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A Russian's view of the world. (See 1 below.)
One day I was walking down the beach withsome friends when someone shouted....
'Look at that dead bird!'
Someone looked up at the sky and said...'where?'They walk among us!----------------------------------------------------------While looking at a house, my brother asked theestate agent which direction was north becausehe didn't want the sun waking him up every morning.She asked, 'Does the sun rise in the north?'My brother explained that the sun rises in the eastand has for sometime. She shook her head and said,'Oh, I don't keep up with all that stuff......'They Walk Among Us!--------------------------------------------
My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria,
when we overheard an admin girl talking about the
sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the beach.
She drove down in a convertible, but said
she 'didn't think she'd get sunburned
because the car was moving'.They Walk Among Us!------------------------------------My sister has a lifesaving tool in her carwhich is designed to cut through a seat beltif she gets trapped. She keeps it in the car trunk.They Walk Among Us!-------------------------------------------------I was going out with a friend when we saw a woman with a nose ring attached to an earring by a chain.My friend said, 'Ouch! The chain must rip
out every time she turns her head!"
I had to explain that a person's nose and ear
remain the same distance apart no
matter which way the head is turned...They Walk Among Us !-------------------------------I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area and went to the lost luggage office and reported the loss.The woman there smiled and told me not to worrybecause she was a trained professional andsaid I was in good hands. 'Now,' she asked me,'Has your plane arrived yet?'.....(I work with professionals like this.)
They Walk Among Us------------------------------------------------While working at a pizza parlor I observed a manordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone and the cook asked him if he would like it cutinto 4 pieces or 6. He thought about it for some timethen said 'Just cut it into 4 pieces; I don't think I'm hungry enough to eat 6 pieces.They Walk Among Us! And last, but not least Dumb as a box of RocksA VERY GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE KIND OF REPRESENTATION WE HAVE IN CONGRESS,TRUE STORY :A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear. Ms Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.
'Would you mind telling me, Doctor,' she asked, 'how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?'
'Nothing is easier,' he replied. 'You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track..'
'What sort of question?' asked Pelosi.
“Well, you might ask, 'Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them.Which one?''
Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, 'You wouldn't happen to have another example would you? I must confess I don't know much about history.'They Drive, they breed, they vote.Be Afraid... BE VERY AFRAID!++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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The American worker had a comeback year in 2017 but you would never know if you depended upon the mass media for news.. Their mission is to entertain and rebuke Trump. (See 2 below.)
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Now who would have predicted that N Korea and Iran would form an alliance? (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)
Former Kremlin Foreign Policy Advisor Karaganov: We Are In A New More Perilous Cold War
Former Kremlin Foreign Policy Advisor Sergey Karaganov stated that the world is living in a new Cold War, which is worse than the previous one.[1] "Nowadays the risk of war is much greater than in the past. One of the reasons is that there is no system of agreements, no hot lines and no channels for consultation between the defense ministries. We have prevented a war in Europe by disrupting plans to involve Ukraine into Western alliances. If Ukraine had become a member of NATO, a war would have become unavoidable," said Karaganov.
He further stated that Russia and China are the "main providers of security" in the world today, explaining that China is providing economic security, while Russia is providing military-strategic security. According to Karaganov, Europe is becoming increasingly focused on itself, while America is destabilizing the world. He then added that multipolarity that Russia had vigorously promoted in order to destroy the unipolar American system is no longer a goal in itself. "Now it is just a transitional period in the history of international relations," said Karaganov.
Following are excerpts from Karaganov's interview:[2]
Sergey Karaganov (Source: Karaganov.ru)
Russia And China Are The Main Providers Of Security In The World Today
Q: "Do you think nuclear confrontation should be regarded as a positive factor that can prevent war?"
Karaganov: "When there are no channels of communication between major powers, and nuclear powers in general, this becomes extremely dangerous. This is why we are living through a much more dangerous period than ever before since the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Cuban Missile Crisis and after we were in constant touch with the United States, and there were only two global payers. Now there are many players, and it is necessary to think about how to create a system of consultations between nuclear powers, present and future, because it is absolutely clear to me that unless it perishes, North Korea will become a nuclear power, too. It is very likely to be followed by South Korea and subsequently by Japan. We must understand all this and get prepared.
Q: "Does your forecast mean an unlimited arms race?"
Karaganov: "Not necessarily. Nuclear weapons, on the one hand, stimulate an arms race, but on the other hand, they contain it. This is especially true of conventional weapons. The nuclear factor does not allow any country to gain a decisive advantage in conventional forces. A country that is stronger economically and militarily cannot use weapons limitlessly in order to achieve its political goals without facing the consequences of possible destructive retaliatory strike."
Q: "Indirectly this means that existing nuclear deterrence treaties between certain states are bad for global stability."
Karaganov: "No, they are not. Treaties play a stabilizing role. The problem is that they can fall apart one after another. And yet, the most important thing is stable ties between the military of nuclear powers, which are simply nonexistent at the moment. India and Pakistan are perhaps the most dangerous places on the planet from the point of view of possible use of nuclear weapons. As far as I know, the military of many nuclear powers lack such ties. The situation has degraded since the late period of the previous Cold War when we had a ramified system of consultations, communication and agreements, which reduced the risk of nuclear weapon use and big war in general almost to zero. Nowadays the risk of war is much greater than in the past. One of the reasons is that there is no system of agreements, no hot lines and no channels for consultation between the defense ministries. We have prevented a war in Europe by disrupting plans to involve Ukraine into Western alliances. If Ukraine had become a member of NATO, a war would have become unavoidable. People have become used to living without war and they think that this is how it will always be. But it may not be so all the time. There are new types of weapons that erase the watershed between nuclear and non-nuclear warfare. Cyber weapons have probably de facto become weapons of mass destruction. Certain players in North Korea may already have them, and terrorist organizations may get hold of them too. Cyber weapons are the cheapest weapons of the poor. But if they are used deftly, the consequences can be as disastrous as those from real weapons of mass destruction."
Q: "Is a new global armed confrontation inevitable? Or is it just one of the unlikely scenarios?"
Karaganov: "During the late Cold War such threats were virtually nonexistent. Naturally, when the Cold War ended, the level of threat went further down. But the West greedily decided to grab former Russian and Soviet assets. This unleashed a new Cold War between Russia and the West, which we are witnessing now. But it has also started between the United States and China, because the U.S. is tightening its grip on China, trying to prevent it from expanding its zone of influence in the Pacific."
Q: "What should Russia do in this situation?"
Karaganov: "We are not waiting it out. We and China are the main providers of security in the world today. We have warded off a war in Europe by upsetting plans on Ukraine. In Syria we have stopped, among other things, a series of color revolutions that had destabilized huge regions. China is providing economic security; we are providing military-strategic security. Unfortunately, there are almost no other security providers. Europe is getting increasingly focused on itself, while Americans are destabilizing the world in an apparent bid to shirk the responsibility they assumed, for they think that this responsibility costs them too dearly and imposes too many restrictions upon them.
Q: "In other words, we are doomed to always live on the edge of armed conflicts?"
Karaganov: "I do hope that we will not get involved in some of them. But if we choose to stay away entirely, conflicts themselves may come our way. So we cannot hold ourselves completely aloof. All of the existing world orders, except the one emerging in Greater Eurasia and pivoting around Russia and China, are crumbling. The liberal economic order established in the West after World War II and subsequently expanded to the rest of the world, is falling down. One of the reasons why this is happening is that the United States is politicizing foreign economic relations as it sees that this order is benefitting its competitors. We can see some sort of de-globalization taking place in the world. The so-called minor Atlantic order is beginning to come apart as the United States is withdrawing from Europe. The same is happening to the Middle Eastern order which was established by colonial powers. Things have been set in motion there again for objective reasons but also due to external interference. As for the so-called liberal world order, which ostensibly existed since 1945, this is not true. It emerged around 1991 when the West reigned supreme in all areas. But it was neither liberal that is free. Neither was it an order. All countries were expected to accept one model, one leader and one ideology. And it certainly was not an order because the West broke loose and committed one act of aggression after another. This happened also because Russia was weak and could not, or was not ready to deter the West. As a result, the West felt it could do whatever it wanted and go unpunished. This led to the tragic events in Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya, and many other less known activities. Russia is in fact consciously destroying that caricature of an order.
"This angers the West. But I think what is happening is a very important phenomenon. The world is moving towards an order where every country would have a freer choice and where sovereign states would be able to make their own decisions. Countries like Russia, China, Egypt, Brazil or India welcome these prospects. We are becoming new powers and can guarantee the status quo. But the West does not like this, and it is resisting that direction of the development of world affairs. This is perhaps the biggest cause of all tensions and hysterias in the world. I am far from stigmatizing the West as the main threat to the world, but I think there is no doubt that it is the West and its weakness that are the cause of many problems. This does not mean that things will always stay this way. The situation may change in the future and the West will reemerge on a completely new basis."
Q: "Do you agree with the statement made by a Valdai Club Chinese expert that global governance is lagging behind economic globalization?"
Karaganov: "I personally heard this idea stated by outstanding thinker Henri Kissinger twenty years ago. He said that the main problem of the world was that it was globalizing, while its governance was being nationalized, that is, deglobalized.He was absolutely right. It is a fact of life now. But stating the fact alone would not be enough. As I said, we are witnessing violation of all rules. This is why we should, first, start building something, and second, understand how dangerous the situation is. The danger lies at its core, in its very structure, regardless of whether someone does something or not. If such instability and such shifts are not regulated, they will create a large array of unpredictable risks."
Multipolarity Is Not A Goal In Itself
Q: Who will have the right to regulate a new world order? Will the hierarchy of states remain in this new world order?
Karaganov: "It will be a completely different hierarchy. If we live through this period without the horrors of war, we will see a new balance of power emerging some twelve or fifteen years from now. It will serve as the basis for building new relations. I think something is going to happen in Greater Eurasia where Russia and China will be the core states, joined by Europe or some part of it, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt. This does not mean that Greater Eurasia will not cooperate or maintain no contact with the United States. I think there will be two centers. But we have to wait, because something else may pop up as well. It is most important to understand that we are living in one of the most dangerous periods in history. We must give history a chance to continue."
Q: "Speaking at the Valdai Club, a representative of Egypt said that a multipolar world would be unstable and harder to manage. Does this mean that we are seeking to build a world that will be even more unstable than the present one?"
Karaganov: "I do not think that a multipolar world is ideal. The multipolar world concept emerged as a counterbalance to the unipolar world that allegedly existed in the 1990s and early 2000s. The world has in fact become multipolar, a world of chaos, where all are fighting all and establishing on-off relationships. But I think it should eventually become more stable, for example with the two centers I mentioned above. Multipolarity is not a goal in itself. It used to be. Now it is just a transitional period in the history of international relations."
Q: "European political scientists say that Europe should not be discarded and that it would persevere through its current hardships and emerge even stronger. Are they right?"
Karaganov: "A new world order will be based on a new military-political foundation. There will most likely be twelve nuclear states, as a minimum. This can hardly be called good news. If the nuclear deal with Iran is upset and pressure on Iran continues, Iran will create nuclear weapons too, followed by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the situation will remain extremely unstable in the next ten to fifteen years. Two centers are likely to emerge on this new military-political foundation. The Great Eurasian one will form around China's One Belt, One Road initiative, joined by Russia as a player in its own right and other countries. The other center will form around the United States. A European center is unlikely. There was a chance to create a major third center, Greater Europe, as we proposed. This could have been possible only if Russia and Europe pooled together and joined their strengths and capabilities. But this did not happen.
"The United States no longer needs Europe and it wants to focus on its own problems. It more and more often views Europe as a competitor, while Europe is less and less capable of addressing international problems and helping the U.S. So the United States is leaving. Europe is trying to cling to it but with no much success so far.
"I hope that Europe will become stronger in the future. Its real rise began only in the 16th century when, for a number of reasons, mainly military supremacy, it proposed and imposed its rules, values and system upon others. That period is over now. The European Union project is facing a crisis for a number of objective reasons, and I do not expect it to be able to resolve it in the next five, ten or fifteen years. The European Union in its present form no longer plays any significant role. But I do hope that Europe will overcome its current crisis in the future and will become strong, or individual European countries will once again become global players as they were just thirty years ago before they plunged into their current project."
Q: "What role do you foresee for Russia in a new world order in ten or fifteen years' time?"
Karaganov: "The road to a new world order will be long and thorny, but we must travel it. Let me say again: avoiding war is the most important thing. I think priority attention should be paid by all, including Russia, to avoiding war in the next fifteen years, thinking about the future and starting to build it together. Russia and the United States are trying to start something on international strategic stability, but their talks can be effective only if they are joined by other great powers, primarily China. If Russia does not fail, and I think it should not, it will once again be one of the three key global players. We are now in a very favorable situation due to historical reasons, primarily the shift of the global center to Asia and China's pivot to the West. We were out of luck for a long time, but it is back now."
[1]Sergey Karaganov is Dean of the School of World Economics and International Relations at the National Research University–Higher School of Economics. He is also Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
[2] Originally published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta on 22 October 2017. The article was then translated into English and posted on Karaganov.ru.
Posted By Tim Hains
Though the media has been loathe to report this fact, 2017 has been a banner year for the U.S. economy. An incredible comeback from President Obama's anemic non-recovery recovery. The Economist notes this week that blue collar wages are rising, as unemployment tumbles, wage growth among factory workers, drivers, and builders, now exceeds 4%. Theirs is growing faster than the wages of professionals and managers.
And when you dig deeper, there is even better news. The trades are thriving. Some building contractors are seeing their wages grow by double digits year over year. That is great news!
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3) Tillerson urges new steps to press N. Korea to abandon weapons programs
By REUTERS
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday strongly condemned North Korea's launch of an apparent intercontinental ballistic missile and urged the international community to take new steps to press Pyongyang to halt development of nuclear arms.
"In addition to implementing all existing UN sanctions, the international community must take additional measures to enhance maritime security, including the right to interdict maritime traffic" traveling to North Korea, Tillerson said in a statement.
Tillerson said the United States and Canada would convene a meeting of UN countries, including South Korea, Japan and other affected nations, to discuss "how the global community can counter North Korea's threat to international peace."
3a) High-Level Contacts Between North Korea and Iran Hint at Deeper Military Cooperation
PolicyWatch 2895Pyongyang has emerged as a critical partner in Tehran's 'Axis of Resistance,' and officials warn that their joint efforts may extend to weapons of mass destruction.High-level meetings between North Korean and Iranian officials in recent months are stoking concerns inside the U.S. government about the depth of military ties between the two American adversaries. In September, President Trump ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to conduct a fresh review of any potential bilateral nuclear collaboration. Yet officials in Washington, Asia, and the Middle East who track the relationship indicate that Pyongyang and Tehran have already signaled a commitment to jointly develop their ballistic missile systems and other military/scientific programs.North Korea has vastly expanded its nuclear and long-range missile capabilities over the past year, developing intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially target the western United States with nuclear warheads. Over the same period, U.S. intelligence agencies have spotted Iranian defense officials in Pyongyang, raising the specter that they might share dangerous technological advances with each other. "All of these contacts need to be better understood," said one senior U.S. official working on the Middle East. "This will be one of our top priorities."SUSPICIOUS MEETINGS
In early August, Kim Yong-nam, North Korea's number two political leader and head of its legislature, departed Pyongyang amid great fanfare for an extended visit to Iran. The official reason was to attend the inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani, but the length of the visit raised alarm bells in Washington and allied capitals. North Korean state media said the trip lasted four days, but Iranian state media said it was ten, and that Kim was accompanied by a large delegation of other top officials.
