Be Afraid...Be Very Afraid...Dotard Appoints John "Ripper" Bolton To NSC Adviser

"He (Bolton) is not only a hawk, he's extremely reckless. He believes in going to war first, and diplomacy second. Having him as the National Security adviser would be a terrible situation and put us into a likely nuclear war. He could go after North Korea and that would result in millions of people being killed and I wouldn't put it beyond him to drag China and Russia into it."- Richard Painter, last night on All In.

For those too young to register it the 1964 film 'Dr. Strangelove',  starring George C. Scott and Peter Sellers, featured an unhinged United States Air Force general ("Jack D. Ripper") who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.. (Ripper  believes the Soviets have been using fluoridation of United States water supplies to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of Americans.)  The film revolves around the various efforts of the sane contingent  to try  to stop the madman's plans which include dispatching a B-52  with a hydrogen bomb- and ordering radio silence. In the last scene Major T.J. Kong rides the bomb down to its target like a rodeo bull until detonation, e.g.


That story was a farce depicting the folly of nuclear weapons and the greater folly of irrational men who might be controlling their use (including the codes to the nuclear football) - in this case a pre-emptive strike setting.  Alas, with the appointment of John Bolton as Trump's new National Security adviser  yesterday, we may be seeing the beginnings of a play that ends not too differently from Dr. Strangelove. To  sum up, Bolton's basic philosophy translates to "bomb first - preferably with nukes - and talk later."

Which brings us to Bolton's justification for pre-emptive strikes as laid out in his recent WSJ op -ed,''The Legal Case For Striking North Korea First'.

Seldom in human history are malignant intentions and vile future acts telegraphed in blunt terms. The problem is too many of us are too preoccupied - often with irrelevant fluff and nonsense - to take note when it happens. Because we ignore the warning shots over our existential bows, we pay dearly for our nonchalance later. Such was the case after the publication of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' in which he literally laid out in black and white his foul plan to exterminate the Jews   But too few took note at the time, and read the warning signs mostly after the fact.

In the most recent iteration of this John Bolton published a commentary arguing for the "legality" of a first strike against North Korea in the February 28th WSJ . Bolton's piece: 'The Legal Case For Striking North Korea First', telegraphs, as clearly and blatantly as Hitler did in Mein Kampf, what he would do if the conditions merit. That is, he'd launch a pre-emptive (first) strike against North Korea.

Let us carefully note here that if this psychopath were to follow through on his plan, many millions more would perish than  all the Jews who died in Nazi gas chambers.

Without being hyperbolic with rhetoric,  let me try to impress upon readers the gravity of the situation and why Bolton's nuclear strike document - which is what it really is - ought to scare the bejeezus out of any sentient person.

Interviewed in April last year about a possible U.S. first strike attack on North Korea, former CIA North Korean analyst Sue Mi Terry responded:

 “I can’t see him following through on this and that is the problem with the brinksmanship policy. Because you’re putting yourself in a bind. You will either have to back down and lose credibility or you are stuck on a ledge with a military option which is very, very risky.

 North Korea is not Syria. It’s not Afghanistan. It’s going to have very devastating consequences.  North Korea will retaliate to any kind of military option. They will retaliate against South Korea given seventy percent of its ground forces are deployed within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of the DMZ.  And there’s twenty thousand U.S. military in South Korea and twenty million people in Seoul”

She was warning that any U.S. first attack would assuredly incept a powerful counter attack that would  wreak havoc on Seoul, South Korea – with the potential to obliterate over 20 million people as well as all U.S. troops stationed in S. Korea.  She was referring to more than 10,000 artillery pieces capable of hurling shells into Seoul bearing not only sarin nerve agent but biological weapons such as anthrax, Ebola, smallpox and cholera.

