Tag: George W. Bush

Pro-Israel leaders encouraged by Brian Hook’s role on State Department transition team

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

As questions emerge about how President-elect Donald Trump will handle the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East during a second term, some pro-Israel foreign policy voices say they have been reassured by recent news reports that Brian Hook, a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, is expected to lead the transition team at the State Department.

Hook, who previously worked in the State Department under former President George W. Bush and is now the vice chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, helped to oversee Trump’s so-called “maximum pressure” campaign toward Iran, including punishing sanctions after the U.S. withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal. He was also a key player on the team that negotiated the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature foreign policy achievement, which the president-elect has pledged to expand when he returns to office.

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Among the candidates rumored to be under consideration for secretary of state are Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a former ambassador to Japan; Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former national security advisor; and Ric Grenell, who served as the former president’s ambassador to Germany as well as his acting director of national intelligence.

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But conservative foreign policy experts surveyed by JI said they did not envision ideological tensions between Hook and Grenell emerging should they serve together. “Grenell mirrors Trump in being a champion-level supporter of Israel and Iran hawk,” said a former official on Trump’s National Security Council, who was granted anonymity to discuss the transition. “There would be no reason for friction.”

Pro-Israel leaders encouraged by Brian Hook’s role on State Department transition team

Previously:

Making Excuses for Trump: Where Does the Buck Stop?

But Trump’s seemingly aimless foreign and national security policies are only part of the problem. More to the point, the president keeps appointing people to senior level positions where they have a hand in shaping the policies ranging from hardline on civil liberties issues to complete interventionism vis-à-vis America’s role worldwide. The list is long and includes John Bolton, Rick Grenell, Mike Pompeo, Brian Hook, James Jeffrey, Robert O’Brien, John Ratcliffe and Gina Haspel. And one might suggest that the latest move might very well be the worst of all, naming Eliot Abrams as Special Envoy on Iran.

A friendly fire death, a platoon’s 20 years of trauma

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Bryan O’Neal has spent two decades grinding his way up the U.S. Army ranks, from lowly private to command sergeant major — the highest rank for a non-commissioned officer. He could write a textbook on modern warfare history — and his own unique place in it — but much of what he’s seen and done could be hard for anyone to hear. Significant numbers of the men and women under his command weren’t even born until after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that inspired him to enlist.

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In the spring of 2004, perhaps the last thing President George W. Bush’s administration needed was another war-related PR problem. No one could find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which the administration had used to build a case for war. Less than a month before Tillman’s death, four contractors for the Blackwater private security firm in Iraq were ambushed and dragged through the streets, and their corpses were hung from a bridge. In April came shocking images of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A friendly fire death, a platoon’s 20 years of trauma

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Trump, Harris, And The ‘Lesser Of Two Evils’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A distressing number of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances have found themselves reduced to making a “choice” between the “lesser of two evils” in most elections. That ugly situation seems to be especially true regarding U.S. presidential elections, and the current contest between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris continues the distressing pattern.

Trump, Harris, And The ‘Lesser Of Two Evils’

Top 10 American Companies that Aided the Nazis

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Top 10 American Companies that Aided the Nazis

4. Alcoa

Alcoa is now the third largest aluminum producer in the world. Back in 1941, it was much more powerful. It had a monopoly on aluminum in addition to owning a massive amount of America’s electricity production and other minerals. Before America declared war on Germany, it sent so much of its aluminum product over to Germany that the country made upwards of sixty percent more aluminum products than America. When the US’s involvement in the war began, there was a massive aluminum production shortage in America, in no small part because of Alcoa’s monopoly. Alcoa essentially sold the Axis powers much of the material to build their war machines and a reprieve from the American war machine.

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2. General Motors

Similar to their automotive rivals, General Motors was sued by Holocaust survivors for assisting the Nazi war machine. Beginning in 1935, GM built a factory in Berlin for the purpose of building “Blitz” trucks for the Wehrmacht. Ford began building similar trucks around the same time, but GM was the number one producer of the vehicles that were vital for the quick conquests of Poland, France, and much of the Soviet Union. Albert Speer, the minister of armaments and war production, claimed that the rubber GM supplied was the key to the ability of the Germans to wage war the way they did. Inevitably when America declared war on Germany, the Reich seized GM’s German production facilities.

Although neither Ford nor General Motors ever fully conceded that they had willingly participated in the use of slave labor, they both were massive contributors to a fund started in 2000 for Holocaust survivors.

I worked for two Nazi collaborators! 🙀

Beware of War Hawks in “America First” Clothing

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

For the past eight years, the two major political parties have been gripped by a messy and ongoing realignment. It began with the election of Donald Trump in 2016, which was a major repudiation of the neoconservative-establishment coalition that had dominated the Republican Party since the presidency of George W. Bush.

Beware of War Hawks in “America First” Clothing

Related:

The Return of Peace Through Strength: Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy

Trump Frees Himself From Bolton – but Robert O’Brien Will Be Just as Bad

New national security adviser recently considered war to free prisoners in Iran

Front Organizations

Robert O’Brien – Project 2025

Project 2025 [under construction]

Ukraine: Victory Plan

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Victory Plan (Google Translate)

“We hear the word negotiations from our partners, but the word justice is heard much less often,” Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday in his speech to the Ukrainian Rada. “Ukraine is open to diplomacy, but honest diplomacy. That is why we have the Peace Formula. It is a guarantee of negotiating without forcing Ukraine to accept injustice. Ukrainians deserve a decent peace,” the Ukrainian president continued in his presentation of the Victory Plan to deputies and other authorities of the country’s political and security apparatus. Kiev’s intentions are clear: to achieve a position of strength in which Ukraine does not have to yield to Russian demands. Nothing indicates that there has been any change in the way of thinking of the Ukrainian leadership, which has always understood justice as something that only the part of the population under its control deserves, without those on the other side of the front and whose territories it aspires to recover having a say in the future of the country.

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Khaled Hosseini

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

I was recommended Khaled Hosseini’s book, “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by someone I’ve been conversing with on Goodreads. While it’s fiction, it appears that this person takes it how Muslims really are. From the critical reviews that I’ve read, so far, my immediate takeaway is that the book is Anti-Communist (the Soviets didn’t invade Afghanistan) and Islamophobic. Others have said that it’s racist and makes the case for ‘humanitarian intervention’ aka invasion based on women’s rights or children’s rights.

Khaled Hosseini with Dubya and Laura Bush. White House photo by David Bohrer
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U.S. proxies target Chinese Convoy near Karachi International airport days before the SCO meeting in Pak

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
YouTube

China says two citizens killed, one injured in Pakistan ‘terrorist attack’

In August, the BLA launched coordinated attacks in the province, in which more than 70 people were killed. It has claimed attacks in Balochistan, including the killing of seven barbers in Gwadar in May and the April killings of several people abducted from a highway.

The BLA specifically targets Chinese interests – in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea – accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad to exploit the province.

In March this year, five Chinese engineers and a Pakistani national were killed in an attack near the China-backed Dasu hydropower project. Nine Chinese engineers were killed in a similar attack near Dasu in 2021.

The BLA has also attacked Beijing’s consulate in Karachi.

The Port Qasim project involves the construction of two power plants near Karachi and is funded by China.

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Pakistan is due to host the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in two weeks.

Related:

Balochistan Liberation Army