Alastair Crooke’s SCF essay leads with a confession by the Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker:

‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”.

And more of the confession follows as you’ll read. And you’ll also see that Crooke picks up his theme from earlier essays about who those are behind the curtain Mr. Baker seemingly reveals only now after decades of Constitution breaking, lies and attacks made on Americans by their own government and those of the Globalists it helped to create during the current course of Empire. Cooke again invokes Emanuel Todd’s work and POV about the causes of Western decline, but the essay seems unfinished, just as Biden’s term is also unfinished.

Crooke’s Al-Mayadeen column, “Does ‘Israel’ Want War?”, doesn’t provide us with any hints to his SCF essay as happens at times. Much has come to light about the reality of 7 October’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation that overturns the initial narrative of massive Hamas terror. Ha Aretz, a so-called Liberal Zionist news organization, has published “IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive,” based on eyewitness reports from Zionist sources that’s akin to the NY Times publishing an article accusing the Cheney/Bush team of allowing, even orchestrating, 911—after all, we should recall that the Zionists called 7 October exactly that: Their 911. All that nano-thermite dust that couldn’t be swept away with the larger pieces of evidence remained to tell the sorry truth and the motive is easy enough to find when looking through news reports of the massive fraud investigations whose evidence was very conveniently destroyed by the attacks.

In a sense, the two essay are related when we step back and look at the Big Picture Crooke alludes to—the crazed Wolfowitz Doctrine and its formalization into the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine during Clinton’s regime. One part of the story Crooke has included before is the control of the Outlaw US Empire by radical Evangelicals who are allied with the Zionists and often have dual citizenship. In that regard, it’s very important to recall that the USA used those same sorts of people to run religious missions globally as the nascent US Empire expanded across the continent. (I highly suggest reading this excellent substack essay for info on what‘s known as the “10/40 Window” that’s found in its final third. Hat tip to uncle tungsten!!) The zealotry that’s behind Manifest Destiny and Exceptionalism is all rooted to facets of Christian Eschatology. And that thinking also shows up in this very good essay, “Peace With Russia.” What’s profound from my historian POV is how long the so-called gaslighting’s been ongoing—for 200 years.

So, with all the above now in reader minds, here’s Crooke’s SCF essay:

The Editor at Large for the Wall Street Journal, Gerry Baker, says: ‘We’ve been “gaslit’ and deceived” – for years – “all in the name of ‘democracy’”. That deceit “collapsed” with the Presidential debate, Thursday’.

“Until the world saw the truth … [against] the ‘misinformation’ … the fiction of Mr. Biden’s competence … suggests they [the Democrats] evidently thought they could get away with promoting it. [Yet] by perpetuating that fiction they were also revealing their contempt for the voters and for democracy itself”.

Baker continues:

“Biden succeeded because he made toeing the party line his life’s work. Like all politicians whose egos dwarf their talents, he ascended the greasy pole by slavishly following his party wherever it led … Finally—in the ultimate act of partisan servility, he became Barack Obama’s vice president, the summit of achievement for those incapable, yet loyal: the apex position for the consummate ‘yes man’”.

“But then, just as he was ready to drift into a comfortable and well-deserved obscurity, his party needed a front man … They sought a loyal and reliable figurehead, a flag of convenience, under which they could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life — on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery. There was no more loyal and convenient vehicle than Joe”.

If so, then who actually has been ‘pulling America’s strings’ these past years?

“You [the Democratic machine] don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years about how this man was both brilliantly competent at the job and a healing force for national unity – and now tell us, when your deception is uncovered, that it’s ‘bedtime for Bonzo’ – thanks for your service, and let’s move on”, Baker warns.

“[Now] it is going horribly wrong. Much of his party has no use for him anymore … in a remarkably cynical act of bait-and-switch, [they are trying to] swap him out for someone more useful to their cause. Part of me thinks they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it. I find myself in the odd position of wanting to root for poor mumbling Joe … It’s tempting to say to the Democratic machine frantically mobilizing against him: You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to deceive, dissemble and gaslight us for years”.

