Dunces, Dukes and Princes talk to Trump

what a great photo by Saudi Press Agency

Dunce hats on a few of the Persian Gulf autocrats.

Dunces. Dunces who managed to get U.S.dunces to kill a lot of Iraqis, Syrians and Yemenis, among others, on their behalf. Petrodollars buys killing to save their dunce necks.

photo copied from John Duke Anthony & Fahad Nazer piece:

http://ncusar.org/aa/2016/12/gcc-us-relations-under-trump-administration/

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations - home of a lot of paid flacks including Anthony himself, disgraced-leaker-of-secrets Petraeus, three Saudi princes including neocon Sunni-terrorist fanboy Turki, professional apologist Nawaf Obaid, and at least one Al-Jubair not Adel, Jubeir spelled both ways, plus Michael Hudson, Raghida Dergham and others.

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I found the piece to be distasteful and shameful, let alone one-sided P.R. meant to sway the dunces without flags over their heads, namely, the uninformed. Well, it's paid. Those pundits get paid to do the shameful deeds, participate in repression of truth for money, spread false stories and propaganda for money. When the money sits in the same room with the pen, money talks. Money has the room as well as the floor.

1) Anthony wrote about anticipation that President-elect Trump will take seriously the GCC’s deep concerns about Iran’s policies in the Arab world. 

My question is logical and different and deserves to be asked. Will Trump take seriously Iran's deep concerns about GCC member's disturbing, sectarian war-mongering, terrorist-supporting policies in the Middle East, indeed, in the world?

 With Generals Flynn and Mattis each speaking into one of Trump's ears, he hears some anti-Iran this, anti-Iran that talk. He hears it's good for business. Yeah, yeah, the defense industry can continue to sell arms to Gulfies, billions and billions worth.

    But the Saudis can try to cut off the head of their own snake. Obama's Pentagon has assisted the Saudis and their lousy coalition in the disastrous Yemen war, and maybe Trump will continue to support bombing and starving people for Mo Salman to prove his manhood, for occasional swipes at Al Qaeda or ISIS, for military bases and pipelines from deserts to seas. It'll take guts to end the U.S. part in that dreadful war. Trump has a big mouth but I don't know if he's got any guts.

 Fortunately for Iran, Trump will also hear Rex Tillerson, with both ears, whether he gets the Sec. State post or not. He's already got a pipeline to Trump's ear and that's not going away. I have a strong feeling that Tillerson feels strongly about, say, the facilities at Ras Tanura and Jubail and thinks about where Iranian rockets could land That's the kind of money that I think will talk to Trump.      

2) Pity no dunce hat for JD Anthony who calls Iraqi PMUs non-state actors. They're under control of the Iraqi Prime Minister. Period. U.S. wasn't in favor of Iraqi parliament approval of placing the PMUs in with the regular armed forces for campaigns, but it's happened. PMUs are not going to be allowed to enter with some other Iraqi and Kurdish forces in some places specifically to avoid sectarianism and the appearance thereof. 

So far the reports even from U.S. general in major news media have been positive to the PMUs' effectiveness and speed. They've gone where they were ordered to go and not further. 

There's plenty more in the piece which runs counter to facts and would make lousy policy. Think-tankery public relations is going to be getting more publicity about its funders and the extreme views they propagate. The Saudis multi-million dollar handouts to those chaps aren't going to be enough to cover up their evil deeds. They deserve dunce hats. 

The Stench

So the Saudis host one of their favorite terrorist children, Ahrar Al-Sham, in Riyadh after telling the lousy Jordanian wimp not to put that group of terrorists on the so-called List of Arab Sunni Terrorist Groups he's supposedly compiling. Al Nusrah Front is deliberately kept off the list, too, as it's also preferred by the Saudis, Qataris, Turks, the Israelis and the warmonger and so-called R2P elements of the U.S. decision-making apparatus. The long-prevailing explanation to the low-information public is that ousting Assad is necessary to get rid of ISIS, ISIL, DAESH. The fact that the so-called coalition didn't have much success against the terrorists fed that notion. Then the Syrian state got some serious help from its friends against the Sunni Wahhabist goons and their various backers who want to destroy the state for their various and well-known reasons amongst those who pay attention.

No matter the aroma of Mo Nayef and Mo Salman, the stench of Bandar bin Sultan wafts widely.

Matthews, Maddow Spread Rubbish About Russians in Syria Today

MSNBC big league star Rachel Maddow has become a major disappointment in her coverage of news relating to the Middle East, doling out propaganda as if it's reporting. 

Today I heard Chris Matthews say about the first Russian bombing raids in Syria, "They're bombing the good guys." I listened to his program for a couple years in the afternoons when there wasn't anything interesting to me on C-Span, until I couldn't bear to hear his ignorance on "my" issues. Now he declares the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaida offshoot, allegiance sworn, and Ahrar-as-Shams are "good guys." How is that not support for terrorism?

I didn't expect the same from Ph.D. Rachel, but she's hopped on the bullshit bandwagon without a fare-thee-well in regards to Syria and Iran, for some time now. She sometimes issues corrections, but never about the obvious mistakes and preconceived narratives for Middle East matters. 

The Pentagon whispers in her ear and she puts it on the air. Often, as today, a diligent amount of research would have turned up some large holes in her so-called reporting.

Examples from tonight's program: the faux contempt that the U.S. military has been bombing terrorists in Syria for a year and the Russians are late to the party. Perhaps she was unaware that we and the others were not invited in but the Russians were. Minimally, she or her staff could have looked at the headlines in Google News. Perhaps if they'd clicked on a few articles, that simple fact would have become clear.

Perhaps it didn't occur to her that the U.S. doesn't get to choose targets for the Russians. 

Perhaps it didn't occur to her that the U.S. drones can see the convoys of terrorists moving towards Damascus, and saw them moving towards the ancient Palmyra, but somehow forget to send target data to our bombs.

 Does she really believe our lack of success is because the lousy Syrian dictator won't give up power? 

I watch her show, have done since the beginning and whilst she subbed for Keith Olbermann. I will continue to watch her show because she covers D.C. politics from a progressive POV and I'm interested in that, but I'm not just going to growl at the tube all the time when I hear rubbish.