Zbigniew Brzezinski Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
February 4th, 2007It concerns me that Brzezinski is being flogged around the Internet as some sort of good guy, after this testimony. Let’s take a closer look at Brzezinski to fit his recent and astonishing appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into context.
In The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, Zbigniew Brzezinski writes:
In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
Brzezinski wants to see an American led hegemony of Eurasia. Got that? Good.
What we are seeing here is the balkanization of the elite. This is a clash of the titans, a war of the gods. The most powerful people on the planet don’t want the conflict to expand into Iran.
Brzezinski’s New World Order involves the heavy use of smoke and mirrors to keep the “vassals” in line. Brute force isn’t a smart way to go about it. He’s more about buying off elites in target states, selective use of black ops and building broad coalitions with other powerful criminals in order to dominate. Brzezinski’s model is heavy on back channel manipulation, secret deals and the realization hegemony is going to happen with the U.S., or without the U.S.
How do you go about it?
This is where the split has obviously occurred.
Cheney, et al. want to take it all for themselves by force. It’s not any more complicated than that.
Brzezinski’s approach, and what we can think of as the approach of the “mainstream” elite, is to gather together and make a list of countries and resources that need to be exploited, and work out a multilateral program to accomplish those goals. (Watch the God Father movies!)
Brzezinski’s contempt for the people at the bottom of the pyramid is total. His problem with what’s happening now is not so much with the loss of life, but with the fact that appearances are not being maintained. Maintaining appearances is critical to local elites who are tasked with getting the masses on board. If the masses aren’t buying whatever line of bullshit is being thrown around about why they’re being ripped off, that’s a problem for the people who are trying to do the ripping off.
Brzezinski’s role as consiliari to the elite has been to get them to realize that, by working together, increasingly impressive crimes are possible, up to and including total control of the planet. On the other hand, to strike out on criminal ventures individually, without the cooperation and coordination with the other partners, risks introducing too much chaos into the system. While this chaos might benefit one crime family, it threatens the rackets of several other crime families.
Continuing the mafia analogy, Dubya, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al. are the junkyard dog, thug elements of the crime family that runs the U.S.
Brzezinski, however, serves the class of people outside of view from most of us. He appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, publicly outed the false flag attack plans, and said: “It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.” (His speech included the second reference to a false flag operations in Congress in the last few weeks. See Ron Paul’s comments.)
Imagine you’re a member of the mafia, working some racket that you’ve always worked, but recently, you’ve decided to start up some other racket without working through the usual channels. What just happened in the U.S. Senate would be the equivalent of Don Corleone placing a severed horse’s head in your bed with you as you slept. (The Iraq Study Group report represented the first warning to this branch of the mafia. It was not heeded.)
Recall what I said about a military coup being the only thing that could stop the war with Iran?
Brzezinski’s testimony indicates to me that the expansion of the conflict into Iran might not be allowed to happen. Don’t ask me how it will be stopped, but he is the mouthpiece of the people who run this show, not in appearance, but in fact. He didn’t say what would happen if Congress doesn’t stop the junk yard dogs. Hopefully, Congress is smart enough to parse the meaning of that bloody horse’s head on the pillow next to them.
Via: Commonweal:
Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them.
It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:
1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America’s global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America’s moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.
2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.
If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America’s involvement in World War II.
This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran — though gaining in regional influence — is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Deplorably, the Administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on “clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles’s attitude of the early 1950’s toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy.
One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture.
It is obvious by now that the American national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is in fact a dominant consensus in favor of a change: American public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that it should not be escalated, that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is an essential element of the needed policy alteration and should be actively pursued. It is noteworthy that profound reservations regarding the Administration’s policy have been voiced by a number of leading Republicans. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the much admired President Gerald Ford, former Secretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith among others.
The urgent need today is for a strategy that seeks to create a political framework for a resolution of the problems posed both by the US occupation of Iraq and by the ensuing civil and sectarian conflict. Ending the occupation and shaping a regional security dialogue should be the mutually reinforcing goals of such a strategy, but both goals will take time and require a genuinely serious U.S. commitment.
The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps:
1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time.
