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Saturday, April 29, 2017

Wanna see a list of Planet Earth's main terrorist groups?


Almost all of them make up the proxy armies of the USA/Israel/Turkey/UK/KSA/Qatar and the rest of the Wabbabi sheikhdoms rampaging in the once secular nation of Syria.
Quite an informative article from which I have lifted a few bits as below.


From SicSemperTyrannis blog
When It Comes to Iran, Trump & Company Ignore Facts
by Publius Tacitus

.........The terrorism that marked Iran twenty years ago is no longer its calling card. The role of chief terrorist has been taken over by a legion of radical Sunni groups. Starting with the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, DC in September of 2001, the identity of the terrorist attacks has shifted dramatically, with the vast majority of the violence attributable to radical Sunni Islamists. According to the latest edition of the Global Terrorism Index (http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2016.2.pdf) , a publication of the Institute for Economics and Peace, four groups accounted for 74% of all fatalities from terrorism in 2015—Boko Haram, Al-Qaida, the Taliban and ISIS.

Consider the list of Muslim Groups presently actively hostile to the US:

- The Islamic State (Sunni)

- The Al-Nusra Front (Sunni)

- Al-Qa'ida Central (Sunni)

- Al-Qa'ida in Magheb (Sunni)

- Al-Qa'ida in Arabian Peninsula (Sunni)

- Boku Haram (Sunni)

- Al-Shabbab (Sunni)

- Khorassan Group (Sunni)

- Society of the Muslim Brothers (Sunni)

- Sayyaf Group in the Philippines (Sunni)

- Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Sunni)

- Lashgar i Taiba (Sunni)

- Jemaa Islamiya (Sunni)

- Houthis (Shia)

Of the 14 groups, only the Houthis are tied to Iran...............

............The MEK were classified as a terrorist group until the United States decided that as long as the MEK would help kill Iranians rather than Americans that they were no longer terrorists. The MEK’s history of terrorism is quite clear:

    During the 1970s, the MEK killed U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians working on defense projects in Tehran and supported the takeover in 1979 of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
    In 1981, the MEK detonated bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar.
    Near the end of the 1980-1988 war with Iran, Baghdad armed the MEK with military equipment and sent it into action against Iranian forces.
    In 1991, the MEK reportedly assisted the Government of Iraq in suppressing the Shia uprisings in southern Iraq and the Kurdish uprisings in the north.
    In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and installations in 13 countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.........

Dr Ron Paul talks to Julian Assange after the Trump + gang, gangs up against his Freedom of Speech


Daniel McAdams at RonPaulInstitute
Julian Assange Speaks Out: The War On The Truth
Are Wikileaks and other similar organizations "hostile foreign agencies," as CIA Director Mike Pompeo asserted recently? He's looking at a way to punish media organizations for telling their readers the truth while being able to avoid going after the mainstream media companies that publish materials provided by Wikileaks. It is all about stripping some organizations and individuals from First Amendment protection. Don't miss this exclusive Ron Paul Liberty Report with Wikileaks Founder, Julian Assange:



Wikileaks is registered as a 501(c)3 organization in the US. Find out more about the organization and how you can help, here. 

Sane voices advocating for Peace on Earth



Some well meaning folks from the Intelligence community have penned an open letter to the citizens of America but chances are the Kadashian-watchers are too busy to give it any heed thus letting our world get destroyed by the money loving warmongers?
 
From ConsortiumNews
Intel Vets Voice Doubts on Syrian Crisis

Two dozen former U.S. intelligence professionals are urging the American people to demand clear evidence that the Syrian government was behind the April 4 chemical incident before President Trump dives deeper into another war.

AN OPEN MEMORANDUM FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

From: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Subject: Mattis ‘No Doubt’ Stance on Alleged Syrian CW Smacks of Politicized Intelligence

Donald Trump’s new Secretary of Defense, retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis, during a recent trip to Israel, commented on the issue of Syria’s retention and use of chemical weapons in violation of its obligations to dispose of the totality of its declared chemical weapons capability in accordance with the provisions of both the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions.

“There can be no doubt,” Secretary Mattis said during a April 21, 2017 joint news conference with his Israeli counterpart, Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, “in the international community’s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all.” To the contrary, Mattis noted, “I can say authoritatively they have retained some.”

Lieberman joined Mattis in his assessment, noting that Israel had “100 percent information that [the] Assad regime used chemical weapons against [Syrian] rebels.”

Both Mattis and Lieberman seemed to be channeling assessments offered to reporters two days prior, on April 19, 2017, by anonymous Israeli defense officials that the April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack on the Syrian village of Khan Shaykhun was ordered by Syrian military commanders, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s personal knowledge, and that Syria retained a stock of “between one and three tons” of chemical weapons.....


Friday, April 21, 2017

Some more Anti-war voices against the USA's thirst for blood and gore


PART 4

Part 1  here,   
Part 2 here
Part 3 here



James Corbett


Stephen F Cohen at TheNation
‘Words Are Also Deeds’: Unverified Stories and the Growing Risk of War With Russia

The US narratives for which there are as of yet no facts could lead to direct military conflict between Washington and Moscow.

