The recent Syria agreement signed in Geneva by Kerry and Lavrov (probably it will be remembered as “Pizza and Vodka deal”, as the journalists have been served these delicacies by the negotiating teams during the time they had to wait for the results) beside the points disclosed by the foreign ministers included five documents. The US insisted on keeping the content secret, despite Russian insistence to make them known. Here is what we learned about the contents of the secret documents and the negotiation process from our usually reliable Arab and Israeli sources.

The secret documents describe what should happen in Syria after the cease-fire will come into effect. The first day of cease-fire is called Day D. The Russians wanted it to begin at noon, while the Americans preferred sunset on Monday September 12, 2016. The American view prevailed. After first two days, at D+2, if cease-fire holds, the Russians and the Americans will extend it for a longer time. This actually happened on September 14, in a telephone conversation between Lavrov and Kerry. They extended it for another 48 hours. If it will hold for a week, hopefully the sides will extend it indefinitely and proceed to the next stage.

The sides will go into delineation of territories controlled by ISIL, Nusra and the moderates. Then ISIL and Nusra will be bombed to smithereens by the Russian and American Air Forces, while the moderates will be left in peace. The delineation, or the separation of sheep from goats is an old Russian demand that the Americans never fulfilled. Now, at least, they promised to do it. While ISIL could be “delineated”, Nusra is the strongest fighting opposition force in Syria, and it is connected with almost all other rebel groups. Without Nusra, the rest of rebels have little chance.

That is why a biggish rebel group called Ahrar al Sham insisted on extending the cease fire over Nusra-held ground, and refused to join the Cessation of Hostilities regime. Other rebel groups are also much distressed over Nusra’s misfortune.

Not only rebels; the Pentagon and Israelis also want to keep Nusra as their strongest force against Damascus. Ashton Carter, the US Secretary of Defence actively participated in preparation of the document by trying to block it or derail it altogether. Like the Israelis, Carter wants more war in Syria. He is one of the strongest anti-Russian voices in the Obama administration, and he would be very happy to humiliate Russia in Syria.

During the negotiations in Geneva, Kerry called the Pentagon and the White House every few minutes. The negotiators could not proceed with even the smallest amendments without approval by Carter or Obama. And Carter tried to improve upon the preliminary agreement of Obama and Putin concluded in Hangzhou. Eventually the last word was that of the US president and (with great difficulty) the agreement has been signed, but the feeling is that the Pentagon is unhappy with it and won’t regret it if the agreement fails. Carter even made his displeasure known as soon as the deal was signed.

A Kerry-Carter agreement would be a good thing; perhaps the State Department and the DoD can also agree to a cessation of hostilities, the negotiators joked. The Pentagon is in cahoots with the rebels and tries to curry favour with them, said Lavrov. This remark was connected with the previous stage of the negotiations, with the nasty surprise served by Michael Ratney. The US Syrian envoy threw open the door to the diplomatic kitchen where the Americans and the Russians had cooked a secret deal. Our negotiations “aren’t based on trust”, said the polite envoy; he accused the Russians and their Damascus allies of acting “in bad faith”, and stressed that “The United States has not begun to coordinate with Russia in Syria, militarily or otherwise, whatever the Russians say”.

The Russians were properly annoyed. It is bad enough to see your confidential deliberations made known to every Tom, Dick and Abdul; it is worse to be accused of bad faith and to hear about lack of trust. The worst was the misrepresentation of the Russian positions. Ratney claimed Russians will enforce the no-fly zone for the government air force all over Syria; they will end the siege of Aleppo. Bashar Assad was stunned. The Riyadh-based opposition added insult to injury demanding “regime change” and “Assad must go”, while the US presented this particular opposition group as the legitimate representative of Syrian people.

Ratney demanded a “complete cessation of military operations”, withdrawal of government’s vehicles and heavy weapons, opening of Aleppo and then “stopping the regime planes from flying”. He wanted to keep Aleppo accessible not only for humanitarian aid, but for weapons as well. The Russians insisted on Syrian government checkposts on the road to Aleppo; Carter and Ratney were against it.

We can tell you that according to the signed agreement the Russian point of view prevailed. The traffic to Aleppo by Castello Road will be monitored and checked. The humanitarian loads will be checked at the point of loading into the trucks and sealed. More checkpoints on the road will check that the seals aren’t broken until the trucks unload their stuff at the UN warehouses in Aleppo. The idea is to prevent arms being delivered in the humanitarian convoys, as it happened many times with deliveries from Turkey.

The checks will be done by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, and later by a UN agency. The civilian, humanitarian and commercial traffic will be able to roll to and fro Castello Road freely, subject to checks. The rebels and the government forces will not snatch each other’s territories, will not improve their positions in the designated areas.

The Pentagon demanded a no-fly zone for the Syrian air force all over Syria, but by the agreement, the Syrian air force will stop flying battle missions only over designated areas. The Russians say this condition will not undermine their strength, as the Syrian military aviation is anyway a negligible force in comparison with the Russian Air Space Force, and the Russians will keep flying. They proved this point on September 14, as they bombed away a rebel force that took positions threatening Palmyra.

ORDER IT NOW

Any Syrians including armed rebel fighters can leave Aleppo by Castello Road freely to any destination whatsoever. This is an important point. If they want to fight, let them get out of the city. If they are tired of war and want to go home, let them. This was the Russian view as well, while Pentagon insisted to keep the armed and fighting groups in Aleppo. It is not clear what will happen with non-Syrian fighters; perhaps they will be able to get out after laying down their weapons.

After one week of no hostilities, the Americans and the Russians will set up the JIC, the Joint Implementation Center, where they will share information and jointly fly missions against ISIL and Nusra.

And in a short while, the political process will resume, under auspices of Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy in Syria. This is no less problematic than the military part.

The sides hold very different views: the US and its allies apparently prefer to carve Syria into a few statelets: a Sunni statelet, a radical Sunni statelet, a Kurdish statelet, and the rump-Syria containing the Alawite and Christian territories with the Russian bases. On the other hand, Damascus and Moscow prefer to keep Syria united.

