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Thursday, December 31, 2015

Ending the year with cartoons





Wannabe Caliph Erdogan makes it quite clear that he will annihilate "militant" Kurds, which of course will translate ...


to all Kurds whether they be proven militant or not. 

From AlMonitor
Erdogan says Kurdish militants will be 'annihilated'

Erdogan vows to crush Kurdish "self-rule" movement
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Kurdish militants Dec. 15 that “you will be annihilated,” and pledged that Turkish security forces will continue their massive military assault on Kurdish towns in southeastern Turkey until they are “completely cleansed and a peaceful atmosphere established."

Metin Gurcan reports that the escalation in military operations in towns where Kurdish militants associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have taken hold has increased the possibility of a civil war.

“At the moment, the Turkish army is moving tanks and armored vehicles to lay siege to those towns,” Gurcan writes. “Checkpoints have already been established at the towns' entrances. In many towns, particularly in Cizre, Silopi and Nusaybin, education has been halted with an extremely unusual move by the Ministry of Education, which sent text messages to about 3,000 public teachers instructing them to return to their hometowns for "on-the-job training." Since nobody believes such training would be done in the middle of the school year by closing schools, it is seen as a sign of approaching battles, further panicking the population. Now, teachers and other civil servants are rapidly evacuating these towns. Those who couldn’t find buses to get out were seen walking and hitchhiking.”

Amberin Zaman reports on the trend of increased radicalization of the PKK, including the rise of an armed youth movement loyal to imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

“In a clutch of towns and cities across Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, armed youngsters loyal to Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, and calling themselves the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), have seized control of entire streets and neighborhoods, erecting barriers and declaring autonomy,” Zaman reports. “The spirit of rebellion has permeated Sur, where pro-PKK slogans and posters of the mustachioed Ocalan cover bullet-riddled walls. Several young fighters interviewed by Al-Monitor all said that they would end their revolt only if ordered to do so by Ocalan. But since April 6, the Turkish authorities have not allowed any of his regular visitors, including the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) lawmakers who used to carry messages from him, to meet with Ocalan in his island prison. The resulting vacuum has been filled by Cemil Bayik, the hard-line PKK commander who says he supports the YDG-H’s moves.”..........

On the Star Wars latest film


Thought provoking article. If you haven't seen the film, there might be a spoiler within the article below. You have been warned!

Christopher S Morrissey writing at TheCatholicWorldReport
...If every generation has to contend with an adjacent-generation family member going over to the Dark Side, and if every generation has to defeat an existential threat of Death Star-sized proportions, then either nothing is new under the sun (on Jakku or Tatooine), or else the Force is somehow perpetually able to awaken that which is new and beautiful and good. ........

....The idea that the Force maintains the balance between good and evil is more fully explained here. If this balance were simply the affirmation of a cyclical dualism of good and evil in which, at least from the standpoint of the endless cycle of history, the two sides were morally equivalent, then the Force would be an almost nonsensical idea. Why fight for the good, if the Dark Side is nothing but the other side of the same cosmic coin? ....

Friday, December 25, 2015

The Huron Carol "Jesous Ahatonhia" written by Jesuit priest Jean de Brebeuf


This is my favorite Christmas carol.  It was written by Fr Jean de Brebeuf (see bio below vid)

Here's what the poster of the vid at YouTube says:

This version performed by Heather Dale, and sung in Wendat (Huron), French and English. Please consider purchasing this music from her if you loved it, as she is an independent artist! Peace :)
The "Huron Carol" (or "'Twas in the Moon of Wintertime") is a Christmas hymn, written in 1643 by Jean de Brébeuf, a Christian missionary at Sainte-Marie among the Hurons in Canada. Brébeuf wrote the lyrics in the native language of the Huron/Wendat people; the song's original Huron title is "Jesous Ahatonhia" ("Jesus, he is born"). The song's melody is a traditional French folk song, "Une Jeune Pucelle" ("A Young Maid"). The well known English lyrics were written in 1926 by Jesse Edgar Middleton.



From Biographi Canada:
BRÉBEUF, JEAN DE    (called Échon by the Hurons), priest, Jesuit, founder of the Huron mission; b. 25 March 1593 at Condé-sur-Vire in Lower Normandy; martyred 16 March 1649 at the village of Saint-Ignace in the Huron country (in the region of Midland, Ontario), canonized 29 June 1930 by Pius XI and proclaimed by Pius XII on 16 Oct. 1940 patron saint of Canada along with his seven martyred companions.