.....The Russian adage “words are also deeds” is proving true, it seems. Trump’s missile attack on Russia’s ally Syria, despite its ramifying dangers, may have had a domestic political purpose—to debunk the narrative that is crippling his presidency, that he is somehow “Putin’s puppet.” If so, Cohen adds, the American mainstream media, which has promoted this narrative for months, is deeply complicit. Meanwhile, the Kremlin, which watches closely as these narratives unfold politically in Washington, has become deeply alarmed, resorting to its own fraught words. The No. 2 leader, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, declared that US-Russian relations have been “ruined,” a statement Cohen does not recall any previous Soviet or post-Soviet leader ever having made. Medvedev added that the two nuclear superpowers are at “the brink” of war. Considering that Medvedev is regarded as the leading pro-Western figure in Putin’s inner circle, imagine what the other side—state patriots, or nationalists, as they are called—is telling Putin. Still more, the Kremlin is saying that Trump’s missile attack on Syria crossed Russia’s “red lines,” with all the warfare implications that term has in Washington as well. And flatly declaring the mysterious use of chemical weapons in Syria a “provocation,” Putin himself warned that forces in Washington were planning more such “provocations” and military strikes. In short, while the Kremlin does not want and will not start a war with the United States, it is preparing for the possibility.

Cohen and Batchelor ended their broadcast as Trump’s new secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, had just arrived in Moscow, before his talks with .......




Ines San Martin at CruxNow
Syrian nun honored by U.S. says Assad is ‘not a dictator’
Salesian Sister Carolin Tahhan Fachakh, from Syria, told reporters she doubts Syrian president ordered a chemical attack against civilians, and called the decision from the Trump administration to bomb an air base a "step back from peace." On March 29 she received the International Woman of Courage Award from first lady Melania Trump....

Jason Ditz at Antiwar
US Sending Troops to Somalia; First Time In 24 Years

In October 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu (the Black Hawk Down incident), 18 US soldiers were killed and 73 wounded, with a pair of Black Hawk helicopters shot down. The US responded by ceasing military operations, and within a few months had withdrawn all troops from Somalia. Today, they are headed back.
The new deployment, which US African Command (AFRICOM) is presented as a simple training operation, will be the first time US ground troops are officially deployed to Somalia, though of course the US has had some special forces present on the ground on and off, conducting occasional operations and spotting for US airstrikes.

AFRICOM also insists the new deployment was at the request of the Somali government, though indications in recent weeks has indicated that military officials have been pushing for an escalation of US intervention in the country at any rate, aimed at fighting al-Shabaab...

 

John Rohn Hall at DissidentVoice
Pipelines, Tomahawks, and The Syrian Gulf of Tonkin

Right off the bat, you may have realized that The Gulf of Tonkin is nowhere near Syria.  But if you’re familiar with The Gulf of Tonkin Incident from 1964, in which the American public was duped by its government into believing that its Navy was fired upon by North Vietnam forces – a lie which resulted in the deaths of 58,000+ U.S. Military Boys, and several untold, uncounted, superfluous millions of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians – you too may be doubting the official U.S. Government/MSM story about a recent sarin gas war crime, which allegedly took place in Syria.  The built-in lie-detector in the pit of my stomach has been flying off the charts, as Lester Holt and his multi-network cadres in lies and deceit carefully recite the C.I.A.-issued song and dance, nightly, in four part harmony, each wearing his best ‘serious’ face, and with feeling:  “The attack on Syrian civilians in Idlib was carried out by the Assad Regime and Russia.”…or words to that effect.  Over and over and over and over again, ad infinitum, to the extent that it begins to interfere with all the important stuff:  Namely sports, car thefts, kidnappings, and more localized murders  Did I mention that no proof is ever offered?

And now Don Trump tells invites “all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed” in Syria.  Pretty funny stuff, Don, considering the U.S.A. NEVER intervenes in the affairs of other countries for “humanitarian” reasons.  When the Tomahawk Missiles are flying, they are not following a trail of blood and death nor truth and justice…their path follows the money.  Syria; nothing but a thimbleful of semen in the 20-year-old wet-dreams of Cheney and his gang of thieves and thugs at The Project for a New American Century (PNAC).  Far from being fired to end the slaughter and bloodshed, U.S. Tomahawk Missiles are out to complete the transformation of Syria into a pile of death and debris.  Like Afghanistan, like Iraq, and like Libya.  Wars are no longer waged with winning in mind.  If you break it, you own it…and the U.S. Military’s goal is to break Syria and gain control of its strategic location, its oil, and its gas.  To own it, my friends.....




Jonathan Marshall at ConsortiumNews
The Trump administration’s growing use of military force in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen
 has neoconservative hawks rooting for armed confrontation with what they view as the root of all evil in the Middle East: Iran.
Many of these armchair warriors recently cheered President Trump’s decision to take on the Assad regime — and Moscow — by firing 59 Tomahawk cruise missile at a Syrian air base alleged to be the source of a chemical weapons attack. But they urged him to do more.

