

21 October 2019




Soviet Union ended. Homo soveiticus is still alive.

Iran is a hostile country, but we had an agreement and now we don't.

Syria is a mess and the US has helped make it so.

Saudi Arabia is a hostile country and the US is pretending that it is not.

Of course there are levels of complexity to all of this, but I agree that the USG is not acting in the best interest of the nation, nor the world. Only for a select group and it has to do with money.

Ted Buila

That's 4 for starters. Glad to have your #2 Ticonderoga back!


Yes I fully concur. We have gone from fact-based news to faith-based fake news led by the MSM. I recall at the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, the line was out that British PM Tony Blair was George W. Bush's "poodle," forgetting entirely that it was the first of the British "dodgy dossiers" that made the totally discredited claim that Saddam had gotten tons of yellow cake from Niger. So the British have no military resources but they continue to maintain the idea that they can manipulate the U.S. and make up for the demise of the old British empire.

The Steele dossier was the second British "dodgy dossier" that got the ball rolling on Trump the Russian mole and Putin's "poodle."

So much fraud. But now social media must be patrolled and anyone daring to challenge the voice of the MSM must be purged by Google, Facebook, Twitter et al.

My question is: When will the machinations of the Big Lie MSM Wurlitzer cross the line and trigger the backlash that they secretly fear so much? MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else his "fake news" polemic will stick... because there is no much truth to it. The messenger may be crude, but he has the bully pulpit to have a real impact.

I await the release, as Larry Johnson pointed out, of the Horowitz IG report on the origins of the fake Trump-Russia collusion line. Also the pending Barr-Durham larger report which is zeroing in on John Brennan.



This is what happens when the deciders believe their own propaganda. The media now says that a residual force of American troops and contractors will stay behind at the Deir ez-Zor oil fields and Al-Tanf base near the Jordon border. The media moguls dare not mention that the real intention is to prevent the Syrian Arab Army from retaking its own territory or that Turkey is seizing thousands of square miles of Syria. Syrians with Russia, Chinese and Iranian aid won’t quit until Syria is whole again and rebuilt. This means that America continues its uninvited unwinnable war in the middle of nowhere with no allies for no reason at all except to do Israel’s bidding and to make money for military contractors. The swamp’s regime change campaign failed. The Houthis' Aramco attack shows that the gulf oil supply is at risk and can be shut down at will. Continuing these endless wars that are clearly against the best interests of the American people is insane.


The FUKUS thinks we are all a bunch of brainless sheep to be led by a ring in our noses. The 'Muktar' is clueless regarding our Saudi brethren, he's supposed to administer how the overlords say he's to administer, nothing more. The CIA administration still has a hard-on because they blew it regarding Iran and they're still embarrassed about it.

In two days, counting closer to a day and a half will be the sad anniversary (October 23) where the Israeli government willfully with forethought let our Marines and other service personnel bunked with them at the barracks in Beirut die needlessly, because Nahum Admoni wanted U.S. to get our noses bloodied.

Never mind that the Russians lost close to 30 million to the brotherhood of the Operation Paper Clip, and the Bormann Group that today controls from behind the scenes most of the World's money thanks to Martin creating over 750 corporations initially to start with, that has expanded like a Hydra. Any time that truth (Russia is no longer Communist) rears its ugly head, the Bormann group goes into overdrive to ensure that the big lie perpetuates.

The FUKUS think we're all a bunch of sheep to be led off a cliff, and the propaganda mills have created the trail right up to the edge of the precipice that the sheep are trotting.

Heaven help our children and grandchildren.

Larry Johnson

Amen. The landslide of disinformation and bullshit disseminated on a daily basis by a pliant media is happily lapped up by ignorant, uninformed Americans. I've had quite an exchange with a liberal friend of mine who was shrieking MSNBC talking points on Syria and the Kurds. Mind you, this fellow never served a day in the military. Never held a clearance in his life. Didn't know a thing about JOPES and how Special Ops forces use a series of written orders signed off on by the CJCS. Yet, he was qualified to criticize Trump. At the same time not one of his kids or grandkids are signed up to fight on that frontline. I told him politely to STFU and get educated before trying to comment on something he knows nothing about.
Thanks Colonel.

