I flunked miserably yesterday when asked to explain what this current generation’s “Best and Brightest” think they are doing in messing with the One-China policy that has kept the peace for 50 years.
We led off with Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei; Duckworth said the purpose was to “emphasize our support for Taiwan security”. Tsai went further in spelling this out:
“The U.S. Department of Defense is now proactively planning cooperation between the U.S. National Guard and Taiwan’s defense forces; we are looking forward to closer and deeper Taiwan-U.S. cooperation on matters of regional security.”
I sidestepped a question as to whether U.S. China policy is devised and run by lunatics.
On second thought, Biden’s foreign policy advisers Blinken and Sullivan, for example, seems to represent the same species of lunatic we’ve seen before.
I am thinking, of course, of what used to be called WASPS. That was one acronym/moniker used to describe the privileged, white, Ivy-mantled species of lunatic — like McGeorge Bundy and Walter Rostow — “exceptional people” — the kind who left three million Vietnamese dead only five decades ago. It turned out that their brand of exceptionalism-tinged-with-hubris could not even entertain the notion of being defeated by what were called “bare-footed brown feet in pajamas” — and communists, to boot!
A Light video on dark media With The Grayzone’s Blumenthal, Mate, and Ray
I was a recent guest on The Grayzone to discuss the bizarre rise and fall of Department of Homeland Security’s short-lived ‘Minister of Truth’ Nina Jankowicz. Included are her baseless attacks on The Grayzone, as well as recent attempts by state-backed “counter-disinformation” operations to censor The Grayzone, Ray, and others who dare to speak truth at variance with Establishment narratives.
Russia or China? The U.S. Has a Choice to Make. By Zachary Karabell, May 30, 2022
Full Disclosure: Mr. Karabell is the founder of The Progress Network and the author of “Inside Money: Brown Brothers Harriman and the American Way of Power.” He is a former portfolio manager of the China-U. S. Growth Fund with Fred Alger Management.
Biden Says We’ve Got Taiwan’s Back. But Do We? By Oriana Skylar Mastro, May 27, 2022
What more to say? I dug the following piece out from 12 years ago, when anti-war progressives were acting against “forever wars” — whether run by Republicans or Democrats. Below that, I add a Ferner Footnote, with observations by Former Veterans For Peace President Mike Ferner, who drives home the point that a parade is not a protest. More is required.
Thoughts at the White House Fence
By Ray McGovern
December 20, 2010
“Show me your company, and I’ll tell you who you are,” my grandmother would often say with a light Irish lilt but a heavy emphasis, an admonition about taking care in choosing what company you keep.
Daniel Ellsberg and Ray
On Thursday, I could sense her smiling down through the snow as I stood pinned to the White House fence with Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, Margaret Flowers, Medea Benjamin, Coleen Rowley, Mike Ferner, Jodie Evans, and over 125 others risking arrest in an attempt to highlight the horrors of war.
The witness was sponsored by Veterans for Peace, a group comprised of many former soldiers who have “been there, done that” regarding war, distinguishing them from President Barack Obama who, like his predecessor, hasn’t a clue what war is really about.
(Sorry, Mr. President, donning a bomber jacket and making empty promises to the troops in the middle of an Afghan night does not qualify.)
The simple but significant gift of presence was being offered outside the White House. As I hung on the fence, I recalled what I knew of the results of war.
Into view came some of my closest childhood friends — like Bob, whose father was killed in WWII when Bob was in kindergarten. My uncle Larry, an Army chaplain, killed in a plane crash.
Other friends like Mike and Dan, whose big brothers were killed in Korea. So many of my classmates from Infantry Officers Orientation at Ft. Benning killed in the Big Muddy called Vietnam.
My college classmate with whom I studied Russian, Ed Krukowski, 1Lt, USAF, one of the very first casualties of Vietnam, killed, leaving behind a wife and three small children. Other friends, too numerous to mention, killed in that misbegotten war.
More recently, Casey Sheehan and 4,429 other U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq, and the 491 U.S. troops killed this year in Afghanistan (bringing that total to 1,438). And their mothers. And the mothers of all those others who have died in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Mothers don’t get to decide; only to mourn.
