theduran--2020-03-15--Why Iraqis Hate the U.S. Troops Who Occupy Their Country

American ‘ news ’ -media present a very distorted view of America ’ s international relations .
For example , consider this : “ We discussed the executive order [ banning Iraqis from coming to U.S. ] , and their displeasure in this executive order , why they feel like they ’ ve been betrayed by the United States , and … I asked a simple question : As an American if I went out into the town right now , would I be welcomed ?
And they answered absolutely not , you would not be welcomed .
And I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they said , the locals would snatch me up and kill me within an hour .
I ’ d be tortured first , and after they were done torturing me , I ’ d probably be beheaded , it would go on video , for everybody to see as an example .
… What I am trying to make is this , is the local populace , that would do this .
This isn ’ t al-Qaeda , this isn ’ t the PMU , this isn ’ t the militia from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that would do this .
So , my question then was pretty simple : If you would do this to me , in your country , why would I let you in my country ?
Because all this means to me is that if you have the opportunity , to take the life of an American , you would do it .
If this is the way some of those cultures feel , this is the way that these countries feel about Americans , why would you be so naive to believe that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they would do anything any different from what they would do right here in their own country ?
” Actually , there is no comparison between those two situations ( one of those Iraqis in America , versus that same person in U.S.-occupied Iraq ) , and here is why : We invaded their land .
We did it on the basis of Bush ’ s lies that Bush had conclusive evidence that Saddam was six months from a nuclear weapon and had been behind the 9/11 attacks .
He blatantly misrepresented @ @ @ @ @ @ @ And instead of Bush , or any of his successors , apologizing for this — the destruction of Iraq ( on the basis of lies ) — there has been continued military occupation of Iraq , and forcing of its Government to do what our lying Government demands , such as privatizing the oil and paying international oil companies to exploit and market it — their oil .
The reason why “ they feel they ’ ve been betrayed ” by Trump ’ s bar against any Iraqi relocating to America is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by U.S. firms to do translating or other essential assistance to the invaders , and so they are themselves now hated by the locals , their own countrymen , and they think that the only safety for them and their families would be to move , along with their families , to America .
They are therefore now terrified , at finding themselves stranded in Iraq , where they are very reasonably considered to be traitors .
Furthermore , the U.S. did seize many innocent Iraqis , and subject them to torture ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but the locals seizing some of the invaders and subjecting them to torture NOT be okay ?
Are the invaders ( the U.S. forces ) innocent ?
Maybe some of them are , but , really , should they be presumed to have been innocent and the Iraqis , whom our Government seized and tortured , be considered to have been guilty ?
Guilty of what ?
Defending their country ?
Against this evil invasion ?
Okay , so the evil was in the U.S. President , George W. Bush , and in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , etc.
, and other top-level Bush Administration war-criminals , and not necessarily in the troops who simply did what they were told to do .
But in World War II , were all of Hitler ’ s troops innocent ?
They weren ’ t the ones who were primarily responsible , but were they INNOCENT ?
They did what they were paid to do , but were THEY innocent ?
Really ?
One may say that they were less guilty than America ’ s troops in Iraq were , because those German @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ volunteers ’ .
For Steve Gern to be hated in Iraq while he was in Iraq is not , at all , comparable to an Iraqi citizen who was a traitor to his country and is now provided refuge in America ( which Trump ’ s executive order prevents ) .
They ’ re totally different types of case .
That Iraqi who seeks refuge in the U.S. isn ’ t any invader .
But Gern was .
All Americans in Iraq are invaders and military occupiers , on the basis solely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his team spouted in 2002 .
There ’ s no comparison .
That Fox ‘ News ’ interview is sheer propaganda .
This isn ’ t to say that Steve Gern doesn ’ t believe what he asserts .
It is only to say that what he is asserting is stupid because it is blind to the reality , which the other side see very clearly because their country was invaded and is militarily occupied by Gern and the other U.S. troops in their country .
And it ’ s not about “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said .
Gern asserted that “ If this is the way some of those cultures feel , this is the way that these countries feel about Americans , ” but the difference here is instead between occupier versus occupied , it ’ s not about anything “ cultural.
” Military occupiers are not liked .
Not anywhere .
Especially not after the invasion destroyed the country and contaminated it with toxins .
And if the invading country has invaded on the basis of lies — as the U.S. did in Iraq and now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Syria etc .
— then those occupying troops are normally hated .
Gern is blind to that basic reality .
Furthermore , America ’ s invasion and occupation of Iraq destroyed Iraq ( as also happened in Libya and in Syria ) .
That ’ s why U.S. troops are hated in Iraq .
And it is also why an Iraqi traitor who has fled to America for protection is not at all comparable to an American soldier in Iraq .
That person ’ s being instead now denied the right of asylum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; it is telling him : after we have exploited you , we are discarding you — you will stay in the country where you are a traitor .
If Iraq had invaded and militarily occupied the U.S. , and done it purely on the basis of lies , then wouldn ’ t we hate those military occupiers , of our land ?
Of course , we would .
And , of course we should , in that case , hate especially the Iraqi leader who had spouted the lies and ordered Iraq @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But would we then be able to kill that head of state , in that distant land , who had done the lying and ordered the invasion of your country ?
Unfortunately , not .
And , similarly , Iraqis can not kill George W. Bush , even though most of them would probably crave to do so .
But if they were instead to kill someone such as Steve Gern , then perhaps that would release just a bit of the hatred they feel for Bush and for his team .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even if it misses the actual target .
Gern was just a front-man for the evil .
Bush WAS the evil .
Is a person justified to hate his or her rapist ?
No ?
Really ?
Why not ?
How , then , is justice even possible ?
This isn ’ t about “ an eye for an eye.
” It is a victim ’ s response to that person ’ s attacker and oppressor .
Iraqis didn ’ t invade America .
Americans invaded Iraq .
The more that the ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billionaires who benefited from that invasion hide this fact by pumping the deceptions that those beneficiaries of this evil have constantly been nurturing , the more justified this hate from the actual victims is .
Invading a country on the basis of lies is raping everyone who lives there .
No crime is worse than that .
America does it routinely , but now mainly hires foreign proxies to do the mayhem , such as Al Qaeda .
That doesn ’ t make it any less evil .
On January 3rd , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world ’ s most effective general who was leading the fight to destroy ISIS , and Trump perpetrated this assassination on Iraqi territory , in complete disregard for the sovereignty of the Iraqi people , to whom that Iranian general was overwhelmingly regarded as a hero and a liberator .
When U.S. Staff Sergeant Gern was occupying Iraq , he was surrounded by enemies , and he didn ’ t know why .
He ’ s not able to see things from the victim ’ s standpoint , unless he ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News ’ he was being presented as the victim .
That interview was broadcast as Republican Party billionaires ’ propaganda against Democratic Party billionaires ’ propaganda .
The public is virtually ignored , except as onlookers to be deceived .
This is called the ‘ free press ’ in America ’ s ‘ democracy ’ .
The ‘ news ’ is propaganda , but each individual gets to choose whose propaganda to buy .
Gern is just a soldier in that type of ‘ democracy ’ .
He does what he is paid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ understand why he is paid to do it , nor whose benefit he serves by doing it .
He was a soldier for America ’ s billionaires , but was never told this .
And his pay — then , and even in retirement — comes instead from America ’ s taxpayers , who derive no benefit from invading and militarily occupying Iraq .
It ’ s a land of socialism for the rich , and capitalism for everybody else .
That ’ s what America ’ s soldiers are actually killing and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the lying must go on , because it benefits the billionaires , the ultimate patrons of this mayhem .
On 14 March 2020 , the brilliant military analyst who blogs anonymously as “ Moon of Alabama ” concluded that the U.S. can in “ no way deter or even win against the forces that are now working to evict it from Iraq.
” The military occupation there won ’ t go on forever , no matter how long this and future U.S. Presidents demand that it must continue .
A face-saving departure , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t in the cards , this time , however .
The invader will ultimately be defeated and driven out .
But how much additional punishment will the invader inflict on its victims , the Iraqi people , before departing — and after ?
That ’ s the real question .
How much do Americans want to be hated by Iraqis ?
Of course , we don ’ t , at all , but we don ’ t actually control ‘ our ’ Government .
America ’ s billionaires , who control ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ‘ free ’ press ( which lied along with ‘ our ’ Government so as to help it to invade there ) , and whose greed got us into invading and occupying Iraq , and who want to continue their military bases in Iraq , so that they can continue to threaten other countries in the region ( since the American empire is not just commercial but military , and the military is its enforcement-arm ) , don ’ t want to end their Government ’ s occupation of Iraq .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by us taxpayers , not by those billionaires , and they want to continue such socialism for the rich , and capitalism for everybody else .
And that ’ s the dilemma : they don ’ t want to quit Iraq ; but , now , lots of Iraqis are willing to sacrifice their own lives , if necessary , in order to force them out .
For America ’ s troops currently in Iraq , things are even worse than when Steve Gern was there ( 2005-2015 ) .
Furthermore , being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under any conditions .
It has nothing to do with “ the way some of those cultures feel.
” But since America ’ s billionaires control the Government , it has a lot to do with how those roughly 600 individuals “ feel.
” They , after all , are the ones who are being served in all of this .
And they are the people whom every American President represents .