The Twisted Genius

There’s a lot of truth there, Colonel. Life would be better with just three TV new outlets, huh. Which three? Can you imagine being limited to three cable new outlets? Actually most people probably limit themselves to three news outlets… or less. They find an echo chamber and stick with it. I thank God I don’t have cable or satellite TV and I have too many interests to engage with talk radio.

I couldn’t agree more with your characterization of “virtual facts” about Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. I also agree that those who continue to view Russia as an implacable enemy bent on our destruction and world domination are liars and/or fools. The Soviet Union was just a phase, a phase now past. Russia never ended. Conversely, those who insist that Russia is a newly minted nation of glitter farting unicorns incapable of nefarious behavior are also fools and/or liars. Russia is a formidable competitor, fully capable and willing to take prudent actions in pursuit of her interests. We should respect her and seek cooperation where we can and tolerance where we must.

How the never-Trumpers treat Tulsi Gabbard is shameful. What Clinton recently said is mild compared to what others have been saying for quite some time. Calling Tulsi a Russian asset is foolishly wrong. That Russia may prefer Tulsi over other potential Presidential candidates should be seen as a positive thing. A policy of mutual respect, cooperation and tolerance between our two countries would benefit the entire world.


The nonsense is endless.
America needed to restore the Kuwait monarchy for freedom and democracy.
Remember defense Secretary dick cheny sending captured Iraq arms to the Taliban.
Same play book was used to run Libyan arms through Bengazi to wahhabist freedom fighter "ISIS" and the al lindsey McCain head choppers.


Thank you Colonel Lang. I daily peruse NY Times and Wash Post to get a feel for the narrative. After, I check out Naked Capitalism, Moon of Alabama and SST. The Obama debacle left me with little wheat, much chaff.

Babak Makkinejad

The nonsense will end since not even the United States can endure these costs. Did you hear Trump? 8 trillion yankee dollars and nothing to show for it.


What is highly alarming, almost terrifying, is that really well educated people who have achieved great things in their careers and are pillars of society believe this crap.

I had dinner guests last week; a former Chairman of a bank and his wife who is a highly acclaimed Professor of public Health and Epidemiology who told me how awful Trump and Putin are neither of these friends are what you could remotely classify as Social Justice leftists.

My problem is that I don't know where to start to try and put them right without them thinking I'm a tinfoil hatted conspiracy nut. I wish there was a website dedicated solely to purveying basic truthful information that is not perhaps as esoteric as SST. Should I try and start one or are there already good examples to point to?


The CIA is a clear and present danger.


The US turned a profit on the first Iraq war according to Chas Freeman.


While I agree with the essence of the post I disagree with the characterization of SOHR. It tends to get its stuff right. I have listed several significant events where SOHR disagreed with the official narrative: On Sources And Information - The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights. Those are exactly the moments where SOHR is disregarded by the pressitude.

It is the selective quoting of such sources that paint them as partisan even as they try to stay somewhat neutral.

@Pat - Any comment to the Gen. McRaven op-ed in the NYT?
Our Republic Is Under Attack From the President

Isn't it a call to mutiny? It seems to me to be far beyond the allowed political comment from a retired General.


Those that look up the pole,all they see is assholes.Those that look down all they see is assholes,but those that look straight ahead, they see which path to take.


https://www.wanttoknow.info/ is a useful resource for educating citizens.

Diana C

One truth remains forever in human populations: Cupiditas est radix malorum.


I am British and did consider the military in my youth but if I were that age now I would not. Having seen what my political master, and yours, have asked the military to do the danger of being sent on some counter product regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too great. I would only end up refusing to follow orders which I understand the military takes a rather dim view of.


