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Terror Networks

Private Military Companies: The US in Iraq, France and Wagner

2025-06-05

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

Text taken from a news article posted on telegra.ph

Text from May 2023.
[ColonelCassad] Colonel (ret.) Pere de Young is the former commander of the 3rd Marine Regiment, aide-de-camp to two French presidents and founder of THEMIIS (an independent French company founded in 2015 that provides services to states and institutions in the fields of security, defense and development). He is also responsible for the course on security and defense service companies (ESSD), taught as part of the Master's program in Geopolitics and International Security at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP).

Pere de Young has just published a book, Agir entre les lignes (Acting between the lines), published by Mareuil, and is also the author of Vous n'oublierez rien, colonel (You will not forget anything, Colonel) (Editions Tallandier, 2017). Paul Munier is a Master's student in Geopolitics and International Relations at the Institut Catholique de Paris.

Paul Munier (Interviewer): To begin with, based on your experience, what are the preconceived notions about private military companies at a time when the Wagner Group has found itself in the spotlight worldwide?

Peer de Young (P.J.): Private military companies (SMPs), which are called ESSDs in France (translator's note: this is the French name for companies providing security and defense services, so this abbreviation will be used in the context of French companies in the following text), officially have a relatively recent history, but their activities are much older.

Specifically, we very often equate PMCs with mercenaries, but this has nothing to do with the matter; we are talking about two completely different stories here. Obviously, they have a common basis, since they are related to conflicts and the military sphere. But they are opposed by different modes of action. In addition, mercenaries have been criminalized since 1977 (translator's note: in Russia, Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Mercenarism" was singled out as a separate type of offense only in 1996). This obviously does not apply to the ESSD, whose role is limited by the law of April 2003 banning mercenaries in France. These are two completely different worlds.

PMCs and ESSDs have experienced significant growth, especially since 2003, with the American presence in Iraq. However, it should be noted that Washington has always used subcontracting companies. From the Cold War to conflicts in the Middle East and the Vietnam War, PMCs have operated all over the world. One of the first notable operations was the use of Air America, created in 1946. Owned by the CIA, this company provided air support and transport for Chiang Kai-shek in his war against Mao Zedong. After Mao came to power in 1949, Air America was gradually “recycled” during the Vietnam War. Thus, between 1945 and 1975, the Americans experimented with the possibility of using a form of subcontracting, bringing in the necessary external expertise through Air America.

The Wagner “structure” is a form of development of Russian foreign policy; it is not exactly a PMC. Depending on the Russian state, mercenary groups are used rather as a supplementary form, as in Syria or Libya, or as a first-line force, as in Ukraine.

P.M.: PMCs and ESSDs are not very well known; in your book you describe in detail the various areas of their activity. What is the reason for turning to the services of these companies?

P. de J.: Since the 2000s, the budgets of all armies in the world, and especially in Europe, have been sharply reduced. Sometimes up to 30%, as in France or the USA. Soldiers have become rare and therefore expensive, which has opened up peripheral and “auxiliary” activities for ESSDs and PMCs. This observation was made by Dick Cheney and then Donald G. Rumsfeld, the two subsequent US Secretaries of Defense. This was the beginning of the rise of private structures.

However, each army has its own traditions, its own ways of doing things; there is no predetermined and ideal model. In the ESSD, personnel are very often recruited from among those who have left the army. Therefore, they are well trained. The unemployment observed today among retired military personnel is more a result of the dogma of "spent material" than of a logic based on doubts about their abilities. The skills are definitely there and they can be used.

With the exception of active combat operations, which include the use of weapons, which must remain within the framework of self-defense, PMCs and ESSDs can perform all possible missions, especially everything that is peripheral, namely security, protection, convoy escort, medical care or even what is called maintenance of operational condition (MCO) of equipment (you can read more about this here). Obviously, the capabilities of ESSD employees allow them to conduct all kinds of training. In addition, ESSDs are indispensable both in operations to combat maritime piracy and in matters of cyber defense. The scope of employment is very wide. Thus, these private structures can compensate for the shortcomings of the army, which is in the process of constant restructuring.

PM: After the Cold War, in a security context marked by asymmetrical struggle, to what extent did the war in Iraq open the doors to the world market for companies providing military services?

P. de J.: Since the 1940s, the United States had already integrated the use of private groups into its system, mainly for economic and technical reasons. The fall of the Wall (1989) and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact (1991) led to a sharp reduction in budgets and personnel in many armies around the world. Particularly in the United States, where the American budget was cut by 28%. These cuts lead to shortages and needs.

Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, explained that soldiers had become rare and expensive, and that they had to dedicate themselves to their combat mission. This is how the idea of outsourcing auxiliary or peripheral activities (support, logistics, assistance, etc.) to private companies arose. So Dick Cheney and his successor Donald G. Rumsfeld created a kind of recurring doctrine of supporting the American military. The peak of this period was the Iraq War in 2003.

