I hadn't heard of this. If you find an article or a clip from Tucker on this, will check.
Chris Hedges: The Unraveling of the American Empire | Consortium News
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I hadn't heard of this. If you find an article or a clip from Tucker on this, will check.
I admit I have no counters to that.
I agree on Syria and Somalia. Not sure about Kosovo. Definitely think Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were collosal mistakes.
Strongly disagree with you there.
Where he mainly talked about American issues. Youtube's decision to delete it all made no sense. Hedges elaborates in an interview with Democracy Now:
“Disappeared”: Chris Hedges Responds to YouTube Deleting His 6-Year Archive of RT America Shows | democracynow.com
Based on your continued reference to the left here, I'm guessing you don't like leftists. I'm left on some issues, right on others. What I like about Hedges is he's anti war, which has become pretty rare on the mainstream left.
He wasn't forced to resign. Even Wikipedia covers this period of his life better:
**
Exit from the Times
In 2003, Hedges gave a commencement speech at the graduation ceremony for Rockford College in which he criticized the ongoing American invasion of Iraq.[43] His speech was received with boos, and his microphone was shut off three minutes after he began speaking.[44][45] Hedges had to end the commencement speech short because of the various student disruptions,[46] which included an additional microphone cut, foghorns,[47] and chants of "God Bless America."[45]
The New York Times criticized Hedges' statements and issued him a formal reprimand for "public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper's impartiality". Hedges cited this reprimand as a motivation for resigning from the Times in 2005.[48] In 2013 he said "Either I muzzled myself to pay fealty to my career, which on a personal sense would be to betray my father, or I spoke out and realized that my relationship with my employer was terminal. And so at that point I left before they got rid of me. But I knew that, you know, I wasn’t going to be able to stay".[49]
During the uncertainty following the loss of employment, Hedges was looking for posts to teach high school English classes.[3] In a 2008 interview, Hedges acknowledged that he ultimately had not struggled, adding that "every year since I left the Times, I’ve made at least twice the salary I made at the paper. So, in a way, I didn’t pay for it. And I have maintained what is most valuable to me, which is my integrity and my voice."[1]
**
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges
The American Experiment is already over, we were TKO'ed.....we simply have not hit the mat yet.
Civilizations usually fail primarily because of hubris....which we have in spades.
Buckle Up.
Interesting. I see the source of the source is this article:
People's Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actor Living off the Land to Evade Detection | Australian Cybersecurity Centre
Pretty bad. For anyone who just want to skip to the source article:
Evacuations Ordered in Pennsylvania After 40-Car Train Derails: Officials | The Epoch Times
I'm a bit skeptical of this one and don't want to go through the video. I tend to prefer articles.
A lot of talk of this suspect that they eventually re arrested, but they haven't named them. If there was actually hard evidence he'd done something, I suspect they would allow the suspects name to be printed. I suspect this is much ado about nothing.
Certainly a lot of the ones calling the shots in the U.S.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
And, it is a proof that Hedges has no idea what he's talking about to miss something so basic.
LBJ, a Democrat got us into Vietnam on a complete and known lie, the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Up through Kennedy, Vietnam was kept low key. Afghanistan was absolutely necessary after 9/11. What was Bush supposed to do, a cruise missile 'drive by' like Clinton used repeatedly? That wasn't going to work. Our mistake there was not wanting to take casualties early on. We should have gone in there and stomped the whole country into the ground Alexander the Great - style.
Iraq... Well, I suspect we'd have ended up going in eventually because Saddam was a major asshole and huge purveyor of terrorism support.
That he didn't consider Germany and Japan and chose 1941 says a lot about his lack of knowledge.
Probably because they were on RT, a Russian owned media outlet and with the Ukraine war and general sentiment towards Russia...
You'd be correct. The Left loves war so long as it aligns with their political views. Anyone sane would despise Leftists. They are the single most destructive force in the history of the world. They've murdered and killed more people than war, pestilence, disease, and privation have. They've caused widespread suffering. Hell, Mao alone killed upwards of a hundred million on his own in repressing China under a brutal Communist dictatorship. That should tell you something.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
Nothing lasts forever.
It's amazing that a nation of mongrels lasted this long.
It's amazing that a nation of mongrels lasted this long.
I thought a bit more of what Chris Hedges wrote. I'll quote the part you quoted from him again:
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There is not a single case since 1941 when the coups, political assassinations, election fraud, black propaganda, blackmail, kidnapping, brutal counter-insurgency campaigns, U.S. sanctioned massacres, torture in global black sites, proxy wars or military interventions carried out by the United States resulted in the establishment of a democratic government.
**
It looks like we both overlooked something. What war did the U.S. enter in 1941? World War II:
When, Why, and How did the United States enter WW2? The Date America Joins the Party | historycooperative.org
So Chris is saying that World War II was the last war the U.S. entered that resulted in a net positive effect.
We definitely agree on Vietnam.
