Author: Eric Margolis

Back in the 1950’s, a British professor at the distinguished University of Malaya, C. Northcote Parkinson, observed that as the post-war Royal Navy shrank in size, its bureaucracy continued to expand. Parkinson formulated a law that bureaucracies will naturally grow at 5-7% per annum.  He also wisely added ‘Make the people sovereign and the poor will use the machinery of government to dispossess the rich.’ All bureaucracies, public and private, must be periodically forced on a diet.  US President Donald Trump is, as promised, taking an axe to Washington’s dense bureaucratic undergrowth.  He claims the cuts will save $2.5 trillion … Continue reading →

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Panmunjom, the ‘peace village’ on the incredibly tense demilitarized zone (aka DMZ) between North and South Korea, is one of the weirdest places I’ve ever visited. Tough North Korean soldiers lurk about, watched by equally tough South Korean troops in one-way sunglasses and an aggressive judo ‘warrior’ stance. When I was filming at Panmunjom, we were warned to beware of North Koreans who could at any moment rush into the main conference room and drag us into North Korea. It was into this crazy house that the new, jet-lagged US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was transported from turbulent Washington. After … Continue reading →

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Palm Beach – A serious curse on the Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea or the DPRK) for apparently murdering one of my schoolmates. Very bad form, Pyongyang! My old high school, the Ecole International of Geneva, Switzerland had a zany and interesting collection of cosmopolitan students from everywhere. We had lots of children of movie stars like William Holden, Jack Palance, Yul Brynner, and Lana Turner. There were sons of deposed statesmen from Indonesia, Turkey, and the Arab world, children of US European corporate executives, Jewish Britons, even a few Swiss and French as well as some Nepalese, Indians and … Continue reading →

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President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex made half a century ago ring as loud and clear today.  The soft coup being mounted against the Trump government by America’s ‘deep state’ reached a new intensity this week as special interests battled for control of Washington. The newly named national security advisor, Lt Gen Michael Flynn, was ousted by Trump over his chats with Russia’s ambassador and what he may or may not have told Vice President Pence.  The defenestration of Flynn appeared engineered by our national intelligence agencies in collaboration with the mainstream media and certain … Continue reading →

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Misery loves company.  Americans who have been suffering the agonies of advanced Trumpitis can now turn to France and share a good cry. France’s presidential politics are as crazy and sleazy as America’s, and equally depressing. French politics run the gamut from the noblest aspirations of the 1789 revolution to today’s gutter fighting and back-stabbing.  The lust for power is always thus. A late 19th-century French president, Jean Casimir-Perier, aptly quipped, “government is a constant conspiracy.”  He was also a former banker. Today, we observe the doleful spectacle of France’s politicians locked into a sordid demolition derby that disgusts many … Continue reading →

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When I was suffering through advanced infantry training in the US Army many, many moons ago, I learned the Trump negotiating system. Our dreaded first sergeant, Delmar Creech, would terrorize us, inflict push-ups or latrine detail, and then restrict us to barracks over weekends for some minor infraction. We hated him with a passion. But then one Friday he strode into the barracks and, with a big smile, said ‘you boys have been good. I’m granting you PX privileges!’ A cheer erupted. We were being allowed to go to the base store to buy candy, cigarettes, and magazines. Suddenly, everyone … Continue reading →

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A senior CIA source tells me ‘with a high level of certainty that Russia’s Vladimir Putin was responsible for Pearl Harbor, the Korean War, Vietnam, and Iraq. This miscreant was also behind 9/11 and ring around the collar. Not since Dr. Fu Manchu have we seen such a wicked genius bent on wrecking the West. Vlad the Bad is so nefarious that he’s managed to rig America’s voting machines and probably the Super Bowl. Watching the mounting Red Hysteria in the US is bizarre and amusing. But most amusing is the media furor claiming that the Kremlin has ‘meddled’ in … Continue reading →