So when the Americans intervene, the American budget is extremely low, while the needs in Iraq and Afghanistan are enormous. Realizing that the war may drag on, and given the limited budget, they will compensate by encouraging the entry of ESSD into the scene. The Americans develop the principle of outsourcing to such an extent that in Iraq there is one contractor for every fighter (a contractor is simply a person under contract with a company). During this conflict, almost 90% of the PMC missions were support missions assigned to non-combatants, most of whom were foreigners.

PM: You devote a large chapter of your book to Prigozhin and Wagner. How did the Russian Wagner Group become a form of service to the Russian political power?

P. de J.: To be specific, Yevgeny Prigozhin is a businessman with an entrepreneurial mindset. Wagner is only one third of the "tripod" of Prigozhin's structures. In fact, this Russian businessman has a holding company called Concord, based in St. Petersburg. This historical parent company generates significant amounts of money in the catering sector, and therefore in everything related to food. So he understands the need for new problems.

Like the Americans, Vladimir Putin is considering the possibility of building structures that can take up minimal space on the ground, American "light springs". V. Putin, a former Russian intelligence officer, understands the logic of American intervention, especially in Iraq. He believes that outsourcing peripheral operations is a good idea.

Prigozhin responded to Putin’s questions about this minimal intervention by creating the Wagner Group, which became a tool for “dirty work”. In 2014, the Wagner Group entered the fight in Donbas and Crimea, reinforcing the Russian intelligence forces of the FSB and GRU. They become a supporting force, and the Wagner experiment is successful. It immediately…

This experience was subsequently reinforced in 2015, 2016 and 2017 during the fighting in Syria, where the same sequence of actions was repeated with the Russian Air Force. They captured the Syrian cities of Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor.

Prigozhin’s architecture rests on two other pillars: information warfare and “seizing the legacy”, that is, access to natural resources. Thus, Prigozhin attracted a number of companies that were supposed to strengthen and finance the role of Wagner. These civil companies negotiate with states for remuneration and carry out technical activities related to the extraction of natural resources (minerals, gas, oil, etc.).

Prigozhin’s entrepreneurial activity at Concord is noteworthy. After all, Wagner is only the visible part and flagship of the “Prigozhin project”, a kind of “loss leader” …

PM: France lags significantly behind other national competitors in this market. In your experience, what difficulties have French security and defense companies (ESSD) encountered in their development, despite the skills acquired in our national institutions?

P. de Y.: Firstly, it is a question of culture and history. In France, all external actions and influence operations are based on two pillars: diplomatic and military, which has always worked.

In 2003, the Americans introduced a new player to the national team – a PMC (translator’s note: Colonel De Jong is being a bit disingenuous here: the Americans had been actively using their PMCs in the Yugoslav War since 1991, especially since De Jong himself was “working off” his service in Bosnia at that time). France did not do this for various reasons.

Firstly, given the asymmetrical nature of the operations in which France participated, this nature did not require a fundamental need for external personnel. Today, the situation is changing due to two parameters: firstly, the weakening of French influence in Africa, while our army was an instrument intended for this region, and, secondly, the war in Ukraine. The latter is forcing our army to become more compact. We have entered a transition period, which must necessarily take these two new parameters into account.

However, the ESSD faced the state, namely those structures that I call the "deep state", characterized by the reluctance of the armed forces, "exhausted" since the 2000s by successive reforms, and which did not welcome the emergence of any form of competition. The political power is relatively indifferent. He believes that there is an opportunity to develop new small and medium-sized enterprises, which has a very positive impact on employment. In any case, if the positions are not filled by French people, they will obviously be foreign quasi-PMCs, as is already happening in the air transport sector.

PM: President Macron's speech in Toulon on November 9, 2022 is considered a turning point in French policy in Africa. What developments can be foreseen for our ESSD in this region, where French influence is harshly criticized? What role could they play?

P. de Y.: In Africa, to be specific, we are being shown the way out, our military system in Africa will be reduced, especially in terms of numbers. We already know that in Gabon, Ivory Coast and Senegal these numbers will be halved. African states are demanding a transformation of the French presence and want, in the name of their sovereignty, a minimal French presence.

Secondly, in connection with the events in Ukraine, part of our army will be sent to resolve the issues of the "Greater East". Therefore, I recommend that the PMCs and the ESSD support these consolidation movements in Eastern Europe, as well as in Africa, where they can obviously meet the specifications. This is a modest impact...

In my experience, the ESSD can very well be compensatory structures with a minimal presence, in civilian clothes and without ranks. The ESSD does not represent France; if the customer state is not satisfied, it terminates the contract; this will not affect the bilateral relations between France and this African state. So, there are many advantages to having ESSD in combat, especially since these companies are 95% ex-military, like Themiis.

PM: What limitations do you see for PMCs and ESSD, given their unique capabilities and versatility in terms of missions and theaters of operations?