A pure snow showered down as if to say blessed are the peacemakers. Tears kept my eyes hydrated against the cold.
The hat my youngest daughter knit for me three years ago when I had no hair gave me an additional sense of being showered with love and affirmation. There was a palpable sense of rightness in our witness to the witless policies of the White House behind the fence.
I thought to myself, this White House is a far cry from the Camelot White House that brought me to Washington, 47 years ago. Still, I found myself borrowing a song from the play, Camelot: “I wonder what the king is doing tonight. What merriment is the king pursuing tonight…”
Perhaps strutting before a mirror in his leather bomber jacket, practicing rhetorical flourishes for the troops, like, “You are making our country safer.” The opposite, of course, is true, and if President Obama does not know that, he is not as smart as people think he is.
More accurately, the troops are making Obama’s political position safer, protecting him from accusations of “softness” on Afghanistan, just as the troops spared George W. Bush from the personal ignominy of presiding over an obvious American defeat in Iraq.
Both presidents were willing to sacrifice those troops on the altar of political expediency, knowing full well that it is not American freedom that “they” hate, but rather U.S. government policies, which leave so many oppressed, or dead.
Despite our (Veterans for Peace) repeated requests over many months, Obama has refused to meet with us. On Wednesday, though, he carved out five hours to sit down with many of the fat cat executives who are profiteering from war.
It seems the President was worried that he had hurt the fat cats’ feelings – and opened himself to criticism as being “anti-business” – with some earlier remarks about their obscenely inflated pay.
Before our witness on Thursday, we read in the Washington Post that Obama told the 20 chief executives, “I want to dispel any notion we want to inhibit your success,” and solicited ideas from them “on a host of issues.”
‘The Big Fool Said to Push On’
In another serendipitous coincidence, as we were witnessing against the March of Folly in Afghanistan, the President was completing his “review” of the war and sealing the doom of countless more soldiers and civilians (and, in my view, his own political doom by re-enacting the Shakespearean tragedy of Lyndon the First).
Afraid to get crossways with the military brass, who see no backbone under that bomber jacket, Obama has missed another exit ramp out of Afghanistan by letting the policy review promised for this month become a charade.
Hewing to the script of “Lyndon the First,” Barack Obama has chosen to shun the considered views of his intelligence agencies, which, to their credit, show in no uncertain terms the stupidity of getting U.S. troops neck-deep in this latest Big Muddy in Afghanistan — to borrow from Pete Seeger’s song from the Vietnam era.
There is one reality upon which there is virtually complete consensus as highlighted by the U.S. intelligence agencies: The U.S. and NATO will not be able to “prevail” in Afghanistan if Pakistan does not stop supporting the Taliban. Are we clear on that? That’s what the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan says.
A companion NIE on Pakistan says there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that the Pakistani Army and security services will somehow “change their strategic vision” regarding keeping the Taliban in play for the time when the United States and its NATO allies finally leave Afghanistan and when Pakistan will want to reassert its influence.
Should it be too hard to put the two NIEs together and reach the appropriate conclusions for policy?
It is difficult to believe that – after going from knee-deep to waist-deep in the Big Muddy by his early 2009 decision to insert 21,000 troops into Afghanistan, and then from waist-deep to neck-deep by deciding a year ago to send in 30,000 more — Obama would say to “push on.”
The answer lies in a spineless persistence behind this fool’s errand, driven by fear of offending other important Washington constituencies, such as the neoconservative opinion-makers, and having to face the wrath of the much-bemedaled Gen. David Petraeus.
“When will we ever learn,” mourns another Vietnam-era song.
Well, we have learned — many of us the hard way. We need to tell the big fool not to be so afraid of neocon columnists and Petraeus’s medals — you know, the ten rows that made him so lopsided that they must have contributed to his famous slumping down on the witness table before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
So, outside the White House on Thursday, we found ourselves singing “We Shall Overcome” with confidence. And what we learned later of other witnesses that same day provided still more grit and determination.
For example, 75 witnesses braved freezing temperatures at the Times Square recruiting station in New York to express solidarity with our demonstration in Washington.