Ambiguity regarding the duration of the occupation in fact encourages unwillingness to compromise and intensifies the on-going civil strife. Moreover, such a public declaration is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as the primary reason for the American intervention in a region only recently free of colonial domination. That perception should be discredited from the highest U.S. level. Perhaps the U.S. Congress could do so by a joint resolution.
2. The United States should announce that it is undertaking talks with the Iraqi leaders to jointly set with them a date by which U.S. military disengagement should be completed, and the resulting setting of such a date should be announced as a joint decision. In the meantime, the U.S. should avoid military escalation.
It is necessary to engage all Iraqi leaders — including those who do not reside within “the Green Zone” — in a serious discussion regarding the proposed and jointly defined date for U.S. military disengagement because the very dialogue itself will help identify the authentic Iraqi leaders with the self-confidence and capacity to stand on their own legs without U.S. military protection. Only Iraqi leaders who can exercise real power beyond “the Green Zone” can eventually reach a genuine Iraqi accommodation. The painful reality is that much of the current Iraqi regime, characterized by the Bush administration as “representative of the Iraqi people,” defines itself largely by its physical location: the 4 sq. miles-large U.S. fortress within Baghdad, protected by a wall in places 15 feet thick, manned by heavily armed U.S. military, popularly known as “the Green Zone.”
3. The United States should issue jointly with appropriate Iraqi leaders, or perhaps let the Iraqi leaders issue, an invitation to all neighbors of Iraq (and perhaps some other Muslim countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Pakistan) to engage in a dialogue regarding how best to enhance stability in Iraq in conjunction with U.S. military disengagement and to participate eventually in a conference regarding regional stability.
The United States and the Iraqi leadership need to engage Iraq’s neighbors in serious discussion regarding the region’s security problems, but such discussions cannot be undertaken while the U.S. is perceived as an occupier for an indefinite duration. Iran and Syria have no reason to help the United States consolidate a permanent regional hegemony. It is ironic, however, that both Iran and Syria have lately called for a regional dialogue, exploiting thereby the self-defeating character of the largely passive — and mainly sloganeering — U.S. diplomacy.
A serious regional dialogue, promoted directly or indirectly by the U.S., could be buttressed at some point by a wider circle of consultations involving other powers with a stake in the region’s stability, such as the EU, China, Japan, India, and Russia. Members of this Committee might consider exploring informally with the states mentioned their potential interest in such a wider dialogue.
4. Concurrently, the United States should activate a credible and energetic effort to finally reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, making it clear in the process as to what the basic parameters of such a final accommodation ought to involve.
The United States needs to convince the region that the U.S. is committed both to Israel’s enduring security and to fairness for the Palestinians who have waited for more than forty years now for their own separate state. Only an external and activist intervention can promote the long-delayed settlement for the record shows that the Israelis and the Palestinians will never do so on their own. Without such a settlement, both nationalist and fundamentalist passions in the region will in the longer run doom any Arab regime which is perceived as supportive of U.S. regional hegemony.
After World War II, the United States prevailed in the defense of democracy in Europe because it successfully pursued a long-term political strategy of uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression without initiating hostilities, all the while also exploring the possibility of negotiated arrangements. Today, America’s global leadership is being tested in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive political engagement is now urgently needed.
It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.
I respectfully disagree with your analysis of Brzezinski’s motives. Who better than the author of _the_ plan (for the domination of the Caspian) to act as a foil and sow confusion in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as to our true intentions?
Iran will be kept wondering until the flash whether or not we’re really going through with it. Their analysts will dutifully report that there is dissension at the very highest levels of the US power structure about the escalation. _They_ are the target of Brzezinski’s psyop game, not the American congress.
[…] See: Zbigniew Brzezinski Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. […]
Nice contrarian analysis, Neal: “_They_ are the target of Brzezinski’s psyop game, not the American congress.” Wouldn’t be the first time.
For me, it all depends on the balances in both the Military and the Intelligence communities. Who’s for, who’s against, and in what ratios. Guess we’ll find out when it’s history.
here’s the Senate.gov link to the testimony:
http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2007/BrzezinskiTestimony070201.pdf
and as tinyurl:
http://tinyurl.com/24b35n
I found this tidbit kind of interesting:
“Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as the primary reason for the American intervention in a region only recently free of colonial domination. That perception should be discredited from the highest U.S. level. Perhaps the U.S. Congress could do so by a joint resolution.”