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author , most recently , of They ’ re Not Even Close : The Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and of CHRIST ’ S VENTRILOQUISTS : The Event that Created Christianity .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at Strategic Culture
American ‘news’-media present a very distorted view of America’s international relations. For example, consider this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0KMz_AUBFM
Retired Marine’s message about travel ban goes viral
2,306,988 views•Feb 10, 2017
Fox News, Hannity
Marine in Iraq [Steve Gern, Marine Staff Sergeant (Ret.)]:
“We discussed the executive order [banning Iraqis from coming to U.S.], and their displeasure in this executive order, why they feel like they’ve been betrayed by the United States, and … I asked a simple question: As an American if I went out into the town right now, would I be welcomed? And they answered absolutely not, you would not be welcomed. And I said, what would happen? And they said, the locals would snatch me up and kill me within an hour. I’d be tortured first, and after they were done torturing me, I’d probably be beheaded, it would go on video, for everybody to see as an example. … What I am trying to make is this, is the local populace, that would do this. This isn’t al-Qaeda, this isn’t the PMU, this isn’t the militia from the Iranians, this is the local populace that would do this. So, my question then was pretty simple: If you would do this to me, in your country, why would I let you in my country? Because all this means to me is that if you have the opportunity, to take the life of an American, you would do it. If this is the way some of those cultures feel, this is the way that these countries feel about Americans, why would you be so naive to believe that if they came to the United States, they would do anything any different from what they would do right here in their own country?”
Actually, there is no comparison between those two situations (one of those Iraqis in America, versus that same person in U.S.-occupied Iraq), and here is why:
We invaded their land. We did it on the basis of Bush’s lies that Bush had conclusive evidence that Saddam was six months from a nuclear weapon and had been behind the 9/11 attacks. He blatantly misrepresented the evidence that he did have. And instead of Bush, or any of his successors, apologizing for this — the destruction of Iraq (on the basis of lies) — there has been continued military occupation of Iraq, and forcing of its Government to do what our lying Government demands, such as privatizing the oil and paying international oil companies to exploit and market it — their oil.
The reason why “they feel they’ve been betrayed” by Trump’s bar against any Iraqi relocating to America is that many of these Iraqis had been hired by U.S. firms to do translating or other essential assistance to the invaders, and so they are themselves now hated by the locals, their own countrymen, and they think that the only safety for them and their families would be to move, along with their families, to America. They are therefore now terrified, at finding themselves stranded in Iraq, where they are very reasonably considered to be traitors.
Furthermore, the U.S. did seize many innocent Iraqis, and subject them to torture; so, why would that be okay but the locals seizing some of the invaders and subjecting them to torture NOT be okay? Are the invaders (the U.S. forces) innocent? Maybe some of them are, but, really, should they be presumed to have been innocent and the Iraqis, whom our Government seized and tortured, be considered to have been guilty? Guilty of what? Defending their country? Against this evil invasion? Okay, so the evil was in the U.S. President, George W. Bush, and in his also lying V.P. Dick Cheney, etc., and other top-level Bush Administration war-criminals, and not necessarily in the troops who simply did what they were told to do. But in World War II, were all of Hitler’s troops innocent? They weren’t the ones who were primarily responsible, but were they INNOCENT? They did what they were paid to do, but were THEY innocent? Really? One may say that they were less guilty than America’s troops in Iraq were, because those German soldiers were conscripts, whereas ours are ‘volunteers’.
For Steve Gern to be hated in Iraq while he was in Iraq is not, at all, comparable to an Iraqi citizen who was a traitor to his country and is now provided refuge in America (which Trump’s executive order prevents). They’re totally different types of case. That Iraqi who seeks refuge in the U.S. isn’t any invader. But Gern was. All Americans in Iraq are invaders and military occupiers, on the basis solely of lies that George W. Bush and his team spouted in 2002. There’s no comparison. That Fox ‘News’ interview is sheer propaganda.
This isn’t to say that Steve Gern doesn’t believe what he asserts. It is only to say that what he is asserting is stupid because it is blind to the reality, which the other side see very clearly because their country was invaded and is militarily occupied by Gern and the other U.S. troops in their country.
And it’s not about “the culture,” such as Gern said. Gern asserted that “If this is the way some of those cultures feel, this is the way that these countries feel about Americans,” but the difference here is instead between occupier versus occupied, it’s not about anything “cultural.” Military occupiers are not liked. Not anywhere. Especially not after the invasion destroyed the country and contaminated it with toxins. And if the invading country has invaded on the basis of lies — as the U.S. did in Iraq and now routinely does such as in Libya and Syria etc. — then those occupying troops are normally hated. Gern is blind to that basic reality. Furthermore, America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq destroyed Iraq (as also happened in Libya and in Syria).
That’s why U.S. troops are hated in Iraq. And it is also why an Iraqi traitor who has fled to America for protection is not at all comparable to an American soldier in Iraq. That person’s being instead now denied the right of asylum here is an insult to that traitor; it is telling him: after we have exploited you, we are discarding you — you will stay in the country where you are a traitor.
If Iraq had invaded and militarily occupied the U.S., and done it purely on the basis of lies, then wouldn’t we hate those military occupiers, of our land? Of course, we would. And, of course we should, in that case, hate especially the Iraqi leader who had spouted the lies and ordered Iraq’s troops to invade here. But would we then be able to kill that head of state, in that distant land, who had done the lying and ordered the invasion of your country? Unfortunately, not. And, similarly, Iraqis cannot kill George W. Bush, even though most of them would probably crave to do so. But if they were instead to kill someone such as Steve Gern, then perhaps that would release just a bit of the hatred they feel for Bush and for his team. It’s a very justifiable hatred, even if it misses the actual target. Gern was just a front-man for the evil. Bush WAS the evil.
Is a person justified to hate his or her rapist? No? Really? Why not? How, then, is justice even possible? This isn’t about “an eye for an eye.” It is a victim’s response to that person’s attacker and oppressor. Iraqis didn’t invade America. Americans invaded Iraq. The more that the ‘news’ media of America’s billionaires who benefited from that invasion hide this fact by pumping the deceptions that those beneficiaries of this evil have constantly been nurturing, the more justified this hate from the actual victims is.
Invading a country on the basis of lies is raping everyone who lives there. No crime is worse than that. America does it routinely, but now mainly hires foreign proxies to do the mayhem, such as Al Qaeda. That doesn’t make it any less evil. On January 3rd, Trump assassinated the man whom many regard as the world’s most effective general who was leading the fight to destroy ISIS, and Trump perpetrated this assassination on Iraqi territory, in complete disregard for the sovereignty of the Iraqi people, to whom that Iranian general was overwhelmingly regarded as a hero and a liberator.
When U.S. Staff Sergeant Gern was occupying Iraq, he was surrounded by enemies, and he didn’t know why. He’s not able to see things from the victim’s standpoint, unless he’s the victim. And on Fox ‘News’ he was being presented as the victim. That interview was broadcast as Republican Party billionaires’ propaganda against Democratic Party billionaires’ propaganda. The public is virtually ignored, except as onlookers to be deceived. This is called the ‘free press’ in America’s ‘democracy’. The ‘news’ is propaganda, but each individual gets to choose whose propaganda to buy. Gern is just a soldier in that type of ‘democracy’. He does what he is paid to do, and doesn’t understand why he is paid to do it, nor whose benefit he serves by doing it. He was a soldier for America’s billionaires, but was never told this. And his pay — then, and even in retirement — comes instead from America’s taxpayers, who derive no benefit from invading and militarily occupying Iraq. It’s a land of socialism for the rich, and capitalism for everybody else. That’s what America’s soldiers are actually killing and dying for. But the dying and the lying must go on, because it benefits the billionaires, the ultimate patrons of this mayhem.
On 14 March 2020, the brilliant military analyst who blogs anonymously as “Moon of Alabama” concluded that the U.S. can in “no way deter or even win against the forces that are now working to evict it from Iraq.” The military occupation there won’t go on forever, no matter how long this and future U.S. Presidents demand that it must continue. A face-saving departure, such as happened in Vietnam, isn’t in the cards, this time, however. The invader will ultimately be defeated and driven out. But how much additional punishment will the invader inflict on its victims, the Iraqi people, before departing — and after? That’s the real question. How much do Americans want to be hated by Iraqis? Of course, we don’t, at all, but we don’t actually control ‘our’ Government.
America’s billionaires, who control ‘our’ elected officials and ‘our’ ‘free’ press (which lied along with ‘our’ Government so as to help it to invade there), and whose greed got us into invading and occupying Iraq, and who want to continue their military bases in Iraq, so that they can continue to threaten other countries in the region (since the American empire is not just commercial but military, and the military is its enforcement-arm), don’t want to end their Government’s occupation of Iraq. After all, it’s paid for by us taxpayers, not by those billionaires, and they want to continue such socialism for the rich, and capitalism for everybody else.
And that’s the dilemma: they don’t want to quit Iraq; but, now, lots of Iraqis are willing to sacrifice their own lives, if necessary, in order to force them out. For America’s troops currently in Iraq, things are even worse than when Steve Gern was there (2005-2015). Furthermore, being a military occupation-force is unpleasant work even under any conditions. It has nothing to do with “the way some of those cultures feel.” But since America’s billionaires control the Government, it has a lot to do with how those roughly 600 individuals “feel.” They, after all, are the ones who are being served in all of this. And they are the people whom every American President represents.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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theduran--2020-03-15--Putin calls EU MPs “ignorant people”, grades relationship with Trump C MINUS (Video)

The Duran ’ s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss a TASS interview series with Russian President Vladimir Putin called “ 20 Questions with Vladimir Putin ” .
