Afghanistan: The Cost Of Empire

I read (somewhere) recently that the dollar cost of running our Empire branch in Afghanistan has amounted to $2.2 trillion (subject to correction). Which, from the point of view of our various recent stimuli is really a bargain--chump change, you could say, given that the whole operation seems to have been run by chumps in uniform. 

On the other hand, perhaps the true casualty--and I have no idea how to express this in dollars--was the loss of our republic. We know that those trillions didn't go to building an effective, dedicated Afghan government and military. Who thinks it went to supporting a lean and mean US fighting machine? No doubt some did, but really--wasn't it really about spreading the wealth around, as Obama might say? Does anyone doubt that much if not most of the post-Cold War military has been about jobs for the boys--the various contractors. And who doubts that substantial sums made their way back to DC to bribe--I think that's the mot juste--politicians? A constitutional republic--that's the cost of empire, and it certainly isn't a revelation to anyone who's read a bit of history. As far as history proves anything beyond human folly, it could be said to prove that republics and empires are incompatible forms of government.

And what can you say about the resident chump at the WH--or about his handlers, mostly old Hillary and Barry cronies. Zhou said our military role in Afghanistan would be over by August 31st. The Taliban had different ideas and pulled the plug two weeks early. Incredibly, as recently as last night Zhou was telling reporters--presumably as instructed by his handlers--that a Taliban victory wasn't at all inevitable. And that our Embassy staff wouldn't be evacuated by Air Chinook:

pic.twitter.com/skQjngLckd

— Dr. Nickarama (@nickaramaOG) August 15, 2021

Will we now be hearing from the MSM about the latest Hunter vids? Asking for a friend who thinks it all somehow fits together.

What If?

This is obviously speculative. Nevertheless ... it's true that there are connections between personnel in both events. Or plots.

Catch up on what @DarrenJBeattie has been reporting for months re FBI framing Americans as ‘domestic terrorists.’ NB: he also reported that head of FBI field office that set up bogus Whitmer operation is now supervising J6 investigations. https://t.co/EQA7OVZ1HX

— Lee Smith (@LeeSmithDC) July 21, 2021

Was the FBI SAC of Detroit promoted to ADIC of WFO in Oct. 2020 as part of a plan to have him in place to oversee the Jan 6 protest investigations?

If no, what significance is there to the fact he was promoted from Point A to Point B? https://t.co/OseI4uqWHk

— shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) July 21, 2021

UPDATED: Watch Out For That Nightstand!

New update re SA Richard (Dick?) Trask of Kalamazoo. I picked this up via Red State, who got it from the Detroit News.

Remember that "domestic incident" that got Trask--who happens to have been the case agent in the Whitmer "kidnapping" case--arrested on a felony charge? We've got more details. Not all the details, but enough to feed one's imagination:

An FBI agent at the center of the plot to kidnap and kill Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is accused of jumping on his wife in bed and smashing her head against a nightstand after a dispute stemming from a swingers’ party, according to court records.

Special Agent Richard Trask, 39, of Kalamazoo, was charged Monday with assault with intent to do great bodily harm, less than murder following an incident Sunday.

An affidavit filed by the Kalamazoo County Sheriff’s Office in Kalamazoo County District Court said Trask’s wife had bloody lacerations to the right side of her head and “blood all over chest, clothing arms and hand,” as well as “severe” bruising to her neck and throat.

You may recall from this morning that one of the defense lawyers says there's a recording that features another FBI agent, Henrik Impola, discussing the possibility of creating "disarray and chaos" for defense lawyers. No comment on how the prosecutors view these FBI antics. "Disarray and chaos" sounds about right--for the prosecution.

UPDATE: If you can't get enough of this stuff, Zerohedge has more: Whitmer Kidnapping Defendants Claim Entrapment After 12 FBI Informants Involved In Plot. Here are the key new facts:

One 'informant,' an Iraq war veteran, "became so deeply enmeshed in a Michigan militant group" that he rose to second-in-command - telling members of the group to meet with other potential suspects, and even footing the bill to transport members to meetings.

...

For six months, the Iraq War vet had been wearing a wire, gathering hundreds of hours of recordings. He wasn’t the only one. A biker who had traveled from Wisconsin to join the group was another informant. The man who’d advised them on where to put the explosives — and offered to get them as much as the task would require — was an undercover FBI agent. So was a man in one of the other cars who said little and went by the name Mark. -BuzzFeed

...

Last week, the lawyer for one defendant filed a motion that included texts from an FBI agent to a key informant, the Iraq War veteran, directing him to draw specific people into the conspiracy — potential evidence of entrapment that he said the government “inadvertently disclosed.” He is requesting all texts sent and received by that informant, and other attorneys are now considering motions that accuse the government of intentionally withholding evidence of entrapment. -BuzzFeed

It's not conclusive, but I have to believe that the prosecution is reeling a bit.