The first is an administrative limitation – carrying weapons. This is a very important concept, because in special forces or small patrols there are those who need to carry weapons and those who do not. For example, to conduct training or provide advice, there is no need to carry weapons. The number of missions that require carrying weapons is limited. This is a central issue for ESSD-SMP. There are very strict rules governing the carrying of weapons.

The second point concerns the issue of combat. If we take Wagner, this group is an exception, and the creation of a "French Wagner" is unthinkable. PMCs are a very little-known topic, and we return to the topic of the "mercenary myth" mentioned at the beginning. There is one limitation that cannot be crossed: the fact that PMCs or ESSDs participate in combat.

PMCs are not frontline forces, but peripheral combat support forces... That is the difference between Wagner and everything else. The use of force is allowed only to civil servants. There should be no debate on this matter. All over the world, PMCs are an instrument of influence, not an instrument of struggle.

Link

-Obits-

Longest living US president Jimmy Carter dead at 100 after spending final year in hospice care

2024-12-30

[NYPost] At least he got to vote a couple times for Kamala

He lived long enough to die as the second-worst president in my lifetime, an improvement in rank I never expected to see. I don’t believe in his soul’s probable destination, but he assuredly did. Lots of details about his life and career can be read at the link — here is the key info:

Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States during a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and the Iran hostage crisis, died Sunday.

He was 100.

Carter — the longest-living president in US history — passed away in Plains, Ga. — the town where he was born — after spending nearly two years in hospice care.

He survived Rosalynn, his wife of 77 years, by a little over a year. She died at age 96 in November 2023.

The former president leaves behind four children, Jack, Chip, Jeff and Amy, as well as 11 grandchildren and 14 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by Rosalynn as well as one grandchild.

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former president’s son.

“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

Carter was sworn in on Jan. 20, 1977, after defeating Republican Gerald Ford, whose campaign was burdened by the political baggage he carried from his decision to pardon disgraced President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.

He served only one tumultuous four-year term before being swept aside by Ronald Reagan — but in that time he racked up triumphs such as the historic Camp David peace accords, in which Israel and Egypt officially recognized each other’s governments.

“Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood,” he once said.

Public observances will be held in Atlanta and Washington, DC followed by a private interment in Plains, where Carter will be buried alongside Rosalynn on a plot visible from the front porch of their home of more than six decades.

The full details of President Carter’s state funeral — including public events and motorcade routes — are still pending and will be released by the Joint Task Force-National Capital Region.

Biden schedules state funeral, National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter for January 9
[IsraelTimes] US President Joe Biden has scheduled a state funeral in Washington for former president Jimmy Carter on January 9.

He declares January 9 as a National Day of Mourning across the US. Carter, the longest-lived former president, died yesterday at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was 100.

Biden also orders US flags to fly at half-staff for 30 days from Sunday.

A few bits from something more contemporaneous (National Review, 2002), which nicely explains my animus:

Carterpalooza!
• For years, Carter has been a thorn in the side of presidents, acting as a kind of “anti-president,” as Lance Morrow once put it in an essay for Time. You recall how Carter irked Clinton on Haiti and North Korea. His low moment, however, came during the run-up to the Gulf War, when he wrote members of the U.N. Security Council — including Mitterrand’s France and Communist China — urging them to thwart the Bush administration’s effort. Our government found out about it when the Canadian prime minister, Brian Mulroney, called the defense secretary, Dick Cheney, and said, “What the . . .?” Some people actually allowed themselves to utter the word “treason.”

• Carter has long enjoyed a reputation as a Middle East sage, owing, of course, to his role in the original Camp David accords. That reputation, however, rests on shaky grounds. Truth is, Sadat and Begin had their deal worked out before ever approaching Washington. And the facilitators they used were far from saintly Southern Baptists: They used the dreadful King of Morocco and the even more dreadful Ceausescu of Romania! When they had their plan essentially worked out, however, they called the White House (whose occupant just happened to be J.C.) (initials not accidental, he and his most fervent admirers have seemed to think for years).

Why did they contact the White House? Prof. Bernard Lewis put it succinctly to Charlie Rose recently: “Well, obviously, they needed someone to pay the bill, and who but the United States could fulfill that function?”

Still, Carter is proud-as-all-get-out of his rendezvous with Middle East history. He trades on it incessantly.

• The ex-president has always considered himself screwed out of the Nobel prize, and he and his Carter Center have campaigned rather embarrassingly openly for it. He has won prizes, however, about which he crows: There was one named after his fellow liberal southerner, Fulbright; there was one from the U.N. (natch); and there was my favorite: the Zayed International Prize for the Environment, named for His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates!

Arabs are heavy-duty funders of the Carter Center, and they get a lot for their money.

• No one quite realizes just how passionately anti-Israel Carter is. William Safire has reported that Cyrus Vance acknowledged that, if he had had a second term, Carter would have sold Israel down the river. In the 1990s, Carter became quite close to Yasser Arafat. After the Gulf War, Saudi Arabia was mad at Arafat, because the PLO chief had sided with Saddam Hussein. So Arafat asked Carter to fly to Riyadh to smooth things over with the princes and restore Saudi funding to him — which Carter did.

