War and Politics - September 15, 2015

• Who’s Going to Foot the Bill for Ukraine?
• Putin: The Only World Leader Speaking Sense on Syria & The Migrant Crisis
• IMF head is "extremely encouraged" by the economic disaster in Ukraine
• Cyber Berkut's Latest Hack May Reveal UAF deliberately targeted Schools
• Half a million refugees gather in Libya to attempt perilous crossing to Europe
• Refugee Crisis: What The Media Is Hiding
• Sovereign Debt as Weapon: Subverting Democracy in Greece
• Media Rubbish about Venezuelans Who Have Left to Live Abroad
• Uruguay To Withdraw From Free Trade Deal on Services
• China intends to oust dollar from oil trade

War and Politics - September 14, 2015

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• Ukraine: The Market Does Not Care About Your Values
• The Murky Myth of the “2000 Russian War Dead” in Ukraine
• Kyiv one of the world's most unliveable cities, survey finds
• New Ukrainian Textbook Erases Crimea From Country’s List of Territories
• Land Destroyer: US Seeks Occupation as US Fighters Flood Syria
• U.S. Drops Bombs; EU Gets Refugees & Blame. This is insane.
• How Neocons Destabilized Europe
• Lebanon Protest Leaders Reveal Connections To Western Color Revolution Apparatus
• Read This Before the Media Uses a Drowned Refugee Boy to Start Another War
• "Some People Just Don't Fit In The Economy" Buffett Explains: "We'll Send Them Off To Afghanistan"

War and Politics - September 11, 2015

Following The IMF Billions In And Out Of Ukraine
Kiev Understands Impossibility of Regaining Crimea - Parliament Speaker
Ukrainian economist: Goodbye Russia, goodbye economy
EU president: Refugee crisis is start of real exodus
Fox News Doesn’t Get it, Blames Russia for Refugee Crisis in EU
Are Moldova Bank Fraud Protests a 'Creation' of US State Dep't?
60% of Japanese youth believe the atomic bomb was dropped by the USSR
Washington Post tells whoppers about Greece and Argentina
Exceptional Pain Dispensed by the Indispensable Nation
‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11
The Long Road From 9/11

War and Politics - September 10, 2015

Kiev Chief of Staff: Intelligence reports have 90% margin of error
New Violence in Kiev - But Nobody Seems to Care Much
Odessa governor says state machinery in Ukraine demoralized, power may change
As Major Culprit in Creating Crisis, US Rebuked for Failing Refugees
Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: Secret Back Story Reveals Why The West Cannot Topple His Government
Blowback on a NATO beach
The March of Shame
There Goes Europe
US State Dept fails to explain Washington's decision to extend sanctions on Russia
Something Major Is On The Horizon For This Fall.
Too Many Big Chess Pieces Have Been Positioning Themselves Around The Table
The Empire Files — The Rise of History's Biggest Empire

War and Politics - September 9, 2015

• Why Are Leaders of Arab States Flocking to Moscow?
• Putin Achieves Political Draw in Sanctions War with Europe 
• Putin’s Asia-Eurasia Pivot: ‘Isolation’ from the West Spurs Eurasian Integration and Russian Globalization
• Maidan 2.0 Erupting in Ukraine?
• The Art of Propaganda: Why is Russia Called the Main Threat to World Peace?
• Syrian refugees find Arctic route towards western Europe
• The CIA and the Media: 50 Facts the World Needs to Know
• The Real Enemy Is Within
• NYT Claims U.S. Abides by Cluster Bomb Treaty: The Exact Opposite of Reality
• On This Labor Day, How We Can Honor the Men and Women Who Fought for Workers’ Rights 

No Bread and Circuses for You – Status Update

You may have noticed that my posting schedule here at No Bread and Circuses for You has become a bit sporadic recently. And there's a good reason for that. I've been spending more time recently doing the same kind of work over at the website Russia Insider. If you have not yet visited Russia Insider, I'd like to recommend it to you and suggest that you stop over there for a visit. Here is their website address:  Russia Insider

I've certainly enjoyed everything that I've done here at No Bread and Circuses for You. So why would I be spending less time doing this? One word... Impact. At this site, I've averaged about 20,000 views a month since I started a bit over a year ago. Russia Insider averages about 3 million views a month. My work over there has a much greater impact than my work over here.

At Russia Insider, I'm part of a team of eight that does nothing but scan the news. And that leaves me more time to do other things. And that's important, because I don't make any money doing this, while at the same time I spend less time doing work that actually pays the bills. And everybody has bills. You have them; and I have them.

So then, what is the future of this site? This site will continue, but with a less frequent posting schedule. Here's what you can expect to see in the future.