In episode 10 of the series , Putin is asked what triggered the Great Patriotic War ?
What does he think about the so-called equal responsibility of Hitler and Stalin ?
Putin also sounds off on his relationship with US President Trump , and how he grades the geopolitical cooperation between Russia and the United States .
Subscribe to The Duran on YouTube – Find us on BitChute .
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Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the European Union , which now holds Nazi Germany and the USSR equally responsible for starting World War Two .
The Russian President is concerned at ongoing historical revisionism .
Putin also pointed out that , unlike the European Union , Russia has condemned the secret articles in the controversial Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact , signed in 1939 by Moscow and Berlin .
He recalled the tumultuous end of the 1930s in the latest episode of TASS news agency ’ s 20 Questions to Vladimir @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wartime period .
The candid talk became intense as Putin unloaded on the notorious 2019 resolution of the European Parliament which claims Molotov-Ribbentrop “ paved the way ” for the outbreak of the war .
“ Some ignorant people , ” the president said , are spouting all kinds of “ garbage ” without mentioning “ who signed what with Hitler.
” President Putin stated that the pact – officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the USSR – wasn ’ t the first of the kind signed back then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t hesitate to strike deals with Adolf Hitler .
And think what you will about Joseph Stalin , he did try to maintain a distance when dealing with the Fuhrer , the Russian president said .
In contrast , there are documents “ signed by Hitler and the British Prime Minister , Hitler and the Prime Minister of France , and also by both Hitler and the leader of Poland.
” They worked with Hitler , “ held numerous meetings with him , ” and “ betrayed Czechoslovakia , ” Putin said , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ – also known as the ‘ Munich Betrayal ’ – under which Hitler annexed neighboring Austria and seized the mainly German-inhabited Sudetenland of sovereign Czechoslovakia .
Meanwhile , Poland had its own designs on the partitioned Czechoslovakia .
“ The only thing that Hitler told them was : ‘ Don ’ t do it on the same day as us .
Let ’ s not get in each other ’ s way .
We won ’ t go after what you will : The Tesin Region , ' ” Putin said , quoting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give up the region – home to a sizeable Polish population – shortly after the Munich agreement became reality on September 30 , 1938 .
Polish troops and authorities then moved in , effectively occupying the area in October 1938 , and the territory was annexed by Poland on October 2 .
While EU nations try to shift the blame onto Russia , historic documents paint a different picture , according to President Putin .
Russia for its part condemned the secret protocol of the 1939 pact with Germany which , being largely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Union a couple more years of relative peace and allowed it to prepare for all-out war with the Third Reich .
The clause in question , which was made public decades after the conflict , concerned the territorial and political reorganization of the Baltic nations , as well as the western parts of Belarus , Ukraine , and Moldova , which were historically controlled by Russia .
“ We have condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol .
Russia has done that , ” Putin said .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss a TASS interview series with Russian President Vladimir Putin called “20 Questions with Vladimir Putin”.
In episode 10 of the series, Putin is asked what triggered the Great Patriotic War? What does he think about the so-called equal responsibility of Hitler and Stalin?
Putin also sounds off on his relationship with US President Trump, and how he grades the geopolitical cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Support Free Speech:
Subscribe to The Duran on YouTube – Find us on BitChute.
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Follow on Soundcloud – Subscribe on iTunes.
Via RT…
Vladimir Putin has lashed out at the European Union, which now holds Nazi Germany and the USSR equally responsible for starting World War Two. The Russian President is concerned at ongoing historical revisionism.
Putin also pointed out that, unlike the European Union, Russia has condemned the secret articles in the controversial Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939 by Moscow and Berlin.
He recalled the tumultuous end of the 1930s in the latest episode of TASS news agency’s 20 Questions to Vladimir Putin, which focused entirely on the wartime period.
The candid talk became intense as Putin unloaded on the notorious 2019 resolution of the European Parliament which claims Molotov-Ribbentrop “paved the way” for the outbreak of the war.
“Some ignorant people,” the president said, are spouting all kinds of “garbage” without mentioning “who signed what with Hitler.”
President Putin stated that the pact – officially known as the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the USSR – wasn’t the first of the kind signed back then, as some Western leaders didn’t hesitate to strike deals with Adolf Hitler.
And think what you will about Joseph Stalin, he did try to maintain a distance when dealing with the Fuhrer, the Russian president said.
By the way, Stalin, regardless of what anyone thinks of him (a tyrant or whatever), never disgraced himself by having direct or face-to-face contact with Hitler. What’s more, not a single document was ever signed by both Stalin and Hitler whatsoever.
In contrast, there are documents “signed by Hitler and the British Prime Minister, Hitler and the Prime Minister of France, and also by both Hitler and the leader of Poland.”
They worked with Hitler, “held numerous meetings with him,” and “betrayed Czechoslovakia,” Putin said, referring to the infamous 1938 Franco-British-German deal – also known as the ‘Munich Betrayal’ – under which Hitler annexed neighboring Austria and seized the mainly German-inhabited Sudetenland of sovereign Czechoslovakia.
Meanwhile, Poland had its own designs on the partitioned Czechoslovakia. “The only thing that Hitler told them was: ‘Don’t do it on the same day as us. Let’s not get in each other’s way. We won’t go after what you will: The Tesin Region,'” Putin said, quoting the archives.
Poland coerced Czechoslovakia to give up the region – home to a sizeable Polish population – shortly after the Munich agreement became reality on September 30, 1938. Polish troops and authorities then moved in, effectively occupying the area in October 1938, and the territory was annexed by Poland on October 2.
While EU nations try to shift the blame onto Russia, historic documents paint a different picture, according to President Putin.
Everything is in there. And after that they want to tell us who is to blame. They are the ones who are guilty starting from 1938. It was precisely the Munich Betrayal that was the first step to ignite World War 2.
Russia for its part condemned the secret protocol of the 1939 pact with Germany which, being largely a tactical agreement, bought the Soviet Union a couple more years of relative peace and allowed it to prepare for all-out war with the Third Reich.
The clause in question, which was made public decades after the conflict, concerned the territorial and political reorganization of the Baltic nations, as well as the western parts of Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova, which were historically controlled by Russia.
“We have condemned the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol. Russia has done that,” Putin said.
In turn, other countries could also honestly say how they feel about the way their leadership acted back then. Let them honestly open up about it, instead of hurling some fictitious, absolutely baseless accusations and allegations.
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theduran--2020-03-15--The Real Crisis Starts Now in Europe

The Real Crisis Starts Now in Europe

I think it ’ s safe to say the new crisis just killed the Schengen Treaty .
That ridiculous document which guaranteed freedom of movement across the European Union finally hit something it couldn ’ t bully , COVID-19 .
Regardless of whether you believe the pandemic is real or not , the reaction to it is real and is having real consequence far beyond the latest print of the Dow Jones Industrial Average .
The lockdown of Italy isn ’ t a temporary thing .
Oh , the suspension of free movement is temporary , but it portends something @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beginning of the real political balkanization that ’ s coming to the European Union over the next few years .
Old enmities and prejudices have not been stamped out under the boot heel of oppressive legislation coming from a bunch of disconnected technocrats in Brussels .
They have only been suppressed .
Because when there are existential threats there ’ s no time or desire to virtue signal about how we ’ re all one big happy dysfunctional family .
For decades Germany refused to lighten up on its fiscal inflexibility believing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subsidize profligacy in places like Italy , Spain and Greece if it didn ’ t want to .
At the same time , however , Germany transmitted those rules to the single currency regime of the euro .
That was the price they forced on the rest of Europe .
This ensured that eventually they would have to do exactly that , subsidize or bailout debts , as the mispricing of labor and capital efficiency inherent in the any single currency applied over multiple economies drove capital to Germany and out from those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat of COVID-19 imported into Europe mostly through Wuhan textiles workers in Milan ’ s leather shops/ Their leaders will force them to accept looser spending rules .
And do you think this will engender an outpouring of love and affection towards Italians ?
If you do you might be delusional or an open-borders libertarian… but I repeat myself .
Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled for months she would spend more to satisfy the rising Greens on Germany ’ s political left .
Her finance minister , Olaf Scholz , unleashed the full @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fund to offer unlimited support to German businesses facing troubles because of this virus .
This is as good a cover story for the gargantuan holes in the balance sheets of zombie German banks as they were likely ever going to get folks .
ECB President Christine Lagarde was brought in to ram through the political changes needed to loosen Germany ’ s tie .
She knew the only way the EU would survive the growing crisis within its non-functional sovereign debt market was to print money to the high heavens .
Or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But , there is no Door # 2 in Europe .
All doors lead to Brussels .
Germany stood in the way of that while at the same time Merkel ruthlessly enforced Schengen .
She weakened the political center in Germany and inflamed memories of a Germany which rampaged across Europe militarily in the 20th century through enforced austerity hollowing out less-efficient euro-zone economies .
So in the midst of this mess comes COVID-19 and the uncoordinated and inept response to it from the political center of Europe to date .
Only now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ need to restrict travel , after sitting on their hands for a few weeks while Italians died by the hundreds .
And do you think that ’ s engendering waves of love and affection among Italians towards Germans ?
If you do then you don ’ t know Italians… at all .
And this is your signal that this is the beginning of the real crisis .
Because while COVID-19 may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of capital markets , capital markets were simply waiting for that spark to occur .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ bank failure from a run of bad loans , could have been handled and absorbed .
There was no Credit Anstalt the central planners weren ’ t prepared for .
They ’ ve been able to keep Deutsche Bank operational for the past few years , for pity ’ s sake , they could have handled any other single bank failure .
But with COVID-19 being the ultimate form of exogenous shock to the global economy there is no containing the financial contagion .
And that ’ s why we saw a strong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise in both the Japanese yen and the euro when this thing began .
Part of what had been pushing U.S. equities higher was the capital flow from Europe and Japan into the U.S. That reversed for short time as the eurodollar markets seized up and the demand for cash locally rose sharply .
It ’ s no different than what is happening here .
I went to my bank yesterday to grab some cash and finish our self-quarantine prep ( we ’ d bought extra toilet paper weeks ago ) .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out a lot more cash than normal and it wasn ’ t even the end of lunch hour .
Then I told her the bank run on corporate credit began earlier in the week as companies like Boeing maxed their credit revolvers to front run the bank pulling it .
That got her attention .
The same thing on a larger scale was happening in Europe until Lagarde told the world that she wasn ’ t done blackmailing Germany to loosening its stance on fiscal rules at her presser on Thursday .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was already sick , died .
What we saw to end this week was an epic reversal of that capital outflow as the USDX and U.S. equities rallied while the euro crashed back to $ 1.11 .
And now that it ’ s started I don ’ t expect it to stop .
The Fed fired major blanks at the dollar-funding crisis in the credit markets this week .
What is the ECB going to do to stop rates from rising in Europe as money flees their incompetence ?
Fairy dust springs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely there will be a very quick move to close the banks and cancel the use of cash while new rules are adopted and Lagarde turns to the IMF to bailout the ECB which can very easily go bankrupt here .
The weakest banking system in Europe serves a country on lockdown over this virus .
So , it doesn ’ t matter now that Germany has acquiesced , pledging its own savings and lifting fiscal restraints of euro-zone members .
All the printing will does is feed the vortex of unpayable debt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ piggy bank .
The next stage of the crisis is here with the focus finally turning to Europe .
The U.S. , for all of its faults , is one nation with a unified debt market and an executive who can and has exercise powers necessary to keep the wheels from completely falling off the U.S. economy .
Will Trump spend money he doesn ’ t actually have ?
Yes .
So what ?
That money will go into a logistical pipeline that far outstrips Europe ’ s to combat a disease over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That limits the damage to the U.S .
It ensures political stability that the EU can not hope to compete with for the trust of spooked capital .
Add the global economy grinding to a halt .
We ’ ll see the crisis emerge in Europe to feed a widening gyre of debt servicing that will look like a global bank run on dollar liquidity .
It will force fundamental reform of the euro and the ECB .
They are necessary for the EU to survive this crisis in anything close to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not laying odds that will work .
Instead I expect Schengen ’ s suspension to hold and more countries go the way of the Brits by exiting the EU itself .
While this crisis is tailor-made to shove the federalization of Europe down the throats of what ’ s left of the German middle class , I don ’ t think it succeeds .
Until Germany is willing to bail out Italian banks , there is no solution to this .
And while I think Merkel is willing to fall on her sword @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still not work .
How convenient it is that Merkel ’ s CDU just cancelled their April 22nd leadership vote because of this crisis .
This forestalls any possibility of Merkel losing control of her party until after Germany begins its EU Commission Presidency .
Whatever she has planned she has to do soon .
Her political capital is just about spent .
There will be no change of leadership during a crisis like this .
She ’ s almost done completing the sell out of Germany to the EU begun by Helmut @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whole experiment to come crashing down .
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog:
I think it’s safe to say the new crisis just killed the Schengen Treaty. That ridiculous document which guaranteed freedom of movement across the European Union finally hit something it couldn’t bully, COVID-19.
Regardless of whether you believe the pandemic is real or not, the reaction to it is real and is having real consequence far beyond the latest print of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The lockdown of Italy isn’t a temporary thing. Oh, the suspension of free movement is temporary, but it portends something far bigger.
It’s the beginning of the real political balkanization that’s coming to the European Union over the next few years. Old enmities and prejudices have not been stamped out under the boot heel of oppressive legislation coming from a bunch of disconnected technocrats in Brussels.
They have only been suppressed.
Because when there are existential threats there’s no time or desire to virtue signal about how we’re all one big happy dysfunctional family.
For decades Germany refused to lighten up on its fiscal inflexibility believing, rightly, that it shouldn’t subsidize profligacy in places like Italy, Spain and Greece if it didn’t want to.
At the same time, however, Germany transmitted those rules to the single currency regime of the euro. That was the price they forced on the rest of Europe.
This ensured that eventually they would have to do exactly that, subsidize or bailout debts, as the mispricing of labor and capital efficiency inherent in the any single currency applied over multiple economies drove capital to Germany and out from those countries.
Now Germans face the existential threat of COVID-19 imported into Europe mostly through Wuhan textiles workers in Milan’s leather shops/ Their leaders will force them to accept looser spending rules.
And do you think this will engender an outpouring of love and affection towards Italians?
If you do you might be delusional or an open-borders libertarian… but I repeat myself.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has signaled for months she would spend more to satisfy the rising Greens on Germany’s political left.
Her finance minister, Olaf Scholz, unleashed the full force of Germany’s sovereign wealth fund to offer unlimited support to German businesses facing troubles because of this virus.
This is as good a cover story for the gargantuan holes in the balance sheets of zombie German banks as they were likely ever going to get folks.
ECB President Christine Lagarde was brought in to ram through the political changes needed to loosen Germany’s tie. She knew the only way the EU would survive the growing crisis within its non-functional sovereign debt market was to print money to the high heavens.
Or allow the union to break up. But, there is no Door #2 in Europe. All doors lead to Brussels.
Germany stood in the way of that while at the same time Merkel ruthlessly enforced Schengen. She weakened the political center in Germany and inflamed memories of a Germany which rampaged across Europe militarily in the 20th century through enforced austerity hollowing out less-efficient euro-zone economies.
So in the midst of this mess comes COVID-19 and the uncoordinated and inept response to it from the political center of Europe to date. Only now are they coming to the conclusion they need to restrict travel, after sitting on their hands for a few weeks while Italians died by the hundreds.
And do you think that’s engendering waves of love and affection among Italians towards Germans?
If you do then you don’t know Italians… at all.
And this is your signal that this is the beginning of the real crisis. Because while COVID-19 may have been the catalyst for the breakdown of capital markets, capital markets were simply waiting for that spark to occur.
Any other type of spark, a bank failure from a run of bad loans, could have been handled and absorbed. There was no Credit Anstalt the central planners weren’t prepared for.
They’ve been able to keep Deutsche Bank operational for the past few years, for pity’s sake, they could have handled any other single bank failure.
But with COVID-19 being the ultimate form of exogenous shock to the global economy there is no containing the financial contagion. And that’s why we saw a strong unwind of U.S. equities and a sharp rise in both the Japanese yen and the euro when this thing began.
Part of what had been pushing U.S. equities higher was the capital flow from Europe and Japan into the U.S. That reversed for short time as the eurodollar markets seized up and the demand for cash locally rose sharply.
It’s no different than what is happening here.
I went to my bank yesterday to grab some cash and finish our self-quarantine prep (we’d bought extra toilet paper weeks ago). The teller told me she’d moved out a lot more cash than normal and it wasn’t even the end of lunch hour.
Then I told her the bank run on corporate credit began earlier in the week as companies like Boeing maxed their credit revolvers to front run the bank pulling it.
That got her attention.
The same thing on a larger scale was happening in Europe until Lagarde told the world that she wasn’t done blackmailing Germany to loosening its stance on fiscal rules at her presser on Thursday.
And the rally in the euro, which was already sick, died.
Annnnd…. it’s gone!
What we saw to end this week was an epic reversal of that capital outflow as the USDX and U.S. equities rallied while the euro crashed back to $1.11. And now that it’s started I don’t expect it to stop.
The Fed fired major blanks at the dollar-funding crisis in the credit markets this week. What is the ECB going to do to stop rates from rising in Europe as money flees their incompetence?
Fairy dust springs to mind, honestly. But, more likely there will be a very quick move to close the banks and cancel the use of cash while new rules are adopted and Lagarde turns to the IMF to bailout the ECB which can very easily go bankrupt here.
The weakest banking system in Europe serves a country on lockdown over this virus.
So, it doesn’t matter now that Germany has acquiesced, pledging its own savings and lifting fiscal restraints of euro-zone members. All the printing will does is feed the vortex of unpayable debt that is far bigger than their prodigious piggy bank.
The next stage of the crisis is here with the focus finally turning to Europe. The U.S., for all of its faults, is one nation with a unified debt market and an executive who can and has exercise powers necessary to keep the wheels from completely falling off the U.S. economy.
Will Trump spend money he doesn’t actually have? Yes. So what?
That money will go into a logistical pipeline that far outstrips Europe’s to combat a disease over a smaller population spread across larger distances. That limits the damage to the U.S. It ensures political stability that the EU cannot hope to compete with for the trust of spooked capital.
Add the global economy grinding to a halt. We’ll see the crisis emerge in Europe to feed a widening gyre of debt servicing that will look like a global bank run on dollar liquidity.
It will force fundamental reform of the euro and the ECB. They are necessary for the EU to survive this crisis in anything close to its current form.