Weekly Standard editor William Kristol tweeted, “Punishing Assad for use of chemical weapons is good. Regime change in Iran is the prize.”

Kristol co-founded the infamous Project on the New American Century in 1997 to promote American “global hegemony” and “challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values.” It began lobbying for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as early as 1998, but always kept Iran in its sights as well.

With Saddam dead and Syria’s Assad stripped of much of his power, Iran is now at the center of neocon crosshairs. Kristol linked his recent tweet to a Washington Post column by two stalwart advocates of ousting the mullahs in Tehran: Reuel Gerecht and Ray Takeyh.

Titled “How Trump Can Help Cripple the Iranian Regime,” their article called for putting the nuclear arms deal with Iran at risk in order to “stoke the volcano under Tehran and to challenge the regime.” The centerpiece of their bizarre argument was that the Iranian people would gratefully welcome the United States imposing “crippling sanctions” to destroy their economy in the name of “human rights.”

The authors were vague as to the details, but suggested that Iran’s ruling clerics would quickly succumb to a “popular rebellion” by “Iranian dissidents,” particularly if the United States sent “more American troops [to] both Syria and Iraq” to reinforce its message.........

From Real News network


Daniel Larison at AmericanConservative
The Disgusting U.S. Support for the War on Yemen

The Pentagon is pushing for increased U.S. support for an attack on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah, despite the fact that this would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the country and hasten the onset of famine:

    During the meeting on Thursday, convened at the request of aid agencies, a Pentagon official tried to ease those concerns by floating the possibility that the operation could be “clean” and result in the Saudis taking full control of the port in “four to six weeks.”

    But aid groups view that forecast as wildly optimistic and fear the Pentagon is attempting to understate the complexity of the mission in order to win support for it inside the Trump administration.

    It’s unclear where that four-to-six–week figure came from. One senior Pentagon official who wasn’t present at the meeting told BuzzFeed News that such expectations were unrealistic — and that retaking the port “could take months.” [bold mine-DL]

The Saudi-led coalition has already brought Yemen to the brink of famine, and according to the World Food Program there is famine in some parts of the country right now. The U.S. has aided and abetted the coalition in wrecking and starving Yemen for over two years, and helping them with this proposed assault would compound the error of supporting the intervention in the most destructive way at the worst possible moment. Aiding an attack on the port would be tantamount to being an accomplice in causing the massive loss of life that would result from an even more severe disruption of aid and food deliveries. Many thousands of innocent civilians would perish as a direct result of the proposed attack, and that isn’t even counting the civilians that would be killed by coalition bombs and shelling in the operation itself. Helping the coalition launch this attack would represent a cruel escalation of U.S. backing for an indefensible war, and doing this would advance no U.S. interests while more deeply implicating our government in the heinous crimes of the coalition.

The danger is that the Trump administration seems much more willing to indulge the Saudis and their allies in their Yemen campaign:.........

The Evil Incarnate's war on Syria was planned in 2006


The USA + rest of the evil gang planned it all.  Their blood-lust is not quenched as yet.  Expect more.

From TruthOut
WikiLeaks Reveals How the US Aggressively Pursued Regime Change in Syria, Igniting a Bloodbath

In 2010, WikiLeaks became a household name by releasing 251,287 classified State Department cables. Now, a new book collects in-depth analyses of what these cables tell us about the foreign policy of the United States, from authors including Truthout staff reporter Dahr Jamail and our regular contributors Gareth Porter, Robert Naiman, Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes. "The essays that make up The WikiLeaks Files shed critical light on a once secret history," says Edward Snowden.

The following is Chapter 10 of The WikiLeaks Files:

On August 31, 2013, US president Barack Obama announced that he intended to launch a military attack on Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack in that country that the US blamed on the Syrian government. Obama assured the US public that this would be a limited action solely intended to punish the Assad government for using chemical weapons; the goal of US military action would not be to overthrow the Assad government, nor to change the balance of forces in Syria's sectarian civil war.

History shows that public understanding of US foreign policy depends crucially on assessing the motivations of US officials. It is likely inevitable as a result that US officials will present themselves to the public as having more noble motivations than they share with each other in private, and therefore that if members of the public had access to the motivations shared in private, they might make different assessments of US policy. This is a key reason why WikiLeaks' publishing of US diplomatic cables was so important.

The cables gave the public a recent window into the strategies and motivations of US officials as they expressed them to each other, not as they usually expressed them to the public. In the case of Syria, the cables show that regime change had been a long-standing goal of US policy; that the US promoted sectarianism in support of its regime-change policy, thus helping lay the foundation for the sectarian civil war and massive bloodshed that we see in Syria today; that key components of the Bush administration's regime-change policy remained in place even as the Obama administration moved publicly toward a policy of engagement; and that the US government was much more interested in the Syrian government's foreign policy, particularly its relationship with Iran, than in human rights inside Syria.

A December 13, 2006 cable, "Influencing the SARG [Syrian government] in the End of 2006,"1 indicates that, as far back as 2006 - five years before "Arab Spring" protests in Syria - destabilizing the Syrian government was a central motivation of US policy. The author of the cable was William Roebuck, at the time chargé d'affaires at the US embassy in Damascus. The cable outlines .....

