TBR News July 4, 2017

Jul 04 2017

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., July 4, 2017:”We will be out of the office until July 5, 2017”

Table of Contents

  • Three more states refuse Trump commission’s voter data request
  • The Fall of Mosul Is a Defeat for Isis, But It Remains a Deadly Force
  • Germany doubles down on Erdogan rally ban during Hamburg G20
  • Where is ‘Islamic State’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?
  • Germany: Far-right violence and Islamist threat on the rise
  • China raises ‘negative’ factors in U.S. relations after Xi’s call with Trump
  • What is an intercontinental ballistic missile?
  • The Broken Encirclement Plan: Nato in Eastern Europe
  • How to Love This Freaky Country
  • The Churchill Report

 

Three more states refuse Trump commission’s voter data request

July 3, 2017

by Ian Simpson

Reuters

WASHINGTON-Maryland, Delaware and Louisiana on Monday joined a growing number of U.S. states that have refused to hand over voter data to a commission established by President Donald Trump to investigate possible voting fraud.

More than 20 states, including Virginia, Kentucky, California, New York and Massachusetts, have declined to provide some or all of the information that the panel requested, saying it was unnecessary and violated privacy.

Republican Trump created the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May after making unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally for his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in last November’s election.

Calling the request “repugnant,” Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh said in a statement that his office had advised the State Board of Elections that the commission’s request was illegal.

The request “appears designed only to intimidate voters and to indulge President Trump’s fantasy that he won the popular vote,” Frosh said.

The commission sent a letter to the 50 states asking them to turn over voter information including names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliations, felony convictions and voting histories.

Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler said the presidential commission could purchase the limited information legally available to candidates running for office.

“You’re not going to play politics with Louisiana’s voter data,” he said in a statement.

Delaware Elections Commissioner Elaine Manlove said in an interview with Milford’s WXDE-FM radio that her office would not comply since some of the information was confidential. Manlove said she was working with the attorney general’s office to see if the request could be denied completely.

Trump has blasted the states who have refused to turn over the data. He said in a tweet on Saturday, “What are they trying to hide?”

Trump won the White House through victory in the Electoral College, which tallies wins in states, but he lost the popular vote to Clinton by some 3 million votes. He has claimed he would have won the popular vote had it not been for voter fraud.

Civil rights activists say the commission will encourage voter suppression by justifying new barriers to voting, such as requiring identity cards to vote.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Grant McCool)

 

The Fall of Mosul Is a Defeat for Isis, But It Remains a Deadly Force

July 2, 2017

by Patrick Cockburn

The Unz Review

The battle for Mosul is a ferocious struggle that has now been going on for 256 days, or two months longer than the battle of Stalingrad. The fighting between Iraqi government forces and Isis is much smaller in scale than in Russia 75 years ago, but is comparable in its savagery and the importance with which both sides regard the outcome of the battle.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is declaring “the end of the Isis state-let” as Iraqi forces capture the ruins of the al-Nuri mosque where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who may himself be dead, declared the caliphate three years ago. Isis wanted to avoid the humiliation of seeing the Iraqi flag replacing their own colours on the top of the famous minaret.

Wars in Iraq have seen many exaggerated declarations of victory since the US-led invasion in 2003, but this one has more substance than most, even if it is a little premature. Isis fighters still hold part of the Old City of Mosul where the ancient close-packed housing and narrow alleyways are ideal for their style of making war.

Whatever the precise moment when the last Isis resistance is extinguished in the city, the Islamic State as a geographical unit in northern Iraq and western Syria is being smashed up. It still holds some big enclaves in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, but it has lost almost its urban centres aside from Raqqa in Syria and Tal Afar west of Mosul. Isis is rooted in the five or six million strong Sunni Arab community in Iraq which has endured devastating losses since it lost power with the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

There is no doubt about the importance of the victory won by the Iraqi government forces. It could not have happened without the devastating US-led air strikes, but it was Iraqi ground troops which were decisive in defeating a fanatical but militarily skilful enemy which inflicted heavy losses on them.

The symbolic significance of recapturing Mosul is simple, but far-reaching. Isis strode onto the world stage in June 2014 when a few thousand of its fighters captured the city, which, with a population of two million, was the second largest in Iraq, after four days fighting against an Iraqi garrison supposedly numbering 60,000 men. It was a victory so astonishing that Isis believed that it could only have been won with divine assistance. Defeat for Isis in Mosul and failure on every other battlefront damages the claim for divine sanction for its rule.

The foundering of Isis is being lauded in Baghdad and by relieved government leaders around the world. But it may be that the enemies of Isis are being a little too speedy in dividing up the lion’s skin before checking that the animal has really expired. Looking back at history of the epic battle for Mosul, there are some conclusions that are less than comforting.

Denunciations of Isis as a murderous death cult are not far off the mark, but understandable revulsion at its atrocities tends to obscure the fact that its commanders are experienced military experts. The movement has been written off previously by overconfident adversaries, such as during the period between 2007 and 2011 when it was hard hit by a reinforced US army in Iraq and the hostility of much of the Sunni Arab community. It survived by lying low and waiting for the circumstances to turn once again in its favour, as with the start of the uprising in Syria.

As regards to developments in Iraq and Syria after the impending fall of Mosul, keep in mind the old military adage: “The enemy also has a plan.” Isis has always known that it could not hold Mosul or any other stronghold in the face of air strikes called in by enemy ground forces. In battling for cities like Tikrit, Baiji, Ramadi and Fallujah over the past two years, it did not fight to the last man, leaving detachments behind to inflict maximum casualties on Iraqi forces before slipping away. Isis may be merciless in expending the lives of its militarily untrained followers as suicide bombers, but it is careful in conserving a core of veteran fighters who cannot easily be replaced.

In fighting in east Mosul, the city being split in two by the Tigris river, Isis fielded less than 1,000 combatants in the front line and the true figure is probably less than half that number. They adopted a tactical system of fluid defence in which two or three snipers with back-up teams could hold back Iraqi government forces from entering a neighbourhood for days. Suicide bombers, frequently driving vehicles full of explosives, would wait for targets to get close in narrow streets before attacking them. Swiftly moving from house to house through holes cut in walls or through streets with tarpaulins draped overhead to prevent observation by aircraft and drones, Isis squads hoped to avoid being detected from above and destroyed by planes or artillery fire.

