Vuelven los neocones?

Bueno, gente, se recalienta la temporada, En un episodio que parece salido de "Homeland", acaban de asesinar al hermano del líder norcoreano Kim Jong Un. Por otra parte, ayer renunció Michael Flynn, asesor de Seguridad Nacional del presidente Trump. Antes de renunciar, Flyn mandó una andanada de críticas al vicepresidente, que muchos consideran un "tapado" a la espera que le den el raje al presi. Mi interpretación es que los neocones vuelven a tomar el mando del Imperio. Todo puede suceder a partir de ahora, chicos; pónganse los cascos. Leemos estas dos noticias en Zero Hedge:


Título: Brother Of North Korea's Kim Jong Un Assassinated In Malaysia

Texto: Just two days after North Korea embarrassed both the US and Japan by test-firing a new, nuclear-capable ICBM with a 2000 mile range, with neither Trump nor Abe able to articulate a clear retaliation strategy, moments ago Yonhap news agency reported that the elder half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been assassinated at Kuala Lumpur airport.

Kim Jong Nam, 45, who had lived outside North Korea for years, was reported to have been killed by poison needle by two women who fled the scene by taxi, the reports said.

He was once considered to be the heir to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il but he fell out of favor with his father in 2001 after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport, and was arrested at Tokyo airport, apparently en route to Disneyland. Kim Jong Nam had been critical of Kim Jong Un, reportedly saying in 2012 that he “won’t last long” because of his youth and inexperience. The two brothers have different mothers, Bloomberg reports.

Who is behind the murder? As BBG adds, Kim has carried out a series of executions since taking power in 2011, the most high profile of which was the 2013 killing of his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song Thaek. If Kim Jong Nam was killed by a North Korean spy, it indicates that Kim Jong Un felt a sense of paranoia about his own future and wanted to remove any potential successors, according to Namkoong Young, who has been teaching inter-Korean politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies for more than 25 years.

“Jong Nam has been in exile for years away from North’s politics for a long time but he is still the eldest son of Kim Jong Il,” Namkoong said. “And if there was any move or plan by some elite there to have him replace Jong Un, he probably should be removed.”

Of course, it is just as likely that a certain spy agency could have staged the murder, making it seem like it was preemptive retaliation by Un. For now there are no further details.

A person in the Malaysian prime minister’s office, who did not want to be named, confirmed that a North Korean national had been killed at the airport and taken to hospital. The person said police were still waiting for the autopsy report. South Korean officials have yet to comment publicly on the matter. Malaysia’s foreign ministry is still waiting for information from the police on the identity of the deceased man. The death is under the purview of the home affairs ministry, she said. The police didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In 2014, Kim Jong Un had about 50 officials executed on charges ranging from graft to watching South Korean soap operas. Two senior officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun in August last year on Kim’s orders, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify.


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Título: Trump Security Team "In Turmoil" After Flynn Resignation, Russia Calls It An "Internal Matter"

Texto: Less than a month into the new administration, President Trump security team has been plunged into "turmoil" following last night's unexpected resignation announcement by his now former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn. In some additional back story color, Flynn reportedly infuriated VP Pence by misleading him about the call, then not fully apologizing, the NYT reported and also added that Steve Bannon pushed for his resignation since Friday.

Flynn stepped down on Monday night over his phone conversations with Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak. In a statement announcing his resignation, the general said he had “inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with the incomplete information” about the calls.

Flynn’s resignation comes at a delicate time for the president as Trump struggles to cement his national security apparatus, just as the president and his cabinet officials are preparing for a series of meetings and summits with foreign leaders in the coming months, starting this week in Europe, and followed by various trips abroad, mostly to Europe.

As reported last night, Trump is now contemplating to replace Flynn with retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who had been Flynn’s chief of staff.  Along with Kellogg, the White House is considering retired Vice Admiral Robert Harward and former CIA director David Petraeus as permanent replacements for Flynn. None of the three has a history with the president like Flynn’s, who was an early supporter and ardent campaigner during Trump’s improbable campaign for the White House.

First, the bad news: Flynn leaves as the U.S. confronts serious challenges on two strategic fronts: the Middle East and Asia, as Bloomberg notes. Trump has yet to define his plan for combating the Islamic State and other radical Islamists that he’s said are the No. 1 threat to the U.S. In Asia, North Korea has tested the new administration by launching a ballistic missile while Trump was meeting Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. China also is asserting itself, forcing Trump to back down from the notion of using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in dealing with the world’s second biggest economy.

Though Trump campaigned primarily on domestic issues, national security was a central element of his message and it’s been dominant in the early days of his presidency. Following on his meeting with Abe in Washington, Trump is set to meet on Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Vice President Mike Pence and other top administration officials, meanwhile, are heading to the annual Munich Security Conference at the end of the week, where European allies are desperate for any clues to Trump’s intentions and will be looking to divine what role the U.S. plans to play.