While the U.S.  has focused on the North's nuclear capability, there has been little mention of this formidable conventional arsenal.  Nor has it evidently been on Bolton's radar or he'd have been more circumspect with his op ed.  He simply appears not to have processed that even if a first strike were to eliminate the North's nuclear missiles, it would barely scratch the surface of its highly fortified artillery. Worse, such a foolhardy strike could also draw in the Chinese and even the Russians. At the end we could be looking at a full, all- out thermonuclear war with more than 9,500 hydrogen weapons exchanged.  It's difficult to get a sense of what such a war wold look like but this clip from the 1984 Brit film 'Threads' gives some idea, e.g.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrHoMSRZOS4

Watch it then watch again- especially the last 2 minutes of the clip-  to see what we may be in for with this goddamned lunatic.

What is especially unnerving in his WSJ piece is how he justifies a pre-emptive strike on the basis of what is am "imminent" threat, predicated on an 1837 'test of necessity' formulated by Daniel Webster.  Webster's test referred to when British forces invaded the U.S.  to destroy the steamboat 'Caroline' in 1837. It had been used by Canadian rebels to transport weapons into Ontario.

Webster argued that Britain had failed to show 'the necessity of self-defense was' instant', leaving no choice of means and no moment of deliberation.

Bolton, having set the premise up then writes (ibid.):

"Would an American first strike today against North Korea's nuclear weapons' program violate Webster's necessity test? Clearly not. Necessity in the nuclear and ballistic missile age is simply different than in the age of steam.....In 1837 Britain unleashed pre-emptive 'fire and fury' against a wooden steamboat. It is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current necessity posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons by striking first."

Missing in Bolton's "necessity" doctrine is any element of ethics or basic morality. Namely, that he is fully willing to sacrifice 20-25 million South Korean lives to justify this perfidy under the banner of some abstract "Caroline criteria" argument. Effectively doing so merely because North Korea possesses  weapons that might hit the U.S. Bolton also appears never to have learned the most fundamental lesson of basic morality: the ends never justifies the means.

Bolton is also amiss in terms of international law and specifically Nuremberg Principle VI:
"The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:

(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).

(b) War crimes:

Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.

(c) Crimes against humanity:

Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime."

So Bolton's claim of "legaality" for his first strike is total bollocks.

As Richard Painter, former ethics adviser to George W. Bush put it last night.: "We already had one hothead now we have another hothead who believes the same crazy stuff." Sen. Chris Murphy was even more specific noting Bolton advocates for a first strike on the North for the "mere possession of weapons that might hit the United States" adding, "that is a Pandora's box."

Bolton, of course, is also willing to scuttle the Iranian nuclear deal.. Bolton's appointment, then,  is also the latest in a long series of signals Trump has sent in recent months that he is determined to take the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. This despite strong protests from European allies, as well as Russia and China, who are join signatories to the deal.  Bolton himself Bolton published an open memo on how to “free America from this execrable deal at the earliest opportunity”.

Some conservatives close to the White House had argued that Bolton was too hawkish for Trump, and that his foreign adventurism would detract from Dotard's“America first” strategy of concentrating on creating U.S, jobs and cutting immigration. But it is now apparent that Trump - increasingly besieged by the Mueller investigation into his campaign’s contacts with the Kremlin- aims for reckless military distraction and asserting U.S. might abroad. 

Having another rank lunatic by his side in Bolton, instead of someone like HR McMaster to curb his worst instincts, means we are all on the muclear countdown  clock. This because many actually believe if an indictment does come from Mueller Trump will punch in the nuclear codes. And with "Ripper" Bolton there to urge him on, there will be no second chances.  Hyperbolic? No, not from a character who believes firmly he is more important than the entire world and all 7.5 billion on it.  Can you say "malignant narcissist"?

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/78331/the-last-person-in-the-room-john-bolton-pnac-and-the-end-of-the-world

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/78321/with-bolton-our-national-nightmare-of-trump-just-got-much-much-darker

Radical Right Terrorists Need To Be Monitored and Brought to Trial!

Depiction of Obama by a Right Wing Extremist, formerly known as ‘Pastor Mike’

The former Homeland Security analyst who appeared on the Ed Schulz show this past Monday put it bluntly on noting the reason for his expulsion was for following up leads on Right Wing extremists. Evidently, DHS backed off from its scrutiny three years ago after Tea Party Repukes in Congress began barking they were being picked on and singled out! Huh! These nuts crawled out of the wood work after Obama’s 2008 election and then again - more recently- after his re-election.