Isis is inevitably going to lose Mosul, but the eight long months it has taken for this to happen is impressive. It may have as few as 350 fighters in the Old City presently, but these cannot be entirely fought out as was illustrated by a well-planned counter-attack a week ago. Overall, the way in which Isis has fought to hold Mosul for so long is even more impressive than its surprising capture of the city three years ago.

The prolonged fightback may be an ominous sign of what is to come. Isis commanders had evidently thought hard on how to postpone the fall of Mosul and they will have given similar thought to staying in business afterwards. They control some large towns like Tal Afar and others in western Anbar province, though these will fall in due course. Less easy to subdue are their rural enclaves like Hawaijah in Kirkuk province and vast tracts of desert and semi-desert where Isis had its base and hideouts before it expanded explosively in 2014.

The systematic spreading of fear through terrorism is an integral part of the way Isis conducts warfare. It involves assassinations and suicide bombing to show strength and dominate the news agenda at home and abroad. There are strong signs of these tactics being already at work in 11 cities and towns in Iraq and five in Syria, which Isis has lost, according to the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point. It says there have been 1,468 attacks between the day of liberation of these places and April 2017, though some of these involved only a few shots or rockets fired by Isis.

Isis know it made a comeback before and will try to resurrect itself again, though this will not be so easy the second time round because opponents are forewarned. Much of the Sunni Arab community is displaced, its cities, towns and villages wrecked or abandoned. Isis will hope to exploit the Iraqi government’s lack of troops to occupy effectively places it has recaptured. The return of government rule in Iraq and Syria often alienates local people because it almost always means corruption and racketeering. Isis is badly wounded, but it is still a long way from being dead.

 

Germany doubles down on Erdogan rally ban during Hamburg G20

Berlin lawmakers have sought to quash rumors Erdogan still plans to host a rally on German soil during the G20 summit. Such a rally could be used to stoke support for a prospective vote to reintroduce the death penalty.

July 4, 2017

DW

Underlining just how sour relations between Germany and Turkey had become, a German foreign ministry official warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday against even appearing at a Turkish consulate or speaking via web video link, when he arrives in Germany later this week for the G20 summit.

Last week, the German government denied a request from Ankara to allow Erdogan to address Germany’s Turkish community

Responding to suspected rumors that the Turkish president would defy the German government, Martin Schaefer said that doing so “would be an affront to the clearly expressed will of the government and a violation of German sovereignty.”

Schaefer said that, while he couldn’t impose an outright on Erdogan speaking at a Turkish consulate, the government had options for influencing such actions.

Germany restricts political campaigns by foreign officials

Berlin’s rejection came onthe back a new law introduced last week that bans non-EU leaders from campaigning on German soil within three months of polls in their country. Foreign officials will also need to file a request with the German government to hold any kind of political event in the country.

The new law was introduced after a handful of Turkish politicians campaigned in Germany ahead of a referendum vote in April expanding Erdogan’s powers. Turkish residents in Germany were allowed to take part in the vote.

However, a number of local German authorities blocked Turkish lawmakers from speaking, citing security concerns. The move left Erdogan infuriated by what he described as “Nazi era tactics.”

The Turkish president is currently pushing a referendum to reintroduce the death penalty in Turkey. In this instance, Germany has said that its residents will not be allowed to participate in the controversial vote. The European Union has also warned that any such referendum would effectively end its bid to join the bloc.

Unveiling their manifesto ahead of September’s federal election, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, along with their Bavarian sister party, said on Monday that they rejected full Turkish membership to the EU.

Turkey bemoans speaking ban

Ankara decried the German government’s decision to reject Erdogan’s speaking request on Monday. The President’s spokesman accused Berlin of using “hostility towards Erdogan as way of making political gains” ahead of September’s federal election.

Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said that even if the President wasn’t able to see his compatriots this week, “we will always be with them, in another place, at a different time and through some other means.

Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, also accused Germany of trying to sour tensions between the two countries. “Unfortuantely, some German lawmakers use animosity towards Turkey and especially animosity towards Erdogan for their own internal politics.

Berlin and Ankara have clashed on a number of other issues in the past year, including the detention of a German-Turkish journalist and the decision to refuse German delegates from visiting Bundeswehr troops stationed at a Turkish airbase.

Where is ‘Islamic State’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?

July 4, 2017

by Hassan Hassan- Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

BBC News

Three years ago, video emerged of the leader of so-called Islamic State (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, commanding allegiance in a sermon at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul. The Iraqi city had been freshly captured by the jihadist group and a “caliphate” declared.

At the time, IS controlled a region the size of the United Kingdom – but since then a global war against the jihadists has sent them into retreat, and the whereabouts of Baghdadi – a man with a $25m US bounty on his head – are a mystery.

On the third anniversary of Baghdadi’s first – and last public – public appearance, IS no longer controls most of the land it once held and its leader has been conspicuously silent since addressing followers in a recorded audio message last November, after the battle to dislodge the group from Mosul began.

Amid this silence, unconfirmed reports of Baghdadi’s death have recently surfaced. Russia’s deputy foreign minister said it was “highly likely” Baghdadi was killed in a Russian air force strike on Raqqa on 28 May, and an Iranian official asserted last week that he was “definitely dead”. However, both claims were questioned by American officials.

In a video released from Raqqa a week after the Russian report surfaced, IS members referred to “our sheikh” without mentioning Baghdadi by name, leaving a question mark over his fate. After all, the Taliban and al-Qaeda hid the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar for two years.

For both his supporters and enemies, Baghdadi’s absence at such a critical moment is perplexing.

‘Third capital’

The answer to the question about Baghdadi’s whereabouts might be related to his claim to legitimacy as caliph, or “commander of the faithful”.

According to a contentious religious rule, a candidate can (among other criteria) claim the title if he has “ardh tamkeen”, or “land to rule”.

Today, the ardh tamkeen is shrinking. IS is all but a spent force in Mosul and is under immense pressure in Raqqa, its two de facto capitals in Iraq and Syria.

(In recognition of the defining moment in Iraq, IS blew up the al-Nuri mosque two weeks ago before security forces could seize the site).

Baghdadi might be in hiding in what could be described as IS’s “third capital”, namely the areas currently controlled by the group on the two sides of the Syrian and Iraqi borders.

