days of \t\t\tbombing what the Americans couldn’t in a year and the ISIS boys are \t\t\trunning away to Jordan; others want to go to Germany and ask for \t\t\tasylum. This has made the Americans upset, because, you see, the \t\t\tRussians were bombing \u201ctheir\u201d terrorists\u2014the ones the Americans \t\t\trecruited, armed and trained… and then bombed? I know, silly\u2014but \t\t\ttrue. The Russians will have none of that, because their approach \t\t\tis, if it looks like a terrorist and quacks like a terrorist, then \t\t\tit is a terrorist, so let’s bomb it.<\/p>\n

But it is understandable that this approach is unpopular with the \t\t\tAmericans: here they were carefully pumping the place full of \t\t\tweapons and equipment, and bombing carefully around the edges so as \t\t\tnot to blow up any of it, and the Russians just blunder in and blow \t\t\tit all up! The Saudis are absolutely livid, because it was they who \t\t\tpaid for much of it. Plus the terrorists are their own \t\t\tWahhabi-Takfiri brethren\u2014the ones who like to declare various other \t\t\tMuslims that they don’t happen to like to be infidels, in direct \t\t\tviolation of their own Sharia law. Does that remind you of anyone? \t\t\tAnyone silly?<\/p>\n

But it doesn’t appear that the US can do anything to stop the \t\t\tRussians, or the Chinese who also want to get a piece of ISIS to \t\t\tstuff and mount, or the Iranians and the Hezbollah fighters who are \t\t\tready to march in and mop up what remains of ISIS once the bombing \t\t\tmissions destroy all the war materiel it has amassed. And so it’s \t\t\ttime for Americans to start an information war by accusing the \t\t\tRussians of causing civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

Of course, being Americans, they have to prosecute this information \t\t\twar in the silliest way possible. First, you trot out your claims of \t\t\tcivilian casualties before the Russians fly a single sortie. Oops! \t\t\tThen you stuff the social media with fake pictures of wounded \t\t\tchildren produced beforehand by performers in white helmets paid for \t\t\tby George Soros. And then, when asked for evidence, you refuse to \t\t\tprovide any.<\/p>\n

So far so good, but let’s get even sillier. Immediately after \t\t\tscreaming loudly about Russians causing civilian casualties, the \t\t\tAmericans blow up a hospital in Afghanistan that was run by Medecins \t\t\tsans Fronti\u00e8res, in spite of being informed of its location both \t\t\tbefore and during the bombing. \u201cDon’t kill civilians… like this!\u201d \t\t\tCould it get any sillier than that? Of course it can: the US can \t\t\tstart blatantly, nakedly lying about the event: \u201cThere were Taleban \t\t\tfighters hiding in that hospital!\u201d\u2014no, there weren’t; \u201cThe Afghans \t\t\ttold us to bomb that hospital!\u201d\u2014no, they didn’t. Bombing that \t\t\thospital was an actual war crime\u2014so says the UN. Are are the \t\t\tRussians now going to listen to criticism from war criminals? Don’t \t\t\tbe silly!<\/p>\n

It’s really hard to tell, but anything seems possible now. For \t\t\texample, the US no longer seems to have a foreign policy: the White \t\t\tHouse says one thing, the State Department another, the Pentagon a \t\t\tthird, Samantha Power at the UN pursues a foreign policy of her own \t\t\tusing Twitter, and Senator John McCain wants to arm Syrian rebels to \t\t\tshoot down Russian planes. (All five of them? John, don’t be silly!) \t\t\tIn response to all this confusion, America’s political puppets in \t\t\tthe European Union are starting to twitch uncontrollably and go \t\t\toff-script, because the nerve center in Washington is no longer \t\t\tsending them clear signals.<\/p>\n

How is this all going to end? Well, since we are all just being \t\t\tsilly, let me make a humble suggestion: the US should bomb \t\t\teverything inside the Beltway in Washington, plus a few counties in \t\t\tVirginia. That should significantly degrade the country’s capability \t\t\tfor being extremely silly. And if that doesn’t work\u2014so what? After \t\t\tall, it is clear that results don’t matter. As long as the military \t\t\tcontractors are getting paid, it’s all good.<\/p>\n

Dmitry Orlov is a \t\t\tRussian-American engineer and a writer on subjects related to \t\t\t„potential economic, ecological and political decline and collapse \t\t\tin the United States,“ something he has called \u201cpermanent crisis\u201d. \t\t\t http:\/\/cluborlov.blogspot.com<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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When a Russian correspondent (Gayane Chichakyan from RT) asked the White House press secretary under what legal authority the US was bombing Syria, he at first pretended to not understand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27156"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27164,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27156\/revisions\/27164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norkhosq.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}