There in Times Square were not only Veterans for Peace, but grandmothers from the Granny Peace Brigade, the Raging Grannies, and Grandmothers Against the War. Two of the grandmothers were in their 90s, but stood for more than an hour in the cold.
The Catholic Worker, War Resister League and other anti-war groups were also represented.
What? You didn’t hear about any of this, including the arrest of 135 veterans and other anti-war activists in front of the White House? Need I remind you of the Fawning Corporate Media and how its practitioners have always downplayed or ignored protests, large or small, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?
A Rich Tradition
Civil Disobedience was Henry David Thoreau’s response to his 1846 imprisonment for refusing to pay a poll tax that violated his conscience. Thoreau was protesting an earlier war of aggression, the U.S. attack on Mexico.
In Civil Disobedience, Thoreau asked:
“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.
“It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.”
Imprisonment was Thoreau’s first direct experience with state power and, in typical fashion, he analyzed it:
“The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”
Prior to his arrest, Thoreau had lived a quiet, solitary life at Walden, an isolated pond in the woods about a mile and a half from Concord. He returned to Walden to mull over two questions: (1) Why do some men obey laws without asking if the laws are just or unjust; and, (2) why do others obey laws they think are wrong?
More recent American prophets have thrown their own light on the crises of our time while confronting the questions posed by Thoreau.
Amid the carnage of Vietnam, Fr. Daniel Berrigan, SJ, posed a challenge to those who hoped for peace without sacrifice, those who would say, “Let us have peace but let us loose nothing. Let our lives stand intact; let us know neither prison nor ill repute nor disruption of ties.”
Berrigan saw no such easy option. “There is no peace,” he said, “because the making of peace is at least as costly as the making of war — at least as liable to bring disgrace and prison.”
So, if the making of peace today means prison, that’s where we need to be. It is time to accept our responsibility to do ALL we can to stop the violence of wars waged in our name. Now it’s our turn to ponder those questions.
As Memorial Day approaches, then-National President of Veterans For Peace Mike Ferner, who, like the rest of us, was dragged off the White House fence on Dec. 16, 2010, reminds us that A Parade Is Not a Protest. More is required of us.
Mike Ferner. Photo courtesy of AP.
Mike laments that eight years before the snowy action described above (so, 20 years ago!), in huge marches before the U.S./UK invasion of Iraq, “we had the streets”. What we needed to do was sit down and block them. But only a dozen marchers broke their stride and joined the sit-down Mike had called for (and sat).
Mike Ferner: “It is magical thinking that simply walking and carrying a sign would end the war; what is required today is tens of thousands of people caring enough to get arrested and stopping ‘business as usual’ in its tracks”.
Suggestion for Memorial Day: Confront a War Criminal (there are plenty of them to choose from; pick one near you) Ex-CIA officer Ray McGovern on confronting war criminals The Gray Zone, May 27, 2022 (9 minutes)
(on The Critical Hour, May 27, 2022 — with UPDATE below)
By Ray McGovern
Scott and I focused initially on President Biden’s just-completed Excellent Adventure in the Far East and the U.S. effort to woo countries away from China or, at least, pre-empt closer bilateral ties.
I again posed the question (see my brief talk Thursday, embedded in https://raymcgovern.com/2022/05/27/why-is-win-win-a-no-no/ ), Why must China’s “win-win” approach be dismissed out of hand — especially when it was so mutually beneficial 50 years ago in reducing tension and keeping the peace?
Recent developments, including talks with Chinese officials, have fortified Scott’s view that China remains extremely reluctant to go to war over Taiwan. Nevertheless, China will do so “in a heartbeat” if Taiwan declares independence and develops a more substantial military relationship with the U.S.
Bottom line: Scott predicts that the U.S. will be at war with China within six months to a year — and will lose. This could be avoided if the U.S. takes the military aspect out of the equation in confronting China and does the sensible thing in limiting the competition to the economic sphere.
Ray discussed the lemming-like bloc heads now leading the NATO bloc and compared them to statesmen and stateswomen of the past — the German Social Democratic Party’s Willy Brandt and Egon Bahr, for example; and Angela Merkel (no Socialist she), who told President Obama to his face that Germany would not join any effort to send offensive arms to Ukraine. Sadly, serious leaders of the past, experienced in foreign affairs as well as politics, have been replaced by political hacks with little or no experience (or even interest) in Ostpolitik, which yielded a peaceful, mutually beneficial detente in the 1970-80s.