Thursday, April 20, 2017

On the massacre of 100+ hungry children who were lured to death with packets of crisps by USA's proxy army in Syria


I am all choked up listening to Vanessa Beeley who had just arrived in the vicinity and heard about the massacre from people who witnessed the worst possible atrocity committed by the USA/Israel/KSA/Qatar/Turkey-funded, armed and trained beloved "rebels".  If what she has to say does not remind you of stuff that happened during the WW2 holocaust than you have probably not read any of those stories.

Vid below is from April 19


From RT on April 17
The UN Children’s Fund has condemned   the killing of more than 60 children in a recent Aleppo bomb attack targeting evacuees.

“After six years of war and human carnage in Syria… six years of heartbreak for so many Syrian families… there comes a new horror that must break the heart of anyone who has one,” the statement by UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said Sunday.

“More than 60 children reportedly killed in an attack on a bus convoy yesterday outside Aleppo. A convoy of families who for so long had already known so much suffering. Now the survivors must bear such a new and terrible loss,” the statement added.

Lake urged not only for regret, but for action to ensure that the war ends soon, saying, “We must draw from this not only anger, but renewed determination to reach all the innocent children throughout Syria with help and comfort. And draw from it also the hope that all those with the heart and the power to end this war will do so.”

While Syrian state media reported up to 40 fatalities on the day of the blast, on Monday the toll rose to 125 people killed, according to local human rights groups. The attack came at the same time as the Syrian government was carrying out the internationally-brokered evacuation of two towns.

“This is one of the worst, most horrifying massacres. We urge our president Assad to help us out. What happened can’t be described. Oh, dear God! We don’t know what to do,” a woman outside an Aleppo hospital told Ruptly on Saturday.....


The vid below is from April 18.  Jimmy Dore shows how the MSM reported this massacre.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Sane voices against WW3 but the escapees from lunatic asylums want more $s to line their coffins


PART 3 

Part 1  here,   
Part 2 here


John Pilger interview at Going Underground


Ulson Gunnar at LandDestroyer
Syria: Trump's Bush-Obama WMD Remix 
The United States finds its increasingly clumsy, circular foreign policy looping back once again to accusations of "weapons of mass destruction" being inexplicably used against a civilian population, this time in Syria's northern city of Idlib currently serving as the defacto capital of terrorist organizations including various Al Qaeda affiliates, most notably the US State Department designated foreign terrorist organization, al-Nusrah Front.

The allegations have already been used for a rushed US attack on Syrian forces, without any formal investigation or approval from the United Nations.
There are several serious factors being intentionally omitted from this quickly evolving US-driven narrative, including:

    While the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa serves as the defacto capital of the Islamic State, the northern city of Idlib serves as the defacto capital for all remaining Al Qaeda affiliates in the country;
    The Syrian government is already winning nationwide using much more effective, conventional tactics and weapon systems. Syria is also under immense scrutiny, thus using chemical weapons would be an egregious tactical, strategic, political and military blunder, serving no purpose besides to incriminate the government and invite US-led foreign intervention;
    The US has already prepositioned troops in Syria, increasing their number recently and expanding the scope of their operations. It is not a coincidence that they were placed there to exert greater military force against Damascus, and now suddenly have a pretext to do so;
    The US has a long and sordid history of arraying false accusations against targeted states, specifically regarding the possession or use of chemical weapons and;
    Militant groups the US and its allies are currently arming, funding, training and providing aid to, have been caught staging serial chemical weapon attacks or fabricating evidence regarding alleged attacks that never took place. 



David Stockman at RonPaulInstitute
Donald J. Trump: The Empire's Spanker-In-Chief

The Donald's missile "attack" on Syria's al-Shairat air base is surely the most impetuous, thoughtless, reckless and stupid act from the Oval Office that we can remember — and that covers 50 years at least. And we put "attack" in quotes because it's now evident that virtually every one of those $1.4 million per copy Tomahawks amounted to a big fat nothing-burger.

To wit, 36 of the 59 missile were duds and landed somewhere that was not the al-Shairat air base, including a nearby village where apparently a number of civilians were killed. The 23 that did hit the base actually missed the main runway, which, by the way, was back in operation launching Syrian air force sorties within 24 hours. None of Assad's operational warplanes were hit, either — just a handful of old MIG-23s that have apparently long been languishing in the base's "repair" boneyard.

Yes, the Donald's sharpshooters did annihilate several glorified Butler buildings, otherwise referred to as "hangars", and a few fuel tanks — the better for some post-attack fireworks to be posted to the War Channels (CNN, MSNBC and Fox).

But what the Tomahawks surely did not hit was the chemical weapons storage facilities alleged by the Pentagon to be at the base. With Washington's satellites monitoring al-Shairat like a cloud of bumble bees, there was not a whit of evidence of Syrian personnel running around with gas masks after the missiles hit.

Had there been, the War Channels would have been playing it in an endless loop all weekend. Naturally, the Pentagon says these apparently non-existent stores weren't even targeted owing to humanitarian (?) reasons.