Something significant has snapped within ‘the system’. It is always tempting to situate such events in ‘immediate time’, but even Baker seems to allude to a longer cycle of gaslighting and deception – one that only now has suddenly burst into open view.

Such events – though seemingly ephemeral and of the moment – can be portents to deeper structural contradictions moving.

When Baker writes of Biden being the latest ‘flag of convenience’ under which the ruling strata could sail the progressive vessel into the deepest reaches of American life – “on a mission to advance statism, climate extremism and self-lacerating wokery” – it seems probable that he is referring to the 1970s era of the Trilateral Commission and the Club of Rome.

The 1970s and 1980s were the point at which the long arc of traditional liberalism gave place to an avowedly illiberal, mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) that today fraudulently poses as liberal democracy.

Emmanuel Todd, the French anthropological historian, examines the longer dynamics to events unfolding in the present: The prime agent of change leading to the Decline of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident), he argues, was the implosion of ‘Anglo’ Protestantism in the U.S. (and England), with its entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success, and, above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’.

Whereas traditional liberalism had its mores, the decline of traditional values triggered the slide towards managerial technocracy, and to nihilism. Religion lingers on in the West, though in a ‘zombie’ state, Todd avers. Such societies, he argues, flounder – absent some guiding metaphysical sphere that provides people with non-material sustenance.

However, the incoming doctrine that only a wealthy financial élite, tech experts, leaders of multinational corporations and banks possess the required foresight and technological understanding to manipulate a complex and increasingly controlled system changed politics completely.

Mores were gone – and so was empathy. Many experienced the disconnect and the disregard of cold technocracy.

So when a senior WSJ editor tells us that the ‘deception and ‘gaslighting’ collapsed with the CNN Biden-Trump debate, we should surely pay attention; He is saying the scales finally fell from peoples’ eyes.

What was being gaslighted was the fiction of democracy and also that of America declaring itself – in its own scripture – to be the trailblazer and pathfinder of humanity: America as the exceptional nation: the singular, the pure-of-heart, the baptizer, and redeemer of all peoples despised and downtrodden; the “last, best hope of earth”.

The reality was very different. Of course, states can ‘live a lie’ for a long period. The underlying problem – the point Todd makes so compellingly – is that you can be successful in deceiving and manipulating public perceptions, but only up to a point.

The reality was, it simply was not working.

The same is true of ‘Europe’. The EU’s aspiration to become a global geo-political actor too, was contingent on gaslighting the public that France, Italy and Germany et al could continue to be real national entities – even as the EU scooped up all national decision-making prerogatives, by deceit. The mutiny at the recent European elections reflected this discontent.

Of course, Biden’s condition has been long known. So who then has been running affairs; making critical daily decisions about war, peace, the composition of the judiciary and the boundaries of state authority? The WSJ piece gives one answer: “Unelected advisers, party hacks, scheming family members and random hangers-on make the critical daily decisions” on these issues.

Maybe we have to reconcile to the fact that Biden is an angry, senile man who yells at his staff: “During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction”.

“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s very difficult and people are scared sh*tless of him.” The official added, “He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it”.

Seymour Hersh, the well-known investigative journalist reports:

“Biden’s drift into blankness has been ongoing for months, as he and his foreign policy aides have been urging a ceasefire that will not happen in Gaza whilst continuing to supply the weapons that make a ceasefire less likely. There’s a similar paradox in Ukraine, where Biden has been financing a war that cannot be won – yet refusing to participate in negotiations that could end the slaughter”.

“The reality behind all of this, as I’ve been told for months, is that Biden is simply ‘no longer there’ – in terms of understanding the contradictions of the policies he and his foreign policy advisers have been carrying out”.

