Atlantic Council CEO Frederick Kempe exemplifies the delusional mindset of some establishment leaders following their World Economic Forum confab at Davos. [Kempe’s post today](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-series/inflection-points/davos-dispatch-the-case-for-optimism-amid-global-upheaval/, musing on Davos, is full of unabashed lying. “Ukraine has momentum” and Davos was totally pro-Zelenskyy. “There is growing political support from both sides of the Atlantic for providing Russia’s $300 billion of frozen assets to Ukraine,” so “it won’t be difficult to defeat Putin.” A businessman at Davos told him that “Israel and its neighbors had a shot at a comprehensive peace deal and regional security arrangement that could endure for a century.” And now, though a neo-con, Kempe was quite ready to regurgitate the claims at Davos of Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who came there from a long round of completely unsuccessful arm-twisting meetings with Israeli and Arab leaders.
Why had all these propaganda whoppers made Kempe optimistic? He writes in his dispatch that we survived World War II and that the U.S.-U.K. alliance had navigated us safely through the Cold War!
And most wonderful: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva quoted John Maynard Keynes in the mid-1930s, that the world will survive the twin dangers of the extremes represented by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and even graciously told Kempe that he could quote her quoting Keynes.
Warning that now Putin must be stopped, Kempe said the positive response to Zelenskyy at Davos showed that the West will not give in to fatigue, and will step up to stop Putin. On the threat of an expanded war in Southwest Asia, Kempe believes that the Arab world will recognize that peace depends on reaching an agreement with Israel, and that Israel would benefit from such a peace! His evidence is the “dialogue” between Blinken and New York Times scribbler Thomas Friedman at Davos. The one remaining concern he raises is the prospect that Donald Trump could return to the White House. (That is, the American people, of course, remain a problem.)
One must read his whole post to get the full picture of his disconnect from reality. Keep in mind that Kempe was in the midst of the goings-on at Davos, and that the Atlantic Council is a key institution involved in shaping the policies of Western governments, with funding from both governments of the trans-Atlantic, and the corporate cartels that run them.