Kim had last visited Tehran in 2012 to attend a gathering of the Non-Aligned Movement, the Cold War-era body composed of developing nations that strived to be independent of Washington and the Kremlin. Yet he skipped most of the events associated with that conference, instead focusing on signing a bilateral scientific cooperation agreement with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to U.S. intelligence officials, that pact looked very similar to the one Pyongyang inked with Syria in 2002; five years later, Israeli jets destroyed a building in eastern Syria that the United States and UN believe was a nearly operational North Korean-built nuclear reactor. Notably, one of the Iranian officials who attended the 2012 gathering with Kim was Atomic Energy Organization chief Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who was sanctioned by Washington and the UN for his alleged role in nuclear weapons development.
Similarly, Kim's latest trip focused on more than just lending support to Rouhani, according to North Korean and Iranian state media. Kim and Vice Foreign Minister Choe Hui-chol inaugurated their country's new embassy in Tehran, a symbol of deepening ties between the two governments. They also held a string of bilateral meetings with foreign leaders, many from countries that have been significant buyers of North Korean weapons in recent decades (e.g., Zimbabwe, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Namibia). The Trump administration has been intensifying diplomatic pressure on all these countries to cut their economic and military ties with Pyongyang in response to the regime's barrage of nuclear and missile tests this year.
Regarding missile development, Iran and North Korea presented a united front against Washington during Kim's stay. Like Pyongyang, Tehran has moved forward with a string of ballistic missile tests in recent months, despite facing UN Security Council resolutions and condemnation by the Trump administration. After meeting with Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani on August 4, Kim declared, "Iran and North Korea share a mutual enemy [the United States]. We firmly support Iran on its stance that missile development does not need to be authorized by any nation."COVERT CONTACTS
The meetings that have gone unreported in state media are even more worrisome for allied governments. In recent years, U.S. and South Korean intelligence services have tracked a steady stream of Iranian and North Korean officials visiting each other in a bid to jointly develop their defense systems. Many of the North Koreans are from defense industries or secretive financial bodies that report directly to dictator Kim Jong-un, including Offices 39 and 99 of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.
Last year, U.S. authorities reported that missile technicians from one of Iran's most important defense companies, the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, had traveled to North Korea to help develop an eighty-ton rocket booster for ballistic missiles. One of the company's top officials, Sayyed Javad Musavi, has allegedly worked in tandem with the Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. (KOMID), which the United States and UN have sanctioned for being a central player in procuring equipment for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. For example, Shahid Hemmat has illegally shipped valves, electronics, and measuring equipment to KOMID for use in ground testing of space-launch vehicles and liquid-propellant ballistic missiles.POLICY IMPLICATIONS
North Korea has emerged as a critical partner in the alliance of states, militias, and political movements known as the "Axis of Resistance," which Tehran developed to challenge U.S. power in the Middle East. Pyongyang has served as an important supplier of arms and equipment to Iran's most important Arab ally, Syria's Assad regime, during the country's ongoing war. And Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have procured weapons from North Korea in their efforts to topple the internationally recognized government in Yemen, according to current and former U.S. officials.
Moreover, Kim Yong-nam's August trip appeared to have official support from Russia and China. On his way to Iran, he first flew to Vladivostok on Air Koryo, the North Korean airline that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned in December 2016 for financially aiding the Kim regime and its ballistic missile program. He then flew on to Tehran via Russia's state carrier, Aeroflot, passing through Chinese airspace.
Going forward, the most pressing question is whether a smoking gun will emerge proving direct nuclear cooperation between Iran and North Korea. The U.S. government and the International Atomic Energy Agency say they have yet to see such conclusive evidence. But Iranian opposition groups allege that senior regime officials have visited North Korea to observe some of its six nuclear weapons tests. Chief among these officials, they add, is Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian general whom the UN has accused of working closely with Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani on secret nuclear weapons research. Current and former U.S. intelligence officials say these accusations cannot be ruled out, so all known contacts between the two regimes need to be scrutinized closely.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Jay Solomon is the Segal Distinguished Visiting Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East.
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