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Seven decades after Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor some truth is finally beginning to emerge from the miasma of propaganda that still clouds our vision of World War II. It seems clear by now that President Franklin Roosevelt’s White House knew from deciphered  codes that Japan was planning an attack on America’s key naval base in Hawaii. Shamefully, the senior US Navy and Army commanders at Pearl Harbor were not informed of the impending attack. The US Navy’s three aircraft carriers were coincidentally moved far from harm’s way before the attack, leaving only obsolescent World War I battleships in … Continue reading →

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President-elect Donald Trump vows to either tear up or rewrite the recent international nuclear deal with Iran, calling it ‘disastrous,’ and ‘the worst deal ever negotiated by Washington.’ Iran, which has closed important nuclear facilities, shut down half its centrifuges, and neutralized its stores of nuclear material under the international agreement, must be wondering if it’s nuclear deal was not really, really disastrous. In his rush to condemn the Iran deal, Donald Trump seems to be forgetting that the pact was co-signed by Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the UN. Backing out of the pact will be no easy … Continue reading →

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Russia’s dispatch of a ten-ship flotilla to the Syrian Coast has raised some outrage and sneers aplenty in the West. Particularly when one of its embarked MiG-29K fighters crashed on takeoff from Russia’s sole carrier, the obsolescent Admiral Kuznetsov which lacks catapults. Joining Kuznetsov are believed to be two ‘Akula’ class nuclear-powered attack submarines that are much feared by Western navies.  On the surface will be the powerful, missile-armed battle-cruiser, ‘Peter the Great.’ Unlike Western warships, which are essentially fragile tin cans packed with electronics, `Peter the Great’ is armored and built to withstand punishment. Other Russian missile frigates and … Continue reading →

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Enemies of the United States are joyously watching its upcoming elections that are exposing this once great nation as deeply corrupt.  It’s as if a huge rock has been turned over, exposing the swarming, slithering underside of America’s political system. For those who admire America, like this writer, this week is a time to weep for the republic. We see two candidates who are utterly unfit for the highest office:  Hilary Clinton, engulfed by scandals, and blustering TV mogul Donald Trump, a man of profound shallowness who advocates Islamophobia, torture, and environmental ignorance. Why are the most advertised Gold and … Continue reading →

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As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized “liberation” of Mosul is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I’ve seen. Islamic State(IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media.  IS is, as this  writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious fanatics, and modern-day anarchists.  At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military … Continue reading →

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“We came, we saw…he died” boasted a beaming Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, speaking of the 2011 western overthrow of Libya’s leader Muammar Khadaffi. She was, of course, shamelessly paraphrasing Caesar’s famous summary of his campaign around the Black Sea. Mrs. Clinton, who seems ordained to be America’s next president, should have been rather more cautious in admitting to murder. This week marks the fifth anniversary of Khadaffi’s grisly death. The Libyan leader was fleeing in a motor convoy to reach friendly tribal territory when French warplanes and a US drone attacked and destroyed the vehicles.   Wounded, Khadaffi crawled into … Continue reading →

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“We came, we saw…he died” boasted a beaming Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, speaking of the 2011 western overthrow of Libya’s leader Muammar Khadaffi. She was, of course, shamelessly paraphrasing Caesar’s famous summary of his campaign around the Black Sea. Mrs. Clinton, who seems ordained to be America’s next president, should have been rather more cautious in admitting to murder. This week marks the fifth anniversary of Khadaffi’s grisly death. The Libyan leader was fleeing in a motor convoy to reach friendly tribal territory when French warplanes and a US drone attacked and destroyed the vehicles.   Wounded, Khadaffi crawled into … Continue reading →

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Frankfurt, Germany – Most Europeans are quietly horrified watching Donald Trump torn to pieces by political piranhas while Wall Street’s candidate, Hillary Clinton, appears to be pushing for a war with Russia. She blames everything on that wicked Vlad Putin. How long before she will claim Monica Lewinsky was one of Putin’s famed KGB seductress agents (I’ve met a few) known as ‘swallows?’ Europeans, whose male political leaders all seem to have mistresses,  would laugh off Trump’s awkward gropes and the outrage they caused as adolescent. Better gropes than a possible war with Russia over Syria.  But Trump looks like … Continue reading →

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