IS calls this area Wilayat al-Furat, or “Euphrates Province”, which mainly comprises the Iraqi town of al-Qaim and the Syrian town of Albu Kamal.

In 2014, the rise of IS began in Wilayat al-Furat and surrounding areas. According to the group’s own accounts, in videos produced recently from Anbar province in Iraq, the militants used the region as a launchpad for its blitzkriegs in Iraq and Syria.

The region also has relatively weakly armed militias and tribes, which could hold and secure the region if and when it is recaptured.

Even in supposedly liberated areas like Rutba, a town to the south, IS has still managed to carry out frequent deadly hit-and-run attacks.

Desert hideouts

No campaign has been launched yet to liberate these remote towns. Discussions as to whether the US or the Syrian government and its allies should lead the offensive on the Syrian side of the border are still being held in Washington.

If the US conducts the campaign, questions remain as to whether rebel fighters or the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) should lead the fight.

In Iraq, places like Tal Afar, west of Mosul, appear to be a current priority for the pro-government forces.

Hisham al-Hashimi, an adviser to the Iraqi government and an expert on Iraqi jihadist groups, suggests that Wilayat al-Furat is where al-Baghdadi is likely to be hiding.

The Iraqi government has carried out several air strikes in Albu Kamal over the past two years. Iyad al-Jamili, one of al-Baghdadi’s closest aides has been spotted in the Syrian town, according to Mr Hashimi.

A number of other close associates of the IS leader have also been seen in Albu Kamal and Mayadin, another key IS town in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zour, Mr Hashimi says.

Wilayat al-Furat is the only remaining region where IS can claim ardh tamkeen.

The campaign to clear the region might take many months to begin and much longer to conclude.

Even after these areas are liberated, IS is likely to use the desert, river valleys and border zones as hideouts and to launch attacks on urban centres.

Most wanted

Baghdadi, unlike other jihadist leaders, tends to speak or appear only when there is an extreme need for it – as seen with the announcement of the caliphate and the appeal to followers to stand and fight in Mosul.

The higher up the IS chain of command, the more communication with superiors becomes restricted to a small number of trusted loyalists.

Less than a handful people would therefore know Baghdadi’s whereabouts. That makes it hard for the US, which has dedicated special forces constantly on the look-out for any traces of the world’s most wanted man.

The borderlands of Syria and Iraq provide Baghdadi with relatively secure and familiar terrain, in which he can hide and circumvent attempts to capture or kill him.

They also provide him with the ability to continue to claim legitimacy as commander of the faithful.

Germany: Far-right violence and Islamist threat on the rise

The number of far-right attacks and Islamists in Germany rose once again last year, new figures have shown. More than half of neo-Nazis are “violence-orientated,” Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere said in Berlin.

July 4, 2017

by Ben Knight

DW

New government figures about neo-Nazi crime show “clear evidence of the danger emerging from this spectrum,” a report from the domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz (BfV), said on Tuesday.

The number of far-right violent crimes rose to 1,600 in 2016 – up from 1,408 in 2015 – the report said, and came alongside an overall rise in the number of neo-Nazis considered “violence-orientated:” 12,100 in 2016, up from 11,800 in 2015. The intelligence agency now believes that more than half of far-right extremists in Germany were potentially violent.

At the same time, the BfV believes there are now more Islamists in Germany, and therefore the chance of an Islamist attack remains high. The number of ultra-conservative “Salafists” in Germany rose last year to 10,100 – up from 8,350 the year before. Of these, some 680 have been classified as “Gefährder ( in German) or endangerer – more than ever before.

“We have to assume that we can expect further attacks by individuals or terror commandos in Germany too,” BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen said as he presented the report in a press conference in Berlin alongside Interior Minister de Maiziere.

Last year also saw a rise in left-wing extremism, with the BfV estimating that some 8,500 leftist extremists are “violence-orientated.” De Maiziere used the opportunity raise the prospect of an increased threat of left-wing violence during the G20 summit in Hamburg this week.

New neo-Nazis

The BfV also suggested that many Germans were losing inhibitions about violent racism – the report said that more people without any connection to the far-right scene were now carrying out attacks on asylum seekers. This “pointed to radicalization processes … beyond the organized far-right spectrum,” the report said.

Meanwhile, the number of crimes related to asylum homes remained roughly the same in 2016 as against the year before. The BfV counted 907 in 2016, as opposed to 894 in 2015, of which 153 were violent. The number of actual arson attacks, meanwhile, dropped slightly – from 75 in 2015 to 65 in 2016.

The BfV underlined that while most of these attacks were against the homes themselves, rather than people (in many cases they are yet to be occupied when an arson attack is carried out), often injuries to people had been “accepted as a possible consequence.”

Cyber-threat to German election

The BfV also devoted a whole section of its report on the growing threat of cyber-attacks, pinpointing Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies as sources of hacks on the chanellery, the German Foreign Ministry and its embassies, the Finance Ministry, and the Economy Ministry.

One Russian spy software campaign, named Uroburos, or Snake, has been active since 2005, the BfV said. The malware invades the computer networks of public authorities, major firms, and research institutes, which according to the BfV, suggests that “state interests are at work.”

Following the attacks on the Democratic Party Convention in the US last year, the agency went on to warn that German political parties and politicians could be targetted by Russian agencies in the run-up to this September’s general election. During Tuesday’s press conference, Maassen added that he did not think Russia would “support a particular candidate,” but would instead seek to “damage the trust in the functioning of our democracy.”

The spying, the BfV warned, came alongside an attempt by Russian agencies to “influence decision-makers and public opinion in Germany.” “Leading Russian officers,” the report said, were using interlocutors as “intermediaries for spreading Russian-friendly viewpoints,” for example by pushing the narrative that the continuation of the Ukraine crisis was exclusively the West’s fault.

Russian, Chinese spies

The BfV also noted increased intelligence activities from foreign actors against Germany – especially from Russia, China, and Iran. “Propaganda and disinformation activities that are pro-Russian and against German government policy have risen since 2014 – in parallel to the growing foreign policy problems (Crimean crisis, Syrian war) and the worsening economic situation in Russia.” the report read.

The BfV said that social media channels, state-funded and private institutions, as well as Russian state media, were all being used for these disinformation campaigns.

China, meanwhile, is engaging in more and more “political espionage,” according to the BfV – with President Xi Jinping’s government showing more interest in gaining information about “supra-national organizations” and conferences, such as the G20 and the European Union.