What's Up In The Whitmer Kidnapping Case?

We're slowly learning a bit more about a case that always seemed, how to say it, half-assed? Which isn't to say that goofballs don't commit serious crimes. Still, as soon as we began to learn more it started to seem a bit far fetched. That process continues.

One bit of news doesn't actually have anything to do with the FBI's case per se--but, then again, it really does. What do I mean?

I'm referring to the fact that the FBI case agent has screwed up in his personal life:

FBI agent in Whitmer kidnap case arrested following domestic incident

When they say "arrested following domestic incident" what they mean is this:

UPDATED: Tucker Carlson Redux

The revelation that the Tucker Carlson email around which the NSA spying controversy has swirled was part of an attempt by Tucker to arrange to interview Vladimir Putin makes a lot of things more clear.

First of all, the likely scenario now is that, as NSA says, Tucker was not targeted. Rather, Tucker's email came to the attention of analysts because it was directed to someone close to Putin--someone who would be a key intermediary in getting any interview ball rolling. The target wasn't Tucker, per se, but Russian nationals, particularly those close to the Russian leadership.

So far, so good. There's no problem with this. That's well within normal national security bounds.

Where the problems start is with the decision by the Zhou regime to have its agents--NSA, FBI, whoever--leak the contents of Tucker's email to various regime proxy media outlets, i.e., the usual liberal suspects. The strategy, as Tucker explains it, seems to have been that these regime proxies would leak hints that Tucker is somehow a Russian agent. The idea would be that the interview with Putin was to be part of a Russian disinformation op targeting "our democracy"--meaning, Dem political interests. The Dems were probably also trying to devise ways to tie this in to their Domestic War on "Terror" via "Russian hacking".

Even worse, the leaks might hint that Tucker is personally controlled by Putin--just like Trump, doncha know. The Dems and their media proxies haven't yet taken to referring to Putin as Vlad The Impaler, but short of that Putin is the all purpose Boogey Man that Dems think they can use to hoodwink conservatives, destroy Tucker's credibility, and keep their own base enmeshed in a world of conspiracy theories.

So, where do things stand?

About National Security Letters (NSL)

From time to time in the past we've made reference to "National Security Letters" (NSLs), as commonly used by the FBI in counterintelligence and counter terrorism investigations. The virtually certain use of NSLs in the various Russia Hoax related investigations also raised issues concerning the type of investigations that were opened.

This morning I was reading Jen Dyer's ruminations on the Tucker Carlson matter--Asking the right questions about the monitoring of Tucker Carlson. For the most part Dyer is discussing the same issues that we referred to (more briefly) here and here.

Dyer's questions are, of course, the right questions--she has the background to understand the importance of those questions for grasping what's going on. The bottom line, as we've discussed, is that the real issue is not that NSA is collecting data that pertains to USPERs like Tucker Carlson. The NSA collects all available data regarding all of us. But the real question is, What investigative agency is acquiring data pertaining to Tucker and using it in an investigation of some sort? The overwhelmingly most likely answer to that question is: The FBI.

What Dyer brings up in her article, in passing, touches on a slightly different matter, but one that is well worth understanding and keeping in the back of your mind. I'll reproduce here that brief passage, then unpack it a bit:

NSA Denies That Tucker Was Ever A 'Target'

But of course that was never the issue. It's one of those non-denial denials. Glenn Greenwald points that out at somewhat greater length:

First, it's bizarre that @NSAGov allow no replies.

IOW, NSA's non-denial tweet allowed no responses. 

Second, NSA has used this same deceit for years: they can spy on US citizens' communications without "targeting" the American.

Third, NSA has extremely broad authorities to collect communications without "targeting" a person. https://t.co/vAgaSS0x1k

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 30, 2021

The real question has never been whether the NSA collects communication data regarding all USPERs, including Tucker Carlson. It does. The real question is, Has an investigative agency acquired the data that NSA has, beyond a doubt, been collecting with regard to Tucker Carlson? If so, the investigative agency must be doing so by virtue of a warrant and must have an open full investigation--if not on Tucker himself as the subject, then on someone with whom Tucker is in contact. Let's hear from the FBI.

In the meantime, there's this:

And just FYI: the Pentagon just suspended a pro-Trump security official for "unauthorized disclosure of classified information" from the NSA -- meaning, presumably, that she leaked NSA activities to someone she wasn't supposed to talk to about it:https://t.co/OqCECPj6rr

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 30, 2021

What's The Story Re Tucker?