1. Any writing that I do, and I hope to do more, will appear here first.
2. Stories that I find that fit the mission of Russia Insider will be submitted there. Stories that I uncover that does not fit their mission but yet is an important story that needs further exposure, will be posted here, as time permits.
3. The live news feeds that I added to this site a couple of months ago will remain active and will continue to be updated on a frequent basis. There will always be new, updated stories there. These news feeds are found in the right column, under News Feeds & Site Info.

If you happen to monitor RSS feeds, I recommend that you subscribe to my feed (that orange circle at the top right hand corner of the page) so you will be notified of any new postings.

So this is not goodbye; this is just an I'll be seeing you on a less frequent basis.

- Aaron Talka

'If You See Something Say Something': How We've Become a Nation of Snitches | Alternet

A totalitarian state is only as strong as its informants. And the United States has a lot of them. They read our emails. They listen to, download and store our phone calls. They photograph us on street corners, on subway platforms, in stores, on highways and in public and private buildings. They track us through our electronic devices. They infiltrate our organizations. They entice and facilitate “acts of terrorism” by Muslims, radical environmentalists, activists and Black Bloc anarchists, framing these hapless dissidents and sending them off to prison for years. They have amassed detailed profiles of our habits, our tastes, our peculiar proclivities, our medical and financial records, our sexual orientations, our employment histories, our shopping habits and our criminal records. They store this information in government computers. It sits there, waiting like a time bomb, for the moment when the state decides to criminalize us.

Totalitarian states record even the most banal of our activities so that when it comes time to lock us up they can invest these activities with subversive or criminal intent. And citizens who know, because of the courage of Edward Snowden, that they are being watched but naively believe they “have done nothing wrong” do not grasp this dark and terrifying logic.

Tyranny is always welded together by subterranean networks of informants. These informants keep a populace in a state of fear. They perpetuate constant anxiety and enforce isolation through distrust. The state uses wholesale surveillance and spying to break down trust and deny us the privacy to think and speak freely.

A state security and surveillance apparatus, at the same time, conditions all citizens to become informants. In airports and train, subway and bus stations the recruitment campaign is relentless. We are fed lurid government videos and other messages warning us to be vigilant and report anything suspicious. The videos, on endless loops broadcast through mounted television screens, have the prerequisite ominous music, the shady-looking criminal types, the alert citizen calling the authorities and in some cases the apprehended evildoer being led away in handcuffs. The message to be hypervigilant and help the state ferret out dangerous internal enemies is at the same time disseminated throughout government agencies, the mass media, the press and the entertainment industry.

“If you see something say something,” goes the chorus.

In any Amtrak station, waiting passengers are told to tell authorities—some of whom often can be found walking among us with dogs—about anyone who “looks like they are in an unauthorized area,” who is “loitering, staring or watching employees and customers,” who is “expressing an unusual level of interest in operations, equipment, and personnel,” who is “dressed inappropriately for the weather conditions, such as a bulky coat in summer,” who “is acting extremely nervous or anxious,” who is “restricting an individual’s freedom of movement” or who is “being coached on what to say to law enforcement or immigration officials.”

Complete story at - 'If You See Something Say Something': How We've Become a Nation of Snitches | Alternet

War Threat Rises As Economy Declines -- Paul Craig Roberts, - PaulCraigRoberts.org

War Threat Rises As Economy Declines

Paul Craig Roberts, Keynote Address to the Annual Conference of the Financial West Group, New Orleans, May 7, 2015

The defining events of our time are the collapse of the Soviet Union, 9/11, jobs offshoring, and financial deregulation. In these events we find the basis of our foreign policy problems and our economic problems.

The United States has always had a good opinion of itself, but with the Soviet collapse self-satisfaction reached new heights. We became the exceptional people, the indispensable people, the country chosen by history to exercise hegemony over the world. This neoconservative doctrine releases the US government from constraints of international law and allows Washington to use coercion against sovereign states in order to remake the world in its own image.

To protect Washington’s unique Uni-power status that resulted from the Soviet collapse, Paul Wolfowitz in 1992 penned what is known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine. This doctrine is the basis for Washington’s foreign policy. The doctrine states:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

In March of this year the Council on Foreign Relations extended this doctrine to China.

Washington is now committed to blocking the rise of two large nuclear-armed countries. This commitment is the reason for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda. China is now confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington’s control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests.

9/11 served to launch the neoconservatives’ war for hegemony in the Middle East. 9/11 also served to launch the domestic police state. While civil liberties have shriveled at home, the US has been at war for almost the entirety of the 21st century, wars that have cost us, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, at least $6 trillion dollars. These wars have gone very badly. They have destabilized governments in an important energy producing area. And the wars have vastly multiplied the “terrorists,” the quelling of which was the official reason for the wars.

