Outgoing US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey stated in a recent interview with Defense One that US officials have been “playing shell games” about the number of troops in the region to deceive the Trump administration into thinking there has been a military withdrawal. Here are some excerpts:
“We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the two hundred troops Trump agreed to leave there in 2019.
…
“What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal,” Jeffrey said. “When the situation in northeast Syria had been fairly stable after we defeated ISIS, [Trump] was inclined to pull out. In each case, we then decided to come up with five better arguments for why we needed to stay. And we succeeded both times. That’s the story.”
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Officially, Trump last year agreed to keep about 200 U.S. troops stationed in northeast Syria to “secure” oil fields held by the United States’ Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS. It is generally accepted that the actual number is now higher than that — anonymous officials put the number at about 900 today — but the precise figure is classified and remains unknown even, it appears, to members of Trump’s administration keen to end the so-called “forever wars.”
Some mass media propagandists find it hilarious that the US war machine used deceit to thwart the president’s attempts to withdraw from its illegal occupation of Syria:
https://twitter.com/LizSly/status/1327137565288378370
This would not be the first time that Jeffrey, a foreign policy insider with the past three presidential administrations, has admitted to deceiving the public about what’s happening in Syria. Earlier this year he admitted at a Hudson Institute video event (these Beltway insiders always get extra honest in the company of fellow think tank denizens) that, contrary to the official public narrative of the US military being in Syria to fight terrorism, it’s actually there to create “a quagmire for the Russians”.
This would also not be the first time we’ve heard reports of the US war machine hiding the facts from the elected commander-in-chief of the most powerful military force ever assembled. Last year The New York Times cited anonymous US officials in a report on cyber intrusion operations against the Russian government that the US military had deliberately kept Trump in the dark about.
“Two administration officials said they believed Mr. Trump had not been briefed in any detail about the steps to place ‘implants’ — software code that can be used for surveillance or attack — inside the Russian grid,” NYT reports. “Pentagon and intelligence officials described broad hesitation to go into detail with Mr. Trump about operations against Russia for concern over his reaction — and the possibility that he might countermand it or discuss it with foreign officials.”
https://twitter.com/27khv/status/1260488599486836736
Mainstream liberal US discourse has accomplished an amazing feat of Orwellian doublethink with regard to the notion that unelected power structures are running things without the consent of the nation’s official elected government. On the one hand there’s been a nonstop deluge of Daily Beast articles since Trump’s election saying anyone who dares to suggest the existence of a “deep state” in America is a conspiracy kook, but on the other hand there’s also been constant praise for the insider “adults in the room” who ensure from within the administration that Trump doesn’t demolish America’s precious norms while in office.
This cognitive two-step became even more reified after comments from the likes of Iraq war architect Bill Kristol tweeting that he’d “prefer the deep state to the Trump state”, and the famous anonymous New York Times op-ed authored by a “senior official in the Trump administration” (now known to have been former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor) saying administration officials are working together against Trump to “thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations”.
The understanding of a deep state in America has become even more obfuscated by the other side of America’s fake partisan divide, with Trump supporters now using that term to essentially mean “anyone who doesn’t like Donald Trump”. That erroneous understanding has now become so prevalently associated with the term “deep state” that it has lost all use in meaningful discourse and is better off being avoided altogether if you want to point at something real.
In reality the term deep state is meant to refer not to anyone who opposes Trump, nor to a secret cabal of baby-eating Satanists, but simply to the tendency among government agencies and plutocrats to form loose alliances with each other and collaborate toward common agendas. It’s a term used for political analysis to describe large-scale power agendas that are largely playing out right out in the open, hidden in plain sight.
It doesn’t take a ton of investigative reporting and WikiLeaks drops to understand that there’s been a collective of operatives mostly running the Trump administration while the actual elected president yells at the talking heads on Fox News and tweets. It’s also not hard to brush away the insubstantial narrative fluff and see that US policies have remained more or less unbroken regardless of which elected officials have been in office, and it doesn’t take a Nostradamus to predict that that will continue to be the case after Trump is replaced by the next empty husk in the White House.