• Carter’s op-ed piece for the New York Times last month — April 21 — was a nasty piece of work, an apologia for Arafat (despite a pro forma and unconvincing attempt at “balance”) and a mendacious attack on Sharon and Israel.

His hatred for Sharon is deep, obvious, and personal. At times he seems to use the man as a proxy for Israel: in other words, it’s okay openly to despise Sharon, if it’s slightly less okay openly to despise Israel. He refers to Sharon’s — Sharon’s — “invasion” of Egypt and his “invasion” of Lebanon. Of course, Meir was prime minister in the one instance, and Begin was prime minister in the other. Sharon was a general or defense minister. Carter also forgets the annoying little detail that Israel is a democracy, and that the people of that country democratically elected Sharon their prime minister. This is in sharp contrast to the Arab states, plus the P.A., that Carter admires and excuses.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Why Veterans Really Hate Liz Cheney And Kamala Harris

2024-11-08

[THEFEDERALIST] The recent controversy regarding Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
's criticism of Liz Cheney as a warhawk who has never faced the dangers of the wars she embraces has synthesized an issue that may be opaque to non-veterans: the extreme resentment many veterans of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) feel toward Kamala Harris
former senatrix from California, 2020 Dem presidential hopeful and ultimately Joe Biden's intended successor
and the Democrat Party.

Harris and the Democrats

...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy, white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
have created a perfect storm of veteran disdain in that they have succeeded in uniting three once-inapposite groups behind Harris: the neocons who started the GWOT, the media and Democrats who undermined the veterans' GWOT missions, and the generals who failed again and again and again at bringing the GWOT to a successful conclusion.

If you want to understand the prevailing veteran rage against Harris and love for Trump, you need to understand this unholy trinity that so many veterans loathe.

I'll start with the neocon ''chickenhawks.'' Maybe it's not fair to blame Liz Cheney for the GWOT as her father was its prime architect and not Liz herself, but she has come to serve as a symbol of the many advocates for useless, endless wars who never put their own lives (or the lives of their children) on the line, and who now support Kamala Harris. Liz Cheney stands as a symbol in this regard, and she stands for the many establishment Republicans who would rather support a radical Democrat than the only president in decades who did not start new wars.

These are neocons like Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, Bill Kristol, and the infamous 200-plus Republican former staffers for George W. Bush, Willard Mitt Romney, aka Pierre Delecto
...former governor of Massachussetts, the Publican nominee for president in 2012, now Senator from Utah. He is the son of the former governor of Michigan, George Romney, who himself ran for president after saving American Motors from failure, though not permanently. Romney has a record as a successful businessman, heading Bain Capital, and he rescued the 2002 Winter Olympics from the midst of bribery and mismanagement scandals. He is currently a trans Republican and a member in good standing of the Never Trump Party, attempting to assume the mantle of the late John McCain...
, and

John Maverick McCain
... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. As an ordinary citizen he greased the infamous hookers peeing on the Obamabed in Moscow dossier in an attempt to smear President Trump...
who helped design the GWOT. These are the people who put GWOT veterans into the cauldron that left them and so many of their friends dead, maimed, or bearing invisible scars that linger even today.

I served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. I was committed to our missions when I was there, and I know we did great good for so many citizens of those two countries. But in the end — given how those wars ended — I have to admit it was all for naught. Defeating al Qaeda and bin Laden in Afghanistan was the one mission that actually mattered, and the rest of what we did in those two wars was, sadly, a waste of time, money, and lives.

To have the architects of those useless, endless wars now turn on the one president who really cared about not squandering our lives feels like an injustice. Many of us stood by those neocons — even defended them in our private lives against slanderous lies — and now they turn on us by opposing the one man who vows that these sorts of wars will end. It is painful and feels like a betrayal.

The second leg of the unholy trinity is the Democrats and their media lackeys who helped us lose those wars — the same people those treacherous neocons have now allied themselves with.

Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
in Afghanistan both knew they could never defeat us in battle toe-to-toe. Our technology, our forces, our training, and our tactics were unbeatable. Instead, AQI and the Taliban adopted Ho Chi Minh's Vietnam war strategy: bleed the Americans dry so the folks back home would abandon the war effort. They knew that if they could turn the national will against our mission, America would quit.

They were right. Every IED attack was made not against the soldiers or Marines it killed or maimed, but against the folks back home watching CNN
...formerly the Cable News Network, now who know what it might stand for...
. The ''death counts'' on TV were the ultimate goal of our enemies.

When I returned from Iraq in 2004, I was shocked at how disconnected the news reports were from the reality on the ground, and I was shocked to see those same Democrats who sent us to war now suddenly turning against our mission. The daily march of Democrats with giant Dick Cheney puppet heads on the National Mall and the endless chants of ''Bush Lied, People Died'' served precisely the purpose AQI and the Taliban intended: to break the national will. To many of us returning vets, it felt that our own countrymen were giving aid and comfort to our enemy, helping them fulfill that enemy's strategic objective. This too felt like a betrayal.