Right, copy that!.......



Dr Paul Craig Roberts at InformationClearingHouse
Washington’s Deception Is Aimed at Russia

.....Perhaps the Russian government will keep in mind Tillerson’s revealing statement that the message the US sent with its illegal, war crime, unprovoked attack on Syria “is that the violation of international norms . . . will no longer be tolerated.”

Of course, who is the violator of “international norms.” No one but Washington (and Israel). Washington is the greatest violator of “international norms” in modern history. Washington has invaded Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, organized the destruction of Libya, Somalia, and conducted attacks on Pakistan and Yemen, and organized a coup against the democratically elected government in Ukraine.

Only Washington has a list of crimes this long. And we can add to it Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, and in the works, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

If Russia falls into Washington’s trap of deception, Russia will be destroyed......

Paul Craig Roberts at his blog
Is That Armageddon Over The Horizon?

The insouciance of the Western world is extraordinary. It is not only Americans who permit themselves to be brainwashed by CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times and Washington Post, but also their counterparts in Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, who rely on the war propaganda machine that poses as a media. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39573526

The Western “leaders,” that is, the puppets on the end of the strings pulled by the powerful private interest groups and the Deep State, are just as insouciant. Trump and his counterparts in the American Empire must be unaware that they are provoking war with Russia and China, or else they are psychopaths.

A new White House Fool has replaced the old fool. The New Fool has sent his Secretary of State to Russia. For what? To deliver an ultimatum? To make more false accusations? To apologize for the lies?

Consider the audacity of Secretary of State Tillerson. He has spent the week prior to his visit to Moscow supporting incredible lies and false allegations that Assad of Syria used chemical weapons with Russia’s permission, which justified Washington’s unambigious war crime of a military attack on a country with which the US has not declared war. Less than 100 days in office, and Trump is already a war criminal along with the rest of his warmonger government.

The entire world knows this, but no one says it. Instead, Tillerson, who has been heavy with lies and threats has the confidence to go to Moscow to tell the Russians that they have to hand over Assad to the American Uni-Power. ....




From MoonOfAlabama
Big Bangs Can Not End The War On Afghanistan - Admitting Defeat Will

5667 days after the beginning of the war between the mightiest military of the world and local Afghan farmers, Pentagon reporters were excited to report:.........

.....The U.S. generals demand, as they always do, more troops to "break the stalemate". But there is no stalemate. The Afghan farmers are winning. The Taliban control more areas now than they ever controlled since 2002.

Dropping 22,000 lbs of high explosives on some shack will not change that trend....

Friday, April 14, 2017

Interview with a Syriac Catholic Bishop



The YUGE cost of taking care of the warmonger nation of Israel


To American taxpayers it might be only money, but the cost to other nations is far, far worse.  Nations like Lebanon, Iraq and Syria have paid in the loss of millions of their citizens and destruction of their cities and an averse effect on the present and future health of its peoples, both physio and mental.
BECAUSE of Israel, we are seeing the present upheaval in Syria and the influx of refugees into EU and then onwards to other countries like Canada, Australia and USA. The refugees coming from Syria are not all Syrians of the "non-suicide bombing" kind. Spread among the Syrian refugees are the Saudi Arabia madrasa-trained wahhabis whose fashion statements often  come by way of showing off the deadly designs on their explosive vests by embedding bits of it in non-wahhabis.
It never stops to entertain me how the pro-Israel but anti-Muslim idiots are so much against refugees from Muslim nations without going to the root cause of why we have come to this stage where very soon EU will have a 30%+ Muslim population ... probably it's already at that number.


Philip Giraldi at AmericanConservative
The True Cost of Israel
U.S. support goes far beyond the official numbers.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) concluded its annual conference late last month, triggering the usual debate in various alternative media outlets. Why does so much U.S. taxpayer money go to a small and not particularly useful client state that has a vibrant European-level economy and is already a regional military colossus?

Those who support the cash flow argue that Israel is threatened, most notably by Iran; they claim the assistance, which has been largely but not completely used to buy American-made weapons, is required to maintain a qualitative edge over the country’s potential enemies. Those who oppose the aid would counter that the Iranian threat is largely an Israeli and Saudi Arabian invention, used to justify continued American support for the national-security policies of both countries. And they would add that Tel Aviv is more than able to defend itself and pay for its own military establishment.

In truth, American aid to Israel is something like a pot of gold that keeps on giving. Both sides in the discussion would probably agree that the domestic Israel Lobby has been instrumental in sustaining the high level of aid, though they would undoubtedly disagree over whether that is a good or bad thing. The operation of “The Lobby,” generally regarded as the most powerful voice on foreign policy in Washington, led Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer to ask, “Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security … in order to advance the interests of another state? [No] explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the U.S. provides.” They observed that “Other special interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country—in this case, Israel—are essentially identical.



