Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review March 22, 2022
So Russian President Vladimir Putin is a “thug and a murderous dictator.” That is the judgement of President of the United States Joe Biden, delivered directly to Putin during a phone conversation, and it is backed up by a unanimous vote in the US Senate endorsing Biden’s more recently expressed view that Putin is also a “war criminal.” And if anyone doubted the sheer malignancy of America’s legislators, the viewing of a televised appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy calling for US intervention in his war was met with cheers, shouts of approval and a standing ovation not seen in this hemisphere since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited a Joint Congressional session in 2015. Unfortunately, in spite of all the euphoria, these comments, gestures and allegations are completely gratuitous, whether they are wholly or partly true or not, and they guarantee that a normal relationship between Russia and the United States is not likely to be reestablished no matter what the outcome to the current fighting in Ukraine.
If that is what diplomacy looks like in 2022 America then we are in serious trouble. The fact is that the US record for committing what are potentially war crimes dwarfs that of Russia or any other country with the sole exception of Israel. One only has to go through the list starting with Vietnam and continuing with Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen to appreciate the places that have been on the receiving end of either covert actions or direct intervention by US armed forces or those of its close allies. Along the way, civilians have literally died in their millions as the Pax Americana has proven to be elusive in spite of a sprinkling of more than 1,000 United States military bases worldwide. Russia is a parvenu in comparison.
It is widely understood that the United States in the post-World War 2 world, shaped the new so-called international rules-based order to benefit itself, with the designation of the dollar as the world reserve currency for energy purchases, benefitting only Washington through the Treasury Department’s ability to print money without any commodity having real value to back it up. Combine that with de facto control over the international banking system and the US has been able to render itself bullet proof when it starts wars or commits other crimes. It does not accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, has even blocked the travel of ICC investigators to the US, and has never been held accountable for any of its questionable activities.
The end of the cold war brought about some adjustments in the international order, but, for the US, it meant an initial drive to loot the resources of Russia under Boris Yeltsin followed by Bill Clinton’s breaking the promise made to Mikhail Gorbachev not to take advantage of the changed circumstances to expand NATO to include the former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe. The current situation with Ukraine is a consequence of that continuous interference in Russia’s legitimate sphere of influence, which culminated with the regime change engineered by Washington in Kiev in 2014.
The United States is often regarded by other countries as a rogue nation, precisely because it shows little respect for the vital interests of others and is willing to manipulate international institutions in support of political and social objectives that have little or nothing to do with actual national security. Its sanctions frequently bring suffering to ordinary people in the countries targeted without affecting decisions made by the leadership. And the sanctions themselves are often poorly conceived while also being factually challengeable. The US governing elite invariably covers its misbehavior with self-serving aphorisms like the rubbish peddled by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, when she enthused how “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” Yes indeed, she actually said that.
Worse still, the sustained flood of government inspired propaganda used to justify questionable actions has had the regrettable consequence of turning inward, leading to charges of “treason” directed against the few journalists and politicians who dare to challenge conventional wisdom. In the current Ukraine crisis, journalists like Tucker Carlson are under fire, as are former politicians like Tulsi Gabbard, for having committed the crime of opposing America’s deepening involvement in the fight against Russia. Indeed, the blacklisting of Russian music and books as well as foods and even vodka represent something pathological in the mainstream response to the fighting. Reliably left-wing Move-On has launched its own in-house “Creative Lab” (sic) to produce its own propaganda videos. It describes as a “debunked conspiracy theory” the Carlson claim, originally surfaced from the US government itself, that the “Biden administration was funding secret biolabs in Ukraine.” It is seeking to discredit Carlson’s “lies” which “are now fueling Putin’s relentless campaign of death and destruction in Ukraine.” It is “freedom fries” all over again.
A recent story illustrating just how deep the rot has penetrated the core of United States government and its institutions has predictably been given little coverage by the US mainstream media, but it is a tale that is appalling in its implications. The story involves a March 3rd Supreme Court ruling on a motion filed by accused terrorist Abu Zubaydah, who is currently a prisoner held in Guantanamo, though he has never actually been convicted of anything and is being nevertheless held “incommunicado for the rest of his life.” Abu Zubaydah maintained that he was tortured extensively by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a secret prison in Poland as well as in Thailand and Cuba.
The CIA captured a wounded Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian radical, in 2002 in Pakistan, and immediately acted on the belief that he was a leader of al-Qaeda. He was tortured for several years. The CIA “waterboarded Zubaydah at least 80 times, simulated live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours,” and brutalized him through sleep deprival. They also hung him by his wrists on hooks, beat him physically and he, as a result, lost one eye. A heavily redacted CIA 683 page torture report to the Senate released in 2014, which included some details of the standard practices in place at that time, mentioned Abu Zubaydah over 1,000 times.