Complete story at - War Threat Rises As Economy Declines -- Paul Craig Roberts, - PaulCraigRoberts.org

What the West Got Wrong: Eastern and Central Europe Turn Away From US » voice of Sevastopol

Once Washington's steadfast allies, some European countries are now "at risk" of drifting into the Kremlin's fold, Dalibor Rohac, a Research Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, emphasized.

"At the time, these [Eastern and Central European] countries were counted amongst the most staunchly pro-American members of NATO—and also among the boldest economic reformers on the continent, cutting their taxes and privatizing social security systems. Today, the situation could not be more different," the analyst stressed.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico, President of the Czech Republic Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary have been recently boosting their ties with Moscow, Dalibor Rohac noted deprecatingly.

For instance, last year, Viktor Orban closed a €12-billion nuclear energy deal with Russia, ("later overturned by the EU's nuclear energy agency"). This year Robert Fico and Milos Zeman turned a deaf ear to Washington's warnings and went to Moscow to commemorate the end of the Second World War, the expert pointed out.

It seems that Dalibor Rohac is all at sea trying to find out why the post-communist states are seeking to establish close ties with Russia.

The expert suggested that a "lack of American leadership" and Brussels' negligence have weakened the influence of the United States in Eastern and Central Europe.

"Brussels deserves some of the blame. Billions of euros of "structural funds" from the EU often ended in pockets of local oligarchs, encouraging corrupt practices," Mr. Rohac highlighted, adding that "a lack of American leadership in the region played an even more significant role."

According to the expert, America's non-governmental and civil society organizations have been seriously underfunded in Europe in the past few years and therefore become unable to counterbalance "the Kremlin's propaganda."

The Obama administration’s decision to "scrap the plan to build a missile defense shield in Central Europe" has dealt a severe blow to NATO's positions in the region, Dalibor Rohac emphasized.

Complete story at - What the West Got Wrong: Eastern and Central Europe Turn Away From US » voice of Sevastopol

Why military interventions fail - TransConflict

By Nathaniel K. Powell

The current military escalation against ISIS, French engagement in the Sahel, and numerous UN and regional peacekeeping operations illustrate that military interventions are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Today, most of these interventions, at least nominally, aim at ending armed conflict and (re)building functional states with some degree of inclusive governance. It is a good idea to ask why such policies often fail.

Even when narrow stabilization goals are met, such as in a number of French interventions in Chad and the former Zaire, this often occurs at the expense of long-term stability and democratic governance. Interventions rarely, if ever, positively contribute to improving the political environments that originally generated the crises which sparked the interventions in the first place.

While each case is clearly different, the failure of most of these interventions to achieve the desired stability and accountable governance implies a need for a serious rethink about how interventions are conducted. In some quarters, this has revolved around debates over the effectiveness of counterinsurgency methods. This discussion largely misses the point. Military effectiveness has very little bearing on the success of interventions. Instead, inherently political factors pose nearly insurmountable obstacles to the success of ‘stabilizing interventions’, regardless of the quality and doctrine of intervening forces. Indeed, most such interventions feature a recurring series of obstacles.

Grand narratives

Whether combating Islamist-inspired guerillas, communist expansion, or regionally-backed rebellions, policymakers in intervening countries often view the conflicts of ‘host’ countries through the prism of broader ideological struggles. While these interpretations often contain grains of truth, they can obscure more than they reveal about the character and motivations of civil war dynamics, particularly in its local dimensions. The problem is that flawed analyses of the politics of violence often lead to intervention strategies badly suited to the realities on the ground.

During the Vietnam War, American policymakers minimized the role that Saigon’s corruption, repression, and bad governance played in fuelling the Vietcong insurgency. Instead, an obsessive focus on global communism and American credibility led to massive support for the Saigon regime, a socially destructive counterinsurgency policy, and futile efforts to apply pressure on North Vietnam. This logic also led to western support for a large number of other unsavoury regimes, in order to prevent the spread of communism. However, most Third World socialist-leaning armed groups were not directed by Moscow or Beijing, despite receiving support from Eastern Bloc patrons. Their ideology was often informed by socialist worldviews, but their politics was supremely local or national.

Today, one cannot understand the dynamics of groups like Boko Haram or ISIS without reference to the very local politics that both drives their success and limits their possibilities for action. By not taking these kinds of factors into account, efforts like France’s military interventions in support of Zaire’s dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, may save repressive regimes, but do little else than postpone bloody civil wars and state collapse. Today, security assistance to many undemocratic states as part of broader counterterrorism efforts may have similar results and facilitate repression and long-term instability.

Complete story at - Why military interventions fail - TransConflict