Whatever is the outcome, fate of Aleppo, the second biggest city of Syria, is paramount. Some limited successes of the Syrian army and its Russian and Iranian allies in Aleppo (they cut supply routes to the rebel-held part of the city) already had caused quite a crisis in the Russian-American relations. The liberal interventionists felt fresh air in their sails and published touching pictures of suffering civilians calling for Western intervention “to save people of Aleppo”. The harsh word “ultimatum” hovered in the air, while the US administration tried to make a new record of brinkmanship. The Damascus government hoped to liberate Aleppo and consolidate the territories under its control, while the Americans wanted to keep at least half of Aleppo in the hands of the rebels to prevent Assad’s victory.

The turning point was the Obama and Putin discussion in Hangzhou. The meeting had been tense. The leaders exchanged a stare of death, much photoshopped. The Washington Post said Obama gave Russia an ultimatum, make or break proposal; Russians fumed, especially as the meeting has been preceded and followed by two rounds of additional “sanctions”, on September 1^st and September 6^th.

Despite these problems, the agreement was reached. What next? After the cessation of hostilities will be established, there should be negotiations between the Government and Opposition in Syria, but the US and its allies would like to keep the government of Bashar Assad out of negotiations. They actually prefer to limit negotiations to the different groups of rebels, as they say, President Bashar Assad had lost his legitimacy, he said. The Russians disagree. They say: the government representatives sit in the UN, there are ambassadors and embassies in Damascus. You may dislike Assad, but that does not make him illegitimate, said Lavrov to Kerry.

Now the arrangements of the cease fire are not proceeding smoothly. The UN personnel supposed to man checkposts should get visas; Damascus does not want to give visas to the British: they could be spies, they say. They agree to Indians, or other neutrals. The UN and the Red Crescent waited for assurances of their safety from the government and the rebels, and apparently none were forthcoming. The rebels are reluctant to move away from their positions, and the government troops were waiting for them to move. But the general level of violence has been greatly reduced.

The chances for success or failure are more or less even. Nusra keeps a low profile in the North, but they instigate other groups to refuse the cease fire. Pentagon is not keen to share information with the Russians. And the Russians can’t make peace alone. On the other side, the Syrians are very tired of war, and they are happy to have even a lull in violence. The next few days will show whether this agreement will lead to peace, or will it being used for the sides to consolidate and improve their positions for the next outbreak of fighting, as it happened in February.

ORDER IT NOW

Meanwhile the government forces have a new (or rather old) enemy: Israel. Israelis support Nusra forces in the vicinity of the armistice line between Syria and Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights. As Nusra fought against the government army, some shells flew over and fell on the Golan territory. The Israelis used it as a pretext to attack Syrian army. The Syrians said they downed two Israeli planes, a fighter and a drone, by their old reliable Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles. Israelis deny that with unusual vehemence. It seems that an Israeli drone has been downed, while a jet, even if it was hit, succeeded in returning home.

The Syrian government gave a lot of publicity to this encounter in order to stress that the rebels fight on Israeli side against their Arab brothers. But friendship between Nusra and the Jews is hardly a secret: pictures showing Israelis helping Nusra fighters appeared in the Arab and Israeli media. And this assistance is not limited to medical help: Israelis are determined to keep the Syrian army farther away from its borders.

This article was first published in The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

A lousy dancer blames the uneven floor, and Mme Clinton had proven to be an unexpectedly lousy dancer in the competition for the presidency against the blundering New York tycoon. We would expect her to win or lose graciously, as befits a former First Lady, but gosh, she is clumsy – and blames her lack of grace on poor Mr Putin.

He is sure hell of a guy; visitors to Berlin’s AltesMuseum queue up to witness his similarity to the marble bust of Caesar. This is so uncanny that Ms Clinton may be forgiven for claiming the almighty KGB switched the first-century original for a Russian-made fake. You know Putin served in Berlin in his early years.

Caesar was renowned for his multitasking; he could dictate seven letters at once, wrote Pliny. But even Caesar lookalike Putin can’t play the role prepared for him by Ms Clinton and other mainstream Western politicians, that is to bear blame for all their shortcomings.

Last week Frau Merkel had lost an election in her native state of Mecklenburg to a new nationalist party. An honest politician (if such a creature can be envisaged) would confess that by inviting hordes of refugees (however deserving) to Germany and by surrendering German sovereignty to the secretive TTIP rules, she had landed a double blow upon German workers, and they voted against her. Instead, she blamed her defeat on Mr Putin.

Ms Clinton decided to blame her spectacular lack of success on Putin, as well. If she were honest, she’d admit that she is unpopular, even among her own milieu. The scandals around the reptile—sorry Clinton—Foundation do not die but multiply daily, as it seems that the greedy couple charged per meeting and per government contract.

Did Putin ask her to rake millions of dollars from Haim Saban, the Zionist billionaire, or from Wal-Mart, the scrooge of American trading companies? Did Putin beseech her to use a private email server and to mix official and personal business? Did Putin force her to swear she will destroy American coal mines if and when elected? Did Putin convince her to open America’s gates to one and a half billion Muslims, as she said?

Did Putin falsify the Democratic primaries to bring Hillary Clinton her victory over Sanders? Did Putin write the fiery speeches of Sanders unmasking Clinton’s alliance with the “giant vampire squid” of Goldman Sachs and hundreds of thousands dollars they paid her for her “talks”?

Did Putin organise Clinton’s diary in such a way that even the partisan newspaper, the New York Times said she spends her pre-election time with the ultra-rich instead of speaking to her voters? She goes to the places where people pay $250,000 per person to meet her – by Putin’s advice?

Did Putin push her to call people who consider vote for Trump “racists and bigots”? Did he tell her that will scare them rather expectedly annoy them?

No, he’s a great guy, but such a feat is well above his abilities. Clinton should be afraid of the American people who do not want to take her lip, her greed and her chutzpah for granted. And apparently she is. That’s why she blames her own mistakes on Putin.