It’s amazing that he’s actually asking congress to disavow his own publically stated intentions (and by extension those of his masters) for the Middle East. If people – congressmen, citizens, whoever – would just pay attention, this entire song and dance would be instantly seen for the charade that it is.
My friends say that I’m too cynical about the American public. If they would open their eyes, even just a little, they would understand that I’m not.
– Mike Lorenz
And I respectfully disagree with Neal. Something has gotten out of control that Brzezinski doesn’t like and is afraid of. Not sure what it is–I mean, not specifically–but it’s got to do with the Cheney-neocon axis becoming too frightening even for the old Carter-Brzezinski-Clinton globalists. Even to them, the neocons now look dangerous. His remark about Congress is really revealing–it may be time, way past, for Congress to assert itself, but it won’t. My book, “A Nation Gone Blind: America in an Age of Simplification and Deceit,” explains why. Same reason that most of the population wont’ assert itself. Read it and see.
In addition to wholeheartedly agreeing with Neal’s analysis, I would add the following: The Ruling Class is self-exculpating.
a. Nascent Roman Empire and its emperor, Augustus Caesar = Ruling Class
b. Brzezinski = Pontius Pilate
c. Humanity/General Public = the populist intellectual, Jesus of Nazareth
d. Jewish Sadducees and Pharisees = The military/oil industrial complex, represented by their agents Cheney, R. and Bush, G. W.
In short: Jesus, with his radical populist views, in my view, was most likely supported by the Romans as a way to contain the rebellious Jewish “Old Money†Classes—the Sadducees and Pharisees—but when his revolutionary teachings begin to spread in a manner problematic for the Romans, they surreptitiously supported his execution, allowing Jewish “Old Money,†which was directly threatened by the radical populist Jesus, to do the dirty work. According to the more mythical version of this historical episode, taken from the bible, Pontius Pilate, who represented the will of the Roman Empire in Judea Province, stated, after saying he did not find Jesus guilty of a crime worthy of death and washing his hands with water in front of the crowd demanding Jesus’ execution, “I am innocent of this man’s blood….â€
History is rhyming today, I believe: Brzezinski is washing his hands clean and declaring himself and, therefore, the Ruling Class, innocent of the forthcoming execution of Humanity/General Public, which THEY use–e.g. the Democratic Party–to contain the “Old Money/Business/Innovative†Classes, even though they are surreptitiously supporting and forcing the hands of the “Old Money†agents, Cheney and Bush, in moving forward with the upcoming execution.
As evidence of this assertion, see The Wayne Madsen Report, Feb.1, 2007. It details the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of one Asher Karni; the details surrounding his arrest, when examined in light of the public evidence available pertaining to the Litvinenko murder, are most likely true and provide an intellectual backdrop for the forthcoming carnage.
p.s.
Since every new or recycled electronic or paper U.S. financial claim, AKA the Dollar, has less and less in the form of tangible assets to back it up, and will therefore be less and less acceptable in exchange transactions in the future, due to the massive inflation it is currently and has been undergoing along with the simultaneous destruction of U.S. goods-producing capacity, I doubt the Owner Class would have allowed dwindling dollar resources to be spent:
a. sending an additional battle carrier group, as well as another strike group, to the Persian Gulf,
b. setting up refueling facilities for B-2 bombers in Bulgaria
c. sending a Patriot anti-missile battalion to an unidentified U.S. Arab ally,
if they didn’t have plans engage.
If the US or Israel attack Iran then, in my opinion, there is a very high probability that the global economic system as it stands will not long survive the attack. That could be thought of as one reason for a section of the elite to wish the attack not to take place.
On the other hand the economy also has a very high probability of breaking soon anyway because of the gathering effects of peak oil. So which is the most probable scenario? Much of the world is currently controlled by an economic system that is nothing less than a mechanism to concentrate resources and power in the hands of a very few. It will break down as soon as available energy begins to decline. The powers that be have little incentive to continue to try to preserve it. When it breaks down they will resort to governing by force instead of by market and the various factions will only govern what resources they can hold or take. Given the thought processes of power they can never give way to a system that empowers local communities and that could undo some of the damage that has been done by this obsessive concentration of resources into the hands of the few. Whether they attack or not it is now beyond doubt that the current way of doing things is unsustainable. The way of power and domination has been shown to lead to extinction. It will end.