Since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, it has been “the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,”  according to the Congressional Research Service. The United States has provided Israel with $233.7 billion in adjusted for inflation aid between 1948 through the end of 2012, reports Haaretz. Current discussions center on the Obama administration’s memo of understanding with Israel that promised it $38 billion in military assistance over the next 10 years, a considerable sum but nevertheless a total that is far less than what is actually received annually from the United States Treasury and from other American sources.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), speaking in the most recent legislative discussion over Israeli aid, stated that the $38 billion should be regarded as a floor, and that Congress should approve additional funds for Israeli defense ..........


Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Escalation .... from Trump the non-interventionist

No matter how the USA coats its aggression towards any independent nation under the sun, the reason it gives, is an outright lie time and time again.


Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Saudi Arabia's wahhabist beasts kill Egyptian Christians in their churches




Not a soul would listen to voices who warned decades ago about Saudi Arabia's petrol dollars enabling the spouting of madrasas not only all over Muslim lands but also inside the Anglosphere. These days, you won't catch the MSM ... now in bed with the wahhabi nations because its masters, the Jewish "Israel First" billionaires, are in bed with Saudi Arabia, which translates to the USA's elite being in bed with both Israel  and their new lovers, the Wahhabi nations ...  to tell you the origins of  the ISIS ideology and how those extremists were/are being used as USA+gang's proxy armies.  The ex-students of these deadly madrasas, if not officially in the ISIS groups, are in the various groups known as "opposition to Assad" and this is the same ideology that is bread and butter to the wahhabists carrying out terrorist attacks in the West. 






From BBC
Egypt declares state of emergency after deadly church attacks

Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has announced a three-month state of emergency after attacks on two Coptic churches that left at least 44 dead.

The measure allows authorities to make arrests without warrants and search people's homes. It needs to be approved by parliament before it is implemented.

So-called Islamic State (IS) said it was behind the blasts in Tanta and Alexandria on Palm Sunday.

The group has targeted Copts in Egypt recently and warns of more attacks........

The Dangerous Deception Called The Trump Presidency


The historian and economic researcher, F. William Engdahl is proven right yet again.
And, mind you, he wrote this piece in November 2016, soon after Trump won the election.


The Dangerous Deception Called The Trump Presidency
 

The project called the Trump Presidency has just two months before its formal beginning. Yet already the hopes and fantasies of much of the world are making him into something and someone Donald Trump most definitely is not. Donald Trump is yet another project of the same bo

ring old patriarchs who try again and again to create a one world order that they control absolutely, a New World Order that one close Trump backer once referred to as universal fascism. Ignore the sometimes fine rhetoric in some of his speeches. Talk is cheap. If we consider rather the agenda that’s taking form even in these very early days of cabinet naming, we can see that Donald Trump is the same agenda of war and global empire as Obama, as Bush before him, as Bill Clinton and Clinton’s “tutor”, George H.W. Bush before him. There is no good side to what the world is about to experience with President Trump

‘Ladies and gentlemen, It’s Showtime!’ Today we give you Donald Trump. He will tell you just what many of you want to hear. Trump the showman will tell you he will make America great again; Trump will say he will ship at least 3 million illegals back across the Rio Grande; Trump will introduce a bill to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization; Trump will bring jobs back to America from China and other low wage countries; Trump will sit down with Putin and work out some kind of a deal to calm things down; Trump will scrap the Iran nuclear deal of Obama… .......

Monday, April 10, 2017

Soooo......Donald Trump, Real Estate salesman-prez, fooled the anti-war crowd, didn't he?

On the alleged chemical attack incident and the bombing of Syrian airbase by "non-interventionist" Trump .... Part Two
Part One is here
There will be millions of pacifists who will never again go to the voting booths ... I am now one of them.
Politicians are all the same everywhere, whether in the USA, Canada, UK, wherever ... I often wonder if these degenerates have always been so and we foolishly let them fool us, or whether they get the plague once they attain those high seats in the government or whether the idiots are in the claws of hypnotists and utterly helpless and blameless for the havoc they shower on us earthlings under those deadly spells.

Below a few sane voices ... but hey, who listens to sanity any more. We are the insane ones, and the demons in powers are supposedly not really demons but lily-white angels and unable to tell an untruth.

 
Those of us living in big cities, watch out. Read up on what happened during WW2 and how sudden it was.

From ZeroHedge
Assad Accused Of Dropping Incendiary Bombs In Idlib Days After US Strikes
When we reported on Sunday night that ISIS forces had attacked a US-led base on southern Syria, we also pointed out that according to an unconfirmed report by Al Jazeera, the Assad regime had used the banned substance of White Phosphorus to attack rebel forces in the town of Idlib.
We further said that it would be an odd action for Assad to take, knowing full well the eyes of the world would be on him, and once pictures of the deadly substance are splayed across the front pages of the world's newspapers, it would only prompt further strikes against Assad, this time perhaps on a "decapitation" nature, focusing directly on Assad's presidential palace. Finally, we predicted "expect to hear much more about white phosphorus in the coming days: it will be the "catalyst" for the next round of Syrian airstrikes."

One day later, the white phosphorus is now, predictably, headline news, and we can add one more term to the pre-war dictionary: incendiary bombs, because that is what - at least according to the popular one-man propaganda operation run in the UK by Abdul Rahman, is what was used by Syrian or Russian warplanes in Syria over the weekend, just days after Trump launched 59 cruise missiles into Syria.