As I'm sure you know, Tucker Carlson has announced that a "whistleblower"--which, in this context, I take to mean simply an informed source--has told him that he (Tucker) is being "spied on" by the National Security Agency (NSA):

I assume that the NSA collects all communications that it's able to collect--phone calls, emails, texts, whatever. If it's technically possible for NSA to collect some category of data, they do:

Whether and how that data gets put to use is a longer story. We're all familiar with the fact that the FBI for years appears to have been accessing the NSA databases for routine checks on people, without the legally required predication for running such checks. The exact parameters of this illegal activity aren't clear, except that it appears to have definitely occurred in politically sensitive situations and for political reasons. Some may wish to disagree with that conclusion, but that the activity was in fact illegal is inarguable, whatever the motives. Also inarguable is that there have been no known consequences for the actual individuals who were responsible.

Glenn Greenwald On Our Race Baiting Generals

Mark Milley's performance in the House--and make no mistake, it was a performance--has drawn a fair amount of commentary. Yesterday Glenn Greenwald offered some observations. He rightly focuses on the highly political stance that has been adopted by our active duty professional military--perhaps unprecedented in our time. Some excerpts follow. You may not agree with everything Greenwald--a liberal--has to say, but he does place developments within a coherent, largish picture perspective. I will note that it's surprising that a liberal like Greenwald--while rightly focusing on the military's participation in a campaign of demonization of a fairly specific demographic within the American populace--fails to note the pretty clear class and religious markers of the demonized demographic:

Update On The Domestic War On "Terror"

Pretty obviously I'm not the only person who's been considering the meaning of the Dem and Deep State determination--or so they want us to believe--to launch a euphemistic Domestic War On "Terror". I say euphemistic because what they term "terror" is nothing but a bad joke and attempt to gaslight the American public. The continuing military occupation of the Imperial City on the Potomac, the open threats to unleash the Deep State FBI and DoJ against political dissent, the persecution of those who would dare reveal the corruption behind the entire Zhou regime, and much more--it's all intended to intimidate. 

That is likely a sign of weakness. Yesterday we reviewed some of the polling that reveals the basic weakness of the Zhou regime, and the rapid decline in support or tolerance for it. Today there are two articles that expand a bit on the meaning of the DWOT, and are very worthwhile as a follow-on to yesterday's reflections.

First we have Greg Hunter's Election Panic Coming in 2022 – Martin Armstrong. To say that Martin Armstrong has had a checkered past is probably an understatement. You can, and should, read about it here. However, for my purposes I simply want to present some of what he's saying as a plausible narrative in the current situation, working from Hunter's summary.

Hunter begins by citing a Rasmussen Reports poll from 4/13/21--so very recent. The results present a shocking picture of a regime--the Zhou regime--that appears to lack basic legitimacy:

Most voters say it’s more important to prevent cheating in elections than to make it easier to vote and, by more than a two-to-one margin, they reject claims that voter ID laws are discriminatory.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 29% of Likely U.S. Voters say laws requiring photo identification at the polls discriminate against some voters. Sixty-two percent (62%) say voter ID laws don’t discriminate. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A majority (51%) of voters believe it is likely that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, including 35% who say it’s Very Likely cheating affected the election.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans believe it is likely last year’s presidential election was affected by cheating, a view shared by 30% of Democrats and 51% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

UPDATED: The Domestic War On "Terror"

No, I didn't watch or listen to Zhou Baiden last night--I knew others would do that for me. Others, for example, like Conrad Black:

Joe Biden’s Speech Was a Declaration of War on America

All the welfare spending masquerading under the new code word of "infrastructure" will be up for grabs in Congress. Whether it passes--and in what form--is anyone's guess at this point. It's toward the end of his account, however, that Black gets to what I took to be the heart of Zhou's threatening message:

After the usual reassertion that everyone is created equal, Biden slipped in the need to ”root out systemic racism that plagues America… White supremacy is terrorism” and has “surpassed Jihadism” as a menace. He gave no hint of what he thinks of organizations that are constantly threatening to burn America down if they're not successful in extracting a full-body immersion in self-humiliation from the majority of Americans who despise all racism. Rarely in his rabidly bowdlerized summary of the nation's affairs does the president allow the truth to intrude. This made the opposition response by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina particularly effective.

In sum, Biden’s address was cringe-worthy, fatuous, and deeply distressing. The State of the Union is almost at suicide watch.

As it happened, while Zhou was threatening the non-Prog majority of the nation in this way with a Domestic War On "Terror", I was reading an interesting article by John Whitehead:

The Global Deep State: A New World Order Brought to You by COVID-19

Whitehead's first few paragraphs do a good job of putting Zhou's threats into context: