Wow!

Leave town for a while and all hell breaks out, although I suppose that’s to be expected when we’re living through the the Raging Twenties.

Historically an October Surprise occurs when when one of our political parties utilizes a foreign policy event to change the election trajectory but with both Republicans and Democrats committed to the proxy war in Ukraine and ironclad support for Israeli genocide it’s hard to see any surprise. Neither candidate talk about why we are engaged at all in conflicts that could have been resolved in various ways very early on and there is a certain similarity in how Democrats and Republicans respond to the fighting: both tend to support both Ukraine and Israel with only minor objections to some details in what is taking place. Both parties regard cooperating with Volodymyr Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu as unshakable rock-solid foreign relationships.

The most famous October Surprise took place in 1980, when Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager William Casey conspired with several senior CIA officers in Europe to convince the Iranian government to delay the release of the American Embassy hostages until after the November election against Jimmy Carter. Since that time “October Surprise” has become shorthand for playing a political dirty trick shortly before the election to directly impact negatively on a candidate’s credibility or ability to respond to problems.

What certainly won’t be mentioned in the upcoming presidential election is the rapid decline of the American empire and the strategy of savagery and terror embraced as its modus-vivendi. The last twelve months have demolished any notion of Western morality, with the US and European active backing of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the terrorist pager-attack and Israel’s carefully planned assassination campaign against Hezbollah’s military leadership in Lebanon, including Hassan Nasrallah with 2000 pound bunker-busters. 

US officials are not shy in displaying their savagery, with representatives, officials and defense intellectuals rejoicing at Israel’s assassinations and terrorist pager attack. “I don’t think anyone is mourning the loss of Hassan Nasrallah,” John Kirby, the Biden regime’s national-security spokesman, told Jake Tapper on CNN last weekend. “Having decimated the command structure of Hezbollah is good for the region, good for the world.”

The hypocrisy is stunning. Ask yourself how a similar attack targeting Americans would have been depicted? Yet the rejoicing reflects a pernicious perspective that seems nearly ubiquitous in the Western post-democracies, where we’re in the garden while our enemies live in the jungle. Moreover, if you oppose the Israel’s campaign of genocide and ethnic-cleansing, you stand with terrorists.

The most important thing to remember about the period we’re living in is that we’re in a transition between world orders. We’re exiting US hegemony and entering an new order. However, the US refuses this reorder and the Pentagon’s vast killing machine along with its proxies, will continue to bomb, assassinate and murder – mostly civilians, unarmed women and children, who will be depicted as terrorists by the corporate media.

Since 9/11 Americans have been indoctrinated to view US actions as a war on terror but using terrorism as an excuse to kill civilians is terrorism. America’s rabid attack-dog, Israel maintains the  Dahiyeh Doctrine, where in response to any attack the Israelis bomb and kill numerous civilians.

What’s humorous is that the corporate media, which is largely in the tank for Team Blue, depicts the Biden Administration as seeking peace. “Democrats increasingly suspect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to interfere in U.S. domestic politics by ignoring President Biden’s calls to negotiate a peace deal in Gaza and by confronting Hezbollah and Iran weeks before the U.S. election. The rapidly escalating confrontation between Israel, Hezbollah and Hezbollah’s ally, Iran, has undercut Biden’s efforts to achieve peace through diplomacy.”

The reality is that the Biden administration has dropped any pretense that the United Sates is not directly involved in a conflict that, like the proxy-war in Ukraine, has the potential to spiral into a nuclear exchange. Contrary to all the rah-rah triumphalism, I believe that Biden’s decision to provide “unconditional” support for Israel’s apartheid regime has put the US on a suicidal trajectory that will undermine America’s global interests while accelerating the emergence of multipolar world order.

Unfortunately, in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon the Biden administration has reportedly deployed a significant number of fighter jets—including squadrons of F-15E, F-16, A-10, and F-22’s—to assist Israel in its attempt to overpower Hezbollah and cut a path to the Litani River. Biden has also sent thousands of additional troops to the region to “bolster security and…. defend Israel if necessary.”

After Iran’s recent ballistic missile strike on Israel Joe Biden stated: “Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel…” And just today here’s what Biden said when asked about Israeli attempts to sway the election. “No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None, none, none, and I think Bibi should remember that.”

The Democrats used to be the political party that at least pretended to oppose war and the excesses of empire but after the election of Donald Trump and Russia-gate those days are a quaint relic of a bygone era. And lest you think this belligerence is confined to the Biden Administration, Kamala Harris and her campaign have welcomed the endorsement of despicable war criminal–Dick Cheney–and his demon-spawn daughter Liz.

Update: While an October Surprise might not be in the cards perhaps there could be a November one? An Israeli false flag attack, possibly after the U.S. presidential election, for instance on a NATO vessel or on U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, to lock up the new administration into the long-planned U.S. war on Iran. The idea will be to draw the United States into the conflict to do the real fighting to destroy Iran.