Clinton’s supporters, her tame intelligence officials and senators say they are worried that Russians will meddle in the election process and “sow public distrust”. Russians are not needed for this job. Their work – if that is what they want – is being done by Clinton and her supporters.

How can the public trust Clinton who, while being a Secretary of State, solicited Qatar for private donations, and then authorised shipment of American weapons to Qatar’s client terrorists? How can the public trust Sanders, who condemned the Clinton Foundation as a source of corruption, and now has endorsed Clinton while establishing his own foundation under the same rules he condemned?

The claims that Putin is likely to interfere with the results of the US elections are ostensibly based on some obscure hacking incidents in Arizona and Illinois. There is no tangible proof of anything, less of all of Russian involvement, but such a possibility is discussed. My bet is that the establishment wants to prepare Americans for voiding or overturning the election results in the likely case of Trump’s victory. If Trump wins, Clinton’s gang (including the incumbent) will scream “Putin did it!”, they will void the results and pass the buck to the Supreme Court where Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her colleagues will proclaim La Clinton the winner.

ORDER IT NOW

“Nobody ever meddled in the US elections, before Putin came” – this claim of Clinton and her supporters in the media and the intelligence community sounds as improbable as a harlot’s protestation of virginity. Putin has no tools or opportunities to meddle. Putin’s Russia has the GDP of Italy, Julian Assange correctly explained when he was asked why he does not attack Russia. Russia is just not in the same league as the US (or China) – though this thought is very painful for a Russian who remembers the greatness of the Soviet Union.

Russians do not meddle in the US elections, and Putin did his best stressing his non-preference: we’ll work with whoever will be elected by the American people, he said in the tense interview with Bloomberg’s Micklethwait. “We are ready to work with any president, but, of course to the extent that the future administration is ready. If someone says that they want to work with Russia, we’ll welcome it. And if someone wants to get rid of us, that will be a completely different approach.”

Putin really does not want to meddle and interfere in what he considers “internal affairs” of another country. He is too much of a gentleman. He famously did not interfere in the Ukrainian affairs in February 2014 when he could have the whole of Ukraine by supporting the overthrown president Yanukovich. He did not interfere in the Georgian affairs when his troops stood at the doorstep of Tbilisi in 2008. He is even less likely to interfere in the US elections.

It is the US that usually meddles in other states’ elections by promoting pro-American politicians, and often successfully. In Europe, from Sweden to Italy, in South Korea and Japan, in Israel and Saudi Arabia, – pro-American politicians lead ruling parties and opposition parties, as well. Only new far-right parties had remained relatively free and that is their key to success.

It is less well known, but the election (or selection) of Mikhail Gorbachev to the post of Communist Party leader in 1985 was achieved by successful US and British “meddling”. His main competitor Mr Grigory Romanov’s plane was delayed until Gorbachev had been enthroned, while Gorbachev’s visit to London was been presented as the sign of universal approval.

The US leaders meddled in the Russian elections in 2011, when VP Biden called upon Putin to remove himself from the race, the US Ambassador McFaul had met with the opposition and Hillary Clinton encouraged the rioters on Moscow streets.

It goes without saying that modern Russia is quite unable to meddle in the US internal affairs with any chance of success.

The claim that Russian hackers provided fodder to the Wikileaks has no basis: now we know that the damning DNC correspondence was leaked by a DNC staffer, the late Mr Seth Rich, who was subsequently assassinated by persons unknown. I would not believe in the story of state-employed Russian hackers for two reasons: Russians are sticklers for rules, and besides, they are forever watched by the NSA, as we learned from Mr Snowden’s revelations.

ORDER IT NOW

However, meddling is a normal and usual thing. Israel always “meddles” in the US elections; remember a few months ago the candidates competed about who would be the best at licking AIPAC’s boot (or whatever they are supposed to lick), and Hillary won, hands down. You can read the fascinating Unz story how the British agents successfully “meddled” in the US Presidential race of 1940 ensuring re-election of President Roosevelt and eventually pushing the unwilling US into the Second World War. This story could be supplemented by the Jewish-American meddling in the British politics in favour of the pro-war Mr Winston Churchill.

As for Clinton vs. Trump, in the beginning of the election campaign Kremlin had no preference indeed. Many Kremlin officials preferred Ms Clinton as a familiar face, while they viewed Mr Trump as a dark horse. The pro-Western camp within the Kremlin walls (yes, it exists and it is quite strong) tried to build bridges with Clinton campaign, using Ms Elizaveta Osetinskaya of RBC as their envoy in Washington.

However, the violently anti-Russian propaganda churned by Clinton’s campaign and by Hillary personally changed the mood in Moscow. Anti-Russian hysteria of such magnitude has not been seen even at the height of the Cold War, in the Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan era (notably Republican politicians). The campaign against Putin’s Russia mirrors the campaign against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and we remember that the newspaper columns were followed by columns of tanks.

Now the prominent US newspapers and sites publish aggressive anti-Russian philippics. Putin is the 21st century’s Hitler –says Newsweek. “President” Vladimir Putin of Russia should not be trusted . I put “President” in quotes as in 2012 he was not properly and freely elected and so does not deserve the respect that the term gives.” – fumes Forbes.

What would you do, if you were a Russian president? Mind you, Clinton people passed a message to Kremlin saying: this is just a PR campaign, take it easy. Still, Putin has all reasons in the world to be worried.

Some American strategists of neocon vintage – and some generals, too – believe they can destroy Russian missiles by a sudden nuclear first strike. They call it “pre-emptive”, though what is it supposed to pre-empt, is a riddle.

Russians must consider that the media campaign may prepare the Western populace for such a strike. President Obama is aware of this consideration, and that is why he proposed declaring a No First Use Nuclear Policy. However, his proposal has been assailed by the U.S. cabinet officials and allies, reported WSJ.

In the last month, the Russian military has experienced sudden high alerts, checks and inspections. Forces of the Southern Military District, as well as parts of the forces of the Western and Central Military Districts, the North Fleet, the High Command of the Aerospace Forces, the command of the Airborne Troops were set on full combat readiness.