Abu Zubaydah was seeking release from Guantanamo based on the fact that the United States, in torturing him, had committed a war crime. His lawyers were seeking to subpoena and interview former CIA contractors to determine what exactly occurred in Poland. The US is, by the way, a signatory on the UN Convention Against Torture. The Abu Zubaydah suit may initially have appeared to be a slam-dunk given what was already known about CIA torture. The brutality was incredible. For example, newly declassified documents that surfaced last week revealed how a prisoner at an Agency “black site” in Afghanistan was used as a training prop to teach inexperienced operatives how to torture other prisoners, leaving him with serious brain damage.
Even given that and much other evidence of both illegal activity and crimes against humanity, the Supreme Court case was instead derailed by what is referred to as the “state secrets privilege.” The court’s 6–3 ruling, written by Justice Stephen Breyer included “To assert the [state secrets] privilege, the Government must submit to the court a ‘formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter.’” That done, the court “should exercise its traditional reluctance to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs.”
The court’s ruling thereby upheld a “state secrets” claim based on the fact that the Agency has never admitted that it had secret prisons in Poland to prevent Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers from seeking subpoenas on the two psychologists who created the CIA torture program or to use those insights to learn the details of the interrogations. The court also ruled against any attempt by Polish investigators to seek to obtain US government information about the possible crimes committed at the CIA “black site” in Poland.
So welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave…where you can be tortured at the whim of a government official, imprisoned without ever being convicted of anything, and, when you seek redress from a court, you can be told that “Too bad, it’s a state secret even though the government has already admitted having engaged in a criminal practice.” And one should not ignore in passing a related issue, the savage persecution of journalist Julian Assange for having exposed US government crimes.
An article on the case in the Los Angeles Times, one of the few to appear, puts it this way: “the government may invoke the ‘state secrets’ privilege to block former US contractors from testifying about the now well-known waterboarding and torture of prisoners held at CIA sites in Poland. By a 6-3 vote, the justices said the US government can claim a privilege of secrecy even if there is no secret.” An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who observed the process added that “US courts are the only place in the world where everyone must pretend not to know basic facts about the CIA’s torture program. It is long past time to stop letting the CIA hide its crimes behind absurd claims of secrecy and national security harm.” Or one might observe that it’s called in the vernacular “Getting Away with Murder.”
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
The West is a cult. Denial of the truth/facts is a given.
No one in this cult is going to get a platform to make their case. For how long have we heard the phase ‘you are either with us, or against us’?
This is a cult, or a period of witch burning. There are only a handful of sheeple in the West who can say what they like. Segal the movie star is one, and it appears they have nothing on his, so he’s tolerated. But there aren’t many, and they mostly don’t get reported.
The US can say what they like, Putin and his military commanders will never be put on trail in the West. And just a note, the deaths of high ranking Russian commanders is a normal Russian military system. Military leaders in Russia are expected to be on the front line with their men. They don’t hide away like Western military leaders do. The Russians have a well structured system that allows military officers to step in automatically. The fact that high ranking leaders are in the field, is the likely reason why the Russian military is do effective. It took Hitler 3 weeks to reach Kiev, it took the Russians 3 days.
Why should the Russians bother with diplomatic relations with the US?
I think it is very easy to see the situation going nuclear.
THE HERESY OF THE ENEMY DRIVES CURRENT EVENTS
The enemy thinks he is serving God. In the haughty arrogance of his power (Only outdone by his spiritual blindness) he blasphemes by calling Jesus a false god, or idol, and condemns His followers as idolaters who deserve to be beheaded. The desires and pursuits of the ungodly are thus: Not being content to be strong in power over the righteous, but they will also use that power to destroy every single thing the godly have, and even attempt that which is not possible, the complete destruction of those who are the brethren of Christ. Isaiah X:7 “But it is in his heart to destroy nations, and not a few.” They are heretics, proud and arrogant. It is not our job to overtake them with strong arguments, reasoned logic, or the testimony of authorities, for they proudly triumph over all such things, and will prevail over us until the right hand of God Himself destroys him. For God will not allow anyone to share in His glory. And God will not be presumptuously commanded by confident spirits, or persuaded by our eloquence, but by humble crying. Satan and the enemy of Christians are not to be overcome by our working and attempting, but only by our suffering and crying. Only God will get the glory. The enemy believes he is serving God, and that his destruction of the poor is service to God. For the first disease of the ungodly is blindness, as it says in Ecclesiastes, “Better is obedience than the sacrifice of fools who know not what evil they do.”