I’m not laying odds that will work. Instead I expect Schengen’s suspension to hold and more countries go the way of the Brits by exiting the EU itself.
While this crisis is tailor-made to shove the federalization of Europe down the throats of what’s left of the German middle class, I don’t think it succeeds.
Until Germany is willing to bail out Italian banks, there is no solution to this.
And while I think Merkel is willing to fall on her sword to get this done, It may still not work.
How convenient it is that Merkel’s CDU just cancelled their April 22nd leadership vote because of this crisis. This forestalls any possibility of Merkel losing control of her party until after Germany begins its EU Commission Presidency.
Whatever she has planned she has to do soon. Her political capital is just about spent.
There will be no change of leadership during a crisis like this. She’s almost done completing the sell out of Germany to the EU begun by Helmut Kohl.
Just in time for the whole experiment to come crashing down.
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theduran--2020-03-15--‘Euroleaks’: Varoufakis LEAKS recordings of secretive Eurogroup talks on Greece in fight for ‘democr

‘Euroleaks’: Varoufakis LEAKS recordings of secretive Eurogroup talks on Greece in fight for ‘democratization of the EU’

The former finance minister of Greece , Yanis Varoufakis , has released a cache of audio files , secretly recorded in 2015 during the bailout talks with the Eurogroup – a powerful group of eurozone ’ s finance chiefs .
The recordings and their transcripts were released by Varoufakis on the website of his ‘ pan-European ’ DiEM25 party on Saturday .
The files –dubbed ‘ Euroleaks ’ – were recorded between February and July 2015 , when cash-strapped Athens was entangled in painful talks with its creditors .
In 2015 , Varoufakis was the chief negotiator for then-ruling Syriza @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those behind it – the so-called ‘ troika.
’ It comprises the three main lenders of the eurozone nations – the European Commission , the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund .
While the Eurogroup is de-jure an informal group , it is actually a powerful decision-making institute that lacks accountability and transparency – and does not keep any records .
The main goal in releasing the recordings is to shed light on its secretive activities , Varoufakis said in a video announcing the Euroleaks .
The lenders took a tough @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ stance on Greece , effectively presenting it with an ultimatum .
At the same time , they blamed Greek negotiators for stalled talks – and no records were available to prove them wrong .
“ You will hear the [ then- ] president of the Eurogroup [ Jeroen Dijsselbloem ] and other ministers warn me that if I dare table written proposals within the Eurogroup meetings , that would be the end of the negotiations , ” Varoufakis said .
“ At the very same time they were leaking to the press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without any proposals .
”

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Via RT…
The former finance minister of Greece, Yanis Varoufakis, has released a cache of audio files, secretly recorded in 2015 during the bailout talks with the Eurogroup – a powerful group of eurozone’s finance chiefs.
The recordings and their transcripts were released by Varoufakis on the website of his ‘pan-European’ DiEM25 party on Saturday. The files –dubbed ‘Euroleaks’– were recorded between February and July 2015, when cash-strapped Athens was entangled in painful talks with its creditors.
In 2015, Varoufakis was the chief negotiator for then-ruling Syriza party, dealing with the Eurogroup and those behind it – the so-called ‘troika.’ It comprises the three main lenders of the eurozone nations – the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
While the Eurogroup is de-jure an informal group, it is actually a powerful decision-making institute that lacks accountability and transparency – and does not keep any records. The main goal in releasing the recordings is to shed light on its secretive activities, Varoufakis said in a video announcing the Euroleaks.
The Eurogroup’s three does not keep minutes, the European Union Council is still shrouded in total opacity. It’s about time we change that.
The lenders took a tough, ‘take it or leave it’ stance on Greece, effectively presenting it with an ultimatum. At the same time, they blamed Greek negotiators for stalled talks – and no records were available to prove them wrong.
“You will hear the [then-]president of the Eurogroup [Jeroen Dijsselbloem] and other ministers warn me that if I dare table written proposals within the Eurogroup meetings, that would be the end of the negotiations,” Varoufakis said. “At the very same time they were leaking to the press that I was arriving at Eurogroup meetings without any proposals.”
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theduran--2020-03-16--Putin Unleashes Strategic Hell on the U.S.

Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation : I am an avid board game player .
I ’ m not much for the classics like chess or go , preferring the more modern ones .
But , regardless , as a person who appreciates the delicate balance between strategy and tactics , I have to say I am impressed with Russian President Vladimir Putin ’ s sense of timing .
Because if there was ever a moment where Putin and Russia could inflict maximum pain on the United States via its Achilles ’ heel , the financial markets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was this month just as the coronavirus was reaching its shores .
Like I said , I ’ m a huge game player and I especially love games where there is a delicate balance between player power that has to be maintained while it ’ s not one ’ s turn .
Attacks have to be thwarted just enough to stop the person from advancing but not so much that they can ’ t help you defend on the next player ’ s turn .
All of that in the service of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the perfect moment to punch through and achieve victory .
Having watched Putin play this game for the past eight years , I firmly believe there is no one in a position of power today who has a firmer grasp of this than him .
And I do believe this move to break OPEC+ and then watch Mohammed bin Salman break OPEC was Putin ’ s big judo-style reversal move .
And by doing so in less than a week he has completely shut down the U.S. financial system .
On Friday March @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By Wednesday the 11th The Federal Reserve had already doubled its daily interventions into the repo markets to keep bank liquidity high .
By noon on the 12th the Fed announced $ 1.5 trillion in new repo facilities including three-month repo contracts .
At one point during trading that day the entire U.S. Treasury market went bidless .
There was no one out there making an offer for the most liquid , sought-after financial assets in the world .
Why ?
Prices were so high , no one wanted them .
Not only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the repo interventions by the Fed , but it was for longer duration .
This is a clear sign that the problem is nearly without an end .
Repos longer than three days are in this context a rarity .
The Fed needing to add $ 1 trillion in three-month repos clearly means they understand that they are looking out to the end of the quarter as the next problem and beyond that .
It means , in short , the world financial markets have completely seized up .
And worse than that… @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stocks continued to slide , gold and other safe-haven assets were hit hard by a reversal of capital outflows from the U.S .
In the first part of the aftermath of Putin ’ s decision the dollar got whacked as European and Japanese investors who had piled into U.S. stocks as a safe-haven sold those positions and brought the capital home .
That lasted a few days before Christine Lagarde put on her dog and pony show at the European Central Bank and told everyone she didn ’ t have any answers other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doing what has failed in the past .
This touched off the next phase of the crisis , where the dollar begins to strengthen .
And that is where we are now .
And Putin understands that a world awash in debt is one that can not withstand the currency needed to repay that debt rising sharply .
That puts further pressure on his geopolitical rivals and forces them to focus on their domestic concerns rather than the ones overseas .
For years Putin has been begging the West to stop its insane @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Asia .
He ’ s argued eloquently at the U.N. and in interviews that the unipolar moment is over and that the U.S. can only maintain its status as the world ’ s only super power for so long .
Eventually the debt would undermine its strength and at the right moment would be revealed to be far weaker than it projected .
This doesn ’ t sit well with President Trump who believes in America ’ s exceptionalism .
And will fight for his version of “ America First ’ to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The problem with this ‘ never back down ’ attitude is that it makes him very predictable .
Trump ’ s use of sanctions on Europe to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was stupid and short-sighted .
It ensured that Russia would be merciless in its response and only delay the project for a few months .
Trump was easy to counter here .
Sign a deal with Ukraine , desperate for the money , and redirect the pipe-laying vessel back to the Baltic to finish the pipeline .
And with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the gutter from oversupply and a mild winter , there isn ’ t much time or money lost in the end .
Better to take the world oil price down well below U.S. production costs which ensure that Trump ’ s prized LNG stays off the European market as the myth of U.S. energy self-sufficiency vanishes in a puff of financial derivative smoke .
Now Trump is facing a market meltdown well beyond his capacity to fathom or respond to .
While Russia is in the unique position to drive costs down for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the shock to the global system with its savings .
Because money flows to where the best returns on it come , high oil and gas prices stifle development of other industries .
Lowering the oil price not only deflates all of the U.S. ’ s inflated financial weapons it also deflates some of the power of the petroleum industry domestically .
This gives Putin the opportunity to continue remaking the Russian economy along less focused lines .
Cheap oil and gas means lower return on investment in energy projects which , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be deployed in other areas of the economy .
Putin just told the world he ’ s not riding his country ’ s oil and gas resources like a cash cow but rather as an important part of a different economic strategy for Russia ’ s development .
It ’ s like watching someone playing the first half of a game implying one strategy and making a critical shift to a different one halfway through , taking advantage of their opponents ’ carelessness .
It rarely works , but when it does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Set , Match , Putin .

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Authored by Tom Luongo via The Strategic Culture Foundation:
I am an avid board game player. I’m not much for the classics like chess or go, preferring the more modern ones. But, regardless, as a person who appreciates the delicate balance between strategy and tactics, I have to say I am impressed with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sense of timing.
Because if there was ever a moment where Putin and Russia could inflict maximum pain on the United States via its Achilles’ heel, the financial markets and its unquenchable thirst for debt, it was this month just as the coronavirus was reaching its shores.
Like I said, I’m a huge game player and I especially love games where there is a delicate balance between player power that has to be maintained while it’s not one’s turn. Attacks have to be thwarted just enough to stop the person from advancing but not so much that they can’t help you defend on the next player’s turn.