On the one hand, Politico tells us: “Biden’s insular senior team are well acquainted with the longtime aides who continue to have the president’s ear: Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti and Bruce Reed, as well as Ted Kaufman and Klain on the outside”.

“It’s the same people — he has not changed those people for 40 years … The number of people who have access to the president has gotten smaller and smaller and smaller. They’ve been digging deeper into the bunker for months now.” And, the strategist said, “the more you get into the bunker, the less you listen to anyone”.

In Todd’s words then, decisions are made by a small ‘Washington village’.

Of course, Jake Sullivan and Blinken sit at the centre of what is called the ‘inter-agency’ view. This where policy mostly is discussed. It is not coherent – with its locus in the National Security Committee – but rather is spread through a matrix of interlocking ‘clusters’ that includes the Military Industrial Complex, Congressional leaders, Big Donors, Wall Street, the Treasury, the CIA, the FBI, a few cosmopolitan oligarchs and the princelings of the security-intelligence world.

All these ‘princes’ pretend to have a foreign policy view, and fight like cats to protect their fiefdom’s autonomy. Sometimes they channel their ‘take’ via the NSC, but if they can, they will ‘stovepipe’ it directly to one or other ‘key actor’ with the ear of one, or other, Washington ‘village’.

Nonetheless, at bottom, the 1992 Wolfowitz doctrine which underscored American supremacy at all costs, in a post-Soviet world – together with “stamping out rivals, wherever they may emerge” – still today remains the ‘current doctrine’ framing the ‘inter-agency’ baseline.

Dysfunction at the heart of a seemingly functioning organization may persist for years without any real public awareness or appreciation of the descent into dysfunctionality. But then suddenly – when a crisis hits, or Presidential debate misfires – ‘poof’ and we see clearly the collapse of the manipulation that has confined discourse to within the various Washington villages.

In this light, some of the structural contradictions that Todd noted as contributory factors to western decline become unexpectedly ‘illuminated’ by events: Baker highlighted one: The key Faustian bargain: the pretence of a liberal democracy operating in tandem with a ‘classic’ liberal economy versus the reality of an illiberal oligarchic leadership sitting atop a hyper-financialised corporate economy that has both sucked the life from the classic organic economy, and created toxic inequalities too.

The second agent of western decline is Todd’s observation that the implosion of the Soviet Union rendered the U.S. so cock-a-hoop that the latter triggered a paradoxical unleashing of global ‘Rules-Based Order’ expansion of empire versus the reality that the West was already being consumed from its roots upwards.

The third agent to decline lay, Todd argues, with America declaring itself to be the greatest military nation on earth – versus the reality of an America that has long rid itself of much of its manufacturing capacity (particularly the military capacity), yet elects to clash with a stabilized Russia, a great power returned, and with China which has instantiated itself as the world’s manufacturing Behemoth (including militarily).

These unresolved paradoxes became the agents of western decline, Todd maintained. He has a point. [My Emphasis]

I’m curious to see how much of this essay is discussed with Judge Napolitano, which I’ll now watch. The chat didn’t cover much of the essay at all as most focus was given to Netanyahu’s War that’s most likely coming, which is discussed in Crooke’s Al-Mayadeen column that will follow shortly. One of the big news items revealed in the chat was the new revelation by The Lancet of well over 100K deaths in Gaza, not the 35K; so, well over 3X what’s generally been stated over the last several months. What ought to have been shocking was Crooke’s speculative paraphrasing of Netanyahu’s speech to Congress later this month but wasn’t because of what we know him to be: the #1 Zionist Genocidal Maniac. What ought to get people’s attention is what was asked at the end of the chat about NATO gearing for war and the complete undemocratic nature of the choices being made there. And we know well Brussels doesn’t control NATO; so, the orders to prepare for war come from the Outlaw US Empire. Now for Crooke’s Al-Mayadeen column:

“Israel” is deeply divided. That is not news. It is a commonplace, and more usually the question is phrased as ‘bifurcated – but along which axis’? Today the cleavage is between a tired, and increasingly pessimistic army versus a seemingly determined political leadership, which insists, ‘There is no choice but war — if Israel is to survive.’