China’s interest in economic espionage is also undiminished, the BfV believes, with the “large-scale” use of social media like LinkedIn and Facebook to make contact with Germans. “The modus operandi is almost always the same,” the BfV report said. “Supposed scientists, job agents, and head-hunters make contact with people who have a significant profile. They are baited with tempting offers and then finally invited to China. There the secret service initiation happens.”

Iran, meanwhile, largely confined its activities to spying on opposition groups operating in Germany.

China raises ‘negative’ factors in U.S. relations after Xi’s call with Trump

July 3, 2017

by Dave Boyer

The Washington Times

Amid rising tensions across East Asia, Chinese President Xi Jinping told President Trump in a phone call that some “negative factors” have affected their relationship, China said Monday after the two leaders discussed the nuclear threat from North Korea.

In the call late Sunday night, Mr. Xi stressed that he and Mr. Trump have achieved “important results” since their initial meeting in February. But the Chinese government’s statement about the phone call also indicated that tensions are growing between Beijing and Washington.

“Bilateral relations have also been affected by some negative factors, for which the China side has expressed its position to the U.S. side,” reported state-owned China Central Television (CCTV).

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily briefing that the U.S. was “very clear” about Beijing’s position on North Korea, though he did not elaborate on what Mr. Xi told Mr. Trump about North Korea.

The White House said only that the two leaders discussed a range of issues of mutual interests, including North Korea and trade relations.

“Both leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a denuclearized Korean peninsula,” the White House said. The phone call came ahead of their appearance at the G20 summit in Germany scheduled for the end of this week.

Last week, the Trump administration approved a $1.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, contrary to the urgings of Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province.

On the same day, China’s Dandong bank was sanctioned by the U.S. for alleged ties to North Korea.

The administration last week also labeled China as one of the world’s worst human traffickers and challenged Beijing in the South China Sea, by sailing a destroyer close to a disputed island chain that China claims.

Those moves came after Mr. Trump tweeted that Chinese effortson North Korea, while appreciated, had “not worked out.” The president has been seeking Mr. Xi’s help in pressing Pyongyang to scale back its nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Trump also spoke by phone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, pledging deeper cooperation on North Korea.

“The two leaders exchanged views on the growing threat from North Korea, including their unity with respect to increasing pressure on the regime to change its dangerous path,” the White House said in a readout of the call.

As Mr. Trump was speaking with the leaders of China and Japan, former President Barack Obama was speaking in South Korea about the difficulties of dealing with North Korea.

“The first thing to stipulate is this is hard, it’s a hard problem,” Mr. Obama said at the Asian Leadership Conference in Seoul. “In North Korea you have a government that is unmatched in its repression of its people … You have a young man who is only interested in maintaining power and is willing to do anything to sustain that.”

Mr. Obama said North Korea’s future prosperity would not come “from the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

“The future belongs to those who build, not those who are committed to destroy … so long as it remains outside of the world order, they should face consequences,” he said.

 

What is an intercontinental ballistic missile?

North Korea says it has successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, and that it’s now capable of striking any country in the world. So what actually is an ICBM? And how far can they travel?

July 4, 2017

DW

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a guided missile that is designed to deliver nuclear warheads, although they could also deliver other kinds of weapons.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, ICBMs have a minimum range of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles), with maximum ranges varying from 7,000 to 16,000 kilometers.

Russia, the United States, China, and India have, until now, been the only countries currently known to possess land-based ICBMs. Israel has also tested ICBMs, although it has been secretive about actual deployment. The US, Russia, United Kingdom, France, India and China are also current operators of ICBMs that can be launched from submarines.

North Korea’s state media announced Tuesday that Pyongyang had successfully launched an ICBM for the first time. During its 39-minute flight, the rocket traveled 933 kilometers (580 miles), and reached a cruising altitude of 2,802 kilometers, the report said.

The rogue state said its launch was conducted at the sharpest possible angle, and that it was now capable of striking any country in the world. US Pacific Command confirmed the test, but said it was a land-based, intermediate range missile that flew for 37 minutes, adding that the launch did not pose a threat to North America.

ICBMs are much faster and have a greater range than other types of ballistic missiles, which include intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs), short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) and tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs).

The missiles can also be launched in different ways: from underground missile silos, submarines, heavy trucks, or mobile launchers on rails.

North Korea has stepped up its missile tests over the past year, and analysts say it is years away from having a nuclear-tipped ICBM. On its website, the Federation of American Scientists says ICBMs can create a real problem because they enable a country to “break out of a regional context and move toward potential global impact.”

“Regardless of the origin of a conflict, a country may involve the entire world simply by threatening to spread war with an ICBM.”

The first ICBMs were deployed by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, with the US following soon afterwards. Early versions of the missiles had limited precision, meaning they could only effectively be used against large targets, like cities. Accuracy improved dramatically in later models, allowing the weapons to successfully strike the smallest of targets. Modern designs tend to be smaller and lighter than their ancestors. They also allow a single missile to carry multiple warheads, each of which can be sent in a different direction to strike a different target.

 

The Broken Encirclement Plan: Nato in Eastern Europe

July 2, 2017

by Arthur D. Royster

The first serious, and successful, U.S. direct interference in Russian leadership policies was in 1953. An ageing Josef Stalin, suffering from arteriosclerosis and becoming increasingly hostile to his subordinates, was poisoned by Laverenti P. Beria, head of his secret police. Beria, was a Mingrelian Jew, very ruthless and a man who ordered and often supervised the executions of people Stalin suspected of plotting against him, had fallen out of favor with Stalin and had come to believe that he was on the list of those Stalin wished to remove. With his intelligence connection, Beria was contacted by the American CIA through one of his trusted agents in Helskinki and through this contact, Beria was supplied dosages of warfarin  The first drug in the class to be widely commercialized was dicoumarol itself, patented in 1941 and later used as a pharmaceutical. It was in essence, a potent coumarin-based anticoagulants for use as rodent poisons, resulting in warfarin in 1948. The name warfarin stems from the acronym WARF, for Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation + the ending -arin indicating its link with coumarin. Warfarin was first registered for use as a rodenticide in the US in 1948, and was immediately popular; although it was developed by Link, the WARF financially supported the research and was assigned the patent.