They are in a panic and are lashing out. The only question now is how the shift will evolve. There is still no will in the houses of the powers that be for an attempt at graceful powerdown so I suspect they will continue to act irrationally until the infrastucure becomes so degraded that they can no longer affect the population in any meaningful way.
They must be prevented from using the nuclear weapons.
joeds,
On the other hand the economy also has a very high probability of breaking soon anyway because of the gathering effects of peak oil.
This thing is collapsing for multiple reasons, and all at once… I’ve thought along these lines as well, especially re: a strategic, false flag takedown of the Internet mainly to blame “the terrorists” for economic collapse, and to wipe away evidence of past crimes. Don’t ask me how “the terrorists” would manage to destroy redundant backup and data systems… But “the terrorists” are a crafty lot. Like Satan, et. al. * sigh *
The way to think about it is: What would kill the most birds with the fewest stones? That’s why I thought “the terrorists” will finally focus on the undefended infrastructures that make the Internet possible:
1) End the criticism of the regime.
2) Cut off people like us from real information.
3) Cut off people like us from communicating with each other.
4) People, rendered helpless, jobless, Walmartless, etc, would beg for the government to save them.
5) Anyone who dares speak out against the government would probably be killed by a mob of troglodytes.
6) Oh yeah, the theft of trillions of dollars? What are these trillions of dollars you speak of, Senator? Who? Where?
LOOK OUT! THE TERRORISTS ARE COMING BACK TO FINISH US OFF!!!!
That’s one possible scenario, anyway.
I don’t think that it’s possible to know which trick is going to be pulled with any precision. But they’re going to have to try to fit ten pounds of shit into a five pound bag, and soon. The question is how to blame “the terrorists” for the crash without the thing leading to nuclear war. I’m guessing that this Brzezinski thing is like saying, “Don’t do it ‘that’ way. Go back to the drawing board. We don’t want it to play out like ‘that.'” Iraq is clearly out of control. Add Iran to the mix? I don’t see how they maintain any level of control (militarily, politically, economically, take your pick) with an order of magnitude increase in the chaos on the ground. I think this crossed Brzezinski’s mind, and the minds of his handlers.
How does what Brzezinski said rhyme with the idea that the US main interest in Iraq is the oil? I read all these stories about huge “permanent” bases being built at strategic locations throughout Iraq, evidence, we are told, that the US is in Iraq to stay. Add to that the theories (some would say facts) that the US is in fact promoting violence in Iraq, to keep the natives squabbling while their oil gets nicked. I do not necessarily disagree with Kevin’s analysis, but I cannot see how it fits with other pieces of information.
“This thing is collapsing for multiple reasons, and all at once…”
Agreed. A series of converging catastrophies driven by thermodynamics and genetics.
The question is, are we capable of trancending the problems and achieving a sustainable system? I think we are. Although i see no way out of a dieoff, it could be mitigated to some extent by a crash introduction of permaculture, agroforestry and a basic medical system that will probably have to be plant based. It would have to be instigated globally. I doubt it could be planned; I just hope it emerges as the best way of doing things.
>>>The question is, are we capable of trancending the problems and achieving a sustainable system? I think we are.
In theory? Absolutely, sure.
There’s one problem: People like us have relatively no power, because we can’t allocate significant resources to our values. Sure, we can do our own little thing, make our websites, raise our animals, grow our vegetables…
What does this accomplish in terms of tangibly “trancending the problems and achieving a sustainable system”?
Not quite nothing, I guess. Meanwhile, the Masters of the Universe perfect their death rays and engineered plagues…
You’re right, no way could it be planned.
Pockets of people who survive might have some success at it. But, currently, for example, when my wife and I tell people that we do our laundry by hand, or that we have to leave some gathering because we have to tend to our goats, or that we never watch television, people look at us like we’re insane. We don’t talk much about our composting toilet; it’s just not worth the hassle. My guess is that most people (easily 99% of them) in “advanced economies” would choose death over this type of lifestyle. They’ve already chosen death, actually, whether they know it or not.