pat Tillman was an exceptional sports man after 9 11 he like many americans joined the army
it was soon seen that Saddham Hussein had nothing to do with it and neither did anyone else other than israel anyone speaking out died a quick death
pat tillman was about to whistleblow on what he found out and was killed in a freiudly fire incident
not so it was a murder to silence
In the UK all servicemens messages home were monitored and read by security and of all people rupert murdoch, murdoch was reading all kinds of secure material including murdered schol girl mily dowlers family messages
Murdoch would tell the British zio government who was about to wghisteleblow on the crimes in iraq
and guess what ? like pat tillan they were also killed in ” friendly fire ” incidents
iraq was bombed for irael no other reason our men died for the jews
and we killed milions for israel
this is why we should kill no one in the jews war on russia we see today
The last images of this dying empire will be its lasting images: The mistreatment of prisoners in Bagram and Abu Ghraib prisons; those held without trial behind the wire and watchtowers of Guantanamo Bay; the children cruelly separated from their parents just to be inhumane and made to sleep on concrete floors under mylar sheets and 24 hour lighting; the deformities of the Fallujah babies from depleted ammunition; countless vibrant cities reduced to rubble and millions of their inhabitants murdered so it can steal what’s in the ground beneath them. Madeleine Albright said half a million dead Iraqi children under sanctions was worth it. She was evacuated from war in Europe. Perhaps she thinks her life is worth half a million Iraqis?
These mass-murdering scumbags may have some power now to control what is written about them, but when they’re dead and can stop nobody the history books will record who and what they were.
The USA is the daughter of Babylon mentioned in the Bible. What is to happen to this daughter is also provided in the pages of this book, It is not a pretty sight. America will be rewarded twice what she dished out. Only a very few will escape the punishment that is forthcoming. Currently, she sits as a queen believing that no harm will come upon her and that is due to Yahweh not seeing her sins. Talk about being deceived. She has fallen into a snare – a plan by Yahweh to bring her down to repentance.
“…and immediately acted on the belief that he was a leader of al-Qaeda.”
The CIA is the head of Al Qaeda, so the CIA didn’t act on the belief that he was the head of it…they knew he wasn’t. Instead, they were looking to frame him, so they were torturing him to force a confession, which they eventually accomplished. The confession read like it was written by a lawyer from Harvard, and it probably was.
The government of the USA is controlled by money, blackmail, and intimidation. Those doing the bribing, blackmailing, and intimidating are thug employees of the “syndicate.” The “generals” of the syndicate are “Oligarchs,” members of the “billionaire class.” The CIA, FBI, and federal government in general, “news” media, etc., are weapons used to advance the program of controlling and oppressing the rank and file and attacking and destroying any and all who oppose them in this.
The USA has abandoned any and all principles on which it was founded. There is no mechanism still in existence to stop this…all checks have been systematically removed. Some here think the economy will collapse soon, but it will survive as long as needed to enable the USA to do its part in establishing the New World Order.
Incidentally, the head crime family of the syndicate and many of its other leaders reside Great Britain, not the USA, so the British here should direct their remarks towards their own corrupt system, who are the ultimate controllers in this and have been since the inception of the USA. Andrew Jackson defeated them in battle (when he destroyed the Second Bank of the United States), but that was just a battle, not the war. A number of presidents have been assassinated since the time of President Jackson, who himself came close to being assassinated. I haven’t researched the assassinations of all the assassinated presidents, but I suspect that most or all were acting or proposing to act in opposition to the interests of the Rothschilds at the times of their assassinations. Someone should take a close look at this.
JOE BIDEN is a corrupt thief , usurpator
+ impostor . and like the head of state so
is the rest of USA and Trump or anybody
else will continue the corrupted jew deep
state politic. i wish USA many wars until
its destruction total , the satanical jew mafia
freemasonry state from the beginning .
salvation never comes from jewish west !
SALVATION WILL COME FROM EAST !
think of hindu freedom philosophs + rishis.
I beg to differ with Giraldi on the notion that United States is often regarded as a rogue nation. I offer that United is a fascist nation, where might is seen as right.
german michael mannheimer blog is
propably now in mossad hands.
he was killed in exil easteuropean
hospital involving Arsen . he was the
most truth speaking blogger of germany
therefore he had to flee jewish german
courts into his exile . he was a hero for
his folk. i warn everybody continuing
commenting on usurped bog !
Does it really mattter? Since both ‘sides’ are governed/dominated by the same cabal of ‘Jewish Oligarchs’. Putin & Zelensky are both on the same ‘team’: yarmulke wearing Communist-Chabad WEF agents–installed to advance the TechnoCommunist anti-white biopolitical objectives of Ratchild & Co.