The economic sanctions are already making themselves felt, however, in Germany and elsewhere. And there are preliminary signs that even some bloc-head lemmings may be having serious second thoughts. Fissures are cracking open and expanding among the NATO countries — particularly among those most affected by the sanctions.
Scott reiterated his longstanding view that Russian forces will prevail on the ground in Ukraine, adding that recently they have been performing in a very impressive, professional way. This, despite what the NY Times and Washington Post has been saying, (and even their narrative of Russian “blundering” has begun to change under the force of circumstances). One major question: If Establishment media find themselves forced to acknowledge strong Russian advances in the coming weeks, will they turn on the Biden administration as the mid-term November elections draw near? Snippets of truth have begun to appear in the likes of the NY Times and Washington Post.
The way things have evolved on the ground, serious embarrassment may be unavoidable. Will Biden cut his loses? I suggest the answer to that is No. Rather, with no adults in the room, Biden may instead be persuaded to up the ante (see below). I do hope someone tells the president that the Russians will not back down in the face of escalatory steps they are capable of neutralizing, and that this includes what they call “offensive strike missiles” capable of reaching Russia.
One key weapons system under discussion is the U.S.-made Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) capable of firing a torrent of rockets 180 miles or more. This is much farther than the systems currently in Ukraine’s inventory, and could put Russia itself within range. This system has been sitting atop the long list of requests from Ukrainian officials, who say it is needed to curb advancing Russian forces in the Donbas. U.S. officials reportedly “have concerns” that Ukrainian forces might end up firing into Russian territory, causing major escalation.
“I think it could be a game-changer”, Crow** said, not only for offensive attacks but also for defense. He explained that Russian conventional artillery, which has a range of about 50km, “would not get close” to Ukrainian urban centers if MLRS systems were positioned there. “So it would take away their siege tactics,” he said of the Russians.
The Kremlin has warned that any country providing advanced weaponry to Ukraine will face harsh repercussions. Yesterday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the West has “declared total war” against Russia. The Russians would see any attempt to provide MLRS to Ukraine as additional proof of the West’s intent.
I would expect any MLRS that make it into Ukraine to be neutralized as soon as they are detected. And then Lockheed Martin (poor thing) would have to manufacture and sell still more! The money is there; the only problem is how fast it can be spent down. And so it goes.
** Jason Crow styles himself as something of a specialist on Russia. He has asserted that: “Vladimir Putin wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night trying to figure out how to destroy American democracy.”
Being Human vs Being Insane A short talk by Ray McGovern, May 26, 2022
Since earlier speakers at yesterday’s on-line international conference “The Insanity of Politicians Threatens Nuclear War” took a more traditional approach, I decided it might be time for what Germans call eine Denkpause, a pause to think about ‘what fools we mortals be’.
I suggested giving some thought to broader questions: Might there be another way? Why can’t we all just get along?
To put some gravitas behind this approach, I called on a bunch of old friends — an unlikely congeries of ‘Denkers’, some of whom have influenced my own thinking. Here is a link to my 18 minutes of prepared (well, sort of prepared) remarks: https://youtu.be/8Dt9D_D_U4U?t=4953
The full conference can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/8Dt9D_D_U4U (my initial Spiel can be seen between minutes 1:22:33 to 1:42:00).
To set the tone, I borrowed an insight from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery; namely, human connections are what matter most; that it is only with the heart, not just the eye, that one can see rightly; that most adults have difficulty doing this. And I added the reality that people with little pigment in their skin still tend to see themselves as exceptional.
Included among the dramatis personae enlisted to expand de Saint-Exupery’s insight:
— Presidents Biden, to Xi, to Putin — Humanist Kurt Vonnegut, to Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount — Daniel Berrigan, to Theilhard de Chardin
To conclude my brief talk, I chose a line from Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy written in 1785, at the same time our Founders were declaring — like Schiller — that all men are created equal. Even then, of course, with their limited vision (and crass economic interest in preserving slavery), the Founders’ declarations and behavior were far from inclusive.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s speech on China yesterday reminds us that, in the view of Washington and the U.S.-led White West, people of color who comprise some three-quarters of the world’s population are, in effect, still not deemed to be “brothers” (or sisters) of whites today.