The US government simply is not what Americans were taught it is in school, and it is not what they tell you it is in the news. It’s a mostly unelected power establishment which operates in the interests of imperialist expansionism and oligarchic control, with the official elected government operating sort of like the unplugged video game controller you hand your kid brother to keep him from whining for a chance to play.
All this fuss over who really won the election is missing the point. People are bickering over which oligarchic puppet should be sworn in on January 20th when all the evidence we’ve been given shows that nobody gets to become president if they inconvenience real power in any way, and if they do inconvenience real power they are simply ignored.
That is the direction we should all be looking. Not at who’s president, but why things stay the same no matter who’s president.
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36 responses to “Unelected Officials Override The President To Continue Wars (But Only Kooks Believe In The Deep State)”
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nice
Tom Luongo on Color Revolution in America (now)
https://www.sott.net/article/444204-US-Color-Revolution-The-not-so-phantom-menace
Act III of a color revolution is the most dangerous. It is the one where chaos can reign for months and the balance tipped by the slimmest of margins. But in the end it always comes down to the willingness of the people to decide their future.
Because taking down the U.S. is such a monumental undertaking they had to create a problem global in scale, COVID-19.
The U.S. has everything against it in this situation. The oligarchy and its quislings are firmly in command of the narrative. There are real, deep divisions to keep people fighting each other while the oligarchs proceed with their plans.
Trump is trying to marshal a counter-revolution on the ground and in the courts.
James Jeffrey is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), flagship of the globalist “liberal world order” which has dominated US policy since WW2. Others include Mark Esper, the Clintons and George Soros. See lists at the CFR website.
The deep state also over-ruled Obama. Kerry had negotiated a Syrian ceasefire with Russians. The US military then bombed a Syrian army position killing bunches of soldiers allowing ISIS to over run a strategic position. Pentagon said whoops wrong target. This was about a week after ceasefire.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/20/rogue-mission-did-the-pentagon-bomb-syrian-army-to-kill-ceasefire-deal/
I am believing day by day that aggressive moves against the Russians in Syria and then Crimea will put us in situation where nuclear war is inevitable.
I get paid more than $120 to $130 per hour for working online.BAU I heard about this job 3 months ago and after joining this i have earned easily $15k from this without having online working skills. This is what I do…..open this link___xurl.es/dollars
Thanks for your meaningful contribution to our discussion.
Yes, “hidden in plain sight” and *entertaining*!
Just came on a quote from Howard Zinn: “wars continue on the winds of propaganda.”
What do US-ians want from the world?
What is the gut feeling?
Depends on whose and whether what is sat or stood on is stable and rightside up.
More or less of something felt
or of feeling — but of knowing?
“Take one last look at this sacred heart
before it blows apart — “
Isn’t great after you stand up to a bully?
For months, you’ve been hearing the threats.
If you dare to defy the bully, chaos will be unleashed.
If you dare to defy the bully, there will be blood in the streets.
But, you stand your ground.
You tell the bully no.
You refuse to give the bully what the bully wants.
There is tension.
You don’t know what will happen nest.
You don’t want a big fight with the bully, but you just had to stand up for what you believe in.
Then
Then
Then, it turns out that the bully was just a big crybaby.
It turns out that the bullys friends were just a bunch of snow flakes.
Doesn’t it feel good to stand up against the bully!
Hell yeah!
This one raised a lot of points. Consider?
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a nonstop deluge of Daily Beast articles since Trump’s election saying anyone who dares to suggest the existence of a “deep state” in America is a conspiracy kook
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Being called a kook and having a few of your web links re-directed so you know the power of god is more pleasant than going to a gulag.
_
I have a narrow definition of the Deep State. Actually meeting them in person sharpens your understanding of this topic. As Jimmi would say ‘Are You Experienced’. I am, and with enough money and this knowledge, I can buy myself coffee. Better than being beheaded for sure, American fascism Lite.
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Part of managing dissent is interfering with communications. Another is to have g-trolls blurt out stupid things like the internet can’t be censored. G-trolls work for the deep state and manage dissent. A video about Bernie Sanders was suppressed by the deep state a few days ago. A tree fell in the forest. Did you hear it?
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The big horror for me at first was to realize the consequence of deep state management squelches meaningful discussion. ‘They’ desire and cultivates a mindless consumer. But as time went by I mellowed and realized people would be hopelessly stupid even without deep state interference.