Ellis C Taylor,
Let’s face reality here, Kissinger was 100% correct when he said that “the armed forces are dumb animals”.
How on earth can you protect your nation by fighting in another land? In other words, when someone’s breaking into your house, how can you defend your family when you’re somewhere else?
It’s irrelevant that armed forces personnel’s letters home were being read. They “took the Queen’s shilling” meaning they’re owned. They’re slaves to the slave master, the crown corporation of the city of London.
Pat Tillman shouldn’t have been in Iraq in the first place. Had he any common sense, he’d have known the lies being told from day one. He gave up a lucrative sports career, to join a military that didn’t need him. There were already plenty of morons within, happy to die for the Jew. Unlike Pat Tillman, these men didn’t have any chance of getting to Pat’s heights and subsequent salary.
I would have had full respect for Pat Tillman had he joined the armed forces to defend his nation ACTUALLY being attacked, but it wasn’t. He, along with the rest of the Western armed forces invaded a land, for the Jew and murdered innocents for the Jew.
He got what he deserved along with the rest of those who died.
He sums up the stupidity of man and how’s easily they’re led to the slaughter. Too quick to act. Too slow to think.
As an American, I have the unhappy duty to admit that America’s Jew-Based Order is guilty, guilty, guilty of committing crimes and travesties many orders of magnitude more terrible than even the very worst attributed to Adolf Hitler and his party — not that those Germans really committed any crimes at all, mind you.
It is also necessary to speak of America’s “JEW-BASED Order,” rather than simply call it “Zionist-based.”
That’s because the majority of dulled-down, irresponsible, or just plain criminal Jews go along with things, just as do their counterpart “normal” Americanos.
Thus, both groups are evil-doers and accessories to serious crimes.
Americans from all walks of life need to “get the Jew out,” and also stop their own criminal gentile leaders, or risk receiving retribution similar to what the acting parties have coming to them. I think that’s known as collective guilt. Isn’t their some fancy Latin Maxim of Law that describes it?
It’s been announced Madeleine Albright has died aged 84 from cancer. So her hate metastasised and took her in the end, then.
@ GHOST WHO WALKS
there is a diference Judaism is a mafia
and the jewish individuum is binded in
this insidious . but all other peoples are
no mafia of nation or tribe + dont
function acording to mafia laws . of
this desunity of the goyim the success
of the jews rests.
Being an ex CiA spook Giraldi would have blood on his hands… he now names the ‘jew’ albeit with temerity and a little obfuscation..
It’s a pity alphabet men like Giraldi handed their country over to Israel, only to grumble about it on homonculus chosenite and windy scribbler unz’s IP farm….
He knows the score, he worked for them..
America is a monster that must be destroyed. So too must it’s enabler, Britain.
Sometimes it is behoving, to fight on foreign soils, to defend your own nation’s frontiers.
Had King John III Sobieski of Poland not sent his armies into Austria to relieve the beseiged city of Vienna in 1683, then the seat of the Hapsburg Empire would have fallen to the all-conquering armies of the Ottoman Empire. Much of south-eastern Europe had already fallen to the Ottomans. Wallacia, Transylvania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Bosnia, the Crimea, Albania, as well as much of Greece and Anatolia were, by 1683, under Ottoman sway. The first two of the said countries listed, bordered the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania. The fall of Austria would have meant that all of the lands on Poland’s southern borders would be under occupation by a hostile imperial army.
The greatest cavalry charge in history; numbering some 18,000 horsemen, led by King John III Sobieski and his elite force, the Winged Hussars, not only defeated the experienced armies of the Ottoman Empire but so utterly trounced them in the field, that it ended Ottoman ambitions in East-Central Europe, most probably forever. After Vienna, the Turks were never again able to muster soldiery in such multitudes and were soon ousted from Moldavia, Transylvania and Hungary afterwards, by the same coalition forces of the Holy Roman Empire which were victorious under the command of King John III Sobieski.
There are many other examples of armies fighting outwith their own borders to ensure the continued integrity of the historical lands of their own kinsfolk; quite often, in tactically pre-emptive commital of forces, in other lands.
I chose the 1683 Siege of Vienna as illustration because of its pivotal importance in European history.
There wouldn’t have been an Anschluss with Germany in 1938, if the Poles hadn’t rescued the Hapsburg Dynasty at Vienna. There would have been no latter-day Austro-Hungarian Empire, in fact.
There may not even have been a France to invade in 1940, for that matter, because the Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha had his sights trained on Paris next, once Vienna had been conquered.
America fights thousands of miles away but not at its own border, which it would not even have to cross. It means the USA is 100 per cent ruled by its enemies.