A general feeling is that the world war is possible, if not imminent. President Putin has strong nerves, but no system is totally foolproof. It is possible that the present Clinton-led anti-Russian campaign is aimed at the US voter. But it is equally possible that these calming messages should facilitate a powerful nuclear strike at unprepared Russia.

Perhaps what we think is a replay of 1939 is a replay of 1941, when Germany suddenly attacked Russia, despite their non-aggression treaty. In 1941, the attack had been preceded by many calming and comforting messages from Berlin. A Russian leader must consider such a possibility, for such campaigns of hate can find dynamics of their own.

ORDER IT NOW

This article was first published in The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

The “crooked mile” from the Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes (There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile etc) is Fleet Street, which is well known to London journalists. So I was told when I joined the BBC at Bush House, at the very end of Fleet Street. Not only is the street itself crooked, but so are many of its occupants. Crookedness is a professional problem for the media.

However, in older times (let us drop a hint of nostalgia) a journalist had a choice. He could work in a newspaper supporting Tories or Labour or Liberals. Now there is no difference: all British newspapers including the Guardian hate Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. In the US, all the media hates Trump. There is simply no choice for a reader or a writer!

The only-one-opinion media is the worst thing you can find. Look at what it did to the Russians! I do not mean now, when they have the whole supermarket of ideas, but in 1991.

Exactly 25 years ago, in August 1991, I witnessed Russia’s Mother of All Colour Revolutions, as an Arab poet might call it. It lasted for three days. The Media Masters produced and broadcast a wonderful show of people rising against their tyrants, braving tanks and kicking down a statue or two of their oppressors. You’ve seen such shows broadcast by the same team from Kiev’s Maidan or Cairo’s Tahrir or indeed Baghdad. The results were equally dismal.

The revolution was so much hot air. The old regime collapsed like a house of cards; not a single shot was fired in its defence. There was a collusion between the old Soviet elites and the Masters of Discourse, between the KGB and CNN.

An Emergency Committee established by the last defenders of the regime, acted out a bad old wolf; they called upon the army to bring tanks into Moscow, but did not dare to arrest Yeltsin. The tanks did not move against the rebels and served as a props in this great show.

Moscow folk poured out in their thousands to greet Yeltsin, braving the perfectly innocuous tanks and the tame KGB. There was practically no resistance: Communist Party members in their millions accepted capitalism; the once-mighty KGB fell on its back like a puppy eager to be petted; the army obeyed the new rulers.

There were no victims (except for three boys who got under a reversing armoured vehicle and were given the title of Great Heroes of the Revolution and a state funeral).

The show of liberation and glory has been just a show; the reality was grim. This is always the case with those immensely satisfying productions: they look good, but there is a hell to pay for. It was nice to see jubilant crowds overturn the statue of Felix Dzierżyński in Moscow (just like Saddam Hussein’s in Baghdad), but the modest, safe, productive life of Russians was over. The vast wealth of the Soviets, accumulated by the intensive work of generations, has been divided and shared by a few (mainly Jewish) oligarchs. The rich became obscenely rich, while the middle class perished.

Russian men’s life expectancy dropped down to 58; fifteen million men and women died of this rapid change for the worse. The population’s steady growth has been reversed into fast decline. There were 150 million Russians before the ’91 revolution, the number dropped to 142 and only now has reached 146 million, still much less than in the Soviet days. If we deduct immigrants (and Russia has the world’s 2nd largest number of immigrants, about 12 million, after the US), we’d get even worse figures. Industry has been destroyed. Science, arts, cinema, theatre, media were ruined – unless these were of immediate use for the oligarchs.

Only ten years later, with ascent of Putin, Russia began its long climb back. Just recently she managed to regain her pre-1991 level.

Why did well educated, literate Russians allow themselves to be tricked in such a way? Soviet society was highly centralised, there were few checks and balances, no opposition, no free political media. Mikhail Gorbachev had held the supreme powers of a Tsar. Such a structure is highly susceptible to betrayal or even to a gross miscalculation. As Gorbachev decided to submit to the West, he passed control over the media and cadres to a fully paid and owned Western spy Mr Alexander N Yakovlev. In a few years, the Soviet media made a full turn around, and now it beamed a simple, single message: Communism was a mistake, or worse: a crime, Americans are our friends; accept their guidance; and you will live like the Swiss (?!) do.

The Russians were very naïve. They did not trust their old media, but they yet had no immunity against the new one. Their new media was as totalitarian as the old one, just its bias has been changed. The Russians discovered that their Pravda lied to them, and they made the wrong conclusion that the New York Times would tell them truth.

They did not know that nursery rhyme about a crooked man who walked a crooked mile and lived in a crooked house is a good description of mass media. They accepted the changes that pauperised them. Thus I learned that media can convince people to act against their own interests.

A similar process is now going on, 25 years later, in the US. The totalitarian, united mainstream mass media, concentrated in a few (mainly Jewish) hands may yet lead the Americans to perdition. Ostensibly, Americans, sturdy individualists as they are, should understand that they are likely to lose their country. That the Coalition of Minorities will empower the Iron Heel of bankers, military and spooks. The experience of 1991 taught me that it is as difficult to fight the Masters of Discourse as it was for the children of Hameln to disregard their Piper. Still, this time the Crooked Men may yet lose just because they discarded the cloak of impartiality.

Michael Goodwin wrote: “The shameful display of naked partisanship by the elite media is unlike anything seen in modern America. The largest broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and ABC — and major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post have jettisoned all pretence of fair play. Their fierce determination to keep Trump out of the Oval Office has no precedent. Indeed, no foreign enemy, no terror group, no native criminal gang suffers the daily beating that Trump does. The mad mullahs of Iran, who call America the Great Satan and vow to wipe Israel off the map, are treated gently by comparison.”

ORDER IT NOW

“The U.S. media is essentially 100 per cent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president.” – said Glenn Greenwald, and he noted that it will not help them. People who vote for Trump will not care about media spin, like the people who voted for Brexit did not care about arrogant British elites and their media spin masters. They prophesied but their prophecies failed.