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On the the top side we have our progressive saw of ALL THE NEWS IS PROPAGANDA. This reality comes at you like a snapping lobster claw. It is true. But lobsters have two claws. If the top side is pervasive state propaganda the bottom claw is dissent management. Thinking you could have one without the other is like thinking Biden is Jesus.
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My undies twisted in a bunch when I first found out the deep state is real and that it is a lot more than bureaucrats just doing their job. The deep state ossifies change and seals our fate.
“Outgoing US envoy to Syria James Jeffrey stated… that US officials have been ‘playing shell games’ about the number of troops in the region to deceive the Trump administration… This would not be the first time that Jeffrey… has admitted to deceiving the public about what’s happening…”
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They are deceivers and liars all. That’s what they’re paid to do. That’s all they know how to do. Doesn’t a Holy Book say something about what happens to deceivers and liars? You folks have some fun days in store for you.
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“Mainstream liberal US discourse has accomplished an amazing feat of Orwellian doublethink with regard to the notion that unelected power structures are running things without the consent of the nation’s official elected government.”
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It’s not that hard to foster doublethink with people today. When your ability to reason and think rationally has been removed from your brain, it’s simple. Most people gave up thinking years ago. They handed the keys to their upper story to Deceivers and Liars behind anchor desks and those in the shadows where The Hidden Hands slither around swimming in their toxic soup.
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“All this fuss over who really won the election is missing the point. People are bickering over which oligarchic puppet should be sworn in on January 20th when all the evidence we’ve been given shows that nobody gets to become president if they inconvenience real power in any way…”
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Americans are arguing over who should be at the helm of the Titanic right now. It simply doesn’t matter. The passengers are going down and those who own the ship and pay the captain and decide on the ship’s course are all safely on dry land counting their obscene riches and laughing heartily at the peril and fate that the doomed passengers face.
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John Fogarty sang it years ago on Run Through The Jungle: “THE DEVIL’S ON THE LOOSE!”
An interview I listened to today with Danny Sjursen made me think of this blog and its emphasis on the importance of narrative. Sjursen, a veteran, discusses the cushy sinecures his former military bosses have now found in civilian life. Toward the end of the interview, he mentions that Iraq and other countries were used by the military as laboratories for “netcentric warfare” to control those societies using “narrative control”. Some of his superiors now work for U.S. corporations applying these techniques to the American public.
https://scotthorton.org/interviews/11-11-20-danny-sjursen-on-the-profitable-post-military-careers-of-his-afghanistan-commanders/
I am perplexed at why you have not written about the maximum security prison you are living in in Melbourne – about the hideous punishments and the laughable fine of $66,600 for refusing to be jabbed with a tracking microchip posing as a vaccine. These psychopaths seem to be announcing to the planet that they worship Satan as they demand that several billion Christians accept the “mark of the beast”/ not gonna happen. Why are you sidestepping the most critical issue we are facing?
I am perplexed that you have neglected to write about the lockdown in your own country, your own city, one that amounts to your living in a maximum security prison – with severe punishments for refusing to be microchipped with a phony “vaccine” and a fine of $66,600. yup, there is that pesky mark of the beast, once again, we can now add to all of the other 666 edicts and bill numbers out there. They seem to all be announcing that they are Satan worshipers, as though the Christian world would willingly sacrifice their souls and drink the blood of slaughtered children alongside those billionaire power brokers at Davos. Why, Ms. Johnstone, do you not write about what is being done to you, your family, your neighbors?
The lockdown ended a while ago, just like I said it would; Melbournians have been out playing in the sun. You would know this if you didn’t live in an echo chamber that filters out all information which doesn’t confirm your bias and feeds you nonsense from the book of Revelations. I did write about it when it was happening, though.
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/at-a-time-of-rapidly-creeping-authoritarianism-assanges-case-is-more-crucial-than-ever-c3c71b545f81
thank you for clarifying. I must have missed those posts. I have no bias, do not hold to Revelations quotes. My point is that THEY believe it. otherwise why play the 666 game all over the map.