Among Jean de Brébeuf’s ancestors are said to have been companions-in-arms of William the Conqueror and of St. Louis, king of France, and his family, it is said, may be related to the English earls of Arundel. We know nothing of his immediate family. History has, however, preserved the names of two of his nephews: Georges de Brébeuf (1617–61), a minor poet of the 17th century, and Nicolas de Brébeuf (1631–91), prior of Saint-Gerbold, on the outskirts of Caen.

When he was 24 Brébeuf entered the Jesuit noviciate in Rouen. After two years (1617–19) under Father Lancelot Marin’s direction he was appointed teacher of the first form in the secondary school (1619–20), then of the second form (1620–21) at the Collège in Rouen. During his second year of teaching he was incapacitated by illness, but he had enough strength left to prepare for the priesthood, which he received in 1622 at Pontoise. From 1622 to 1625 he stayed at the Collège of Rouen, where he held the office of steward. Then he was chosen for the missions in New France by the provincial of France, Father Pierre Coton. He sailed from Dieppe in April 1625 and landed at Quebec in June, along with Fathers Charles Lalemant and Énemond Massé and two lay brothers, François Charton and Gilbert Burel.

Five months of a roving existence in the cold and the snow (20 Oct. 1625–27 March 1626) with a group of Montagnais Indians who lived near Quebec constituted his apprenticeship for the missionary life. Scarcely had he been initiated in the language and custom of the Algonkins when in the same year, 1626, his superior designated him, with Father Anne de Nouë, for the Huron country. In July for the first time Brébeuf travelled by canoe the 800 miles that separated Quebec from the Huron territory. The pages that he wrote later about conditions on this trip make of him, along with.....

Thursday, December 17, 2015

What a "special relationship" with cavemen meant and still means to the USA


Great informative "must read" if you want to know just how much off the rails the USA and its Western allies have fallen.

Andrew Cockburn writing at Harpers
A Special Relationship  

The United States is teaming up with Al Qaeda, again

One morning early in 1988, Ed McWilliams, a foreign-service officer posted to the American Embassy in Kabul, heard the thump of a massive explosion from somewhere on the other side of the city. It was more than eight years after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the embassy was a tiny enclave with only a handful of diplomats. McWilliams, a former Army intelligence operative, had made it his business to venture as much as possible into the Soviet-occupied capital. Now he set out to see what had happened.

It was obviously something big: although the explosion had taken place on the other side of Sher Darwaza, a mountain in the center of Kabul, McWilliams had heard it clearly. After negotiating a maze of narrow streets on the south side of the city, he found the site. A massive car bomb, designed to kill as many civilians as possible, had been detonated in a neighborhood full of Hazaras, a much-persecuted minority.

McWilliams took pictures of the devastation, headed back to the embassy, and sent a report to Washington. It was very badly received — not because someone had launched a terrorist attack against Afghan civilians, but because McWilliams had reported it. The bomb, it turned out, had been the work of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the mujahedeen commander who received more CIA money and support than any other leader of the Afghan rebellion. The attack, the first of many, was part of a CIA-blessed scheme to “put pressure” on the Soviet presence in Kabul. Informing the Washington bureaucracy that Hekmatyar’s explosives were being deployed to kill civilians was therefore entirely unwelcome.......

Clash of Civilizations


Many a time I wish ferocious beings from outer worlds would invade Earth so we humans would unite as one to fight a real menace.  Haven't we have had enough of the wars on ourselves??

From Ron Paul Institute:
Are We in a Clash of Civilizations?  
It is the extremists on both sides -- the radical Islamists and the neocons at home -- who are pushing a clash of civilizations to suit their own agendas, says Ron Paul in this brand new address. The idea that the western, "Christian" world is at a war to the death with Islam is a fantasy in the minds of both sides. The great danger is that this tiny minority on both sides can make headway, each earning its own recruits to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. They must be resisted. We must cling to the ideas of liberty, peace, and prosperity:


United Kingdom lets the USA take all the heat for supplying arms to the Middle East lunatics while, ...

as usual, it continues to quietly overload the cavemen nation and its allies with every kind of killing instrument.
More and more I find myself agreeing  with LaRouche that the main culprit is the UK whose agents have infiltrated the USA and are influencing the USA's disastrous foreign policies.


