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Keystone XL and America’s Psychopathic Government
Eric Zuesse
Keystone XL Pipeline is a long-controversial proposed Canadian pipeline project through the U.S. north to south, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, to trans-ship the world’s most global-warming filthiest oil, from Canada’s tar-sands, to be burnt and used in Europe.
On March 24th, U.S. President Trump informed the to-be-owner of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, that he gives them the go-ahead to build it, after U.S. President Barack Obama had, near the end of his Presidency, prohibited it. Obama had wanted it built (and had pressured the EU to accept the oil that would be shipped to them from the proposed Pipeline’s southern terminus in Galveston, to sell this Canadian oil in Europe), but the EU said no; they wouldn’t relax their anti-global-warming standards to accept the world’s dirtiest oil, and this refusal by them eased Obama’s decision to give Ms. Clinton’s campaign the boost it needed by his simply nixing the project altogether. He nixed it in order to show Democratic voters that the Democratic Party cares about the environment, so as not to depress the electoral turnout for Hillary Clinton (who was actually a big supporter of fossil-fuels) on Election Day November 8th. But not only did the EU say no; the voters said no, to Clinton, too. So, this was a double disappointment to Obama; he had turned the Pipeline down for nothing — nothing that he had wanted, anyway, because global warming never seriously mattered to him (and therefore what he was doing about it in secret was supportive of the gas-and-oil industries).
Irreconcilable East/West Differences
Stephen Lendman
Russia and America are geopolitical opposites. Irreconcilable differences separate them.
Russia supports diplomatic conflict resolution, stability, security and multi-world polarity. America wages endless wars, seeking dominion over planet earth, its resources and populations.
Good faith isn’t a US tradition. Whether Republicans or Democrats are in charge, negotiating with America diplomatically achieves nothing.
Agreements reached are consistently breached. Washington seeks dominance, not cooperative relations. Ahead of his arrival in Moscow, Secretary of State Tillerson said Assad’s tenure as Syria’s leader is “coming to an end…(S)teps are underway” to remove him, without further elaboration.
Trump Administration Preparing Options to Confront North Korea
Stephen Lendman
Instead of engaging North Korea responsibly, ending decades of hostility, Trump intends confrontation - how yet to unfold.
The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier strike group was ordered to position itself off North Korea’s coast, a show of force, a hostile act.
A spokesman for Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said America’s action “goes to prove (its) reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase.”
Its military “is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US. We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs in order to defend ourselves by powerful force of arms.”
Selling Escalated War on Syria
Stephen Lendman
Selling war requires inventing enemies, fear-mongering, substituting fake news for truth-telling, manipulating public opinion, and manufacturing consent.
Media scoundrels play along, feeding the public a steady diet of managed news misinformation, suppressing full and accurate reporting - featuring state-sponsored press agent journalism instead of the real thing, most people none the wiser.
Since GHW Bush’s 1991 Gulf War, America raped and destroyed Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
It colluded with Kiev’s war on Donbass, partnered in three Israeli wars on Gaza, and toppled governments in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Ukraine, Egypt and Brazil, along with other coup attempts.
Advertisers Want Media that Trump Watches & Reads
Eric Zuesse
On April 5th, Laura Nichols at Morning Consult bannered “Advertisers, Consumers Take Notice of Trump’s Unusual Media Diet”, and reported that:
Advertisers are scrambling to adjust how they reach the White House, … faced with a president who prefers Twitter and Fox News to a more wide-ranging media diet. Bill Pierce, an executive at public relations firm APCO Worldwide, explained that in the past, figuring out how to target the president would be underway before a new administration took office. This time around, some marketers are still looking for answers because they were anticipating a Hillary Clinton win. “[The outcome of the election] was a surprise to a lot of people. Everybody kind of made their plans based on a Clinton presidency, and this has meant a lot of questions, a lot of curiosity about how to talk to him, who to talk to, and what’s important,” Pierce said.
Advertisers aren’t only aiming to attract the attention of the American public to their brands; nowadays they also are aiming to attract the attention of the American President. Selling to a consumer will mean only the profits on the sales to that particular individual, but selling to the nation’s leader could mean far more than just that: perhaps federal contracts, or, ultimately, even special consideration in the event that a regulatory agency of the federal government might be considering whether or not to bring an enforcement action — and there are also many other ways in which a corporation’s drawing favorable attention to itself could possibly more than justify the choice of an advertising medium that reaches the U.S. President, instead of one that doesn’t.