All of that in the service of keeping the game alive until you find the perfect moment to punch through and achieve victory. Having watched Putin play this game for the past eight years, I firmly believe there is no one in a position of power today who has a firmer grasp of this than him.
And I do believe this move to break OPEC+ and then watch Mohammed bin Salman break OPEC was Putin’s big judo-style reversal move. And by doing so in less than a week he has completely shut down the U.S. financial system.
On Friday March 6th, Russia told OPEC no. By Wednesday the 11th The Federal Reserve had already doubled its daily interventions into the repo markets to keep bank liquidity high.
By noon on the 12th the Fed announced $1.5 trillion in new repo facilities including three-month repo contracts. At one point during trading that day the entire U.S. Treasury market went bidless. There was no one out there making an offer for the most liquid, sought-after financial assets in the world.
Why? Prices were so high, no one wanted them.
Not only did we get a massive expansion of the repo interventions by the Fed, but it was for longer duration. This is a clear sign that the problem is nearly without an end. Repos longer than three days are in this context a rarity.
The Fed needing to add $1 trillion in three-month repos clearly means they understand that they are looking out to the end of the quarter as the next problem and beyond that.
It means, in short, the world financial markets have completely seized up.
And worse than that…. It didn’t work.
Stocks continued to slide, gold and other safe-haven assets were hit hard by a reversal of capital outflows from the U.S. In the first part of the aftermath of Putin’s decision the dollar got whacked as European and Japanese investors who had piled into U.S. stocks as a safe-haven sold those positions and brought the capital home.
That lasted a few days before Christine Lagarde put on her dog and pony show at the European Central Bank and told everyone she didn’t have any answers other than to expand asset purchases and continue doing what has failed in the past.
This touched off the next phase of the crisis, where the dollar begins to strengthen. And that is where we are now.
And Putin understands that a world awash in debt is one that cannot withstand the currency needed to repay that debt rising sharply.
That puts further pressure on his geopolitical rivals and forces them to focus on their domestic concerns rather than the ones overseas.
For years Putin has been begging the West to stop its insane belligerence in the Middle East and across Asia. He’s argued eloquently at the U.N. and in interviews that the unipolar moment is over and that the U.S. can only maintain its status as the world’s only super power for so long. Eventually the debt would undermine its strength and at the right moment would be revealed to be far weaker than it projected.
This doesn’t sit well with President Trump who believes in America’s exceptionalism. And will fight for his version of “America First’ to the last using every weapon at his disposal. The problem with this ‘never back down’ attitude is that it makes him very predictable.
Trump’s use of sanctions on Europe to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was stupid and short-sighted. It ensured that Russia would be merciless in its response and only delay the project for a few months.
Trump was easy to counter here. Sign a deal with Ukraine, desperate for the money, and redirect the pipe-laying vessel back to the Baltic to finish the pipeline.
And with natural gas prices in Europe already in the gutter from oversupply and a mild winter, there isn’t much time or money lost in the end. Better to take the world oil price down well below U.S. production costs which ensure that Trump’s prized LNG stays off the European market as the myth of U.S. energy self-sufficiency vanishes in a puff of financial derivative smoke.
Now Trump is facing a market meltdown well beyond his capacity to fathom or respond to. While Russia is in the unique position to drive costs down for so many of the people while riding out the shock to the global system with its savings.
Because money flows to where the best returns on it come, high oil and gas prices stifle development of other industries. Lowering the oil price not only deflates all of the U.S.’s inflated financial weapons it also deflates some of the power of the petroleum industry domestically. This gives Putin the opportunity to continue remaking the Russian economy along less focused lines. Cheap oil and gas means lower return on investment in energy projects which, in turn, opens up available capital to be deployed in other areas of the economy.
Putin just told the world he’s not riding his country’s oil and gas resources like a cash cow but rather as an important part of a different economic strategy for Russia’s development.
It’s like watching someone playing the first half of a game implying one strategy and making a critical shift to a different one halfway through, taking advantage of their opponents’ carelessness.
It rarely works, but when it does the results can be spectacular. Game, Set, Match, Putin.
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theduran--2020-03-16--Standing at the Precipice of a Financial Collapse: Time for a 21st Century Pecora Commission

As Republican and democrat politicians hold emergency meetings to decide how to avoid a meltdown of Wall Street , the smell of hyperinflation looms in the air as much today as it did in Germany during the opening months of 1922 .
This week , markets were propped up by a record breaking offering of $ 1.5 Trillion in liquidity injections over the coming months ( added to the $ 9 trillion already injected over the past six months ) , and rather than deal with the real reasons for this oncoming financial collapse , the media has brainwashed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fine , “ if only coronavirus had not become a pandemic ” .
But what is really being bailed out here exactly and why ?
Is this money actually making it to the real economy ?
Is it being invested to rebuild America ’ s farms , businesses and industry ?
The reality is that the only thing being saved are the “ Too Big to Fail ” banks that are sitting atop a $ 1.5 quadrillion of derivatives bomb .
Of the most bankrupt of America ’ s speculators are JPMorgan Chase @ @ @ @ @ @ @ derivatives exposure hit $ 48 trillion , $ 47 trillion and $ 42 trillion respectively in recent years .
It is my contention that Trump is genuine in his desire to “ drain the swamp ” and rebuild America ’ s lost industrial base .
I also genuinely believe that Trump wishes to establish positive relations with Russia , China and other sovereign nation states which has drawn the ire of the international deep state .
However Trump ’ s potentially fatal blind spot appears to be his tendency to believe the lie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ somehow indicative of America ’ s well-being .
If Trump is intelligent , ( and his previous calls for Glass-Steagall ’ s restoration , and American System practices imply that he knows a thing or two ) , then rather than bailing out Wall Street by unleashing more gasoline onto the fire , it were better that he took the lessons of 1933 and established a new Pecora Commission for 2020 .
What was the Pecora Commission ?
Many are aware of the economic meltdown of October 24,1929 that ushered in four years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the western world ) .
However not many people are aware of the intense fight that was launched by patriots in both parties against the Wall Street/deep state parasite of that age which prevented both a fascist coup against the newly elected Franklin Roosevelt while also crippling Wall Street ’ s command of American life .
In spite of whitewashing revisionist history books that contaminated the past 70 years , America ’ s recovery from the depression never occurred without a life or death struggle and this struggle was made possible , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of an Italian lawyer from New York .
This man ’ s name was Ferdinand Pecora .
By 1932 , when Senators Peter Norbeck ( R-SD ) and George Norris ( R-NB ) spearheaded the establishment of the U.S. Committee on Banking and Currency , the American economy was on life support and the people were so desperate that a fascist dictatorship in America would have been welcomed with open arms if only bread could be put on the table .
Unemployment had reached 25 % , while over 40 % of banks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the population had lost their savings .
Thousands of tent cities called ‘ Hoovervilles ’ were spread across the USA and over 50 % of America ’ s industrial capacity had shut down .
Thousands of farms had been foreclosed and the engines of American industry had grinded to a screeching halt .
Across the ocean , the fascist regimes of Germany , Italy and Spain were growing more powerful by the day fed by injections of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital by London and Wall Street bankers .
Notable among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush family patriarch Prescott , who provided millions in loans to Hitler ’ s bankrupt Nazi party in 1932 ( and continued doing business with the party through 1942- having only stopped after being found guilty for “ trading with the enemy ” ) .
The Committee on Banking and Currency was a relatively impotent body when it began in 1932 , but when Senator Norbeck called in Ferdinand Pecora to lead it in April 1932 , everything began to change .
A first generation Italian-American , Pecora was forced to quit high @ @ @ @ @ @ @ order to support his family .
Years later , the young man found work as a clerk in a law firm , and managed to work his way through law school , passing the bar in 1911 .
His unimpeachable reputation earned him the animosity of powerful NY financiers who ensured that his successes in prosecuting brokers never resulted in attaining Attorney General , where he made a name for himself shutting down over 100 illegal brokerage houses that speculated on fraudulent securities during the depression .
Within days of accepting the Washington @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s committee ( for the meager salary of $ 250/month ) , Pecora was granted broad subpoena powers to audit banks and drag the most powerful men in America to testify in the committee ’ s hearings .
In his first two weeks , Pecora made headlines by auditing the books of major Wall Street banks and pulled in pro-fascist National City President Charles Mitchell ( then preparing to advise Benito Mussolini ) to testify .
Within days , Mitchell ’ s team of expensive defense attorneys could do nothing but watch in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ short selling his own bank ’ s stocks during the depression , scamming depositors with purchases of Cuban junk debt and avoiding taxes for years .
Mitchell was forced to resign in shame followed days later by NY Stock Exchange Chair Dick Whitney- who left the court in handcuffs .
This crackdown on Wall Street ’ s abuses were highly publicized and put the spotlight on the criminal schemes used to gamble with savings and commercial bank deposits on securities and futures markets which led to the orchestrated collapse of the bubble economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bubble built up during the “ easy-money days ” of the “ roaring 20s ” was centered in the housing market ) .
Pecora ’ s crackdown also set the tone for the incoming Roosevelt administration .
Unlike the previous 1911 Pujo Commission led by Senator Charles Lindberg Sr. which also exposed Wall Street ’ s abuses of power , the Pecora Commission was supported by a President who actually cared about the Constitution and amplified Pecora ’ s powers even further .