Conor Gaffey at IndependentUK
UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia fuel ongoing Yemen conflict, says Amnesty report
Amnesty and Saferworld say UK’s continued dealings with Saudi Arabia violate national, EU and international law

U.K. arms sales to Saudi Arabia are fuelling the ongoing conflict in Yemen, according to legal opinion obtained by humanitarian agencies.

Amnesty and Saferworld, which are both members of the Control Arms Coalition, said that the U.K.’s continued dealings with Saudi Arabia, in context of the latter’s intervention in Yemen, is in violation of national, European-Union and international law. Saudi Arabia is leading an airstrikes campaign in Yemen, the latest round of which killed at least 15 people on Monday.

The two humanitarian agencies sought the legal opinion of several international-law experts on the U.K.’s arms dealings with Saudi Arabia. The U.K. has issued more than 100 arms export licenses to Saudi Arabia since the airstrike campaign began in March, and licenses for exports to Saudi Arabia were worth more than £1.75 billion ($2.61 billion) between January and June, according to Amnesty..........

The Empire Files ... retired US Army Colonel has a lot to say ...


which is worth listening to.


Closing of visa loopholes is definitely not for the cavemen nation ... No Siree !!



Saudi Arabia  can send as many wahhabi suicide bombers as their satanic heart desires and so also can the other wahhabi nations from that shithole region.
As I keep saying ... our world has gone mad, mad, mad, mad and all because of the USA's double standards.


From ConsortiumNews
Closing the Wrong Visa Loopholes  

After the San Bernardino terror attack, Congress rushed to address security gaps in visa-free travel but addressed the wrong ones, leaving out visitors from “allied” countries such Saudi Arabia which have actually produced terrorists who attacked the U.S., note Georgianne Nienaber and Coleen Rowley.

By Georgianne Nienaber and Coleen Rowley

Only a few crickets chirped after our 2014 warning of gaps in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). Our second post, however, came out at the same time the President and Congress had suddenly clicked into gear to tighten the program, obviously in reaction to the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino.

Very likely their new-found concern is also due to officials having discovered the worrisome answer to our all-important question asking how many of the dozens of citizens from waiver participating countries — who now, in hindsight, have been identified as participants in recent terrorist incidents — were NOT ever listed on the key “terrorist watch lists.” Thus making them eligible to easily enter the U.S.

It’s been revealed that at least one of the Paris attackers would not have been flagged if he had sought to enter the U.S. through the VWP. Nor was San Bernardino shooter Malik who entered the U.S. on a “fiancé visa” reportedly on any of key databases. How many more are like that? We’ll only know if investigative reporters pry such embarrassing facts out of Homeland Security officials.  It’s good the President and Congress finally started worrying about visa travel but unfortunately Congress is still in denial about the real problems. We could not find any discussion of the deeper, root problem with the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) watch list, that even though it lists over 1.1 million persons, it is still somewhat under-inclusive (as well as very over-inclusive, with wrong names and other “hay” piled onto the stack).

Intelligence analysts cannot be faulted given the difficulty, if not .........

Chris Hedges talks to author and historian Vijay Prashad ...


on the terminal illness which is bound to see the demise of the Empire. 


Monday, December 14, 2015

What are the chances that some of the headchoppers Israel rescued, mended, healed and sent back into Syria, killed the Christians and Kurds in Tall Tamr who ...


had taken shelter in Assad-controlled areas?  We Christians should thank Israel for assisting ISIS in killing of Christians in Syria, right? Why do we need those peace-loving Christians anyway!  Oh you didn't know Israel was making whole wounded jihadis  so they could go back and jihad some more?  I am not surprised you didn't know that snippet of news as the media you watch and read keeps that fact nicely under wraps.  And, even when they do write about it, it is written in glorious terms as "look what a great humanitarian thing Israel is doing" ... Yes that's how much crazy our world has become.

From Sott.Net:
Three truck bombs killed up to 60 people
and injured more than 80 in the town of Tell Tamer in Syria's northeastern Al Hasakah province on Thursday, a spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG has told Reuters.

The blasts struck near a Kurdish militia forces field hospital and in the crowded Souk Al Jumla market square, where the majority of the fatalities occurred. Most of the affected people were civilians, but there were some Kurdish and Assyrian self-defense fighters among them......