Then, some good news: Trump will hope to use Flynn’s departure to put an end to the questions about whether Flynn had improper contact with Russia. “This seemed inevitable when it became clear Flynn had misled Vice President Pence over the calls,” said Brendan Thomas-Noone, a research fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. “Trump’s administration needs to distance itself from the suspicion it has close links with Russia and this may give it some space.”

Possible replacements: If Trump taps Robert Harward it may further empower Defense Secretary James Mattis, under whom Harward served as a deputy commander of U.S. Central Command. 

Harward served on the National Security Council’s staff and at the National Counterterrorism Center under President George W. Bush. He has served as a Navy SEAL and commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Harward currently is chief executive of Lockheed Martin United Arab Emirates.

On the other hand, Gen. Petraeus is well known as a retired four-star general lauded for his leadership in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But his ability to repair the reputation of Trump’s National Security Council may be compromised by another matter that brought him notoriety: a 2015 plea deal including two years of probation for a misdemeanor, after he shared classified documents with a biographer with whom he had an extramarital affair. The episode forced his resignation as CIA director under President Barack Obama. He was under consideration by Trump for the secretary of state job that ultimately went to Rex Tillerson.


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The Democrats, who have been calling for Flynn's resignation for the past week, are feeling further emboldened and will press Trump for more details. "The reality is General Flynn was unfit to be the National Security Advisor, and should have been dismissed three weeks ago," Representatives John Conyers of Michigan and Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top-ranking Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, wrote in a joint statement.

"Now, we in Congress need to know who authorized his actions, permitted them, and continued to let him have access to our most sensitive national security information despite knowing these risks," they added. "We need to know who else within the White House is a current and ongoing risk to our national security." Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the top Foreign Affairs Committee Democrat, called for a “thorough, bipartisan investigation to get the complete picture of Russia’s interference” in the U.S. presidential election following Flynn’s resignation.”

Trump's team will be under a microscope following a WaPo report last night according to which a warning about Flynn's Russian connections was delivered to the White House counsel’s office by then acting Attorney General Sally Yates. Yates was concerned Flynn was potentially vulnerable to being "blackmailed by Russia." Trump fired Yates after she refused to defend his executive order banning travel from seven predominately Muslim nations.


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Meanwhile, early on Tuesday Russia opined on the matter saying the resignation of General Michael Flynn is a domestic US issue, and not one for Russia to comment on, according to the Kremlin.  “We would not like to comment on it in any way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday, when asked about Flynn’s resignation. “This is a domestic issue of the Americans and the Trump administration, not ours.”

Some Russian officials were more vocal about Flynn’s resignation than the Kremlin. “The resignation of Michael Flynn was probably the speediest for a national security advisor in all history. But the target is not Flynn, but rather relations with Russia,” Senator Aleksey Pushkov tweeted.

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The matter is far from over, with attention now turning to Trump's official statement on the matter which has yet to come. Meanwhile, reporters will bombard White House spokesman Sean Spicer with questions about what and when did Trump know and why he didn't act on it, with the main line of questioning focused on why was Flynn fired just now if the White House was aware of potential Russian ties for a month, and how long did Trump plan to keep Flynn on board. Also, attention will focus on whether Flynn acting on his own when he discussed the Russian sanctions with the ambassador, and whether he was authorized to have the conversation, which will then shift the spotlight to Trump's own allegations of close ties with the Kremlin.



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Actualización: reproducimos una nota del analista ruso "Peregrino", del blog The Vineyard of the Saker, en sintonía con lo que venimos sospechando:


Título: The Neocons and the “deep state” have neutered the Trump Presidency, it’s over folks!

Texto: Less than a month ago I warned that a ‘color revolution ‘ was taking place in the USA.  My first element of proof was the so-called “investigation” which the CIA, FBI, NSA and others were conducting against President Trump’s candidate to become National Security Advisor, General Flynn.  Tonight, the plot to get rid of Flynn has finally succeeded and General Flynn had to offer his resignation.  Trump accepted it.

Now let’s immediately get one thing out of the way: Flynn was hardly a saint or a perfect wise man who would single handedly saved the world.  That he was not.  However, what Flynn was is the cornerstone of Trump’s national security policy.  For one thing, Flynn dared the unthinkable: he dared to declare that the bloated US intelligence community had to be reformed.  Flynn also tried to subordinate the CIA and the Joint Chiefs to the President via the National Security Council.  Put differently, Flynn tried to wrestle the ultimate power and authority from the CIA and the Pentagon and subordinate them back to the White House.  Flynn also wanted to work with Russia. Not because he was a Russia lover, the notion of a Director of the DIA as a Putin-fan is ridiculous, but Flynn was rational, he understood that Russia was no threat to the USA or to Europe and that Russia had the West had common interests.  That is another absolutely unforgivable crimethink in Washington DC.

The Neocon run ‘deep state’ has now forced Flynn to resign under the idiotic pretext that he had a telephone conversation, on an open, insecure and clearly monitored, line with the Russian ambassador.

And Trump accepted this resignation.