Re: Hope: Personally, I gave up on hope. The more I hoped for changes, the darker things got. Instead of wasting energy on hoping, I started enjoying the time I have left. But that’s just me… Your mileage may vary. 😉
I think the most telling thing about his testimony is this: not one mention of it in the New York Times (last I checked, around noon Eastern US time, on 2/4). Not one mention. They could have made this front page news, it’s clearly a bombshell. But instead they obeyed their masters at the State Dept. and ignored it completely. “All the news that’s fit to print — according to the military-industrial complex.”
First the Baker commission, then the Libby [Cheney] trial, and now Zbig…
It’s like a greek tragedy playing out. The elites are fighting among themselves. I agree with the mafia metaphor. GHWB must be really worried about the kid that got in with the wrong crowd.
Excellent analysis, Kevin, and right in line with the thinking of other intelligent commentators/authors/bloggers.
Again, to draw on historical analogy, powerful moneyed factions within the Senate are in disagreement with the chimperor and his praetorians, and their (now stinkin’ obvious) plan/course of action. Time will tell if they can rein it in, or will simply be caught in the ensuing carnage.
Kevin and David, two very good posts.
First David, I like your idea that Jesus was used much like al quada is being used today. We introduce radical islam into Afghanistan in the late 70’s as a way to counteract Russia’s influence in the area. This breeds ACTUAL radical Islam and it spreads to places like Pakistan and other Islamic country’s. We try our best to put to genie back in the bottle but it Blows Back at us finally on Sept 11th 2001.
And to Kevin; I find your insights on the possibility of a large scale internet attack to be absolutely frightening. Think about HOW MUCH WE ALL DEPEND ON IT. I’m not even talking about the economic consequences of it not being available, but the IMMENSE amount of collaboration and information sharing that goes on.
I can guarantee that I’d be among the masses clamouring for my salvation, it it wasn’t for the internet. The internet has freed more minds and bodies from the Matrix than any thing else combined bar none. Without it, all the bridges and collaborations that have been bourne from it, would collapse into pieces.
How would we all communicate for Christ’s sake.. I don’t even know who or where you people are???
Game over..
Robert
Excellent commentary and analysis by Kevin who described my views on Brzezinski’s political role playing with more clarity and wit than I could have ever done.
Also, fascinating points brought up by Neal and the other commentators.
My impressions of Brzezinki’s deep level of ongoing involvement in reshaping America’s (and therefore, the global elites’) hand in Middle Eastern affairs were reinforced about 2 years ago after watching a McLaughlin group discussion about General William Odom’s strong denunciation of the war in Iraq. My guess was that Odom was somebody’s puppet and when I went the Harvard-based Neiman Watchdog website to read Odom’s statements my suspicions were confirmed. In the text of Odom’s speech, he often referred to and quoted Brzezinki’s preference for letting the U.N. take control of Iraq. I saw it as classic global elite hegemony agenda driven thinking in line with the likes of Kissinger and Rockefeller.
While it appears likely that there is indeed a real schism between the elites’ approach to global hegemony, at least for the American electorate, one cannot discount that the Hegelian dialect is in operation. Brzezinski is a master of the technique and it would not surprise me if we are witnessing the most elaborate political theater yet devised. In this scenario, the neocons are scripted the role of bad cops to invade Iraq and the seemingly more level-headed elites (largely represented by the Democratic leadership) are the good cops given the task of organizing U.N. control of Iraq – an event which prior to the neocon invasion of Iraq would have been inconceivable to the American electorate but now seems reasonable.
In a dialectic approach to political maneuvering an extreme policy shunned by the public becomes acceptable when an even more extreme policy is advocated or employed and by the process of thesis-antithesis-synthesis the alternative or compromise (although still extreme) by comparison starts to look reasonable. Through the lens of the dialectic it is easy to see how often voters are manipulated this way on both foreign and domestic issues.
While parsimony compels us to the Kevin’s viewpoint of elite balkanization, we should always be aware of the possibility of a dialetic framework at play.
“…we never watch television, people look at us like we’re insane…We don’t talk much about our composting toilet; it’s just not worth the hassle. My guess is that most people (easily 99% of them) in “advanced economies†would choose death over this type of lifestyle.
If all the people who watch television choose death then there may indeed be a future for the human race. Personally, though, I think all remaining resources will just be devoted to getting the TV’s working again.