Warfarin was used by a Lavrenti Beria to poison Stalin. Stalin’s cooks and personal bodyguards were all under the direct control of  Beria. He acknowledged to other top Soviet leaders that he had poisoned Stalin, according to Molotov’s memoirs. Nikita Khrushchev and others to poison Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Warfarin is tasteless and colorless, and produces symptoms similar to those that Stalin exhibited. Stalin collapsed during the night after a dinner with Beria and other Soviet leaders, and died four days later on 5 March 1953.

Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, in his political memoirs (published posthumously in 1993), claimed that Beria told him that he had poisoned Stalin. “I took him out,” Beria supposedly boasted. There is evidence that after Stalin was found unconscious, medical care was not provided for many hours. Other evidence of the murder of Stalin by Beria associates was presented by Edvard Radzinsky in his biography Stalin. It has been suggested that warfarin was used; it would have produced the symptoms reported.

After the fall of Gorbachev and his replacement by Boris Yeltsin, a known CIA connection, the Russian criminal mob was encouraged by the CIA to move into the potentially highly lucrative Russian natural resource field.

By 1993 almost all banks in Russia were owned by the mafia, and 80% of businesses were paying protection money. In that year, 1400 people were murdered in Moscow, crime members killed businessmen who would not pay money to them, as well as reporters, politicians, bank owners and others opposed to them. The new criminal class of Russia took on a more Westernized and businesslike approach to organized crime as the more code-of-honor based Vory faded into extinction.

The Izmaylovskaya gang was considered one of the country’s most important and oldest Russian Mafia groups in Moscow and also had a presence in Tel Aviv, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, Miami and New York City. It was founded during the 1980s under the leadership of Oleg Ivanov and was estimated to consist of about 200 active members (according to other data of 300–500 people). In principle, the organization was divided into two separate bodies—Izmailovskaya and Gol’yanovskaya  which utilized quasi-military ranks and strict internal discipline. It was involved extensively in murder-for-hire, extortions, and infiltration of legitimate businesses.

The gangs were termed the Oligarchy and were funded by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Israeli-owned Bank of New York all with the assisance of the American government.

The arrival of Vladimir Putin as the new leader of Russia was at first ignored in Washington. A former KGB Lt. Colonel who had been stationed in East Germany, Putin was viewed as inconsequential, bland and colorless by the purported Russian experts in both the Department of State and the CIA.

Putin, however, proved to be a dangerous opponent who blocked the Oligarchs attempt to control the oil fields and other assets, eventual control of which had been promised to both American and British firms.

The Oligarchs were allowed to leave the country and those remaining behind were forced to follow Putin’s policies. Foreign control over Russian natural resources ceased and as both the CIA, various foreign firms and the American government had spent huge sums greasing the skids, there was now considerable negative feelings towards Putin.

The next serious moves against Russia came with a plan conceived by the CIA and fully approved by President George W. Bush, whose father had once been head of the CIA.

This consisted of ‘Opertion Sickle’ which was designed to surround the western and southern borders of Russia with states controlled by the United States through the guise of NATO membership. Included in this enricelement program were the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, Georgia and a number of asiatic states bordering southern Russia. It was the stated intention of the NATO leadership to put military missiles in all these countries. The so-called “Orange Revolution” funded and directed by the CIA, overthrew the pro-Moscow government in the Ukraine, giving the United States theoretical control over the heavy industrialized Donetz Basin and most importantly, the huge former Soviet naval base at Sebastopol.

The Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) was an American-sponsored 18-month, $64-million program aimed at increasing the capabilities of the Georgian armed forces by training and equipping four 600-man battalions with light weapons, vehicles and communications. The program enabled the US to expedite funding for the Georgian military for Operation Enduring Freedom.

On February 27, 2002, the US media reported that the U.S. would send approximately two hundred United States Army Special Forces soldiers to Georgia to train Georgian troops. The program implemented President Bush’s decision to respond to the Government of Georgia’s request for assistance to enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and addressed the situation in the Pankisi Gorge.

The program began in May 2002 when American special forces soldiers began training select units of the Georgian Armed Forces, including the 12th Commando Light Infantry Battalion, the 16th Mountain-Infantry Battalion, the 13th “Shavnabada” Light Infantry Battalion, the 11th Light Infantry Battalion, a mechanized company and small numbers of Interior Ministry troops and border guards.

Eventually, responsibility for training Georgian forces was turned over to the US Marine Corps in conjunction with the British Army. British and American teams worked as part of a joint effort to train each of the four infantry battalion staffs and their organic rifle companies. This training began with the individual soldier and continued through fire team, squad, platoon, company, and battalion level tactics as well as staff planning and organization. Upon completing training, each of the new Georgian infantry battalions began preparing for deployment rotations in support of the Global War on Terrorism

The CIA were instrumental in getting Mikheil Saakashvili, an erratic policician, pro-West, into the presidency of Georgia but although he allowed the country to be flooded with American arms and “military trainers” he was not a man easily controlled and under the mistaken belief that Ameriacn military might supported him, commenced to threaten Moscow. Two Georgian provinces were heavily populated by Russians and objected to the inclusion in Georgia and against them, Saakashvili began to make threatening moves.

The 2008 South Ossetia War or Russo-Georgian War (in Russia also known as the Five-Day War) was an armed conflict in August 2008 between Georgia on one side, and Russia and separatist governments of South Ossetia and Abkhazia on the other.

During the night of 7 to 8 August 2008, Georgia launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia, in an attempt to reclaim the territory. Georgia claimed that it was responding to attacks on its peacekeepers and villages in South Ossetia, and that Russia was moving non-peacekeeping units into the country. The Georgian attack caused casualties among Russian peacekeepers, who resisted the assault along with Ossetian militia. Georgia successfully captured most of Tskhinvali within hours. Russia reacted by deploying units of the Russian 58th Army and Russian Airborne Troops in South Ossetia, and launching airstrikes against Georgian forces in South Ossetia and military and logistical targets in Georgia proper. Russia claimed these actions were a necessary humanitarian intervention and peace enforcement.

When the Russian incursion was seen as massive and serious, U.S. president George W. Bush’s statement to Russia was: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.” The US Embassy in Georgia, describing the Matthew Bryza press-conference, called the war an “incursion by one of the world’s strongest powers to destroy the democratically elected government of a smaller neighbor”.