The fine of $66,600 is based on “penalty units”. In government legislation (both state and federal) there are many references to penalty units, and to multiples of penalty units. This is so the government doesn’t need to go through and amend many different acts if it wants to increase a penalty amount for a particular offence.
A year or two ago, the value of a penalty unit was $200. It then increased to $210 (taking CPI growth into account). In July 2020, the value of a single penalty unit increased to $222.
In the case you’re talking about, the maximum potential fine is equivalent to 300 penalty units. 300 x 222 is $66,600. But before July 2020, the fine would have been $63,000 (300 penalty units x $210). So the amount of $66,600 is simply due to CPI changes.
But, of course, that’s not nearly as exciting as talking about Satan-worshipping cabals that like to use the number of the beast so that people can figure out their intentions, is it?
“The understanding of a deep state in America has become even more obfuscated by the other side of America’s fake partisan divide, with Trump supporters now using that term to essentially mean ‘anyone who doesn’t like Donald Trump’. That erroneous understanding has now become so prevalently associated with the term ‘deep state’ that it has lost all use in meaningful discourse and is better off being avoided altogether if you want to point at something real.” The modifier “deep,” lacking moral connotations, was probably unduly vague to begin with. Those elements within the American government that killed JFK and took over American foreign policy, soon to blend with other, less hidden elements (inside and outside government) obsessed with milking the MIC and related major corporations for unlimited financial gain, do nevertheless need a moniker. Might the readers of this blog come up with some viable candidates, some possible shorthand references which point more clearly to this omnipresent, now nearly omnipotent cluster of evil?
Newton – out of respect for you, I’ll post one more time just now. Plus, I’ve been missing my “gotcha” moments where I get to pick out the crosswalks…..
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I heard a rumor that Trump is going to go “scorched earth” on his way out, and I think to myself, why not? I think it is a good idea and I’m hoping he can take down the intelligence agencies who are so fucking stupid it ain’t funny. Definitely they are not “intelligent” as any sane homo sapien could easily deduce.
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So if he takes them out on his way out of the house – leaves a fire for them so to speak – just like those Armenians who apparently chose to leave their little town rather than live with the “enemy” – then I applaud that.
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But it might just be fantasy. Oh well, it doesn’t matter because there are many in my generation, and many, many more in the next generation who will get the job done and let the “intelligence spooks” know that their time is OVER! They are debunked. Take solace in that friend.
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OK, here is my idea……..we don’t need any new name for the state of deep ignominy because they are fixing to go the way of history. Good riddance and God bless that and God bless Scotland and I support independence of a United Ireland. Get in touch with me if you want a map that I think could be the future.
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Ha, ha.
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Peace,
Ken
Was hoping you’d come back, BK, at least on occasion. God how I hope you’re right about the days of the bastards being numbered. I’ve got this funny feeling that Covid (regardless of whether it just happened or was planned, regardless of whether it’s been under- or over-responded to by governments) will play a key part in any besting of the bastards, bringing their house down upon their heads. I doubt whether there’s any going back to our neoliberal gerbil wheel world, at least for very long, and while short-run that’s bad for many of us, long-run that’s good for all of us and all other living things. With you on Scotland and Ireland, and if you’ve got a viable map to a better, more beautiful future, count this codger in. To paraphrase our Catholic friends, peace back to you.
Excellent article. I would like to add one additional aspect of the true America. Along with everything you mentioned there is also a layer of lobbyist influencing the elected congress for their own benefit. Domestically and internationally America is run by unelected officials.
The Military Industrial Complex, and now hand in hand with the Medical Industrial Complex, are both tools of the bank cartel. They have been running most of politics, at least on a national level, around the world for some time. There’s profit in inflicting misery, and they have no ethical or moral standards to dissuade them. Corporations are by definition soulless and sociopathic. A private business may or may not have any such scruples, but a corporation is practically required by law to have none. They are a creation of the state, and so the state can destroy them at their convenience. Apparently it’s inconvenient.
Key point you’re making, JWK. I remember my outrage in law school, back in the 1970s, when we came to a case that held that a corporation could not spend its money on anything it couldn’t justify as profit-seeking, that if corporate management spent corporate funds to do good, without being able to justify it as something like profit-friendly PR or brand enhancement, then that management was subject to removal. Today in retirement, after 36 conflictual years in the legal arena, my outrage is even stronger. This one sociopathic legal doctrine underlies so much about what’s wrong with our world.