Indeed, a false prophesy is the oldest trick in the book. Whenever they say that Trump is doomed to lose, that their polls and their analysis determine his failure is unavoidable, remember: they lie. Sputnik News Agency, one of a very few outlets still independent from the Spin Masters United, revealed: Donald Trump has made a political comeback for the ages, but the media has gone silent about a major new poll that shows that Trump now holds a two point lead over Clinton, nationally.

Not that it matters too much. The polls are just a device to convince you to support their candidate. Nobody knows the result unless one intends to rig the elections. And this is a real danger that should be met, not discounted.

Michael Moore added another ploy saying that Trump does not want to win. Some people in the Counterpunch, including Jeff St Clair, picked it up. What they actually mean is that they would say different things or they would use another strategy. For instance, Trump did not use the $400 million transfer to Iran as a peg to attack the administration. Doesn’t it mean he does not want to win?

Not at all: this was a wise and principled decision not to rock the nuclear agreement with Iran. This agreement is a good deal, and it is better to keep in place. Perhaps Trump paid attention to Ron Unz’s story of American POWs who were left to die in Vietnam because the US administration preferred to renege on the promised payment to Hanoi. The US owed more than $400 million to Teheran; this transfer had to be done, and a responsible statesman would avoid attacking it even if it was a good opportunity to goad Obama.

It seems that Trump is doing well, and if his nerves wouldn’t fail him and his supporters he’ll make the historic change of regaining America for Americans. And letting other countries to live their own way – something the Masters of Discourse can’t tolerate.

This does not mean all Trump’s strategies are perfect. His harping on the Muslim theme appears to be useless. Mind you, I am always against mass immigration, Muslim, Jewish or Buddhist, and if the US – and other countries – will stop this modern slavery trade, I’d say Amen. But the US has no Muslim problem, and a very few Muslims at all. Obama regime did not allow Iraqi or Syrian refugees to come to its shores in substantial quantities. Ten thousand a year: why, that’s what Greece gets in a day!

Perhaps Trump hoped the Jewish supporters will flock to him, as American Jews embrace and finance every bloody-minded European anti-Muslim nationalist of Netherlands, Denmark or England. But this scheme misfired. Anti-Muslim Jews are plentiful in the US, but they cold-shouldered Trump, as Kevin MacDonald established. They want to spread distrust and hatred between the natives and the Muslims of Europe, but in the US? This is too close to home. Once your natives are made aware of a difference between a Muslim and a Christian, they can discover a difference between a Christian and a Jew. So, if Trump thought he will get Jewish support in exchange for anti-Muslim policies, he miscalculated.

While Trump’s anti-Muslim campaign bore no fruits, he became the standard-bearer for freedom of mind versus Masters of Discourse. “I’m not running against Crooked Hillary,” he told a crowd. “I’m running against the Crooked Media.” And this is the most important message of the campaign.

Now there are better chances to defeat the Crooked Men than ever before, as the MSM loses its position versus social networks and free internet. The social networks are also biased and manipulated; still, they are more free and less centralised. However, the MSM should be broken, democratised and de-monopolised. The US managed to break up the mighty Standard Oil in 1911; it should be possible to break media into small independent companies in 2017. Otherwise, we shall always be fed with propaganda.

ORDER IT NOW

The Masters of Discourse love to create a media event and spin it until it occupies the whole of the world agenda. Do you remember a poor little Syrian kid who was found drowned on the Mediterranean shore? This very sad, very tragic, but hardly exceptional event has been spinned and beamed until the German chancellor proclaimed she will accept all Syrian refugees. This is exactly what the spin masters wanted: to overflow Europe with refugees, to create there another Coalition of Minorities, to overburden the welfare state and to cause collapse of Europe as an independent entity.

Now they choose another baby picture in Aleppo, Syria as a trigger for military intervention. This death is a tragic event, as deaths of another hundred thousand of Syrian children is. If Hillary Clinton would not ship mountains of weapons to the islamist extremists in Syria, these children would be alive. Would an armed intervention by the West return them to life? No, the best way out is pacification of Aleppo and of the whole Syria. The armed rebels may leave Aleppo safely, while the civilians will remain in their homes, at peace.

I do not believe these tragic pictures are being shown in good faith. So many Palestinian children were killed by Israelis, but their pictures never stopped the endless flow of American military aid to Israel. Palestinians tried to publish photos, and made zero impact. They were condemned for publishing “war porno”. So these dog-whistle words and pictures are supposed to act only when the spin masters use them. It is manipulation, not compassion.

If we want peace and prosperity, justice and mercy, we should break the spell of the crooked media upon people. The crooked should be made straight, in words of the Bible. This is the most important message of these times, and the late August is a good time to act upon it.

This article was first published in The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

The DNC 2016 reminded me The Triumph of the Will, the paradigmatic film of Leni Riefenstahl. The fiery oration of “four-star general of the Marine Corps” General (retired) Allen, ready to kick ass of the Russkies, flag-waving, hysterical rhythmical shouts Uoo-eS-Ay, runaway aggressiveness, military pomp and above all exceptionalism of “America is great because America is good”; the United States as an “indispensable, transformational power in the world,” the poisonous mix of Uber Alles and Manifest Destiny fits like a glove to the matrix established at the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg, Germany.

There similarity ends: the Demo version is all for the bankers and against the workers, while the Nazis called themselves “the workers party” and spoke against financial capital. The Nazis said they were for the family and the majority, the Dems say they do not care for workers’ votes, as they have enough votes from feminists and queers.

And the Jews are now for, rather than against. The Jewish news agency JTA described General (ret) Allen fire-breathing delivery as “the Jewish moment at DNC … to further reassure the security hawks in the Jewish community” as he promised that “our armed forces will be stronger”. Bill Clinton came with a button saying Hillary in Hebrew, mobilising the Jewish community for Clinton and war. The devoted Zionist Rupert Murdoch published in his New York Post naked pics of Mrs Trump.