The last leg of the trinity of veteran betrayal is the generals who could not win those same wars, retired from the military and went deep into the military-industrial complex, and now endorse Harris and demean Trump. These are generals like Stan McChrystal, who gave us such restrictive rules of engagement in Afghanistan that it cost the lives of so many troops. These are generals like John Kelly, whose counterinsurgency tactics solved so little in Al Anbar Province and who now libels the boss who fired him in The Atlantic magazine. These are generals like Michael Hayden, whose tenure at the National Security Agency did nothing to prevent 9/11, yet who found ways to use that tragic day as an excuse to spy on Americans.

These are the generals who led us in wars that they were not competent enough to win. Their leadership failed, no one was held to account, and now these same men stand proudly against the one president who would not tolerate those failures nor repeat them. This too feels like a betrayal.

Three groups, three betrayals. So many veterans feel like I do — not all, but many.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Fake Crowds, Fake Ads, Real Ridicule: A Week of Failures for Harris-Walz

2024-10-13

[AMGreatness] If I may start with an understatement: It has not been a good week for team Kamala Harris. First, there was the scandal of her interview on the CBS program 60 Minutes. Asked about US influence on Israel, Harris delivered one of her signature, zero-calorie word salads. We know this because the network released a preview of the interview on social media, where it was promptly pounced upon and mocked. But when the entire interview aired, the interview was edited so that Harris’s original answer was replaced by a brief answer lifted from another part of the interview.

That bit of techno-fraud was instantly pilloried and deposited a lot of unsightly egg on the corporate face of CBS. I have not seen anything resembling an apology or even an acknowledgment from the network. As of this writing, calls for an unedited transcript of the whole interview to be released have gone unanswered. As the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote, CBS’s refusal is "a huge scandal" that, among other things, "suggests that much of the entire finished product was manipulative and deceitful, and not just the one horrible example that was discovered."

Bad though the episode is for CBS, it is also humiliating for Harris. As Macbeth noted in another context, "When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions." The 60 Minutes débâcle was only the advance guard assaulting team Harris last week. Then there was a disastrous "town hall" meeting in which, again, multiple humiliations were assembled. First, some attentive scribe noticed that Harris was reading her replies off a teleprompter. Remember that was supposed to be an open forum in which Harris could connect with voters personally. But here she was, repeating scripted replies to pre-formulated questions.

And that was not the worst of it. A little digging revealed that the audience, too, was scripted. As one commentator noted, "Kamala Harris’s disastrous Univision town hall featured a ’fake’ audience. 50% of the attendees were handpicked from across the country and flown to the town hall and were allowed to ask questions. The other 50% of the attendees were hired by an ’audience-for-hire’ company and weren’t allowed to ask questions. The event was completely stage-directed and fake."

An "audience-for-hire company"? Yep. I am not sure exactly which company team Harris employed, but it turns out that such initiatives are a booming business. Consider, for example, the company Crowds on Demand. Their website advertises "PROTESTS • RALLIES • ADVOCACY" and goes on to boast that

Whether your organization is lobbying to gain approval of a project, move forward a legislative initiative, bring additional pressure within complex litigation or trying to see swift and effective action in another way, we can set-up protests, rallies, demonstrations, alternatives to litigation or business disputes, coordinate phone-banking initiatives and even create non-profit organizations to advance your agenda.

I suspect that Democrats have frequent recourse to such companies. The Harris campaign, at any rate, is nearly 100% synthetic. Its crowds are actors or activists for hire. Ditto the figures populating its ads. In what has been derided as the "cringiest political ad ever," a Harris satellite, attempting to address the campaign’s masculinity deficit, just released the truly horrible "I’m-a-man-and-I’m-voting-for-Harris" ad.

Like many people, I at first thought it was a spoof, an anti-Harris production designed to make fun of her and her running mate, Tim Walz. That certainly was the effect. But it turns out that the half dozen men in the ad were not random XY creatures who just happened to support Harris for president. No, they were B-list actors, recruited and paid to deliver their lines. (And what lines they were. One actor who pretended to know something about cars, said "You think I’m afraid to rebuild a carburetor? I eat carburetors for breakfast." I am thinking of offering a reward to anyone who can tell me what that means.)

One enterprising commentator discovered who wrote the ad—Jacob Reed, a writer for the late-night talk host Jimmy Kimmel—and the real-life biographies of the actors. Let’s just say that none is a poster child for masculinity. The comments have been brutal. "Zero testosterone was used in the making of this ad"; "A Real Man instantly realizes that there isn’t a single Real Man in this pathetic beta male cringe-fest of a propaganda video"; "From the party that can’t tell you what a woman is"; "As a man, I think I walked away from this ad with a yeast infection."