As the Southern Policy Law Intelligence Report (Issue 149, Spring 2013) has shown, Right wing extremism is now exploding across the nation, and they have documented over 1,007 hate groups – mainly concentrated in Dixie, aka the old Confederacy. The home of the traitor Jefferson Davis, and fellow slave owning miscreants.


As I read the SPLC report, and heard the testimony from the former DHS analyst, I then wondered why the hell the federal government had focused so many resources on the Occupy movement, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html

David Lindorff documented : http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494
that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies “began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.”

He explained:

“As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.”


In a similar vein, one of Lindorff’s PCJ -obtained documents reveals a perp -instigator (name conveniently blanked out in the released document) who actually proposed to assassinate leaders of the Occupy Movement in Houston with “suppressed” sniper rifles. As the released PCJ document puts it:


"One identified ------ as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified ----- had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. ---- planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest group and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”


And the Right Wing Weenies are pissing and moaning and getting their diapers all wet? But Occupy was largely innocuous while the Right has now veered into full tilt anarchism, and whacked out conspiracy to justify the formation of thousands of Bushmaster .223 toting Militia groups. (See, e.g. ‘White Hot- For the Radical Right, Obama Victory Brings Fury and Fear’, SPLC Intelligence Report, p. 36) See also the online story at: http://www.splcenter.org/home/2012/spring/white-hot


The SPLC IR observes (‘Conspiracies and Terror’, p. 42) these whackos still subscribe to “the completely baseless claim that ‘Agenda 21’, a United Nations sustainability plan is…part of a plan to impose socialism on America”.  Another 'Stormfront' moron quoted in the 'White hot'  SPLC piece blustered: “It is sad to see how many White women are going against their interest and it isn’t just our American mudsharks either. I cannot tell you how many European chicks are paired up with coloreds. It is a very disturbing trend actually.”

Errrrrr.....maybe those White women just know and value higher I.Q.s when they see them!


Thus fired up, these nuts have stockpiled high powered weapons and bought out high capacity magazines. Meanwhile, Right wing extremists have actually struck out in murderous rage, including a demented military whacko who killed 6 people at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, local officials in Georgia had to arrest ten active-duty military who allegedly planned to take over the Army’s Ft. Stewart. What gives with these former military right -wing whackjobs?


Meanwhile, the DHS, FBI et al waste time monitoring the innocent, idealistic (albeit yes, Left-leaning)  kids of Occupy Wall Street. But then as Oliver Stone has noted ('The Untold History Of the United States’ ) the feds have been singularly after the U.S. Left since the 1940s-50s,  finding every ruse or excuse under the frickin’ Sun to break up its organizations , and scatter them to the four winds! The disrupted organizations include: Labor, the Civil Rights movement, the Anti-war movement of the 1960s, the Black Panthers and others.

Much of this commenced under the Hoover- instigated FBI program known as COINTELPRO which featured assets being planted in various organizations with the sole purpose to disrupt them


But WHY do that when the REAL Terrorists and Murderers are all on the RIGHT?  Is it because the Federal agencies are themselves infiltrated with Right wing 'law -and -order' (their law) reactionaries -Nazi sympathizers? Are they left over from the Bush Jr. administration? It may be well that we need to know! Schulz's guest didn't venture an answer or speculate, but why else have the feds backed off so wholeheartedly from investigating, pursuing, and prosecuting the Right?

As blogger Bob Burnett has noted, over the last five years,  the Republican Party has veered to the far right and, in the process, been taken over by anarchists and Tea Party extremists who do not believe in centralized government.  University of California linguistics professor George Lakoff put it bluntly,

"[ultra conservatives] believe that Democracy gives them the liberty to seek their own self-interests by exercising personal responsibility, without having responsibility for anyone else or anyone else having responsibility for them."