According to Reuters, which together with the gated Times of London picked up on the unconfirmed story, "Syrian or Russian warplanes dropped incendiary bombs on areas of Idlib and Hama provinces just days after a deadly gas attack in the region, activists and a monitoring group reported on Monday."

Well, make that one monitoring group: the same one which back in 2013 was responsible for the creation of the original YouTube video showing the "false flag" sarin gas attack, and which - unlike in 2017 - failed to provoke a military attack by the Obama regime.

For more details on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the man behind it, Abdul Rahman, read "Meet The Man Behind The Propaganda"

In any case, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights - whose information gathering network is seemingly better than that of any other newswire in the region - said Russian jets had used an incendiary substance called thermite in bombs they dropped over the towns of Saraqeb in Idlib and al-Latamenah in Hama, further south, on Saturday and Sunday. .....

Michael Krieger at LibertyBlitzkrieg
Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the End for U.S. Empire
Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to revisit something I wrote back in January.

From the post, Very Powerful People in the U.S. Government Want War – This is Their Sales Pitch:

    We need to understand that those who want this war will be absolutely relentless. The sales pitch will not end until they get exactly what they want. This is where all of us critical thinkers need to play a key role. We must be prepared to diligently analyze all unsubstantiated official claims, and push back against the war-mongers, because we know for certain the oligarch-owned corporate media won’t. We must be prepared to inform our fellow citizens about what’s happening so that we don’t fall victim to a cheap sales pitch with devastating consequences. Unfortunately, we must also be prepared for a possible deep state false flag if the current sales tactic falls on deaf ears.

    America cannot win a global war of such a scale if it is based on false pretenses and in the absence of exceedingly strong public support. This support does not exist. Will this serve as a necessary restraint against the masters of war and their devious plans? It’s too early to tell, but I do know that if we are unnecessarily pushed into a global conflagration, it will not end well for us. If this is the road our twisted status quo insists on taking us down, let us never forget who they are and the self-serving motivations behind their actions.

Four months later, the deep state got exactly what it wanted. Trump’s weaknesses have been identified and exploited, and he’s successfully been manipulated into neocon foreign policy like George W. Bush and Barack Obama before him. .....



Norman Solomon at ConsortiumNews
Vast efforts to portray Donald Trump as Vladimir Putin’s flunky have given 
Trump huge incentives to prove otherwise. Last Thursday, he began the process in a big way by ordering a missile attack on Russia’s close ally Syria. In the aftermath of the attack, the cheerleading from U.S. mass media was close to unanimous, and the assault won lots of praise on Capitol Hill. Finally, the protracted and fervent depictions of Trump as a Kremlin tool were getting some tangible results.
At this point, the anti-Russia bandwagon has gained so much momentum that a national frenzy is boosting the odds of unfathomable catastrophe. The world’s two nuclear superpowers are in confrontation mode. It’s urgent to tell ourselves and each other: Wake up!

The dangers of a direct U.S.-Russian military conflict are spiking upward. After the missile attack, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it was suspending a memorandum of understanding with the United States to prevent mid-air collisions over Syria. And Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, issued a statement referring to “our now completely ruined relations” and declaring that the United States was “on the verge of a military clash with Russia.”

These ominous developments are a longtime dream come true for ultra-hawks like Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who’ve gained leverage in an alliance with numerous congressional Democrats. The neocons and the “liberal interventionists” really have something going now, after propagating the meme that Trump is a Putin puppet...

....People at the grassroots must lead, pushing and pulling the official leaders to follow. To stop the current war train — and to quite possibly rescue the fate of the earth — we must get a grip. If we depend on the “leadership” in Congress, all that we hold dear will drift into still-greater jeopardy. With Congress now in recess, most legislators are back home — and they should hear from us. Pick up the phone, make an appointment to visit their district offices, or show up without an appointment.

Right now, in one minute, you can - send an email to your senators and representative.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky at GlobalResearch
When America’s “Progressives” Pay Lip Service to Imperialism.
The Anti-War Movement is Dead.Trump's Punitive Airstrikes against Syria. Noam Chomsky Favors "Regime Change"
“Neoliberals, Neocons, Corporate media and “Progressives” (collectively, the Deep State) praising Trump for the illegal airstrike against Syria, uniformly calling for more war, and vociferously attacking all those opposing war. Many figures who opposed Bush’s war making have become totally “controlled puppets” who say and do what they are ordered to do—regardless of consistency with past views and actions.” Larry Chin, April 8, 2017

Segments of the anti-war movement which opposed the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq are tacitly supportive of  Trump’s punitive airstrikes directed against the “Assad regime” allegedly involved in “killing their own people”, gassing them to death in a premeditated chemical weapons attack. According to Trump “Assad choked out the lives of helpless men women and children”.

America’s “Progressive Idol” Noam Chomsky in an April 5 interview with “Democracy Now” (aired two days before Trump’s punitive airstrikes) favors “regime change”, intimating that a negotiated “removal” of Bashar Al Assad could lead to a peaceful settlement.

