Reading foreign country’s newspapers offer a perspective on what the leaders of the country think is important. I’ve long enjoyed reading the Tehran Times, not because I believe everything they say, but to try and get some perspective on what they think is important.
The articles and statements coming out over the Kurd independence movement is interesting. When Iran comes to Iraq’s aid on Kurdish independence, bells and whistles need to be going off in your head. Iraq and Iran are historically not good friends.
When no country except Israel has publicly endorsed the Kurdish movement, smart foreign policy folks need to take heed. Does anyone really think that the virtues of supporting the Kurds is worth the problems that Kurdish independence will cause to the region?
Kurdish independence might sound like a nice idea. Remember though that there is no “land” for them that they get to just become a country in. The land in question belongs to three countries. Three countries that don’t want an independent Kurdish state. This would be like if we somehow decided to support an independent Mexican state in the US with pieces of Texas. California, New Mexico and Arizona. …
RT America is the American arm of the state owned Russia Today news outlet. It operates just like the BBC (a state run news outlet), Germany’s Deutsche Welle (stated goal to convey Germany as a liberal state, as part of the government’s foreign affairs function), and many others.
A strong argument can be made that as important as it is for countries to share what they think is important about them, it’s even more important for America to learn what foreign countries to think is important. Heck America must have thought it was important seeing as the CIA has been funding and operating 20 monitoring stations around the world to monitor, translate and disseminate openly available news and information from media sources outside the United States. It used to be called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) and now it’s called the Open Source Center.
Now our government has decided that this information is only for them and not for us. Our government has decided that RT needs to register as a foreign agent that is disseminating propaganda in the United States/ I’m sure this will end well. The repercussions from Russia will surely include similar sanctions against American news outlets like Fox, CNN, ABC, etc.
Does anyone really think this is good for Americans? It certainly is good for the Neos and the deep state. Knowledge is good. Restricting knowledge is never a good thing.
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I’ve been one of the few bloggers out there that has been covering the Catalonia issues. As is usually the case, this is much bigger than merely Spain and its citizens. This has the potential to destroy the EU, and the deep state is scared to its core.…
The move by many in the world to get away from the US Dollar standard continues. Unlike the US and it’s financing arm, the IMF, the Chinese usually demand extra collateral from loans and investments.
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International relations and geo political crisis usually have ramifications that go well beyond what we’re shown or lead to believe. The “crisis” with North Korea has preoccupied the media for years now. In the past few months, it’s threatened relations between the US, China, Russia and South Korea. And it’s distracted South Korea from its internal economic problems. Problems that got their President impeached and jailed. Who wins when South Korea’s economy flounders?…
Ostensibly a strong, non-warring Middle East would be in our best interests. Picking “winners” and “losers” is at best a short term gain. We went through eight years of Neo disasters in the region. Perhaps this is a sign of goodness for the US and the region.
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The Catalan “crisis” is something to watch closely. This isn’t an “immigrant” problem, like it is in other Western European countries. This is a developed civil society that somehow has turned to despotic actions against its own citizenry. It’s scary to watch and visualize other civil societies using government force to stop those who are perceived to threaten the status quo. The deep state is paying attention.…
This is an ultimate deep state issue. I’ve contended for a long time that the Neo Cons and the Neo Libs are peas from the same pod. The deep state wanted Hillary to win because she was one of them and could be counted on to protect and grow the deep state. And they have infiltrated the Trump White House.…
So, the medical exam doesn’t support the rhetoric. Something happened and there is no proof. So some will use the ambiguity to serve their cause. Yet another example of the difference between information and knowledge.
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The Kurds are everything that the Neos love. They do what they are told and when armed with US weapons, attack those we don’t like. We’ve been promising them their own country since WWI. Sadly for them, the country we promise them belongs to three other countries.
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