Initially the Bush Administration seriously considered a military response to defend Georgia, but such an intervention was ruled out by the Pentagon due to the inevitable conflict it would lead to with Russia. Instead, Bush opted for a softer option by sending humanitarian supplies to Georgia by military, rather than civilian, aircraft. And he ordered the immediate evacuation of all American military units from Georgia. The huge CIA contingent in the Georgian capital fled by aircraft and the American troops, mostly U.S. Marines, evacuated quickly to the Black Sea where they were evacuated by the U.S. Navy. British and Israeli military units also fled the country and all of them had to leave behind an enormous amount of military eqipment to include tanks, light armored vehicles, small arms, radio equipment, and trucks full of intelligence data they had neither the time nor forersignt to destroy.

The immediate result of this demarche was the defection of the so-called “NATO Block” eastern Europeans from the Bush/CIA project who saw the United States as a paper tiger that would not, and could not, defend them against the Russians. In a sense, the Russian incursion into Georgia was a massive political, not a military, victory.

The CIA was not happy with the actions of Vladimir Putin and when he recently ran for reelection, they poured money into the hands of Putin’s enemies, hoping to reprise the Ukrainian Orange Revolution but the effort was in vain and now, the Russian parliament intends to take up a bill Tuesday designed to hamper and frustrate civil society groups that accept money from abroad.

How to Love This Freaky Country

July 4 2017

by Jon Schwarz

The Intercept

American progressives can’t ever match conservatives in displays of febrile patriotism, and for good reason. What Jesus told his followers about prayer is also good advice about loving a country: “Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”

Moreover, anyone who’s spent five minutes thinking about human history knows how dangerously volatile nationalism is. This is especially important to keep in mind in a country that has used nuclear weapons and pondered whether to drop tungsten rods on our enemies from orbit.

Nonetheless, I believe it behooves all of us to consider and celebrate what is resplendent about the United States of America.

First, if you don’t do so, you wear blinders that prevent you from seeing a giant chunk of reality. In Catholic theology most souls are of middling virtue — but the ones which are not are generally not good or evil alone but both at once. As St. Augustine put it, “my two wills, one old and the other new, one carnal, the other spiritual, contend within me.” The same goes for countries: If they’re not in the middle of the bell curve they often occupy both ends simultaneously. That is definitely the United States.

Second, one of America’s most beautiful attributes is that we have freedom and resources that our fellow malcontents in many other countries could only dream of. Pretending that we don’t have this wiggle room is — particularly for white activists — to show ourselves to be distastefully spoiled.

Third, being conscious of this country’s upside is the only way we’ll ever be able to communicate with anyone outside the minute lefty archipelago. The lived experience of millions of Americans has been that it’s superior to where their families once came from. Trying to convince them that it’s uniformly appalling is like trying to convince them that they have three arms. That’s not going to work.

Finally, it’s critical for our own psychological wellbeing. Much about America’s past has been hideous and much about the present is grim. But keeping that going as an endless interior monologue is a recipe for stasis and failure. Conversely, an appreciation of the glorious parts of the U.S. is motivation to protect and expand them. The right loves to accusingly demand, “Do you love this country?” We need the confidence to give the correct answer, which is “I love the parts you’re trying to destroy.”

So for July 4, I’ve made a list of what’s most deeply meaningful to me about America.

People Have Rights, Not the Government

For most of the time in most places, societies believed that the natural order was to have a king who had the final word about everything. The Declaration of Independence was one of the first attempts to flip that on its head, and declare that individual people come first and governments derive their power “from the consent of the governed.”

It’s easy to forget the momentousness of this statement in an era when Fortune 500 companies complain that governmental tyranny prevents them from putting arsenic in their line of baby food. But it was a giant step forward, and one of the best parts about being an American is an instinctive understanding of the zaniness of monarchies. For instance, Great Britain pays an old lady from some German family to live in a gigantic house, and if you have dinner there you have to immediately stop eating when she does.

The Declaration of Independence resonated so deeply with universal human aspirations that it was copied by many other rebellions. Ho Chi Minh used parts of it verbatim in 1945 in a declaration of independence for Vietnam. We were so moved by this that the Eisenhower administration offered France two nuclear bombs to drop on Dien Bien Phu.

Separation of Church and State

Not only did most places have kings in 1776, it was usually accepted that these kings had been appointed by god. This meant that you couldn’t question the king’s decisions even when large holes had been eaten in his brain by syphilis.

So establishing a wall between religion and government in the Bill of Rights was deeply radical and positive. The corporate right has long understood how this levels society, which is why they’ve quietly supported efforts to tear it down and retcon U.S. history to make the founding fathers fervent Christians.

Anyone From Anywhere

In most places at most times, nationality has depended on blood and soil. For instance, Korean-Japanese whose families have been there for 100 years are still referred to as zainichi — which literally means “staying in Japan,” presumably temporarily. But in theory and to a large degree in fact, anyone can come to the U.S. from anywhere, and when they take the oath of citizenship they become as American as everyone else.

The Nazis used to call the U.S. a mongrel nation. They were absolutely right; it’s fantastic and the source of our hybrid vigor.

We’re So Rich

The U.S. right likes to tout our enormous wealth as a sign of our success. In reality, it signifies a humiliating failure of our economic system, even leaving aside our stunning levels of inequality.

We have advantages possessed by no other country in history. We’re gigantic, in the temperate zone, overflowing with natural resources, and with neighbors so weak we generally forget that they’re there. Yet Europe and Japan are about as rich as we are, despite having few of these assets and regularly destroying themselves in catastrophic wars. We should have twice as much money as they do.

Nevertheless, by any reasonable standard the U.S. is an incredibly wealthy place, as wealthy as any country needs to be to maximize human happiness. If we get our act together to fight, we could use our riches to do amazing things.

For instance, much of our gains in economic productivity over the past 40 years have gone into the pockets of millionaires and billionaires. The median household income in the U.S. now is about $56,500. If flight attendants and firemen had gotten their share of economic growth, they would be making over $70,000. Alternatively — and even more enticingly — if we’d had the power to take our increased productivity in time off regular people could be making their current salaries while only working about 30 hours per week.

Who knows what we’d do with that kind of extra time for ourselves, but it’s thrilling to contemplate. If current trends continued there would certainly be a lot of podcasts; once we’re only working 15 hours a week and the ratio of podcasts to podcast listeners passes 1:1, we’ll have to invent robots to rate and review them on iTunes.