An American Israeli writer Bradley Burston wrote in the Haaretz newspaper a piece called This is the war, and Trump is the enemy. We knew that US elections are not for vegetarians. Mark Twain’s witty Running for Governor is an evidence they were and are a no-rules-and-no-prisoners-taken fight. Still, such pieces as that of Burston will easily turn the elections into a shooting, not shouting match.

If your only objection to Nazis was that they were beastly to Jews, you’ll have no objection to American militarism.

The presidential candidates announced their choice of the enemy. Carl Schmitt, a great political philosopher of the last century, said the choice of an enemy is the most important political choice, more important than the choice of a friend: this choice was sealed at the DNC. While the Enemy according to Trump is unemployment, outsourcing, immigration, wars abroad, neocons and free-wheeling allies, the Clintonites chose, or rather confirmed, the Russians as the Enemy.

In words of Jeffrey Sachs, “Hillary is the candidate of Wall Street. Even more dangerous, though, is that she is the candidate of the military-industrial complex supporting every war demanded by the US deep security state run by the military and the CIA.” And now she and her party set their sights on Russia.

The Russians have no say in this decision: they were formally appointed to the high post of The Enemy of the Empire, and this appointment requires no agreement of the victim.

Why were the Russians chosen? Who else fits the bill? The US war machine needs an enemy, and the world is not that large. Europe is subdued and occupied. China is too big, India is too soft, the Arabs are too small. Japan was fitted for an enemy in early Nineties, but surrendered. Putin perfectly understood the US war machine’s search for an enemy when he proposed to Americans at the UN they fight the Islamic State together with Russia. This nefarious Islamic State remains a possibility that will have to do, meanwhile, but for a greater and more serious enemy, able to attract nice budgets, Russia suits best.

Russia has an additional charm: it is a successor state to the USSR, that was the designated enemy for the West for a long time, until 1991. Thus it is a traditional enemy. Hillary as a Goldwater Girl supported the most warlike Russia-hating candidate, and apparently she still remembers the thrill. It is true that Russia’s enemy status had been explained by the satanic nature of godless communism, and this explanation is as dead as a dodo, but explanations are not reasons, they are secondary rhetorical devices. The reason is the need for an enemy so the war budget will grow nicely and keep generals and weapon manufacturers in the lifestyle they are accustomed to.

ORDER IT NOW

Liberal-interventionists are wonderfully good at explaining away why fighting an enemy chosen by the war machine is necessary and good for mankind. They are too good at it: they succeed in demonizing the enemy to such an extent that peace become impossible. For them, every adversary who did not duck fast enough is a new Hitler. Now it is Russia and Putin.

Russians often wonder what can be done to avoid American wrath. The answer is nothing. This is not Crimea, as before Crimea there were other explanations, notably the lack of gay adoration, a refusal to let Russian children be exported abroad for same sex “families”. Before that, there was Putin the dictator. Even earlier, there was corruption, Russian mafia and unfair ownership of abundant resources that should belong to mankind meaning to the US corporations, as per Madeleine Albright. It makes no sense to fight explanations, for the Russians can’t change the reason: the real need of the US war machine is to have an enemy.

Americans should decide whether they want to keep fighting new Hitlers and enrich generals, bankers and mass-media owners. If they want this, Clinton will do nicely. Listening to these guys brings America to war with fearsome regularity. But if they do not, they have a choice.

Donald Trump is not a “lesser evil” – he is a fearless man who intends to change the US paradigm from war to peaceful tending of its own garden. I am amazed by Trump’s fortitude in the affair of the dead Muslim officer and his family. The story is clear: this man died for the US war machine in a war of aggression that killed (and continues to kill) millions of Muslims and Christians in the Middle East. He died, in effect if not in intention, to bring the Islamic State to power. His father disgustingly used his son’s death to promote his son’s ultimate killer. Trump said something quite soft along these lines, and he was assaulted by his enemies in the Party and outside. I would cringe and collapse in face of such attack, but Trump did not give in an inch.

Notably, the most warlike Republican Senator John McCain condemned Trump for speaking against the fallen soldier and his family. This is the same McCain who betrayed his fellow soldiers in the captivity of Vietnam. Ron Unz convincingly proved that McCain was the man whose mendacious testimony doomed the POW and MIA American soldiers to remain forever and die in the foreign land. This horrible crime notwithstanding, he became a Senator and a spokesman for the war machine. He blessed the Islamic State, he arranged a photo-op with the head-chopping monsters in Syria and Iraq, he called for delivery of weapons to the Ukraine. One of the first deeply satisfying acts by Donald Trump was his refusal to endorse the old criminal for re-election due this month. Hopefully good people of Arizona will send him to hell where he belongs.

An enemy can be used in many ways. Clinton used Russia as a means of changing the subject. While Wikileaks published the hacked DNC correspondence showing that followers of Clinton committed massive fraud by discounting millions of votes for Sanders, and her position trembled, they accused the Russians of the hack, Wikileaks of being the Russian tool and Trump of being Putin’s stooge.

Our colleague in Counterpunch was astonished by “the howls of indignation at Russian hacking of U.S. citizens’ communications. Have whistle-blowers not made it known to us that the NSA maintains records on the phone calls and internet activity of virtually everybody, everywhere? That they routinely monitor the communications of Angela Merkel, the pope, the UN Secretary General etc. without any sense of shame?” We know from Snowden files, that the US surveillance of Russian communications is near total. The State Department is proud of its interfering in elections in other states, including Russia.

So even if true, such a hack would be a case of what goes around comes around. I would welcome the Kremlin helping those forces in the United States that stand for peace with Russia and for democracy in America. But it is not the case. The Russians aren’t involved in the DNC hack. The Intercept said that NSA would know that, and the NSA did not confirm the hack.

ORDER IT NOW

So-called “pointers” of Russian involvement could be easily planted or manufactured. There are many Russian programmers outside Russia, in Israel and the US. “If hackers wanted to make it seem as if they were coming from Russia, they would put strings of Russian in their code and then compromise a machine somewhere in Russia and use it to launch the attack”, said USA Today, definitely not a Russian fan. I closely read all the reports: they are full of weasel words “likely”, “one can’t exclude”, “it stands to reason”. The headlines are bold and decisive: “The Russians did it”, but small script is far from conclusive.