The world was still ridiculing the ad when the news came that Tim Walz, in another effort to assuage the doubts about his masculinity, had invited journalists on a pheasant hunt. A bunch of photographs of the "hunt" are circulating. You’ll see lots of outdoorsy garb and a few dogs. What you won’t see are any shotguns. In a real hunting party, every hunter would have a couple of shotguns to hand. But in the fake, synthetic world of Harris-Walz, no guns were thought necessary. As someone quipped, perhaps they were planning to catch the pheasants by hand and strangle them. Eventually, Walz was given a gun, but it was painfully clear that he had no idea how to handle it. As one commentator noted, Walz’s "gun handling skills make Dick Cheney look like the safest shooter in the world. Perhaps that is why Cheney endorsed him."

All this happened in a matter of days, and the days in question are barely three weeks from the election. What we are witnessing is the panicked flailing of a campaign that is desperately attempting to recoup its lost initiative. The result is partly embarrassing, partly hilarious. Strange things can happen in the last days of a presidential campaign. Sudden reversals of fortune are not unknown. Candidates can suddenly turn things around and emerge victorious after weeks or months of trailing in the polls. The most difficult obstacle to victory, however, is being made to appear ridiculous. That is almost inevitably fatal. Harris and Walz have made themselves ridiculous time and again this last week or two. I do not believe they can recover.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Shock & Awe Dick Slithers Out Of His Neocon Lair To Endorse Kamala Over 'Depraved' Trump

2024-09-08

[ZERO] Look who slithered out of his neocon lair of no regrets to publicly endorse Democrat Kamala Harris for president. Former Vice President and "lifelong Republican" Dick Cheney announced Friday that he will vote for Biden's VP over Republican candidate Donald Trump, issuing a stern warning to the public that the former president "can never be trusted with power again."

The blood-curdling pot meet kettle irony of that statement coming from Dick-shock-and awe-Cheny aside... it's entirely to be expected in a post-"Global War on Terror" world (apparently everyone conveniently forgot) where GW Bush regularly pals around with the likes of Ellen DeGeneres.

83-year old Cheney said in his statement: "In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump."

Link

Home Front: WoT

Former CIA officials reveal attempts by Bush administration to misrepresent Intelligence for Iraq war

2023-03-22

In which unnamed people who claim to be former CIA say mean things about the integrity of the George W. Bush administration.

[ShafaqNews] Two former CIA officials have come forward with firsthand accounts of the George W. Bush administration's attempts to misrepresent intelligence in order to justify the US invasion of Iraq. The officials, referred to by pseudonyms due to the sensitivity of their positions, spoke to Insider ahead of the 20th anniversary of the invasion.

According to the officials, the administration attempted to assert a connection between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda, despite evidence assembled by the CIA suggesting that no such connection existed. One example of this false connection was the supposed meeting between Mohammed Atta, the chief 9/11 hijacker, and Iraqi intelligence agents in Prague. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney falsely claimed on "Meet the Press" in December 2001 that the meeting was "pretty well confirmed."

The officials, with a combined service at CIA totaling more than four decades, explained that their role was to keep such "ridiculous notions under control." However,
you can observe a lot just by watching...
they faced pressure from the White House to provide a justification for the invasion, despite there being no intelligence that would change their opinion. The Bush administration was "very explicit" about its obsession with Iraq almost immediately upon taking power, said one official.

Although Saddam Hussein knew about al-Qaeda's presence in Iraq, there was no working relationship between the two entities, according to the officials. Instead, it was about surveillance. The officials added that the US decision to invade Iraq had already been made, and the administration was looking for "selling points" to justify the war publicly.

The officials also revealed that British intelligence realized early on that the US was going to invade Iraq, regardless of what intelligence analysts wrote. The US was moving its forces to the Middle East in large numbers, and British intelligence essentially said, "It doesn't matter what we write."

The US invasion of Iraq, which began on March 20, 2003, has been estimated to have cost the lives of approximately 300,000 people.

Bush, Cheney, and other officials did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

The Rise of Fauci and the U.S. Biosecurity State ‐ Who Was Behind It?

2022-09-28

[CHD] Dick Cheney, as vice president, was responsible for putting all biodefense research under the auspices of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, making Fauci the sole decision-maker on biodefence and scientific research.

Story at a glance:

America’s focus on biosecurity began in earnest during the second Bush administration. Dick Cheney, as vice president, was responsible for putting all biodefense research under the auspices of Dr. Anthony Fauci and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Since 2003, Fauci has been responsible for civilian biodefence research and early development of medical countermeasures against terrorist threats from infectious diseases.
There’s no meaningful administrative distinction between biodefence and scientific research in general, and Fauci has been the sole decision maker for all of it, with no oversight.
Fauci has followed in Cheney’s footsteps, using the same tactics to deceive the American public into war. Cheney leaked false information to the press, and then used that press coverage to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fauci supervised the writing of a paper denouncing the lab leak theory, and then used that paper as "evidence" that SARS-CoV-2 arose naturally.
COVID-19 is a war against the public, for the purpose of forcing us into a New World Order, a One World Government run by a globalist cabal, where "biosecurity" is the justification for the removal of Constitutional rights and freedoms.
As reviewed in "Why Government Health Care Kills More People Than It Helps," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) couldn’t have botched its COVID-19 response any more if it tried.