African American and Secular Jewish Culture

I’m not black and, despite the enthusiastic (((feedback))) I receive from the alt-right, I’m also not Jewish. I’m a baptized Episcopalian, a Mischling second degree, and a practicing nothing. But to me, looking at black culture and Jewish culture in America from the periphery, they seem to be humanity’s two premiere achievements.

I used to think that William Faulkner’s claim that “man will not merely endure: he will prevail” was hokey and overoptimistic. But the history of African Americans is evidence he knew what he was talking about.

Two hundred fifty years of kidnapping, murder, rape and chattel slavery; “freedom” followed by 100 years of treatment that was slavery-adjacent; a 10-year window when change seemed possible; and then 40 years of mass incarceration that is intermittent reenslavement. It’s incredible African Americans haven’t collapsed in exhaustion, or simply perished.

Instead, faced with a 1,000-foot high wall of hate, they’ve dug tunnels under it, floated over it waving from hot air balloons, and built transporters to dematerialize and then rematerialize on the other side, all to the bafflement and fury of much of white America. We understand violence and in fact rejoice when faced with it, because we know how to respond in kind a hundred times over. What we can’t understand is black America’s unending eruption of invention — in politics, music, literature, sports, Twitter, general stylishness, and a thousand other areas — that reverberates around the world. It’s set a standard of wisdom and humanity for everyone else on earth to aim for.

The accomplishments of secular Jewish culture in America have been similar, although modulated differently.

All religions have the same essential precepts, and most religions ignore them in practice. Judaism stands out for sometimes taking them seriously. Both the Torah and Old Testament instruct us that “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Only Judaism builds a holiday around this admonition, and sends participants out into the world believing that maybe those words mean what they say.

Likewise, I can’t help but love an ethical tradition that requires kids to ask questions. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has put it, “To be a Jewish child is to learn how to question.” I.I. Rabi, an American Nobel Prize-winning physicist, said he became a scientist because when he came home from school each day his mother would ask him not what he’d learned, but whether he’d asked a good question. Polls have shown that American Jews value “thinking for oneself” as the most critical quality to encourage in children.

The collision of this perspective with the openness of American culture has exploded in every direction. It’s impossible to imagine how different, and how much worse, the U.S. would be without the influence of secular Judaism.

Then there’s what is, for me, the dazzling summit of African American and Jewish culture: the collaborative creation of American comedy.

Comedy of the powerful tends to take this structure: “Wouldn’t it be funny if…” You can see this clearly in Monty Python, whose main five performers went to Oxford and Cambridge. Wouldn’t it be funny if a pet store owner refused to acknowledge a parrot he’d just sold to a customer had died? Wouldn’t it be funny if the head of a mountaineering expedition had double vision?

But the comedy of the powerless usually says something else: “Isn’t it funny that…” The powerless don’t need to invent surrealistically absurd situations, they live them. So a Chris Rock joke is: Isn’t it funny that that train’s never late?

And the comedy of reality will always be superior to the comedy of imagination, no matter how well executed. That’s why American comedy, created by African Americans and Jews (with an assist from Irish Catholics) is the current reigning world champion.

Of course, I understand that the individual humans involved in all this did not do so as a hobby or to make America better, but to survive in the face of monstrous cruelty. Billie Holiday would have traded “Strange Fruit” for an end to lynchings. Our goal should be to make this country so good that we end up with a bland, Swiss-like pudding of a culture.

Baseball

I can’t honestly claim I like baseball that much. But all lists like this by liberals seem to include it, so I feel peer pressure to do so too. You’re also supposed to be super into jazz.

So that’s why I love America. I encourage you to think about it yourself today in between the cookout, beach, and fireworks. Writing it down made me feel much better about being alive right here right now, and it could do the same for you.

‘Inspirational’ Corbyn offers blueprint for our party, say left-leaning Democrats

Progressive Democrats hail UK election result while Bernie Sanders says Labour leader’s success shows ‘people are rising up against austerity and inequality’

June 10, 2017

by Adam Gabbatt in Chicago

The Guardian

Progressive politicians in the US have hailed Jeremy Corbyn’s performance in the British general election “an inspiration” that could shift the Democratic party to the left in the run-up to the 2018 midterms.

Bernie Sanders was among those to praise Labour’s result, saying it showed “people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality,” while left-leaning members of Congress said the victory would have major implications for the future of Democrats.

The Labour party, running on a leftwing platform, gained 32 seats in Thursday’s election as the Conservatives lost their majority in the House of Commons. Corbyn and his progressive program had been derided for months but he defied expectations as young people voted in record numbers.

Corbyn’s achievement was part of a “global trend,” said Pramila Jayapal, a US congresswoman from Washington, “towards recognising that progressive policies are the answer to a lot of the inequality, and a lot of the issues that young people and working families across the globe are facing.”

“It’s a good sign for Democrats here in the United States,” said Jayapal, who endorsed Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary and introduced a bill with the Vermont senator to make college tuition free in the US.

Jayapal said some Democrats “are still stuck in the frame of: I need to move to the center” – despite some recent wins for progressives at city and state level. “But I think the UK election and the current elections here show that that’s not actually the answer people are looking for,” she said.

Jayapal is among a number of high-profile Democrats appearing at the People’s Summit in Chicago this weekend. The event, organized by some of the most influential activist organizations in the country, aims to educate and galvanize the more than 4,000 attendees.

The British election result proved a positive start to proceedings on Friday, with politicians and activists encouraged by Labour’s performance under Corbyn.

“His disciplined campaign of positive populism and a bold vision resonated with young people and grassroots leaders across Britain,” said Ro Khanna, a US congressman from California and member of Justice Democrats – a group that has committed to backing progressive Democrats to run against sitting, centrist members of their own party.

“That should provide inspiration to Democrats here,” Khanna said, as well as serving as a lesson to the more centrist Democratic establishment “that a positive populist message is not just morally right, it’s also strategically smart.”

Sanders, whose 2016 presidential campaign kickstarted a progressive movement in the US, is due to speak at the People’s Summit on Saturday night. Excerpts of his speech provided to the Guardian show that the senator will praise activists’ “enormous progress in advancing the progressive agenda” while urging the Democratic party to broaden its reach.

