American foreign policy is more and more resembling the NFL’s and broadcast networks’ pre-game football hype before the Super Bowl. For those of you who grimaced while watching former President Barack Obama touchdown dancing and pretending to be a sports hero, the current POTUS is even worse. To make matters worse for humanity, many of my countrymen fall for the whole act. Case in point, hyping America’s military might and bravado.
When I read the INSIDER headline,“F-22 stealth jets got 587 enemy aircraft to back off in their first ‘combat surge’ over Syria,” I immediately checked the newswires to see if Syria had exploded into World War III. Thank God, I voiced aloud on discovering the Military & Defense section (and the rest of the magazine) are owned by Insider Inc. and our old friend Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world. No, thank your lucky stars, we are not at war with Russia, Iran, and Syria. Yes, Bezos and company consider these nations our “enemies.”
While You Slept – WWIII Began
When you read the article in question, most of you won’t believe your what the texts are telling your brain. Amazingly, another Bezos “fake news” outlet is actually citing the Pentagon when author Alex Lockiebrazenly declares open war. Yes, you got it, the Trump Pentagon openly classifies the Russians as “the enemy.” Quoting from the report from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS):
“The 94th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron protected coalition ground forces operating within Syria by flying Defensive Counter Air missions against enemy air-to-ground capable fighter aircraft. The squadron also flew Offensive Counter Air missions deep into Syrian territory, facing both enemy fighters and surface-to-air missile systems, as the United States and Coalition forces launched deliberate attacks in response to the Syrian regime’s illegal use of chemical weapons.”
I’ll get into who these DVIDS people are in a minute, but first let me emphasize what it means for our government to brand an enemy. The Cambridge Dictionary definition:
“enemy–noun: a person who hates or opposes another person and tries to harm them or stop them from doing something”
The term can also be used to demonstrate “a country, or the armed forces of a country, that is at war with another country.” And this brings us to a critical point, the reason for my disbelief in this Pentagon rhetoric. By naming Russia, Iran, and Syria our “enemies” we have, in effect, declared war on all three nations. On the contrary, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has not yet declared Americans the “enemy,” and I quote directly from the Russian president:
“It is wrong to make anyone into an enemy; it is wrong to scare the people of one’s own country with that enemy and try to rally some allies on that basis.”
And it is Putin and Russia that are portrayed as the “aggressor” in nearly every geopolitical case.
Let’s forget for the moment that the United States and Middle Eastern allies created ISIS in the first place. We also need to forget, for the moment, that Coalition air forces were flying air cover for those “moderates” arrayed against Syria’s Assad. And to grasp the Pentagon’s viewpoint here, we also need to ignore the fact it was Vladimir Putin’s forces that bombed ISIS/ISIL to smithereens, and not the coalition. Excuse my sarcasm, but Russia has been America’s “ally” in destroying the head chopping ISIS heathens – NOT her enemy.
The Billionaires Battle for Earth
Now let me return to this outfit known as DVIDS, which broadcasts blatant militarism disguised as “strategic” thought, study, and information. For your own research, visit this organization’s website and type “Putin” into the search for media. You will get the “real” policy process the deep state in America wants. Just watch one session of Michael Guillot, editor of Strategic Studies Quarterly Journal, and the “mission” becomes dreadfully clear. Short version: U.S. – Russia relations have never climbed out of the toilet. The video I linked to is of Guillot interviewing Dr. Mark J. Conversino, who’s job (now get this) is to “create warrior-scholars” for the United States Air Force. Reading his Air Force resume gives me the shivers. A mechanic supervisor who has had an ongoing academic orgasm of a career, training “warrior scholars” who blast children to bits while reciting history lessons. Good God.
The reader does not need to watch too many of these videos to grasp how catastrophic America’s military-industrial system has become. Air University is one of many institutions run with one purpose in mind, to grease the ideological wheels of America’s war machine. Imagine hundreds of these psychopaths making rules, regulations, strategies, and playing footsies under the table with Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon and the rest.