Julian Assange said: “There is no proof of [Russian involvement] whatsoever. We have not disclosed our source, and of course, this is a diversion that’s being pushed by the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s a meta-story. The real story is what these emails contain and they show collusion. The very head of the Democratic party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is now being forced to resign.”

There is no doubt that the publication of emails has been beneficial for the public. Julian Assange did a great thing disclosing the plot against the American people when he published the DNC emails. A long time ago, when I first met him, he told me: we shall uncover the plots of the elite against the people—and he was true to his promise.

Russians are nowhere in this story. I’d hail their participation, if they would unmask the DNC fraud, but they try to keep at arm’s length from Western dissidents, such as Assange and Snowden.

If Julian Assange were as close to Russians as they insinuate, he would be now in Moscow, not in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Actually the Russians were quite suspicious of Wikileaks, and for a long time they suspected it was a covert operation of the US secret services. In the same time others suspected it was a Mossad operation partly because Israel Shamir was there, and partly because no dirt on Israel was published. So Wikileaks was at once attacked as a Russian, American and Israeli spy outlet, and this is a perfect proof that it was none of those.

The Russians did not want to take Snowden, as well, and Snowden did not want to come to Russia. He was on a connecting transit flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, where he was supposed just to change planes and continue to Venezuela via Havana. It did not work out, as his US passport was cancelled by Obama. Snowden spent over a month in very uncomfortable conditions in Moscow’s Sheremetevo Airport, until the Russians agreed to give him temporary asylum.

In short, Russians were and are unwilling enemies. They prefer to be friends, or at least partners with the US and European states. They do not want to quarrel, let alone fight a war. Now they are busy organising their life. They had spent a fortune doing a complete facelift of Moscow, turning this rather grim and rundown city into shining and comfortable European megalopolis with bicycle paths, new trees planted in tens of thousands, houses painted and roads brought to mint condition.

They seriously fight corruption: provincial governors, ministers, generals on the take have found their new home in Lefortovo Prison. Greedy personal friends of Putin like the head of Russian Customs lost their jobs. Godfathers of mafia families go to jail, too, beginning with the biggest of them. It appears that Putin decided to undertake the fifth labour of Hercules: he is cleaning the Augean stables of Russia, undoing the criminal webs formed in the days of President Yeltsin.

For this reason I believe that Donald Trump has a chance to change the ways of the world. He can stop the war machine, and put the money to work for the benefit of the ordinary Americans. Instead of spending a cool trillion on new nuclear weapons he can repair the infrastructure, bring industries back home and make the US great again. He will be able to do it because the person Clinton wants to have as the enemy, namely Vladimir Putin prefers friendship and partnership.

This article was first published in The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net

The Jews can be a formidable enemy: devoid of scruples, they hunt in packs. Like aunts in P G Wodehouse’ fiction, they do not stoop to fair play: they go for the jugular. The hunt for disobedient leaders is their favourite national sport; and woe to a politician who crosses their path. They occupy commanding heights in the US media and finance and they can undermine politicians susceptible to pressure.

Luckily, they can be defeated. Powerful and cunning, Jews are not demonic and possess no magical superhuman powers. They are a force among many forces. Time and again they reached the pinnacle of power and were dislodged. This may happen to them in the US, as well.

It will not be the end of the world, nor the end of history, neither the end of the Jews. Only the Jewish dream to end history will end, at least for a while, while the world will go on. For their attitude is not all bad; they are needed; just their dominance became too total. For America and mankind to thrive, it must be rolled back, not eliminated.

The best politicians are those who succeed in repulsing a concerted Jewish action without giving an inch AND without antagonising the Jews too much. FDR and JFK, even Richard Nixon did it, so can Donald Trump.

The Donald succeeded in doing just that in the affair of the six-pointed star. He was attacked; ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt urged Trump to apologize. “He should just admit the offense and apologize,” Greenblatt said in an interview on “CNN Tonight”. “I think this would satisfy all of the public – on the right and the left, Democrats and Republicans.”

Trump refused to apologise. He insisted that the star is just a star. He even took his staff to task for removing the offending image. He did not restore it, true, but he volubly scolded an easy-to-bend assistant. This ability to withstand pressure is the most encouraging feature of Mr Trump.

Just compare him with Jeremy Corbyn who took the bait and began to apologise, expel his supporters and demonstrate that he is unable to withstand Jewish pressure. It did not help him at all, the attacks on him grew exponentially.

Trump did not apologise, for it would never satisfy the Jewish appetite for apologies. They always fish for an apology, and an apology always makes them ask for more, and more. The ADL, the notorious organisation that spied on activists, ran its own spies and provocateurs, is the leading tool in this endless search for apology. Refuse apology, otherwise you invite more pressure for more apologies.

There is a long list of things Jews would like him to apologise for: (1) Trump tried to avoid denouncing David Duke for as long as he could; (2) he has said nothing about the racists and anti-Semites; (3) he refused to criticize the anti-Semitic trolls who hounded journalist Julia Ioffe after her magazine portrait that Trump’s wife Melania did not like and (4) he has said nothing about the vicious anti-Semitic social media bombardment of any Jewish journalist who happens to write a bad word about him; (5) he has refused to let go of the slogan “America First” even though he must surely realize by now that it carries a specific anti-Semitic historical connotation; (6) he repeatedly lauds tyrants and dictators that are problematic for Jews, including Benito Mussolini and Saddam Hussein; (7) and he himself has been known to release the occasional anti-Semitic remark, including his assertion to the Republican Jewish Coalition, that Jews won’t support him because they can’t control him because they can’t buy him with money.

This list of Trump’s failings with Jews (by an American Jew called Chemi Shalev) is intentionally humiliating in precluding any chance for rapprochement between the Jews and Trump.