Popular support for now leans toward the latter – Netanyahu’s perspective.

Whilst Netanyahu has many harsh critics — including within the White House — the West generally ignores the reality that “Israel’s” desire for a military campaign in Lebanon extends beyond Netanyahu, to many others in Israeli politics. The choice is between: “War now; or War later” — as is understood by many Israelis seeing the surrounding walls unerringly close-in upon “Israel”.

It is all too easy in the West to repeat the narrative that Netanyahu is playing ‘fast and loose’ with “Israel’s” future; just to secure his own personal prospects. The reality is that both sides to this internal Israeli schism have their points: Those in the West may not agree with either view, preferring quiet and fearing for “Israel’s” future; but some climatic dénouement to the dynamics unleashed in 1948 is ultimately bound to unfold.

Israeli journalist Alon Ben David (a leading military affairs commentator with Channel 13) reports that the losses suffered by the Israeli army in Gaza have significantly diminished its capabilities to wage war on multiple fronts. He argues that Israeli forces are “not currently ready for a broad campaign in Lebanon.”

“If a broad war with Hezbollah is imposed on us, the [Israeli army] will fight with what it has, and it will hurt the enemy … [but the army] is currently unable to bring about a significant achievement against Hezbollah and dramatically to change the reality in the north”.

Ben David warns that the war in Lebanon

“will end in a bad settlement that will be achieved at a painful price … Never, throughout its 76 years, has the [army] been built for a nine-month war. Instead [it] was built as a shock army, which mobilizes the reserves at the moment of command; goes out decisively in a short time, and then returns to normal”.

Ben David adds that a senior Air Force reserve officer has sent a letter to army authorities “imploring” them to “make it clear to the political echelon that the [army] is not prepared for a prolonged campaign in Lebanon.”

The main — and genuine — problem the government faces is in regard to public expectations. The state evacuated some 80,000-100,000 residents from their homes on the border with Lebanon in the period after 8 October. Presently, there is no date for allowing them to return home. Popular anger is growing at this perceived strategic failure. Strong pressures are therefore being applied by the residents of the north, the media, and the opposition.

On the other side, senior IOF officials say they believe Hezbollah has lost the advantage of surprise – after much of “Israel’s” north has been evacuated. “Ultimately, we’ll have to return northern residents back home. If an agreement ensuring their safety won’t pass: we’ll have to take action.” Another senior officer said any political agreement is meaningless without a ground operation along the border aimed at destroying Hezbollah’s entrenchment in the area. “Airstrikes won’t destroy the infrastructures”, he stressed.

Benny Morris, a leading Israeli historian is even more adamant:

“To survive, Israel must strike Iran now. We [Israelis] have arrived at the moment of truth and a decision is necessary. The world should support such an operation. But even if it doesn’t, surely the country’s survival should be more important to its inhabitants than possible international condemnations and even sanctions if they are imposed (though I doubt that serious sanctions would be imposed).

“There’s no better moment to deliver a strategic blow against Iran, given the current asymmetry in capabilities between the two countries … Israel has a dramatic advantage in aerial capabilities thanks to its advanced F-15 and F-35 stealth aircraft. But, above all, Israel has one singular advantage (according to foreign press reports): It possesses a nuclear arsenal, whereas Iran currently only aspires to achieve one”.

And, if “Israel” should prove incapable of destroying the Iranian nuclear project using conventional weaponry, then it may not have any option but to resort to its nonconventional capabilities, writes Morris.

‘Behind the behind’ lies another dynamic: When Netanyahu, with full bravura, welcomes a seven-front war, the West presumes – at best – an utter recklessness on his part. Or madness. However, plans for a further, definitive al-Nakba, the displacement of the Palestinian and Arab populations from the “Land of Israel” have circulated for many years.