On Aug. 17, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky even publicly admitted the agency’s failures, stating, "we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes from testing, to data, to communications."

To save face, Walensky is reorganizing the agency, but considering the extent to which CDC officials have lied, obfuscated and broken laws intended to protect public health, it is highly unlikely that the CDC will ever be able to recover its credibility.

Abolish the CDC

The CDC is corrupted beyond salvage, and as noted by Brownstone Institute founder and president Jeffrey Tucker, the only way to fix a captured bureaucracy is to get rid of it:

"Any serious effort to end the crisis must deal with the problem of the administrative state and the bureaucratic power thereof. Without that focus, no reform effort can get anywhere ...

"The reason is simple: a free and functioning society cannot coexist with an undemocratic beast like this on the loose, making its own laws and running roughshod over rights and liberties with zero oversight from elected leaders. Until the administrative state is defanged and disempowered, there will be no representative government and no hope for change.

"It’s obvious that the bureaucracies will not reform themselves ... The reform will be ... cosmetic without reality. It will not deal with the central problem as plainly stated by Harvey Risch:

"’industry subservience and epidemiologic incompetence’ ...

"After Betsy DeVos left the Department of Education, and observing from the inside what a disaster it truly was, she said what needed to be said. Abolish it. Shut it down. Defund it completely. Forget about it. It does nothing useful. Everything it does can be performed better at the state level or private markets. All true.

"What she says about the Department of Education is equally true of another hundred-plus agencies of the administrative state. People have been talking lately about abolishing the FBI. Great, do it. Same goes for the CDC. It’s time. Right now. Pull the plug on the whole thing and sell the real estate.

"Truly there is no other option except continuing to do what we are doing now. The status quo is intolerable. If a serious reform-minded Congress comes to power, abolition and not reform and not cuts, needs to be the starting point of discussion ...

"There needs to be a to-be-abolished list and any federal government institution with the word agency, department, or bureau needs to be on it ... Society itself, which is smarter than bureaucracy, can manage the rest."

The rise of the American biosecurity state

To understand how and why the CDC has morphed into an agency that works against, instead of for, the public good, we need to take a look at the history of American biodefense. Two journalists have recently dedicated articles to this issue....

Link

Home Front: Politix

Liz Cheney says if Trump wins the 2024 GOP presidential nomination she 'won't be a Republican'

2022-09-25

[Insider] Speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney said she would renounce her political party if Trump becomes the next Republican nominee for president.

"I'm gonna make sure Donald Trump — I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure he's not the nominee," Cheney told Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, during the hourlong interview.

"And if he is the nominee, I won't be a Republican," she added.
We already know that, traitor
Cheney, a second-generation Republican leader, has historically voted conservatively, following the political legacy of her father, Dick Cheney, who served as vice president under Republican President George W. Bush.

The vice chair of the Jan 6 committee has long made clear her separation from her party's support of former President Trump, despite largely supporting his policies. Newsweek reported Cheney voted with Trump 93% of the time while in office, but the two have publicly feuded over her refusal to endorse him personally.

"Knowing what I know now, I would not have voted for Donald Trump," Cheney said during the interview.

The recently primaried representative has been a key Republican House member in the investigation into the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol. One political strategist told Insider her campaign loss may enable Cheney to be bolder in the actions she takes against the former president since she no longer has to campaign for a Republican audience that still largely supports Trump.

Link

Fifth Column

Cheney's loss in Wyoming completes GOP's near-total capitulation to Trump's 'election lie'

2022-08-17

Advisory: This is MSN - and illustrates what 'journalism' has sunk to.
In a watershed moment for the GOP, Rep. Liz Cheney, the most fearsome
eh... you misspelled toothless... again
and resolute Republican opponent of former President Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, was rejected by Wyoming voters in her own party Tuesday night.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and the vice chair of the Jan. 6 committee, lost her primary election to Trump-endorsed attorney Harriet Hageman, who paid fealty to Trump by echoing his false claim that the 2020 election was "rigged."

Hageman had been leading Cheney in the polls for months, and appeared to have defeated her opponent by a large margin Tuesday night. The result signals a turn for the Republican Party toward a greater embrace of baseless myths
Baseless myths - which happend to be backed by a rather large pile of actual *evidence*. Not that Cheney would recognise evidence if it goosed her.
about the 2020 election that have already incited violence and unrest, such as the Jan. 6 assault
Assault - what else do you call walking around the capital picking your nose after being let in if not a violent ASSAULT!
on the U.S. Capitol, and are likely to foment more over the next fewer years.
Cheney was defiant in defeat. "Now the real work begins," she told supporters after the race was called. "I have said I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Donald Trump is never anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean it."
So if you happen to see her on the street corner - just pass her by - you don't want a piece of that!
Cheney’s defeat — which she called "the beginning of a battle" in which "our democracy really is under attack" — caps a four-month series of Republican primaries which tested the extent to which Trump still commands loyalty among party voters. Trump started out wobbly,
With only what you might call a whole shitload of endorsement successes.
as his attempt to punish Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, was clearly doomed by late March.