These Tea Pea Republican anarchists reject the founders' morality, the sentiments that produced the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These ultra conservatives don't believe in the common good or the notion that Americans have a moral responsibility to care for each other. (Which they deride as “touchy feely”) But they do venerate the second amendment to the Constitution, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

As a consequence, as Burnett writes, America is an armed camp, There are 89 guns for every 100 civilians... That amounts to roughly 270 million guns owned nationwide, far and away the highest gun ownership rate in the world." But the guns are unevenly distributed. About 35 percent of Americans personally own a gun. "Around 80 percent of gun owners are men. On average they own 7.9 guns each." (According to Burnett.)

Republican anarchists tend to live in Red states, where weapons are concentrated. There's a disturbing relationship between gun prevalence, resistance to gun control, and anti-government rhetoric. Wherever there's a high percentage of gun ownership there is also pro-second-amendment rhetoric and inflammatory talk suggesting the federal government threatens individual freedom. In January, gun-rights advocate, Kurt Hofmann, wrote an article "Government prepares for war with the people, and mass media approves,"   in which he deplored a "forcible citizen disarmament campaign," and predicted the current wave of gun control legislation ultimately intends to seize the weapons of "patriots."


Meanwhile, the most odious aspect of the Right’s terrorists is when they mix fundamentalist religious bullshit with their innate victim mentality. One quoted in the SPLC Intelligence Report (p. 37) for example, bellyached after Obama’s re-election:

“We have truly fallen under God’s judgment. You will never see another white man occupy the White House again!”

Awwww…..Boohoooo…and BWAAAHAHAHAAA…... Ever consider it was the majority of voter's judgment, dickhead? That they didn't want the likes of a White Plutocrat Slavemaster in the White House? (And, btw, just 'cause it's called a "White House" doesn't mean a white man gets to occupy it!)  Sounds almost as pathetic as the former Pastor Mike bawling because he’d "been removed from Facebook". He claimed “bias” in free speech rights while “Libos” and “libtards” got to spread their hate and all he did was try to exercise his free speech rights under the 1st amendment. Right? In a pig's eye!

What Mikey boy proposed was radically different and distinct with his vile “Christian National Registry of Atheists” – which treated atheists like sex offenders! In one fell swoop he not only shit on 22 million Americans but signed his own fate by drawing their mass heat when they uncovered his brazenly posted Facebook page with his Nazi-based plan (Which he admits he copied from Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ e.g. in orchestrating a registry for Jews. "Just for information purposes".)


In the wake of that furore,  Mike’s FB page deserved to be shut down! (If for no other reason than to prevent a 'denial of service' suit against Facebook!) However, what he fails to mention at all is that HE himself chose to shut down his 'Pastor Mike’s Blog'! He did it because he couldn’t stand up to the heat he himself engendered. He learned he could start fires but couldn't put them out....unless he punked out and ran away. But he will never admit that, preferring to focus on his Facebook page.


Fortunately for him, he can now exercise all the free speech he wants on his new (but much less read, by barely 20 people) blog, where he sows as much hate or more – such as depicted in the image shown. Half the time he spends attacking ‘Obummer’ (despite finally being able to eat out thanks to the disability benefits he could never get under Bush) and the other half  wails about “Libos” taking away his precious rights – though his lot are far more disrespectful of free speech rights and constitutional provisions. (It’s also hilarious he continues to deride me as a “draft dodger in JFK’s Draft Dodging Peace Corps” – when in fact I’d already taken my draft board exam in March, 1965 (designated as IY, or only eligible for service in case of declared war or national emergency) nearly 6 years before entering Peace Corps!  But it shows how little he knows, even on family matters. And this from a guy who mainly spent the ‘Nam years doing KP duty in the Marine Corps, from the info I’ve been given!)


But what can you expect from a guy who’s had his brains bruised senseless “after more than 1,000 bat and bottle fights”?  My main worry? His increasing bombastic posts, freighted with belligerence and over the top hostility, steers him toward the reactionary Right crazies documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Perhaps a small ‘hummingbird’ drone dispatched to monitor his activities might prove most useful, and avert possible future nastiness.  Maybe the DHS needs to wake up and put him and his misguided ilk on its radar instead of perennially picking on Lefties!