DVIDS operates DefenseTV, which is a military television-channel that broadcasts through (get this) FireTV, Chromecast or Roku. The channel puts up militarism 24/7, but the reader should take special note of FireTV and Chromecast here. Amazon and Bezos, and Google are not used simply because big audiences use these channels. Bezos, whose Washington Post spits out America’s worst propaganda, is a keynote speaker just about every time the Air Force Association (AFA) holds a conference. Here, let me just quote from the intro of a Business Insider story about Bezos, Google, and the Pentagon joining forces:
“Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is the latest member to join the Defense Innovation Advisory Board, a Pentagon initiative led by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt to bring Silicon Valley’s top minds to the US military.”
You Won’t Like What’s Next
In recent years, watching the machinations of deadly American politicians, I am reminded of something one of the founding fathers of America, President James Madison said:
“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
Herein lies the problem and the danger in all this. As I mentioned, this mechanical parts supplier turned “scholar warrior trainer,” Dr. Conversino is the perfect example of a once necessary military industry gone rogue. In his talk mentioned above, he immediately drives a wedge in between the Putin’s administration’s goals and what he says are “the people’s” national interests. Listen to his diatribe two minutes and you will recognize how we are in this crisis today. A low level sellout like this is “teaching” young minds, some of whom are the best America has to offer, that the Putin government is a “regime.” I’ll quote him in case some reading this have no time. When asked his opinion on what Russia’s national interests are, Conversino says:
“I would say at the outset, there is a difference between what the Russian people may see as their national interests, and what the regime sees as national interests.”
He goes on to claim that Putin’s interests are in his personal survival only. But the man is an idiot, I am sorry. For me, and probably for you, seeing that these lunatics cannot even recognize their hypocrisy is funny – and sad. This “professor” goes about comparing North Korean and Iranian leadership to Russia’s. It’s like he’s gotten a bonus paycheck to burn this idea into the heads of Air Force cadets, and to further broadcast these ideas to the wider network of service personnel. When I was in the Navy, this clown would have been the prime candidate for a blanket party. But he is just a symptom, a bad cough of a human being, for instance.
In the bigger picture media such as INSIDER and other Bezos interests, they are the deadliest propaganda tools humanity has ever seen. Amplified by the digital landscape, this multitude of information channels controlled by a very few threaten to usurp liberty altogether. For what is liberty except the right to “understand” and act for oneself? Bezos, the Google boys, and corporate or government-owned entities are brainwashing on an unheard-of level. It’s even fair to say these elites have taken over our government completely. Those who cannot be brainwashed are minimalized or bought, and anybody else is a fringe terrorist or accomplice. This is where all this is headed.
The problem for Bezos, the technocrats, the big financiers, and the rest of this “order” is the mediocrity they are forced to utilize. The narrative broadcast from DefenseTV with mouthpieces and fools like this professor, they end up being crystal transparent. American “interests” as a hegemony come out, and Russia is blamed for wanting a multi-polar world instead of one run by Bezos and Co. I am at a loss as to how any nation’s interests for its people are labelled as “bad,” as I am sure some Air Force Academy cadets listening to these bozos. Russia is bad because Putin does not want NATO in Ukraine. Russia is bad because Putin and other leaders do not want to bend over and kiss the proverbial butt of some American autocrat. Russia is bad, according to the Trump Pentagon, because we need a big-bad-enemy to terrify the public over. Or, the Pentagon may not survive! No, wait. Survival is only the concern of Vladimir Putin, I forgot what Dr. Conversino taught us.
What was it I said, “you won’t like?” Oh yes, what’s next is what happens when elites take total control. Do you think Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates are the great shepherds? Once the power in the west takes complete control, do you think they will act like that gentle preacher at Sunday school, gently urging you to pay all you have to be free? I think not. You may as well choose Vladimir Putin as your good shepherd, at least he is not prophesying a new world under Russia.
Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”