Glory Be


A phony pretend do-gooder   
Wonder how many millions or billions the guy made peddling his wares. Has all that loot kept him from eating dirt?



Maurice Strong, Globalist, dead at 86

Soros' turn coming soon, I hope.


Just a handful of facts our wonderful governments stock full of the chosen elite ....


keep from us insignificant peasants.  
Below just a few salient points from the article.


Ian Sinclair writing at OpenDemocracy
10 facts the government doesn’t want you to know about Syria

Fact 1: The West has been involved in the Syrian conflict since 2012 ....
....By March 2013 the New York Times was quoting experts who said these arms shipments totalled 3,500 tons of military equipment...

....By June 2015 US officials told the Washington Post that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had trained and equipped 10,000 Syrian rebels at a cost of $1bn.....

Fact 2: The West has known that extremists were prominent in the Syrian insurgency, and that the arms they sent into Syria have often ended up in the hands of extremists, since 2012.....

....After “extensive interviews with Syria policymakers from the Obama Administration” McClatchy’s Hannah Allam recently noted the Obama Administration “was warned early on [in 2012] that al Qaida-linked fighters were gaining prominence within the anti-Assad struggle.”

Despite this, from 2012 the US has given a wink and a nod to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey to support the Syrian rebels. ....

Fact 3: The US has encouraged ‘moderate’ rebel groups to work with the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and has probably knowingly supported jihadis itself ...
...Furthermore, in July 2015 the New York Times reported that although the US-trained Division 30 Syrian rebels were attacked by the Nusra Front when they entered Syria after their training, US officials said “they expected the Nusra Front to welcome Division 30 as an ally in its fight against the Islamic State.”

In addition, a formerly classified US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) report from 2012 noted that “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaida in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The next sentence of the report is as follows: “The West, Gulf countries and Turkey support the opposition”........

Fact 4: The West has prolonged the fighting and blocked a peaceful solution to the conflict...
....In addition, Avi Shlaim, Professor Emeritus at Oxford University, recently explained that Western insistence that Syrian president Bashar Assad must step down sabotaged Kofi Annan’s UN efforts to set up a peace deal and forced Kofi Annan to resign. ....

Fact 5: The West has helped to create the conditions in Syria and Iraq that have allowed IS to grow and prosper...

Fact 6: The West’s allies in the region have been supporting extremists in Syria, including IS...
....According to an August 2014 article in the Washington Post, Turkey “rolled out the red carpet” to Islamic State and other jihadists fighting the Syrian Government. Wounded jihadists from IS and the Nusra Front were treated at Turkish hospitals while Turkish border towns became way stations for moving foreign fighters and arms into Syria. IS “were able to grow in power partly by using the border region of a NATO member – Turkey – as a strategically vital supply route and entry point to wage their war”, the Washington Post notes.....

Strange that Ian Sinclair, the author of this article which has links aplenty, fails to note that Israel too, like Turkey, has been rescuing, mending and re-sending headchoppers back into Syria. If only journalists could tell the whole truth and not leave out Israel's notorious role in the Syrian conflict, they would gain more credibility. IMO, having failed to include Israel's role in aiding jihadis, Sinclair fails as a true journalist desiring to tell the truth.

Fact 7: Western airstrikes in Syria and Iraq have killed hundreds of civilians...

Fact 8: Western bombing of IS is counterproductive and has likely boosted recruitment to the group....

Fact 9: Western airstrikes will likely contribute to the refugee crisis....

Fact 10: The Government’s claim that there are 70,000 moderate Syrian rebels willing to work with the West is completely bogus...

Thursday, December 10, 2015

The great Wall of Donald Trump


Artwork from the mind of David Dees.







The slow and ugly process of the death of journalism


Good read from Robert Parry on the suicide of investigative journalist Gary Webb.

A Day When Journalism Died 

Exclusive: Dec. 9 has a grim meaning for the Republic, the date in 2004 when investigative reporter Gary Webb, driven to ruin by vindictive press colleagues for reviving the Contra-cocaine scandal, took his own life, a demarcation as the U.S. press went from protecting the people to shielding the corrupt, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

Looking back over my four decades in the national news media, it’s hard to identify one moment when American journalism died. The process was a slow and ugly one, with incremental acts of cowardice accumulating until mainstream reporters were clearly part of the problem, not anything to do with a solution. But the date Dec. 9 has a special place in that sad progression.