Syria Again Falsely Accused of Chemical Weapons Use
Stephen Lendman
Throughout over six years of conflict, Syria was accused of using chemical weapons (CWs) numerous times - no evidence presented proving it. None exists.
US-supported terrorists conducted numerous CW attacks. These elements, Washington or its coalition partners were likely responsible for Tuesday’s Khan Sheikhoun incident - killing scores, injuring many more, large-scale enough to generate anti-Assad furor.
As expected, Western media, in unison, on cue, automatically blamed him for what happened - what’s most important never asked after these type incidents.
Cui bono? What strategic benefit could Assad achieve by killing his own people - with chemical or other weapons? None, of course.
Washington, its rogue allies and terrorist foot soldiers have plenty to gain by staging these incidents, blaming Assad with plenty of scoundrel media help.
Is North Korea Trump’s Next Target?
Stephen Lendman
Since US war on North Korea ended with an uneasy 1953 armistice, Washington used the country for fear-mongering, rather than launching more aggression to topple its government.
Does Trump intend changing longstanding policy - falsely calling Pyongyang a threat to US national security?
It’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs are for defense, not offense, justifiably fearing US war, hoping its powerful weapons will deter it.
Truman’s aggression turned much of the country to rubble, killing millions, mostly civilians. Pyongyang and Beijing want no repeat. Their leaders and top officials are pragmatic, not reckless belligerents.
Post-WW II, neither country attacked another - unlike America, waging endless wars of choice, aggressive ones. It’s just a matter of time before a US administration uses nuclear weapons - perhaps against Russia, China, North Korea or all three nations.
WaPo Urges Aggression and Regime Change in Syria
Stephen Lendman
The neocon Washington Post is a virtual CIA house organ. Its reporting and opinions reflect Langley’s diabolical agenda.
Extremist Robert Kagan co-founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - now called the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI), its sinister agenda unchanged, promoting endless wars of aggression for unchallenged US global dominance.
In a WaPo opinion piece, he called for more aggression on Syria as part of US “military strategy to rebalance the situation in (the country) in America’s favor.”
He urged establishing a no-fly zone, grounding Syria’s air force, arming anti-government terrorists more than already, and ousting Assad - a virtual declaration of war on Russia if these policies are instituted.
Media Reaction to St. Petersburg Blast
Stephen Lendman
Anything related to Russia is treated differently from similar events in the West.
Reaction to Monday’s St. Petersburg blast was far less compassionate than for similar incidents in Western cities - dominating feature news coverage for days.
A day after Monday’s St. Petersburg blast, it was yesterday’s news in America, not today’s.
No Tuesday front page NYT coverage. The Washington Post seemed more concerned about a student “d(ying) after a pancake-eating contest” than likely terrorist-caused deaths and injuries in St. Petersburg.
Trump Abandons His Base, Goes toward Nuclear War
Eric Zuesse
The 48,000+ reader-comments thus far at Stephen Bannon’s Breitbart News, to their announcement on April 6th that Trump had invaded Russia’s ally Syria with missiles, are overwhelmingly along the lines of “This isn’t what I voted for.”
The tweet by the convert to Orthodox Judaism, Ivanka Trump, when she had learned that her father was bombing Syria, was “Proud of my father for refusing to accept these horrendous crimes against humanity.” She was referring to the sarin gas attack that the U.S. government says that it can prove had been perpetrated by Syria’s government, and that the Syrian government says was set up by Al Qaeda so as to appear to have been planned and carried out by the Syrian government in order to draw the U.S. into invading Syria and killing Assad (in the way it killed Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi).
Trump has now been praised by Paul Wolfowitz and virtually all of the many other neoconservatives who had endorsed Hillary Clinton for President and who had supported George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq — including most members of the current U.S. Congress. This is a 180-degree turnabout by Trump, which occurs even before his hundredth day as President. Not many Americans had voted for this type of President — but it’s what we now have. It’s what today’s American political system has offered to its voters: a choice between two neoconservatives, one of whom had successfully hidden his neoconservatism, and the other of whom (Clinton) had not.
The London Times reported on Sunday, April 9th, that U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is carrying a message to Putin that unless Russia abandons the current government of Syria, there will be war between the U.S. and Russia, because Russia is “complicit” in the alleged sarin gas attack that was allegedly intended by Assad (who was, prior to that event, near victory against the jihadists, so that the motive for this crime would have been extreme on the part of Al Qaeda, and non-existent on the part of the Syrian government).
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