When FDR was told that supporting Pecora ’ s exposures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the President famously responded with “ they should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now.
” FDR followed up that warning by encouraging the attorney to take on John Pierpont Morgan Jr. Rather than controlling an American institution as many believed 70 years ago and today , J.P. Morgan Jr. was actually running an operation that had earlier been created in the mid-19th century as part of a British infiltration of America .
As historian John Hoefle pointed out in a 2009 EIR study : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in truth , a British operation from its inception .
It began life as George Peabody & Co. , a bank founded in London in 1851 by American George Peabody .
A few years later , another American , Junius S. Morgan , joined the firm , and upon Peabody ’ s death the firm became J.S .
Morgan & Co. Junius Morgan brought in his son , J. Pierpont Morgan , to head the New York office of J.S .
Morgan , and the New York office became J.P. Morgan & Co. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ British gain control of American railroads , the Morgan bank became a leading force in the oligarchy ’ s war against the American System , using the deep pockets of its imperial masters to become a powerhouse in not only finance but steel , automobiles , railroads , electricity generation , and other industries.
” By 1933 , the House of Morgan grew into a multi-headed hydra controlling utilities , holding companies , banks and countless other subsidiaries .
When J.P. Morgan jr. was called to testify , the banker carried a midget @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ circus of the commission ” .
As the questions began however , the arrogant banker was caught off guard by Pecora ’ s proof of Morgan ’ s secret “ preferred clients lists ” of politicians whom the banker owned and who received stock offerings at discount rates .
Named among the thousands of traitors on this list , Pecora revealed former president Calvin Coolidge , Coolidge ’ s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon ( a Schacht-Hitler supporter from the start ) , financier Bernard Baruch , Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Raskob was not only a major speculator but was also the leader of the American Liberty League which tried repeatedly to overthrow FDR between 1933-1939 and worked to ally America with axis powers from 1939-1941 .
Morgan ’ s god-like ego was brought down to the level of mortals when the flustered banker was only able to answer “ I can ’ t remember ” repeatedly when asked if he had paid taxes over the past 5 years .
As it turned out , by the end of the trial , it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the House of Morgan paid any taxes during the entire period of the depression , and were caught gambling with depositors assets from commercial accounts .
These revelations didn ’ t sit well with a population dying of starvation across the streets of America .
Similar displays of corruption were made of the heads of Kohn Loeb , Chase Bank , Brown Brothers Harriman and others .
Faced with these revelations , The Nation magazine famously reported “ If you steel $ 25 , you ’ re a thief .
If you steal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an embezzler .
If you steal $ 2.5 million , you ’ re a financier.
” Pecora ’ s ally Sen. Burton Wheeler said “ the best way to restore confidence in our banks is to take these crooked presidents out of the banks and treat them the same as we treated Al Capone.
” With the light cast firmly upon the dark shadows where vile creatures like J.P. Morgan and other financial gremlins reside , the population was finally able to start making sense of what injustices befell them during the years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ banker went to prison as Wheeler or Pecora would have liked , examples were made of dozens who did and many more whose careers were shamefully ended .
Most importantly however , this exposure gave Franklin Roosevelt the support needed to drain the swamp and impose sweeping reforms upon the banks .
In the first hundred days , FDR was able to : 1 ) Impose Glass-Steagall banking separation ( forcing Wall Street banks to break up their functions and preventing speculators from gambling with productive assets ) 2 ) Create the Federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protected citizens ’ savings from future crises 3 ) Create the Securities Exchange Commission to provide oversight to Wall Street ’ s activities and on whose body Pecora was appointed commissioner in 1934 .
4 ) Unleash broad credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation ( RFC ) which acted as a national bank bypassing the private Federal Reserve , channeling $ 33 billion to the real economy by 1945 ( more than all private commercial banks combined ) 5 ) Impose protective tariffs on agriculture , metals and industrial goods to stop dumping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America ’ s physical economy 6 ) Create vast public works , like the Tennessee Valley Authority , Grand Coulee dams , Hoover dams , St Laurence development and countless other projects , hospitals , schools , bridges , roads and rail under the New Deal that acted in many ways then as China ’ s Belt and Road Initiative has in our modern age .
Unfortunately , Roosevelt died before this new form of political economy could be internationalized abroad in the post-war years as an anti-colonial program .
A beautiful outline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the 2008 film ‘ 1932 : Speak not of Parties but of Universal Principles ’ .
Subverting a Fascist Coup Then and Now Ferdinand Pecora ’ s Commission shaped the dynamics of America so intensely by its simple power of speaking the truth , that efforts to run a fascist coup against FDR using a general named Smedley Butler also came undone before it could succeed .
Butler played along with Wall Street ’ s plans for some months before deciding to publicly blow the whistle in congress .
Butler exposed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ puppet dictator ” leading thousands of American legionnaires in a storming of the White House displacing FDR .
It is often forgotten today , but in the early days of the 1920s-1930s , the Legion was modeled on Mussolini ’ s fascist squadristi and even its leader Alvin Owsley made explicit in 1921 saying : “ If need be the American Legion is ready to protect the institutions of this country and its ideals , in the same way as the Fascists have treated the destructive forces threatening Italy .
Don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Italy what the American Legion is for the United States.
” Butler ’ s startling revelations amplified FDR ’ s popular support and inoculated much of the population from the fake news pouring out of Wall Street propaganda agencies spread across the media .
In 1939 , Pecora wrote a book called ‘ Wall Street Under Oath : The Story of our Modern Money Changers ’ where the attorney prophetically said : “ Under the surface of the governmental regulation of the securities market , the same forces that produced the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bull market ’ of 1929 still give evidence of their existence and influence .
Though repressed for the present , it can not be doubted that , given a suitable opportunity , they would spring back to their pernicious activity.
” Pecora went onto deliver one more warning which current generations should take seriously “ Had there been full disclosure of what has been done in furtherance of these schemes , they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism .
Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the bankers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ oncoming economic meltdown can only be prevented if the lessons of 1933 are taken seriously and patriots who actually care about their nations and people stop legitimizing the casino economy of fictitious capital , derivatives , debt slavery and anti-humanism that has become so commonplace across the governing strata of the technocratic and banking elite today trying to control the world .
This elite , just like the financiers of the 1920s , doesn ’ t care ultimately for money as an end but sees it merely as a means for imposing fascist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the same way that FDR ’ s Wall Street/London enemies sought a world government under Nazi enforcers then , today ’ s heirs to that anti-human legacy are driven by a religious-like commitment to “ manage ” a new collapse of world civilization under a Green New Deal and World Government .
So why accept that dystopic future when a brighter one is offered us by the Multipolar alliance today led by Russia and China ?
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volumes of ‘ Untold History of Canada ’ book series .
In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at [ email protected ]

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
Originally published on Strategic Culture
As Republican and democrat politicians hold emergency meetings to decide how to avoid a meltdown of Wall Street, the smell of hyperinflation looms in the air as much today as it did in Germany during the opening months of 1922. This week, markets were propped up by a record breaking offering of $1.5 Trillion in liquidity injections over the coming months (added to the $9 trillion already injected over the past six months), and rather than deal with the real reasons for this oncoming financial collapse, the media has brainwashed the west that everything would have been just fine, “if only coronavirus had not become a pandemic”.
But what is really being bailed out here exactly and why? Is this money actually making it to the real economy? Is it being invested to rebuild America’s farms, businesses and industry?
The reality is that the only thing being saved are the “Too Big to Fail” banks that are sitting atop a $1.5 quadrillion of derivatives bomb. Of the most bankrupt of America’s speculators are JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, whose derivatives exposure hit $48 trillion, $47 trillion and $42 trillion respectively in recent years.
It is my contention that Trump is genuine in his desire to “drain the swamp” and rebuild America’s lost industrial base. I also genuinely believe that Trump wishes to establish positive relations with Russia, China and other sovereign nation states which has drawn the ire of the international deep state. However Trump’s potentially fatal blind spot appears to be his tendency to believe the lie that Wall Street’s well-being is somehow indicative of America’s well-being.
If Trump is intelligent, (and his previous calls for Glass-Steagall’s restoration, and American System practices imply that he knows a thing or two), then rather than bailing out Wall Street by unleashing more gasoline onto the fire, it were better that he took the lessons of 1933 and established a new Pecora Commission for 2020.
What was the Pecora Commission?
Many are aware of the economic meltdown of October 24,1929 that ushered in four years of depression onto America (and much of the western world). However not many people are aware of the intense fight that was launched by patriots in both parties against the Wall Street/deep state parasite of that age which prevented both a fascist coup against the newly elected Franklin Roosevelt while also crippling Wall Street’s command of American life. In spite of whitewashing revisionist history books that contaminated the past 70 years, America’s recovery from the depression never occurred without a life or death struggle and this struggle was made possible, in large measure by the courageous work of an Italian lawyer from New York. This man’s name was Ferdinand Pecora.
By 1932, when Senators Peter Norbeck (R-SD) and George Norris (R-NB) spearheaded the establishment of the U.S. Committee on Banking and Currency, the American economy was on life support and the people were so desperate that a fascist dictatorship in America would have been welcomed with open arms if only bread could be put on the table. Unemployment had reached 25%, while over 40% of banks had gone bankrupt and 25% of the population had lost their savings. Thousands of tent cities called ‘Hoovervilles’ were spread across the USA and over 50% of America’s industrial capacity had shut down. Thousands of farms had been foreclosed and the engines of American industry had grinded to a screeching halt.