Trump has no chance with Jews anyway, not for a lack of trying. Surely he is not an “antisemite” (a silly word of no meaning, just like “fascist”). Stephen Sniegoski convincingly proves that Trump is rather a philo- than anti-Semite. Trump’s kids married to Jews, his son-in-law is not only a rich Jew but (1) a son of a convicted Jewish swindler, (2) synagogue goer and (3) a newspaper owner, (4) publishing anti-Trump smear jobs, meaning he is a proper pukka Jew. Trump is as pro-Israel as they make them. Actually, my friends who are Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank hope and pray for his victory. Sniegoski carefully debunks all other accusations against Trump as an enemy of Jews, and he does it compellingly.

Trump has no chance with the Jews, because he wants to change the order of things while the Jews are perfectly satisfied with the way things are. Perhaps you do not like that the US is flooded with immigrants, that so many Americans became poor, that students are indebted forever, that industries went abroad, that bankers are awash with money while the workers are impoverished. But for Jews, this is fine. This is exactly what they want, and this is what they have.

ORDER IT NOW

A prominent American Jew, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie explained that much in an article in the Haaretz newspaper: Trump’s policies are beside the point. He would like to change things, he will fight the supremacy of the Supreme Court with its inbuilt Jewish majority, and Jews are for things being the way they are, perhaps even more so.

Indeed every possible step of President Trump will run into the Supreme Court. This is a body where an unelected (Clinton-appointed) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg already declared she will fight him tooth and claw. That is the body that gave you gay marriages, unlimited immigration and other liberal joys. Sooner or later Trump will have to borrow a page from President Erdogan’s book and deal with them, if he is to achieve anything: unless, surely, they will refrain from action.

The Jews will give 90 per cent of their vote to Hillary Clinton, predicts Yoffie. This is to be expected: the brave Jewish anti-Zionist Jeff Blankfort wrote of the “actual owners of the Democratic Party, the American Jewish Establishment”. Yes, Jews vote for Democrats. They gave 80 per cent of their vote to Barack Obama. By comparison, the old masters of the US, WASPs, gave Obama just 34 per cent of their vote. If they were still at the helm, there would be no President Obama, no destruction of Syria and Libya, there would be fewer immigrants and the life of an average American would be better. Oh, perhaps there would not be an order allowing boys to pee in girls’ bathrooms if they feel girlish. Big loss.

The problem is that the Jews have much more than just their votes at their disposal. One of their mighty tools is the Google, their joint venture with the CIA. This works overtime and offers twenty million hits for “Trump Hitler”, seven times more than the Bing search engine. Google’s search function delivers results related to Donald Trump when users search for Adolf Hitler. The search “When was Hitler born?” generated not only the expected information on Hitler, but also a Donald Trump image and link. Jewish-owned media produces much anti-Trump trash.

But the people do not believe them anymore. Even such a pleasant guy as Bernie Sanders in the end gave up the fight and endorsed Crooked Hillary. Now people know the Jews are a force for status quo, and they want to change it.

For this purpose, a simple rhetorical device called Identity Politics should be dismantled. It is an enemy device made by a Gramsci blueprint in order to delegitimise the working class.

Identity politics is an extension of Jewish tactics, or perhaps Jewish tactics is a particularly loathsome form of Identity politics. A Jewish bankster defends himself by accusing his adversaries of antisemitism. This is so simple and useful, that many other groups copycatted the trick. The protected groups form a coalition under the Dem Party umbrella, while the Dem Party is doing the will of the Jewish establishment, as we noted above.

Identity politics have been enforced as the ultimate truth in the US. The protected groups are attacked for what they are, according to this concept, while unprotected suffer for what they do. This distinction is pure sophism: were the Japanese in Hiroshima incinerated for what they are (Japanese) or what they did (pretty much nothing)? If we disagree with Jewish politics, is that because of what they are or what they do?

Identity politics forbid us to generalise regarding the protected groups. You can’t say anything less than complimentary about Jews, for they are all so different. Well, 90% vote for the status quo is not a sign of variety. You can’t say anything at all about gender groups for they are what they are, like Lord Almighty. Indeed “white”, “male” and “Christian” are the only identities you may freely and gratuitously abuse in the US.

Consider the Catholic Church in the US. The Jews demanded an apology from the Church, and they got it. Afterwards, they continued their fight against the church unabated. In a recent attack on the VP candidate Mike Pence, the Jews made a lot of mileage from his attempt to allow Christians to refuse service to same-sex couples. They compared this attempt with Ku Klux Klan of old and with discrimination of Jim Crow days, when they had signs “Don’t let the sun go down on you here” and “Whites Only After Dark.” Everything goes to smear the church – and the PC rules do not defend it, like they do not defend the white workers of Detroit.

ORDER IT NOW

The Jews hate the church like the Turkish generals hate the mosque. For this reason they are so upset with Trump’s idea of limiting non-Christian immigration. It is not that they like Muslims: surely they do not, but they like to use Muslims to fight the Church.

Instead of saying “We Jews do not like to see Christian signs for Christmas” they prefer to say “Muslims do not like…” This is not even true: Muslims do celebrate Christmas, as anyone can witness in Bethlehem; but it sounds better.

Here is anecdotal evidence. I receive daily email with the Boston Globe headlines and suggested articles. Invariably their “Recommended for you” section begins with an anti-Church article published 14 (fourteen) years ago.

Recommended for you

JAN. 6, 2002 | PART 1 OF 2

Church allowed abuse by priest for years

I wonder why they think it is necessary for me to read an old antiquated anti-Christian abuse? Would they ever suggest I re-read a story of Bernie Madoff? Or a story of a Jewish terror attack on King David Hotel with its hundred victims? I do not think so.

It is not the first time ever that the Jews have acted in concert and against majority wishes. A great politician should know how to deal with them. Such a politician was Vladimir Lenin. In 1913, when his party struggled with the consolidated Jewish group called the Bund, he wrote “Dear comrades, if we shall keep mum today, tomorrow the Jewish Marxists will ride on our backs”. This advice is as relevant today as ever.

This article was first published in The Unz Review.

Israel Shamir can be reached at adam@israelshamir.net