Good stuff, all. Remember that Z is a sharp guy. You don’t write a book like The Grand Chessboard just by being an ass kisser. His speaking up may be a grand move of it’s own kind, or part of positioning as some of you said. Either way, it is a clear indicator that things are in motion.
Good luck Kevin !
No, I respectfully beg to differ with Neal. What we see here is not a case of “psyops”, but something much more simpler. Americans are always known for their cockiness – which in the end usually comes a-cropper. It is their national trait. So here we see Brzezinski falling flat on his nose after fearfully realising that any Iranian caper may well begin the sinking process of his beloved Titanic – inspite of what he so cockily wrote and suggested in his so-called “Grand Chessboard” book ten years ago. 1997 was another time, another age. Nobody in the world then had the cheek to foretell what is happening now. The world was all America’s, with it smugly mounted atop.
Finally, I will add that Brzezinski’s worst fears will come true this spring. Iran WILL be attacked – that is a part of Bush’s strategy which it organically can’t do without. And then we will all see what will come to pass regarding America, its “free world” of Western allies and their erstwhile Islamic toadies in the Middle East (remember it was Brzezinski and his cohorts who cultivated Islamic terror with which to tackle the USSR. Well, they got what they wanted, but a great deal more too… American cleverness at play, of course).
[…] days ago, in a comment on the Zbigniew Brzezinski Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee story, I wrote the […]
Your analysis, though offered from a differing point of view, and I do not intend to be too creitical here, is no less shortsighted than those already overwhelmed by greed.
These points do not represent in any significant way, the entire spectrum of influences at play. This strikes at the heart of our failing as a culture; we only put on the table the cards with which we are prepared or able to deal. So what gets left out? An elusive element more valuable than ‘gold pressed latinum.’ It’s called humility. Humbleness. The acknowledgement that in our most impressive intellectual moments, our value and influence counts for no more than perhaps 25% of the total equation.
Goofballs like Brzezinsk who hold onto childlike, selfish delusions are only heard by those who will listen. The deeper, more significant influences are getting it done, and it is these undecurrents that have forced the CFR and other Romulin families to de-cloak in order to fight for their lives. Literally. I find a certain pathetic amusement in watching them squeam in the traps of their own design.
In India there is a saying: “In shallow men the fish of little thoughts make much commotion, in oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle.”
i would tend to agree with the two intuitions that Brzezinski is A) playing the role of good cop and B) representing parties with more long term interests. but, viz-a-viz the question of how this intervention refltects his historical recommendations, it is clear that all of the intrigues he supported during the Cold War and the Clinton years were fundamentally within the framework of mutually supportive state positions that are being challenged and undermined by the Neo-Con group. he is a relic of a bygone era that suffered from its own particular brand of hubris: one in which their ceaseless geopolitical machinations could somehow be reigned in canalized at the last minute.
the new breed of global imperialists of course gleefully took up the role of vanguard in all such right-leaning pressurization operations, but perhaps, and this is the million dollar question, perhaps they foresaw a break with them that brought them, in the course of which an alliance of struggling metropoles would be forced not to pay tribute to Brzezinski’s state system, but rather to a floating global consortium of financeers, thugs, and seed-hoarding eugenicists. what we confront in the coming weeks is the nature of the coming transition, a choice between the globalization of the state apparatus and the globalization of the syndicate and its relentless dynastic impulses.
[…] is being overturned by a new gang of thugs who aren’t playing by the old rules. Instead of back channel manipulation, secret deals, selective use of black ops and the building broad coalition…, these gangsters only know the language of brute force. The words of his testimony are significant […]
I would like to take issue with the notion that Islam had anything to do with 911 in paragraph 16 by Robert. How could the so called Islamic terrorists have prepped the three buildings for demolition?
paragraph 17 by Synapse on the other hand deals accurately with the Odoms posture as a foil for Kissinger Rockefeller elitist problem reaction solution ploy that leaves the UN to calm the waters in a way that now seems acceptable though impossible to have brought off previously.
I also thought the understanding of the forthcoming demise of our existing economic model in the earlier paragraphs was right on the money,pun intended.
Impressive forum! I usually jump in with both feet but I would only come to this forum with well measured content. Congratulations. Peter.
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