Across the ocean, the fascist regimes of Germany, Italy and Spain were growing more powerful by the day fed by injections of hundreds of millions of dollars of capital by London and Wall Street bankers. Notable among these pro-fascist financiers was none other than Bush family patriarch Prescott, who provided millions in loans to Hitler’s bankrupt Nazi party in 1932 (and continued doing business with the party through 1942- having only stopped after being found guilty for “trading with the enemy”).
The Committee on Banking and Currency was a relatively impotent body when it began in 1932, but when Senator Norbeck called in Ferdinand Pecora to lead it in April 1932, everything began to change. A first generation Italian-American, Pecora was forced to quit high school after his father was injured in order to support his family. Years later, the young man found work as a clerk in a law firm, and managed to work his way through law school, passing the bar in 1911. His unimpeachable reputation earned him the animosity of powerful NY financiers who ensured that his successes in prosecuting brokers never resulted in attaining Attorney General, where he made a name for himself shutting down over 100 illegal brokerage houses that speculated on fraudulent securities during the depression.
Within days of accepting the Washington job as Chief Council of Norbeck’s committee (for the meager salary of $250/month), Pecora was granted broad subpoena powers to audit banks and drag the most powerful men in America to testify in the committee’s hearings.
In his first two weeks, Pecora made headlines by auditing the books of major Wall Street banks and pulled in pro-fascist National City President Charles Mitchell (then preparing to advise Benito Mussolini) to testify. Within days, Mitchell’s team of expensive defense attorneys could do nothing but watch in despair as the powerful financier admitted to short selling his own bank’s stocks during the depression, scamming depositors with purchases of Cuban junk debt and avoiding taxes for years. Mitchell was forced to resign in shame followed days later by NY Stock Exchange Chair Dick Whitney- who left the court in handcuffs.
This crackdown on Wall Street’s abuses were highly publicized and put the spotlight on the criminal schemes used to gamble with savings and commercial bank deposits on securities and futures markets which led to the orchestrated collapse of the bubble economy in 1929 (ironically much of the bubble built up during the “easy-money days” of the “roaring 20s” was centered in the housing market). Pecora’s crackdown also set the tone for the incoming Roosevelt administration.
Unlike the previous 1911 Pujo Commission led by Senator Charles Lindberg Sr. which also exposed Wall Street’s abuses of power, the Pecora Commission was supported by a President who actually cared about the Constitution and amplified Pecora’s powers even further. When FDR was told that supporting Pecora’s exposures of financial crimes would hurt the economy, the President famously responded with “they should have thought of that when they did the things that are being exposed now.” FDR followed up that warning by encouraging the attorney to take on John Pierpont Morgan Jr.
Rather than controlling an American institution as many believed 70 years ago and today, J.P. Morgan Jr. was actually running an operation that had earlier been created in the mid-19th century as part of a British infiltration of America. As historian John Hoefle pointed out in a 2009 EIR study:
“The House of Morgan was, in truth, a British operation from its inception. It began life as George Peabody & Co., a bank founded in London in 1851 by American George Peabody. A few years later, another American, Junius S. Morgan, joined the firm, and upon Peabody’s death the firm became J.S. Morgan & Co. Junius Morgan brought in his son, J. Pierpont Morgan, to head the New York office of J.S. Morgan, and the New York office became J.P. Morgan & Co. From its original role in helping the British gain control of American railroads, the Morgan bank became a leading force in the oligarchy’s war against the American System, using the deep pockets of its imperial masters to become a powerhouse in not only finance but steel, automobiles, railroads, electricity generation, and other industries.”
By 1933, the House of Morgan grew into a multi-headed hydra controlling utilities, holding companies, banks and countless other subsidiaries.
When J.P. Morgan jr. was called to testify, the banker carried a midget on his lap in mockery of the “circus of the commission”. As the questions began however, the arrogant banker was caught off guard by Pecora’s proof of Morgan’s secret “preferred clients lists” of politicians whom the banker owned and who received stock offerings at discount rates. Named among the thousands of traitors on this list, Pecora revealed former president Calvin Coolidge, Coolidge’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon (a Schacht-Hitler supporter from the start), financier Bernard Baruch, Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts and Democratic Party controller John Jacob Raskob. Raskob was not only a major speculator but was also the leader of the American Liberty League which tried repeatedly to overthrow FDR between 1933-1939 and worked to ally America with axis powers from 1939-1941.
Morgan’s god-like ego was brought down to the level of mortals when the flustered banker was only able to answer “I can’t remember” repeatedly when asked if he had paid taxes over the past 5 years. As it turned out, by the end of the trial, it was revealed that NONE of the subsidiaries of the House of Morgan paid any taxes during the entire period of the depression, and were caught gambling with depositors assets from commercial accounts. These revelations didn’t sit well with a population dying of starvation across the streets of America.
Similar displays of corruption were made of the heads of Kohn Loeb, Chase Bank, Brown Brothers Harriman and others.
Faced with these revelations, The Nation magazine famously reported “If you steel $25, you’re a thief. If you steal $250 000, you’re an embezzler. If you steal $2.5 million, you’re a financier.”
Pecora’s ally Sen. Burton Wheeler said “the best way to restore confidence in our banks is to take these crooked presidents out of the banks and treat them the same as we treated Al Capone.”
FDR Drains the Swamp
With the light cast firmly upon the dark shadows where vile creatures like J.P. Morgan and other financial gremlins reside, the population was finally able to start making sense of what injustices befell them during the years of post-1929 despair. While not every banker went to prison as Wheeler or Pecora would have liked, examples were made of dozens who did and many more whose careers were shamefully ended. Most importantly however, this exposure gave Franklin Roosevelt the support needed to drain the swamp and impose sweeping reforms upon the banks.
In the first hundred days, FDR was able to:
1) Impose Glass-Steagall banking separation (forcing Wall Street banks to break up their functions and preventing speculators from gambling with productive assets)
2) Create the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) that protected citizens’ savings from future crises
3) Create the Securities Exchange Commission to provide oversight to Wall Street’s activities and on whose body Pecora was appointed commissioner in 1934.
4) Unleash broad credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) which acted as a national bank bypassing the private Federal Reserve, channeling $33 billion to the real economy by 1945 (more than all private commercial banks combined)
5) Impose protective tariffs on agriculture, metals and industrial goods to stop dumping of cheap products in America and rebuild America’s physical economy
6) Create vast public works, like the Tennessee Valley Authority, Grand Coulee dams, Hoover dams, St Laurence development and countless other projects, hospitals, schools, bridges, roads and rail under the New Deal that acted in many ways then as China’s Belt and Road Initiative has in our modern age. Unfortunately, Roosevelt died before this new form of political economy could be internationalized abroad in the post-war years as an anti-colonial program.
A beautiful outline of FDR’s struggle is showcased in the 2008 film ‘1932: Speak not of Parties but of Universal Principles’.
Subverting a Fascist Coup Then and Now
Ferdinand Pecora’s Commission shaped the dynamics of America so intensely by its simple power of speaking the truth, that efforts to run a fascist coup against FDR using a general named Smedley Butler also came undone before it could succeed. Butler played along with Wall Street’s plans for some months before deciding to publicly blow the whistle in congress. Butler exposed the intension to use him as a “puppet dictator” leading thousands of American legionnaires in a storming of the White House displacing FDR.
It is often forgotten today, but in the early days of the 1920s-1930s, the Legion was modeled on Mussolini’s fascist squadristi and even its leader Alvin Owsley made explicit in 1921 saying:
“If need be the American Legion is ready to protect the institutions of this country and its ideals, in the same way as the Fascists have treated the destructive forces threatening Italy. Don’t forget that the Fascists are for today’s Italy what the American Legion is for the United States.”
Butler’s startling revelations amplified FDR’s popular support and inoculated much of the population from the fake news pouring out of Wall Street propaganda agencies spread across the media.
In 1939, Pecora wrote a book called ‘Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of our Modern Money Changers’ where the attorney prophetically said:
“Under the surface of the governmental regulation of the securities market, the same forces that produced the riotous speculative excesses of the ‘wild bull market’ of 1929 still give evidence of their existence and influence. Though repressed for the present, it cannot be doubted that, given a suitable opportunity, they would spring back to their pernicious activity.”
Pecora went onto deliver one more warning which current generations should take seriously “Had there been full disclosure of what has been done in furtherance of these schemes, they could not long have survived the fierce light of publicity and criticism. Legal chicanery and pitch darkness were the bankers’ stoutest allies.”
Today’s oncoming economic meltdown can only be prevented if the lessons of 1933 are taken seriously and patriots who actually care about their nations and people stop legitimizing the casino economy of fictitious capital, derivatives, debt slavery and anti-humanism that has become so commonplace across the governing strata of the technocratic and banking elite today trying to control the world. This elite, just like the financiers of the 1920s, doesn’t care ultimately for money as an end but sees it merely as a means for imposing fascist forms of governance onto the world population. In the same way that FDR’s Wall Street/London enemies sought a world government under Nazi enforcers then, today’s heirs to that anti-human legacy are driven by a religious-like commitment to “manage” a new collapse of world civilization under a Green New Deal and World Government.
So why accept that dystopic future when a brighter one is offered us by the Multipolar alliance today led by Russia and China?
Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review , a BRI Expert on Tactical talk, and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. In 2019 he co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation and can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com
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