Links for Friday, September 20
An American coup? Plus Israel-Gaza news and climate thoughts.
A couple of shockers below. Plus music, of course.
Links
An American coup? How many will climate collapse kill? Read on.
Israel-Gaza
• The cold comfort of a military coup (Nate Wilcox at IanWelsh.net)
Prepare for a surprise. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former aid to Gen. Colin Powell, said this on Judge Napolitano’s show:
I’ve been told by fairly reliable sources that (Sec of State Anthony) Blinkin and (National Security Advisor Jake) Sullivan… Blinkin primarily but Sullivan too, have been sidetracked.
What’s happened is the Pentagon has taken over diplomacy as well as any action militarily speaking with regard to both theaters of war and so they’re now in charge.
I have to change my evaluation of (Defence Secretary Lloyd) Austin if that’s the case because it means he listened finally to the people in the bowels of the Pentagon who know the truth. He’s reacting to that.
This looks like a coup, at least in this particular. The President has apparently backed down on his two-front hawkishness. Adds Wilcox:
I’m generally not the type to root for a military takeover of deciding diplomatic and military matters. But the level of callow brinksmanship paired with epic cluelessness that has characterized Team Biden’s foreign policy has me greatly relieved by this Pentagon takeover (if true).
If this happens a few more times, we’ll know that we’ve changed the Constitution-as-practiced yet again, and the Pentagon, one of our two Praetorian Guards, is now an independent player in policy decisions. I’ll be expanding on these thoughts shortly. Stay tuned.
By the way, there’s a connection from this to the second Jeffrey Sachs comment below. The dots are so close, they almost don’t need connecting.
File under “MacArthur, you won.”
• “The U.S. was not involved” in the pager incident (Matt Miller, State Dept, via Twitter)
Click through for the video and detail, but the words above say it all.
File under “Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Matt Miller’s too.”