More probable than mere incautiousness, Netanyahu and his allies possibly espy an opportunity here (i.e. a malleable Biden) and a distracted Washington to inveigle the US to join with “Israel” in a wider war against Hezbollah — and even Iran (though Washington will not want that).

Israelis have chutzpah, but they are not stupid. Slowly, slowly catchee monkey, as the saying goes. Already, “Israel” has the White House committed to support an Israeli military operation against Hezbollah.

Further assisting Netanyahu in this enterprise is that the West automatically presumes that the IOF underestimates Hezbollah’s military and missile capacities. As The Economist worries, “even if American destroyers offshore were to take out larger missiles, Israel’s defensive systems would be swamped in places, resulting in heavy casualties—some estimates suggest tens of thousands.”

“If Israel cannot stop [Hezbollah’s] missiles before they launch, Israel’s aims, writes Yitzhak Gershon, who was deputy commander of Israel’s northern command in recent months, will be “to destroy the state of Lebanon to its foundations”. Gaza would look like “paradise in comparison”, he adds …”.

Naturally, any such scenario as outlined above terrifies the West, who would feel bound to intervene — if only to contain the Israeli war machine, plausibly to prevent the Middle East from being reduced to rubble. Netanyahu and others play on these fears. The more the US acts in lieu of their perceived risk of Israeli impulsivity, the more the US takes another step up the escalatory ladder’ — as planned.

Will war happen? “Israel” is boxed in, with no solutions in sight. How long can a hiatus be sustained? Hamas is still standing strong, re-arming and recruiting; Hezbollah has humiliated the IOF in the north, the West Bank is smouldering — and the next two months before autumn is the time when skies are clear and most suited to air operations.

A time of imponderables has arrived. War never proceeds according to plan. [My Emphasis]

The Zionists are ignoring the Russian factor as well as China’s in their equation regarding Iran and IMO Lebanon as well. What impact will The Lancet’s new calculations have on global opinion particularly when combined with the Haaretz revelations IMO is easy to predict—even more powerful calls for ceasefire AND intervention to force the Zionists to stop their Genocide, with more nations joining South Africa at the ICJ. IMO, the crazed Genocidalists like the “historian” Morris and his ilk have zero morals and have only one worry and that’s the ability of the Zionist Project to succeed. In the chat, Crooke reveals the very real possibility of nukes being used that’s bared alluded to in the column. Remember that terrorism is the weapon of the weak and the use of nukes would be the ultimate terrorist attack and the Zionists have the minds to do just that—for all the hullaballoo made over Putin’s supposed employment of nukes, it’s the Zionists who are the most deranged in that regard as Iran and many other know. During the height of Russia’s involvement in Syria, Patrushev visited the Zionists and told them that Russia’s nuclear umbrella also covered Iran, and the Iranian/Russian/Chinese strategic partnership has only grown much tighter in the years since. It’s hard to tell how frayed the relationship is now between the Zionists and Russia; but IMO, the Zionists pose just as big a threat to Russia’s interests as NATO. One thing the world ought to know by now—The Zionists will not cease their Genocidal Project unless forced to do so, which also applies to the formation of a Palestinian state. That formula also seems to be shared by the crazed Evangelical Zionists in control of the Outlaw US Empire.

The contrast between domestic events in Eurasia and the Warmakers is very stark. The majority of voices are for peace and development even within the warmaking nations, for it’s not the people who are listened to by the Yes Men and Women in control of those nations and more importantly the dictatorial EU/NATO “village.” Who else besides a Wall Street Journal editor is going to finally tell the long-denied truth about the real nature of the Outlaw US Empire? No, I don’t count since I have perhaps 2200 subscribers globally, one-third of which reside within the Empire. Do please take the time to read the two linked essays and share them around. And if Biden’s the epitome of a Yes Man, then what’s Kamela Harris—a Yes Woman?

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