Ironically, the way that the “world correlation of forces” has evolved, the White West has become “exceptional” indeed — but in a wholly new and detrimental way. Hubris-tinged exceptionalism has reduced the lily-white West to a distinct minority — a minority that, short of nuclear war, is no longer able to work its will on the rest of the world, as was the case ‘back in the day’.
President Biden needs to invite into the room some adults able to see this, and to tell him how exceptionally (no pun intended) dangerous it would be to proceed as though nothing has changed.
In any case, Schiller (and Beethoven) had the right idea:
Alle Menschen werden Brüder — All men are brothers (from An die Freude)
Younger readers/listeners may ask, who is Robert Scheer? He certainly deserves a full introduction, but I will keep it short. A fearless journalist in the tradition of I.F. Stone and Sy Hersh, Scheer was one of the earliest and boldest to see Vietnam as tragic fiasco, and to call it like it was. He poured his considerable energy and gifts into reporting on Vietnam (and similar U.S. policy fiascos) in Ramparts magazine and other media. He was one of the deepest, most painful thorns in the side of an Establishment that, though Neck Deep in the Big Muddy, kept pushing on, leaving millions dead.
Later, Scheer wrote for The Los Angeles Times and taught at UCLA. He was also a Fellow in Arms Control at Stanford. He is the son of immigrants, who worked in the garment industry. Scheer was born and raised in The Bronx (two miles from where I grew up). He has written nine books and now runs “Scheer Intelligence”.
Robert Scheer asked to interview John Kiriakou and me to hear us comment on our personal experiences working alongside “scoundrels”. It should go without saying that not all of our former co-workers were scoundrels. There were enough of them in senior posts, though, to grease the skids for things like wars of aggression and what Nuremberg called the “accumulated evil” flowing from such wars — think torture, for example. None of the torturers were held to account. One was made CIA director. John Kiriakou resisted being trained in torture techniques, and eventually blew the whistle on torture. He was “rewarded” by being sent off to prison for two years (a long but compelling story).
Kiriakou
Discussing operational intelligence relations with Russia after the USSR fell apart, John Kiriakou reminded us that there were extremely promising prospects for bilateral cooperation in key areas — counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics, to mention just two. According to John, several initiatives toward that kind of cooperation ran aground on U.S, intelligence’s insistence on treating the Russians as mentees — not as equals. In wider perspective, John reminded us that both Yeltsin and Putin asked to join NATO and were rebuffed. U.S. arms manufacturers and dealers need an enemy to “justify” obscene expenditures on weapons (and sharing a slice of their profiteering with congressional candidates, who then can be counted on to appropriate still more money for “defense”).
Commenting on the culture at CIA, John expressed some wonderment at hearing gratuitous comments regarding “our most evil enemy, Russia”, long after the Soviet Union disintegrated and its successor posed little, if any, strategic threat. (The CIA is in no less need of a credible threat than the rest of the MICIMATT — the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence–Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, of which the U.S. intelligence establishment has become an integral part. Not to mention the pivotal role played by the corporate media — the acronym’s middle “M’ — which is owned and operated by co-conspirators to its left and right on MICIMATT.)
At Scheer’s request, John Kiriakou provided examples of the trouble he has encountered trying to get his books (he’s just completed his 8th) cleared by agency censors for publication. It is a little like Kafka.
McGovern
I didn’t take notes on what I said. I do remember trying to explain that what the Soviets used to call “the world correlation of forces” had markedly changed — actually, a tectonic change caused by the surprisingly close alliance between Russia and China. (It is not possible to exaggerate its importance.) Biden’s benighted advisers still don’t seem to “get it”, even after the embarrassingly incompetent misstep last June, when Biden apparently commiserated with Putin over Russia being “squeezed” by China (sic)!
