Greg Sargent interviews Nichoals Grossman to discuss Trump's claim that Putin will release Evan Gershkovich if Trump is electioned:
"This is yet another way Trump is wrecking the guardrails of democracy, this time by openly sabotaging current US foreign policy expressly to help himself politically while aligning himself with the world's autocrats and dictators – in this case Putin."
"In his new book The Return of Great Powers, which comes out Tuesday, reporter Jim Sciutto interviews several of Trump’s former advisers. All of them stressed that Trump regularly lavished praise on authoritarian leaders around the world, calling Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán 'fantastic,' Chinese President Xi Jinping 'brilliant,' and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un an
OK guy.'”
KSA🩸loves #TFG -setting the stage to intervene in Nov’s election -like he did with a smaller test run during the fall of 2022.
KSA said Sun that it'd extend their 1M-barrels-a-day cuts in -acting ‘in coord. with some’ other states *OPEC+ partner RU -also a prod. cut of 471K barrels/day. Putin wants TFG back in the WH, too.
There's about a dozen people in the world, ALL MEN, who are fucjing the rest of us, some ~10 billion strong, over big time! We can't let them win. Are those Mars rockets ready?
Military supplies delivered to Belarus aboard 4 Chinese flights, observers report.
"At the beginning of January, the Belaruski Hajun monitoring group recorded unusual activity by the Chinese cargo airline Air China Cargo at Minsk National Airport. Over a period of four days, the Boeing 747-400F registered B-2476 completed four round-trip flights between Ürümqi (airport code ZWWW) and Minsk (UMMS)...
We have reason to believe that the cargo plane transported military equipment from China to Belarus. The cargo likely bypassed customs clearance and was transshipped out of the airport immediately, as staging the freight in the usual military cargo area would have attracted additional attention with the consignment sitting out in the open."
As I always say, authoritarians tell you what they are going to do. We just don't want to hear it — Ruth Ben-Ghiat #quotes#quote#authoritarians#dictators
I can't help but wonder
How the #dictators of #Russia#China#NorthKorea
do manipulate information so successfully ?
Why do the #Russians, the #Chinese, the #North-Koreans believe
all the bullshit they are served by their States
without getting angry ?
why don't they rebel ?
What is the secret of such successful propaganda and manipulation ?
...
Are those populations stupid?
they do not understand ?
or...
they do understand
but are they complicit ?
"Washington, D.C., November 29, 2023 - Henry Kissinger’s death today brings new global attention to the long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became famous—détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East shuttle diplomacy, among them.
"This historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s controversial tenure in power: his role in the overthrow of #democracy and the rise of #dictatorship in #Chile; disdain for #HumanRights and support for dirty, and even #genocidal, wars abroad; secret bombing campaigns in #SoutheastAsia; and involvement in the #Nixon administration’s criminal abuses, among them the secret wiretaps of his own top aides.
"To contribute to a balanced and more comprehensive evaluation of Kissinger’s legacy, the National Security Archive has compiled a small, select dossier of declassified records—memos, memcons, and 'telcons' that Kissinger wrote, said and/or read—documenting TOP SECRET deliberations, operations and policies during Kissinger’s time in the White House and Department of State.
"The revealing 'telcons'—over 30,000 pages of daily #transcripts of Kissinger’s phone conversations which he secretly recorded and had his secretaries transcribe—were taken by Kissinger as 'personal papers' when he left office in 1977 and used, selectively, to write his best-selling memoirs.
"The National Security Archive forced the U.S. government to recover these official records by preparing a lawsuit that argued that both the State Department and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) had inappropriately allowed classified U.S. government documentation to be removed from their control. Archive senior analyst William Burr filed a FOIA request for their declassification. The draft lawsuit—which was never filed—is included in this dossier, since Kissinger’s effort to remove, retain and control these highly informative and revealing historical records should be considered a critical part of his official legacy, and the full texts have been published in the Digital National Security Archive series from ProQuest.
"This special posting also centralizes links to dozens of previously published collections of documents related to Kissinger’s tenure in government that the Archive, led by the intrepid efforts of William Burr, has identified, pursued, obtained and catalogued over several decades. Together, these collections constitute an accessible, major repository of records on one of the most consequential U.S. foreign policy makers of the 20th century.
"'Henry Kissinger’s insistence on recording practically every word he said, either to the presidents he served (without their knowledge that they were being taped) or the diplomats he cajoled, remains the gift that keeps on giving to diplomatic historians,' remarked Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive.
"'Kissinger’s aides later commented that he needed to keep track of which lie he told to whom. Kissinger tried to keep those documents under his own control. His deed of gift to the Library of Congress would have kept them closed until five years from now, but the Archive brought legal action and forced the opening of secret documents that show a decidedly mixed picture of Kissinger’s legacy, and enormous catastrophic costs to the peoples of Southeast Asia and Latin America.'"
Interesting.
Turkey aligned forces and Assad aligned forces are all denying ANY involvement of Iranian militias in the revolts of Deirezzor.
Meanwhile they proudly publish videos of them using Iranian made rocket systems.
Where do they come from may I ask?
Muderous mullahs of Iran sees the survival of the Asad Syrian government as being crucial to its interest. Syria provides a crucial thoroughfare to Hezbollah in Lebanon. IRGC say Syria is Iran's "35th province", in addition to viewing Bashar al-Assad's Alawite dominated Ba'athist government as being a crucial buffer against the influence of Saudi Arabia & US
The Syrian city of Zabadani is vitally important to Assad and to Iran because Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps's logistical hub for supplying Hezbollah Prior to the Syrian war, Iran had between 2,000 and 3,000 IRGC officers stationed in Syria, helping to train local troops and managing supply routes of arms and money to neighboring Lebanon. #Terror#land#theft#criminal#dictators