It was on Dec. 9, 2004, when the mean-spirited mainstream media’s treatment of investigative journalist Gary Webb led him – his career devastated, his family broken, his money gone and his life seemingly hopeless – to commit suicide. It was a moment that should have shamed all the big-shot journalists who had a hand in Webb’s destruction, but it mostly didn’t.......

Missing and Murdered ... the Indigenous Women of Canada


A very sad situation.
First and above all, these women are often sexually abused by their own family members well before they reach their teens and thus the short road into prostitution and the never-ending horror of that profession which usually culminates into nothingness.

The first overhaul should be within the aboriginal policing sector to arrest and imprison the child molesters. If that sector is not corrected, this deplorable situation will continue without abate.

From CBC
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women

- Missing and murdered indigenous women: stories of northern Ontario women
- Audio Sister of missing Aboriginal woman from Timmins wants inquiry to take its time
- Missing, murdered indigenous women: families 'hopeful' after inquiry announcement
- 22 cases added to CBC's missing and murdered indigenous women database

Netanyahu's Israel: "Please Mr. Alligator, eat me last"


Bibi-bots in Anglo countries are digging their own graves as well as digging the graves of their descendants.  The Netanyahu clan has been very efficient in starting civil wars and conflict in their neighbouring nations (of course with full support of the other Anglo nations) with the result that the uprooted Muslims from those lands are heading to the very same Anglo nations wherein reside the Bibi-bots.  Is that Karma or what!  The thinking with Netanyahu and his yes-men is that if you are on the jihadis' side, everything will come up smelling roses.

Try not to vomit when reading the article below.  Some readers who can think for themselves will be able to see how the Bibi-bots are in a frenzy at the comments section trying to make the whole story look like Israel is doing  "humanitarian" work.  Hilarious!  All the more so when even the word "human" is never found in the Israeli dictionary when Israelis are bombing the shit out of Palestinians.  


Why is Netanyahu and gang hopeful and wishful that the Mid East will empty itself of thousands of the undesirable jihadis found aplenty over there?  Does he and his warmongering circle of ghouls  really and truly think Israel will become the top dog there when that happens or do they want the West to experience what they themselves have experienced from time to time?  Is Israel making its pigsty with the Sunni shitholes hoping all will be well if it goes along with the headchopping neighbours?  How did an intelligent community like the Jewish people arrive at this lethal stage of mental deficiency?  Are there too many intermarriages among the Jewish Israelis like there are with the Muslim neighbourhoods? Now, that would explain why their thinking has become so warped of late.

Go to the link and see the many pics of the "brave" Israelis mending and tending  to jihadis so they can live and headchop another day, in another place ... just as long as it is not in Israel.  What's not to love about that, eh?

From DailyMailUK
Saving their sworn enemy:
Heartstopping footage shows Israeli commandos rescuing wounded men from Syrian warzone - but WHY are they risking their lives for Islamic militants?

    Elite Israeli troops rescue wounded Syrians from the world's worst war almost every night
    They have saved more than 2,000 people since 2013, at a cost of 50 million shekels (£8.7million)
    Many are enemies of Israel and some may even be fighters for groups affiliated to Al Qaeda
    MailOnline embedded with Israeli commandos stationed on the border between Israel and Syria
    Dramatic video filmed by MailOnline and the Israeli army shows these operations taking place
    Israel says that the operation is purely humanitarian but analysts believe Israel also has strategic reasons

Under cover of darkness, an Israeli armoured car advances down the potholed road that leads to Syria.

As it crests a small hill, the driver picks up the radio handset and tells his commanding officer that the border is in sight.

He kills the engine. Ten heavily-armed commandos jump out and take cover, watching for signs of ambush. Then five of them move up to the 12ft chainlink fence that marks the limit of Israeli-held territory.

On the other side, on the very edge of Syria, lies an unconscious man wrapped like a doll in a blood-drenched duvet. The commandos unlock the fence, open a section of it and drag him onto Israeli soil......

Syrian refugees arrive in Canada


I wonder when some from Yemen and some more from Libya, Afghanistan and Somalia will make an appearance. And, of course, lots more from Syria.  More the merrier, right?

From TheStar


Saudi Arabia is a potential solution to extremism ????????