RIP, Unipolar World. Amid all the talk of an emerging “multipolar” world, I suggested it might be more instructive to use “bipolar” — in both senses of the word! In the political sense, what is emerging is (1) a lily-white West against (2) people of color (the great majority). Russia has been painted so thoroughly black over recent years (with Russia-gate and all the rest), that even a hot soapy bath would fail to remove all the paint. So it can fit in nicely alongside people of color — in China, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, for example.
Indeed, it should be clear by now that rhetorical points about how isolated Russia has become after the invasion of Ukraine are illusory. Moreover, as economic sanctions begin to bite harder and harder, most of the world seems likely to assign primary blame to lily-white NATO, not Russia. (Since Biden took office, I have grown more and more convinced that his economic advisers are on a par with those who advise on foreign policy. This is not a compliment.)
I also talked a bit about the increasing danger of nuclear war and the nonchalance — and surrealism — with which that existential issue is being addressed by policy makers and pseudo-savants in Washington. Take this syllogism, for example:
1 — The U.S. does not want nuclear war.
2 — Putin might resort to nukes to stave off defeat in Ukraine.
3 — Ergo: The U.S. must defeat Putin in Ukraine.
Smart?
I hope you find the interview informative. I was a pleasure being on with John and Robert.
Gen. MacArthur’s Intelligence Chief scoffed at Zhou Enlai’s repeated warnings that China would enter the Korean War if US forces went into the North. Ray discusses, on The Critical Hour, the danger of scoffing this time around amid fresh Chinese warnings, as Biden begins benighted trip to Far East.
On May 16, just before I was interviewed for The Critical Hour, Putin addressed Finland’s and Sweden’s plans to join NATO, using words far milder than had most expected:
“Russia has no problems with these states. There is no direct threat to Russia in connection with NATO’s expansion to these countries.”
Then, the kicker:
“But the expansion of NATO’s military infrastructure to these territories will certainly evoke a response on our part. We will see what it will be like based on the threats that are created for us.”
So Who’s Already Got ‘NATO’s Military Infrastructure’?
The interview with The Critical Hour, provided an opportunity to underscore what the Russians seems to fear the most — the emplacement of what they call “offensive strike missiles” in sites near Russia’s border. In other words, THAT kind of “military infrastructure”. For several years Putin has complained that so-called “ABM” sites already completed in Romania and almost complete in Poland can be converted overnight into launchers for “offensive strike missiles” — Tomahawk cruise missiles, for example, and, later, hypersonic ones.
A major concern, of course, is warning time; that is, the shrinking minutes from the missile launch to target.
After Presidents Biden and Putin talked by telephone on Dec. 30, 2021, the Kremlin readout included this:
“Joseph Biden emphasized … that Washington had no intention of deploying offensive strike weapons in Ukraine.”
No one challenged that readout at the time. Does anyone know why/how that that key point made by Biden fell into the cracks? We are talking here about one president’s direct personal assurance to the other. The key role played by trust (or distrust) can hardly be exaggerated.
The following short video clip from 2015 provides a sense of how frustrated Putin has been, in trying to get people (in this case Western journalists) to put themselves in his shoes. You may wish to click on the two-and-a-half minute segment — from minute 10:20 to 12:55 — at the following link ( https://raymcgovern.com/2017/02/15/ray-puts-anti-missile-defense-in-45-year-perspective/ )
Erdogan Opposed to Finland, Poland in NATO
It takes a unanimous vote by all 30 NATO countries to accept new members. So one big question is whether Turkey’s President Erdogan will relent and acquiesce in Finland and Poland joining the alliance. Hard to predict, but my guess is that NATO will sweeten the pot enough for Erdogan that he will let himself be bought off. I referred the interviewers to a Tweet I had posted earlier in the day, suggesting that, even though Turkey once faced down the U.S. (on Iraq), I would not bet much on Erdogan facing down the immense pressure on this one. But who knows?
Will Turkey’s Erdogan be bought off on Finland & Sweden membership in NATO? 19 yrs ago when Turkey saw the US/UK March of Folly into Iraq for what it was, it summoned the guts to say NO to an axis of attack from the north. Smart money says he’ll let himself be seduced this time.