But Trump’s late entry into the Ohio Senate primary, on behalf of high-profile author J.D. Vance, gave him an early win that blunted Trump’s humiliation when Kemp won in late May.

The spring and summer contests had ups and downs for Trump-backed candidates.
I mean he only had about 100 endorsement victories and what, six losses. Terrible statistics... Just horrible!
But leading up to the Wyoming results, candidates who refuse to acknowledge the 2020 election results ran the table in Arizona’s Republican Party.

Cheney, however, has always been Trump’s biggest nemesis,
who he pretty much ignored - except for an occasional mean posting.
and with her defeat, the purge of the Republican Party is nearly complete. With a few exceptions, Republican lawmakers who firmly reject Trump’s false election claims have been all but wiped out.
And that is a very good thing!
But after the 2020 election, Cheney refused to bow to Trump’s evidence-free
Well except for hours and hours of video, stacks of affidavits, and analysis that Biden's win was statistically impossible, All the audits since which showed widespread cheating, 2000 mules and that is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
insistence that he had been cheated. On Jan. 3, 2021, she distributed a 21-page memo to her Republican colleagues in the House, and to the public.
I'm sorry - I have to stop now and wash the layers of Bullshit off my waders. Boy I hope the stink goes away...

Link

Home Front: Politix

Vermont Sen. Leahy will undergo surgery after he breaks hip during fall

2022-06-30

[Fox News] Making it doubly hard for Chuck Schemer to get 50+ votes. Leaky Leahy was gonna retire anyway. Here's hoping the duplicitous anti-American POS shuffles off this mortal coil expeditiously
Patrick Leahy, 82, is the longest serving sitting senator

Link

Home Front: Politix

Tell me again how Trump will drain the swamp...

2022-01-31

[Breitbart] I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney, is reportedly planning to attend a fundraiser in March for embattled Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who is targeting Trump on the January 6 Committee.
Trump just doesn't get it. The people who keep on pulling for him in the face of this kind of thing don't get it either.
Libby was convicted in 2007 of obstruction of justice and other crimes related to a leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. The conviction was widely viewed as a miscarriage of justice, especially because Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage later admitted that he was the likely source of the leak, not Libby. President George W. Bush commuted Libby’s sentence, but despite the urging of then-Vice President Cheney, he declined to issue a formal pardon for his aide.

It was only Trump who pardoned Libby in 2018, taking the political heat for doing so and standing up for Libby’s record of public service. Former Vice President Cheney called Trump personally to thank him for pardoning his long-time aide.

Now, both the former vice president and his aide are participating in a fundraiser for Cheney, who defied her own party to participate in the one-sided January 6 committee, which aims to damage Trump ahead of the 2022 and 2024 elections.

The Hill reported Wednesday (emphasis added):

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) is participating in a fundraiser for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in March as the Wyoming incumbent looks to protect her seat against Trump-endorsed Republican primary challenger Harriet Hageman, according to an invitation obtained by The Hill.

Other guests include former Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife; former chief of staff to Cheney Scooter Libby; former U.S. solicitor general Ted Olson; former chief of staff to the late Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) Sheila Burke; and former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), among others.

Ironically, Dick Cheney believed that Libby had been the victim of an overzealous prosecutor, a biased Washington jury, and those in the government who wanted to damage the Bush administration because of growing opposition to the Iraq War.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Joe Biden Transfers Power to Kamala Harris During Colonoscopy

2021-11-19

[Breitbart] They actually found his brainstem
President Joe Biden will transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris while he undergoes a colonoscopy, the White House announced Friday morning.

"President Biden will transfer power to the Vice President for the brief period of time when he is under anesthesia," Psaki announced to reporters.

The president is currently at Walter Reed hospital for the procedure where he will go under anesthesia and will also undergo a physical examination.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Harris would work from her office in the West Wing during Biden’s colonoscopy, while temporarily assuming the power of the presidency.

Harris will assume the official title of Acting President Kamala Harris during the procedure, allowing her to issue an executive order or sign legislation. She will also serve as the Commander in Chief until Biden reassumes power.
Psaki cited Biden’s colonoscopy as "routine" and that the White House would release further details of his physical examination on Friday afternoon.

The White House noted that former President George W. Bush had also transferred power twice to then-vice President Dick Cheney for colonoscopy procedures in 2003 and 2007.

Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham claimed in a book that former President Donald Trump opted not to transfer power to then-vice President Mike Pence during his colonoscopy in 2019.

Link

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