Only if you believe that Osama bin Laden was actually responsible for 9/11. I haven't believed that since I started reading up on 9/11. Even the FBI has now admitted it had no hard evidence Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11:
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The 'FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'. Vice President Cheney says, 'We've never made the case, or argued the case, that somehow Osama Bin Laden was directly involved in 9/11'
**
Source:
FBI: Bin Laden Not Wanted for 9/11 | twf.org
I think the Bin Laden -family- was probably involved, along with Bush Sr. A bit on the Carlyle group, of which the Bin Laden family -and- Bush Sr. were members of:
**
Carlyle's 2001 investor conference took place on September 11, 2001. In the weeks following the meeting, it was reported that Shafiq bin Laden, a member of the Bin Laden family, had been the "guest of honor", and that they were investors in Carlyle managed funds.[20][21][22][23][24] Later reports confirmed that the Bin Laden family had invested $2 million into Carlyle's $1.3 billion Carlyle Partners II Fund in 1995, making the family relatively small investors with the firm. However, their overall investment might have been considerably larger, with the $2 million committed in 1995 only being an initial contribution that grew over time.[25] These connections would later be profiled in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911. The Bin Laden family liquidated its holdings in Carlyle's funds in October 2001, just after the September 11 attacks, when the connection of their family name to the Carlyle Group's name became impolitic.[26]
[snip]
In Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore makes nine allegations concerning the Carlyle Group.[90] Moore focused on Carlyle's connections with George H. W. Bush and his Secretary of State James Baker, both of whom had at times served as advisers to the firm. The movie quotes author Dan Briody, who claimed that the Carlyle Group "gained" from the September 11 attacks because it owned military contractor United Defense.[19] A Carlyle spokesman noted in 2003 that its 7% interest in defense industries was far less than several other private equity firms.[91]
In The World According to Bush, William Karel interviewed Frank Carlucci to discuss the presence of Shafiq bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's estranged brother, at Carlyle's annual investor conference while the September 11 attacks were occurring.[21][22][23]
**
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carlyle_Group
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Even there he's wrong. Grenada 1983, Dominican Republic 1965, Libya smackdown 1986, Invasion of Panama 1990 all had successful results and with the exception of Libya where we didn't physically invade, all resulted in democratic governments being installed replacing communist dictators or strongmen dictators. And, Hedges is wrong, clearly wrong.
From Wikipedia:
**
In 2006, a report of postwar findings by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that:
Postwar findings have identified only one meeting between representatives of al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime reported in prewar intelligence assessments. Postwar findings have identified two occasions, not reported prior to the war, in which Saddam Hussein rebuffed meeting requests from an al-Qa'ida operative. The Intelligence Community has not found any other evidence of meetings between al'Qa'ida and Iraq.[2]
The same report also concluded that:
Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaeda and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaeda to provide material or operational support.[2]
The result of the publication of the Senate report was the belief that the entire connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda was an official deception based on cherry picking specific intelligence data that bolstered the case for war with Iraq regardless of its reliability. One instance of this reaction was reported in a BBC news article, which stated:
Opposition Democrats are accusing the White House of deliberate deception. They say the revelation undermines the basis on which the US went to war in Iraq.[3]
**Source:
Timeline of Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy allegations | Wikipedia
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
Al Qaeda was hardly the be-all, end-all of terrorist groups...
Saddam Hussein's Support for International Terrorism
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect5.html
The truth about Saddam and terrorism
https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/the-truth-about-saddam-and-terrorism-2/
Terrorism Havens: Iraq
Has Iraq sponsored terrorism?
Yes. Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship provided headquarters, operating bases, training camps, and other support to terrorist groups fighting the governments of neighboring Turkey and Iran, as well as to hard-line Palestinian groups. During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam commissioned several failed terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the State Department listed Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism. The question of Iraq’s link to terrorism grew more urgent with Saddam’s suspected determination to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which Bush administration officials feared he might share with terrorists who could launch devastating attacks against the United States.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/terrorism-havens-iraq
So, while Saddam and al Qaeda weren't acting together, or particularly closely connected, there were plenty of other serious terrorist groups across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and even in Europe that were getting support from him.
The question could become this: We don't go into Iraq. Saddam remains in power. We do drive al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. They, in part seeking a safe haven move to Iraq. Now what?
...the military industrial media complex strikes again. From Democracy Now's article:
**
AMY GOODMAN:
[snip]
For more, we’re joined in New York by Chris Hedges, who is just back from London as a guest at the wedding of the imprisoned WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and his partner, now wife, Stella Moris. We’ll talk more about that in a minute. But first, Chris, you wrote a piece headlined “On Being Disappeared” about having your RT show’s archive completely deleted, saying, “If this happens to me, it can happen to you, to any critic anywhere who challenges the dominant narrative.” Chris Hedges, can you lay out what happened?
CHRIS HEDGES:
There was no notice. There was no warning. There was no inquiry. It just vanished. It’s not surprising. I think if you go back and look at the 2017 director of national intelligence report, seven pages were devoted to RT. And while they accused RT of disseminating Russian propaganda, all the examples that they cited in that report were that RT was giving a voice to Black Lives Matter activists, anti-fracking activists, Occupy activists, third-party candidates — all of which was true. And so, I think this was the culmination. We expected it.
I was on your show, by the way, when they deleted Trump from the social media, and vigorously opposed it, not because I ever want to read another tweet by Donald Trump, but because we don’t want these opaque entities — and they know everything about us, we know nothing about them — to wield this kind of censorship. What I didn’t expect when I was arguing not to delete Trump from social media was that I would so quickly be one of the victims.
**
The American military industrial complex which is being massively out produced by Russia, which is still in mid ramp up.
The Americans have a lot of yap, but that is about all they have other than the ability to suck up a lot of money.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
So? Unless Hedges has something on who did it, the above amounts to irrelevant whining on his part.