Ever since Trump made it to the White House, he has taken blow after blow from the Neocon-run Ziomedia, from Congress, from all the Hollywood doubleplusgoodthinking “stars” and even from European politicians.  And Trump took each blow without ever fighting back.  Nowhere was his famous “you are fired!” to be seen.  But I still had hope.  I wanted to hope.  I felt that it was my duty to hope.

But now Trump has betrayed us all.

Remember how Obama showed his true face when he hypocritically denounced his friend and pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.?  Today, Trump has shown us his true face.  Instead of refusing Flynn’s resignation and instead of firing those who dared cook up these ridiculous accusations against Flynn, Trump accepted the resignation.  This is not only an act of abject cowardice, it is also an amazingly stupid and self-defeating betrayal because now Trump will be alone, completely alone, facing the likes of Mattis and Pence – hard Cold Warrior types, ideological to the core, folks who want war and simply don’t care about reality.

Again, Flynn was not my hero.  But he was, by all accounts, Trump’s hero.  And Trump betrayed him.

The consequences of this will be immense.  For one thing, Trump is now clearly broken. It took the ‘deep state’ only weeks to castrate Trump and to make him bow to the powers that be.  Those who would have stood behind Trump will now feel that he will not stand behind them and they will all move back away from him.  The Neocons will feel elated by the elimination of their worst enemy and emboldened by this victory they will push on, doubling-down over and over and over again.

It’s over, folks, the deep state has won.

From now on, Trump will become the proverbial shabbos-goy, the errand boy of the Israel lobby.  Hassan Nasrallah was right when he called him ‘an idiot‘.

The Chinese and Iranian will openly laugh.  The Russians won’t – they will be polite, they will smile, and try to see if some common sense policies can still be salvaged from this disaster.  Some might. But any dream of a partnership between Russia and the United States has died tonight.

The EU leaders will, of course, celebrate.  Trump was nowhere the scary bogeyman they feared.  Turns out that he is a doormat – very good for the EU.

Where does all this leave us – the millions of anonymous ‘deplorables’ who try as best we can to resist imperialism, war, violence and injustice?

I think that we were right in our hopes because that is all we had – hopes.  No expectations, just hopes.  But now we objectively have very little reasons left to hope.  For one thing, the Washington ‘swamp’ will not be drained.  If anything, the swamp has triumphed.  We can only find some degree of solace in two undeniable facts:

Hillary would have been far worse than any version of a Trump Presidency.

In order to defeat Trump, the US deep state has had to terribly weaken the US and the AngloZionist Empire.  Just like Erdogan’ purges have left the Turkish military in shambles, the anti-Trump ‘color revolution’ has inflicted terrible damage on the reputation, authority and even credibility of the USA.

The first one is obvious.  So let me clarify the second one.  In their hate-filled rage against Trump and the American people (aka “the basket of deplorables”) the Neocons have had to show they true face.  By their rejection of the outcome of the elections, by their riots, their demonization of Trump, the Neocons have shown two crucial things: first, that the US democracy is a sad joke and that they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people.  In other words, just like Israel, the USA has no legitimacy left.  And since, just like Israel, the USA are unable to frighten their enemies, they are basically left with nothing, no legitimacy, no ability to coerce.  So yes, the Neocons have won.  But their victory is removes the last chance for the US to avoid a collapse.

Trump, for all his faults, did favor the US, as a country, over the global Empire.  Trump was also acutely aware that ‘more of the same’ was not an option.  He wanted policies commensurate with the actual capabilities of the USA.  With Flynn gone and the Neocons back in full control – this is over.  Now we are going to be right back to ideology over reality.

Trump probably could have made America, well, maybe not “great again”, but at least stronger, a major world power which could negotiate and use its leverage to get the best deal possible from the others.  That’s over now.  With Trump broken, Russia and China will go right back to their pre-Trump stance: a firm resistance backed by a willingness and capability to confront and defeat the USA at any level.

I am quite sure that nobody today is celebrating in the Kremlin.  Putin, Lavrov and the others surely understand exactly what happened.  It is as if Khodorkovsy would have succeeded in breaking Putin in 2003.  In fact, I have to credit Russian analysts who for several weeks already have been comparing Trump to Yanukovich, who also was elected by a majority of the people and who failed to show the resolve needed to stop the ‘color revolution’ started against him.  But if Trump is the new Yanukovich, will the US become the next Ukraine?

Flynn was very much the cornerstone of the hoped-for Trump foreign policy.  There was a real chance that he would reign in the huge, bloated and all-powerful three letter agencies and that he would focus US power against the real enemy of the West: the Wahabis.  With Flynn gone, this entire conceptual edifice has now come down.  We are going to be left with the likes of Mattis and his anti-Iranian statements.  Clowns who only impress other clowns.

Today Neocon victory is a huge event and it will probably be completely misrepresented by the official media.  Ironically, Trump supporters will also try minimize it all.  But the reality is that barring a most unlikely last-minute miracle, it’s over for Trump and the hopes of millions of people in the USA and the rest of the world who had hoped that the Neocons could be booted out of power by means of a peaceful election.  That is clearly not going to happen.


I see very dark clouds on the horizon.