On Friday, Sanders, who had spent time recently in the UK on a speaking tour, said he was “delighted to see Labour do so well.”

“All over the world, people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality,” Sanders said. “People in the UK, the US and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%.”

Progressive Democrats had already been buoyed by down ballot victories over the past couple of months. Khalid Kamau, a self-identified democratic socialist, became one of the first Black Lives Matter activists to hold elected office when he won a seat on Atlanta’s South Fulton city council in April

New York state assemblywoman and former Sanders delegate Christine Pellegrino became the first ever Democrat to represent New York’s ninth district in May, while progressive Larry Krasner won the Democratic primary for Philadelphia’s district attorney against a slew of establishment candidates.

All three were boosted by the support of Sanders-inspired activist organizations like Our Revolution and People for Bernie, and are appearing at the summit this weekend.

Pellegrino told the Guardian that Corbyn’s “message of providing services and opportunity to people in need resonated with voters in the UK as it is resonating in the US.”

She said: “The Democratic party should learn that voters respond to a strong message of hope and opportunity that speaks to working families and not to the 1%.”

Corbyn’s performance in the UK was aided by grassroots organizers, and activists in the US are hopeful the same mood can find its way over the Atlantic.

“It just proves our messaging is right,” said Moumita Ahmed, a political organizer and the founder of Millennials for Revolution. “Our values are exactly the values that are resonating with millions of people, especially millennials.”

“And we do have a fighting chance. We’re constantly being told that we don’t, but Corbyn signals there’s a desire from young people across the world to shift politics towards a more compassionate system of government.”

Many organizers on the left were united over what the Democratic party should take away from the UK result.

Dan Cantor, national director of the Working Families party, said the result “should show Democrats the roadmap they must follow.” He said: “The only way to beat phony rightwing racialized populism is with a bold anti-corporate inclusive progressive populism.”

National Nurses United, one of the largest unions and progressive organisations in the US, backed Sanders during his campaign and is one of the key organizers behind the People’s Summit.

RoseAnn DeMoro, NNU’s executive director, said the Democratic party was continuing “to rely on the same old strategies; ignoring the base and staying on the side of Wall Street.”

“They can win elections if they actually adopt the populist agenda pertaining to the Bernie base,” DeMoro said. “Don’t ignore the base. The base isn’t going to come out for the status quo. They want a different country. A different world.”

The Churchill Report

July 4, 2017

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

The personality of Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill could very well be a subject of interest to an alienist who, by definition, is a physician who treats mental disorders. There is a saying that the world is governed with very little sense and there are times when one could add to this statement that it often has been governed by lunatics.

Churchill was born in 1874 and died in 1965. His father was Randolph Spencer-Churchill, a son of the Duke of Marlborough. The first Duke was John Churchill, one of England’s most capable military commanders, who died without male issue in 1722 and the title was given to one of his nephews, a Spencer. As a courtesy, the Spencer family was allowed to add Churchill to its name, separated by a hyphen. Winston always wanted to believe that he was a gifted military leader in the mold of the first Duke but his efforts at generalship were always unqualified disasters that he generally blamed on other people. This chronic refusal to accept responsibility for his own incompetent actions is one of Churchill’s less endearing qualities.

Randolph Churchill died early as the result of rampant syphilis that turned him from an interesting minor politician to a pathetic madman who had to be kept away from the public, in the final years of his life. His mother was the former Jennie Jerome, an American. The Jerome family had seen better days when Jennie met Randolph. Her father, Leonard, was a stock-market manipulator who had lost his money and the marriage was more one of convenience than of affection.

The Jeromes were by background very typically American. On her father’s side, Jennie was mostly Irish and on her mother’s American Indian and Jewish. The union produced two children, Winston and Jack. The parents lived separate lives, both seeking the company of other men. Winston’s psyche suffered accordingly and throughout his life, his frantic desire for attention obviously had its roots in his abandonment as a child.

As a member of the 4th (Queen’s Own) Hussars, in 1896 Churchill became embroiled in a lawsuit wherein he was publicly accused of having engaged in the commission of “acts of gross immorality of the Oscar Wilde type.” This case was duly settled out of court for a payment of money and the charges were withdrawn. Also a determinant factor was the interference by the Prince of Wales with whom his mother was having an affair.

In 1905, Churchill hired a young man, Edward Marsh (later Sir Edward) as his private secretary. His mother, always concerned about her son’s political career, was concerned because Marsh was a very well known homosexual who later became one of Winston’s most intimate lifelong friends. Personal correspondence of March, now in private hands, attests to the nature and duration of their friendship.

Churchill, as Asquith once said, was consumed with vanity and his belief that he was a brilliant military leader led him from the terrible disaster of Gallipoli through the campaigns of the Second World War. He meddled constantly in military matters to the despair and eventual fury of his professional military advisors but his political excursions were even more disastrous. Churchill was a man who was incapable of love but could certainly hate. He was viciously vindictive towards anyone who thwarted him and a number of these perceived enemies died sudden deaths during the war when such activities were much easier to order and conceal.

One of Churchill’s less attractive personality traits, aside from his refusal to accept the responsibility for the failure of his actions, was his ability to change his opinions at a moment’s notice.

Once anti-American, he did a complete about-face when confronted with a war he escalated and could not fight, and from a supporter of Hitler’s rebuilding of Germany, he turned into a bitter enemy after a Jewish political action association composed of wealthy businessmen hired him to be their spokesman.

Churchill lavishly praised Roosevelt to his face and defamed him with the ugliest of accusations behind his back. The American President was a far more astute politician than Churchill and certainly far saner.

In order to support his war of vengeance, Churchill had to buy weapons from the United States and Roosevelt stripped England of all of her assets to pay for these. Only when England was bankrupt did Roosevelt consent to the Lend-Lease project, and in a moment of malicious humor, titled the bill “1776” when it was sent to Congress.

Hitler’s bombing of England was not a prelude to invasion, but a retaliation for Churchill’s instigation of the bombing of German cities and Churchill used the threat of a German invasion to whip up pro-British feelings in the United States. Threats of invasion by the Germans, in this case of the United States, have been cited by such writers as Weinberg as the reason why Roosevelt had to get into the war. Neither the Germans nor the Japanese had even the slightest intention to invade the continental United States and exhaustive research in the military and political archives of both countries has been unable to locate a shred of evidence to support these theories.

 

 

 

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