Yup!  Just in case you haven't had a LOL today.
According to this nitwit journo whose silly article the NY Times has seen fit to include in their online edition, Saudi Arabia's  "close contact with extremism makes them among the most sophisticated voices against extremism."
He should have just stuck to the "Saudi Arabia is the problem"  and not gone to finish that sentence with "and solution to extremism"


Iyad El-Baghdadi at NYTimes
Saudi Arabia Is the Problem and Solution to Extremism 

Saudi Arabia is a big contributor to the Middle East’s problems, but also a big part of its potential solution.

The regime presents itself as a bulwark against extremism, but the similarities between its own jurisprudence and ISIS’ are striking enough. Saudi Arabia is, after all, the “heartland” of the most illiberal reading of Islam, and has spent billions to spread and normalize it. Meanwhile, its foreign policy has committed resources to thwarting the Arab Spring, supporting Egypt’s coup, intervening in the Syrian civil war and invading Yemen – all in the name of “stability.”

But underreported is the story of Saudi society, which underwent rapid demographic modernization over the past two decades. Family size plummeted, while youth literacy rose to nearly 100 percent. Significantly, online connectivity rose sharply. The country has the second-highest smartphone penetration in the world, the Arab world’s biggest online population and the world’s highest per capita consumption of YouTube.

It is within this context that we must understand the phenomenon of Raif Badawy, Ashraf Fayyadh, Waleed Abulkhair or Hassan Farhan Al Maliki. These men are, after all, products of Saudi society. Their close contact with extremism makes them among the most sophisticated voices against extremism.

If Saudi Arabia “breaks,” it would be catastrophic for the region ....

Saturday, December 5, 2015

Re-thinking the official story of the 9/11 tragedy


Many folks (go ahead, call them 9/11 truthers if it makes you feel pompously superior) are hopeful that a new investigation will be opened on the 9/11 tragedy and those investigating it will be sincere and honest people unlike the ones  responsible for the earlier fabrication presented to the world. The most credible group  pushing for the truth is Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth " 

Below an intriguing  interview with a witness to the event, an event that has changed our world for the worse.




PBS continuing with the program ... the program of brainwashing the sheeple


The title of the article below says ... PBS has "joined" the Syria-Russia Bias club.  However, IMO, PBS is a government tool and nothing but a tool and it hasn't "joined" the club just now, it is and has been the member of that club from day 1. 

From ConsortiumNews:
PBS Joins the MSM’s Syria-Russia Bias  
Mainstream U.S. media systematically excludes points of view on world affairs that deviate from Official Washington’s “group think.” With no lessons learned from the Iraq-WMD debacle, the MSM only lets on establishment or right-wing pundits with conformist points of view on crises with Syria and Russia, notes Rick Sterling.

By Rick Sterling

PBS Newshour is considered high-quality journalism by many North Americans. But is it? A test case is their report on Nov. 24 when a Russian jet was shot down and one pilot killed as he descended by parachute. This was a significant international event and the situation is still dangerous. The conflict in Syria could get even worse. PBS Newshour presented a discussion/analysis of the event with two guests: Nicholas Burns and Angela Stent. The PBS Newshour host was Judy Woodruff.

This critique applies to that one PBS Newshour broadcast but the essential points are true for much of what you see on the program (and across the mainstream U.S. news media). Assumptions and bias regarding the Syrian conflict are pervasive and persistent. So, how can U.S. foreign policy change (or even show some nuance) if the public is continually fed biased and false information from one point of view? Here are specific points:

—PBS Newshour selected two analysts with essentially the same viewpoint, representing the U.S. government and military/security establishment:

Nicholas Burns is a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. In early 2003 he urged the “unity” of NATO as some NATO allies expressed doubts about the U.S. the invasion of Iraq. In 2006, he urged punishing sanctions on Iran. In 2011, Burn wrote, “President Obama was surely right to commit the United States, however reluctantly, to the NATO campaign [to overthrow Libyan President Gaddafi].” Burns has a track record supporting Western aggression against other countries. He evidently has learned nothing from the resulting chaos, devastation and death.

Angela Stent is associated with conservative think tanks and a former State Department and National Intelligence Officer. She is also author of the 2015 book “The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the 21st Century.” Written in non-academic prose, the book explores what she considers four efforts by the U.S. to reset or start new relations with Russia following the Cold War.

Unfortunately the bias of the author is .............