The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted. Is the Iranian regime terrible? Well, yes, but it is also a regime that holds real elections and often loses them. Not in the same league of awful with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. Similarly with the other examples. The "facts" have in each case a basis in truth but do not by themselves give a true picture. Is our discourse more unfair to Russia than it was to Nasser's Egypt? Is our promotion of Saudi Arabia any worse than our adulation of Chiang Kai-shek?



Coincidence doesn't exist. Thinking about this a lot lately.

As an information scientist I have automated this to a certain extent. Basically I look at a lot of websites. Essentially I exclude all MSM, with the exception of what MW called "to get a feel for the narrative".

The automated part is that I look for changes and perform (a sort of) raw pre-analysis on the changed information using a lot of scripts/software I've written to piece together other available software/services/techniques to present me with a raw selection (preferably without excluding too much). Eg to get the narrative of MSM I create a sort of word/phrase cloud for MSM that shows the trend at a glance. The link is just an example. This is an example. It evolved into a tool to save me time in automating a lot of repetitive, time-exhausting actions with regard to extraction, selection and categorisation. It works for me but is not a service/website I can easily offer to others. But I've been thinking on that.

IMO there are 3 important issues:
1. MSM (and also search engines) are commercial. This affects their independence (advertising, salary etc)
2. Too much information available. Humans have problems with processing the enormous amount of available information. Although information should help making better decisions the overload makes it easy to steer opinions. My personal experience is also that a lot of people get a sort of tunnel vision because of the information overload. MSM (and I include search engines in this) and social media enable groupthink and absence of 'other' alternative sources.
3 Personal initiatives are fragile and have a tendency to break (eg when the maintainer is overcome by the workload. Scaling up requires money with the risk of becoming point 1.) It would be better to decentralize this and create a structure/framework that superceeds the individual and does not depend on money.

I've been thinking recently on turning this into software as an open source project that people can use and modify. By making it open source (off course with the proper license that disables a takeover of the project) the source code can be investigated to prevent backdoors and it can be compiled to an executable program by the end-user (off course for non-IT people executables or extensive how-to's have to be provided).

It can be used as a personal information-server for users which they can use as an interface to access all kinds of information sources on the internet using as input website urls and enabling fine-tuning of the output using simple configuration.
These servers should also be able (when required) to communicate with other trusted or untrusted server to exchange/synchronise. Even when run on personal computers or smart-phones. It should also be possible to make this available on the internet as a website.

This is a bit of a brainstorm for me. I also think I've found a way to kickstart this without a lot of money, but it will take a lot of work to start it up.

I'm curious if this is something that would be helpful for SST-readers?



He left out thousands dead and injured and not a single one of them a politician, banker, professor or news anchor.



"MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else..."
The MSM are joined by all those folks who were wined, dined, and degraded by Jeffrey Epstein and Hollywood hero Harvey Weinstein. Nobody seems to care about who Jeffrey abused, or who enjoyed his island paradise. Harvey, he's about to buy a free ride out of jail. Meanwhile we jail idiots who "bribe" there kids way into that "elite" institution - UCLA.

Christian J Chuba

Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'.

It would do our vaunted free press wonders if they traveled to Damascus instead of repeating the same tired talking points about Syria. I'll never forget the look on Gabbard's face when she talked about the Syrians came up to her and said, 'why are you attacking us, what did we do to you'. Meeting real people can undo a lifetime of blather and must be stopped at all cost.


b Perhaps memory fails me but I think SOHR propagated the SAG gas attacks mythology. I have stated that McRaven should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed. I could find several punitice articles in UCMJ under which he could be charged.


Centrist liberals are much more likely to believe the NYT on Syria than people further to the left. The Nakedcapitalism blog often links to this site as an antidote to what tge mainstream press puts out.

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