The vast amount of fiat money at the spigot (Cantillion Effect) swamps everything rational. A benevolent leader of a public company cannot afford even the slightest benevolence to his workers and even then they will most likely still be swamped by pirate debt financing of the well connected. No profits no problem for the anointed and appointed winners. You cannot run much of anything clean anymore. It will simply be swamped by the dirty fiat and debt financing of the well connected. The sooner it collapses the sooner we can at least try to create something better. With all the SPACs and private equity, it’s an all out drunken scorched earth raping. It’s an anomaly that the unwashed were even allowed to participate alongside the elites in public markets…even if the unwashed were always exploited by the elites. I think in the future we may not even be allowed to mingle our wealth with the elite and participate in their schemes…unless of course we can be exploited in ways that make it worth the effort.
Down the pipe. No doubt things have gotten as rotten as you say, with the crooked and predatory financialization of everything even remotely exploitable. “The sooner it collapses the sooner we can at least try to create something better.” I may be imagining it or wanting it too badly, but I have a feeling that IT is collapsing as we speak. The neoliberal shark has to swim to breathe, and Covid threatens to freeze it in its tracks again and again. Caitlin reports that Melbourne is open and back in business, as are many other places outside the US. But how long for everyone, everywhere, until the next surge, the next mutation, the next new virus drives us back to huddling in our homes, assuming we’re fortunate enough to have one?
Plausible deniability. ‘Nuff said.
“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. “
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1537592714001595
Perhaps we should rename it:
The ‘Deep Hate’
Of Truth.
Another great article Catlin, thanks for your insights once again. Of course if anyone wants to know how government actually works all they have to do is watch some episodes of the 1980s British sitcom ‘Yes Minister’ and the sequel, ‘Yes prime minister’, all was revealed right there.
Facades on the facades to deceive everybody is the way the United States government operates. It is just a necessary part of the ” planet-wide killing machine ” we operate. The ” hood ornament POTUS ” is as clueless as the rest of the peon population. Everyone is asleep or in a coma; the owners and the masters are pleased with that!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=raGsgsuPFAw
Great column. Thanks. The careerist ‘insiders,” like James Jeffrey, the government agencies, and plutocrats you mention have been “saving” America from her elected officials (and thus democracy) since the days of Richard M. Nixon — with the whole-hearted endorsement of the MSM.
After some of the more outlandish executive actions by Mr. Trump, the rub is that this ‘saving’ seeks solely to perpetuate military and banking/finance operations., There is neither history nor innuendo to indicate they have ever — or will ever — defended America’s parks, reserves, wild lands, and/or natural resources, as one example, from the predations of Big Oil, Big Ag, or mining operations. Nor, to anyone’s knowledge, have they ever intervened to help the people of America, for example Occupy or the XL pipeline protestors. In sum, might we say that this group is in fact a Fifth Column?. . . Little remarked, but one that will continue to increase its power under the enormous wealth transfers that have occured just these last few years.
One thing will slow this down. We are running out of water resources in America. Population must be reduced and displaced, especially in the west. Read up on what is happening behind the scenes with our water supply. Livestock, big AG eat up too much. Thus no more meat, why you think they come up with that. Not enough water. States are fighting over water rights, why. This is all about a commodities war taking place. All we see are the results, not the reasons why. China is in trouble too as well as India and Africa. It is a worldeide problem. Forget oil, its water that will be the deciding factor.
If interested in where we are headed and why, read the link on water.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-01-21/10-critical-water-scarcity-facts-we-must-not-ignore/
Strange that folks don’t believe in the deep state, maybe if people in the know started calling it for what it is, the Mafia with intimate connections to the Mossad, maybe they’d be more apt to believe. Certainly, folks love telling their kids about the boogy man, but, ‘the Daily Beast?” That is the very voice of the very real boogy man that does all sorts of god awful things to kids. Maybe someday you will know that too.
Another great one Caitlin. I share most of these on FBook in the hopes, as James Corbett always says, “normies” will one by one catch a spark/ see the light.