According to Chomsky: “The Assad regime is a moral disgrace. They’re carrying out horrendous acts, the Russians with them.” Strong statement with no supporting evidence and documentation provided. The victims of imperialism are casually blamed for the crimes of imperialism:.....

Peter Koenig at GlobalResearch
Syria: Trump May Just have Started World War III

President Trump just ordered an US attack of at least 59 Tomahawk missiles from US warships in the Mediterranean Sea on Syria’s al-Shayrat airbase near Homs.

Mr. Talal Barazi, governor of Homs province, reports several deaths but at this time does not offer further details. This Tomahawk assault was supposedly in response to Bachar al-Assad’s alleged nerve gas attack on 4 April, targeting the civilian population in Idlib Province that killed in excess of 60 people, among them many children.

It reeks all over of False Flag – Gladio 2 – level ‘world’. But nobody smells it, nobody wants to see it, nobody wants to hear it – and especially, nobody wants to talk about it. The truth cannot be spoken. The attack has to be launched immediately, before any investigation could reveal the truth. That’s the way it’s always been. Kill the witnesses. That’s what Washington and its Zionist masters know best.

The Pentagon says Moscow was informed about the attack. There was no reaction from the Russian Government yet.

Earlier Mr. Putin stated that

    “it was unacceptable to bring accusations against anyone until a thorough and impartial international investigation was conducted.”

Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer and Director of the Council for the National Interest, says that “military and intelligence personnel,” “intimately familiar” with the intelligence, say that the narrative that Assad or Russia did it is a “sham”. .....



Bill Van Auken at WorldSocialistWeb
The bombing of Syria: A new chapter in the US drive for global hegemony

With the cruise missile attack on Syria, the United States has opened up a new chapter in its war for global hegemony that it began more than a quarter century ago with the invasion of Iraq.

The claim that this attack is a response to the Syrian government’s use of poison gas is a transparent lie. Once again, as in the air war against Serbia in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, and the attack on Libya in 2011, the United States has concocted a pretext to justify the violation of another country’s sovereignty.

The bombing of Syria is a unilateral abrogation by the US of the agreement negotiated with Russia in 2013, which resulted in the calling off of a long-planned direct military intervention by the US in the on-going civil war.
As the International Committee of the Fourth International warned in September 2013, “The postponement of war does not lessen the likelihood, indeed, the inevitability, of the outbreak of a major war. As the bellicose statements emanating from Washington make clear, the ‘military option’ remains on the table. ....

....The denials by the Syrian government of responsibility for any chemical attack have been summarily dismissed by the White House and the media, as has the record of Al Qaeda forces in Syria carrying out their own chemical weapons attacks and blaming them on the government.

The case of who was responsible for the alleged chemical weapons attack was “solved” in less time than the New York Police Department devotes to investigating a street mugging. The verdict was in and the sentence is now being carried out....

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Anti-War protests ... April 7, 2017


These were emergency protest marches and in spite of being called up within a few short hours of the US bombing of the Syrian airbase, the turnout is pretty impressive.














Saturday, April 8, 2017

On the alleged chemical attack incident and the bombing of Syrian airbase by "non-interventionist" Trump .... Part One


Trump murdered 14 Syrians in and around the airbase among them a woman and kid, probably kids, plural. I have yet to see a definite figure, maybe it's because the Syrian authorities are still tracking down the whereabouts of  23 missiles (correction: 36 missiles) that didn't hit the base itself.
 

Sane and sober voices are being drowned out by the war-drums drumming at neck-breaking speed and these drums are in the vicious hands of  warmongers.  The Pen in the hands of intellectuals is proving to be far less mighty than the Sword which is now being swished around with demonic glee by the war crowd.  They know they have managed to get hold of  TRUMP by his short hairs and their grip on them is deadly. You can bet your bottom dollar you will see everything going downhill from now on. Maybe, THERE IS TRUTH to what we supposed was just a rumor, that Trump was involved with underage girls and  more than a rumor to the allegations of rape.  The warmongers have got him!!




Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Another Dangerous Rush to Judgment in Syria
With the latest hasty judgment about Tuesday’s poison-gas deaths in a rebel-held area of northern Syria, the mainstream U.S. news media once more reveals itself to be a threat to responsible journalism and to the future of humanity. Again, we see the troubling pattern of verdict first, investigation later, even when that behavior can lead to a dangerous war escalation and many more deaths.
Before a careful evaluation of the evidence about Tuesday’s tragedy was possible, The New York Times and other major U.S. news outlets had pinned the blame for the scores of dead on the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. That revived demands that the U.S. and other nations establish a “no-fly zone” over Syria, which would amount to launching another “regime change” war and would put America into a likely hot war with nuclear-armed Russia.

Even as basic facts were still being assembled about Tuesday’s incident, we, the public, were prepped to disbelieve the Syrian government’s response that the poison gas may have come from rebel stockpiles that could have been released either accidentally or intentionally causing the civilian deaths in a town in Idlib Province.

One possible scenario was that Syrian warplanes bombed a rebel weapons depot where the poison gas was stored, causing the containers to rupture. Another possibility was a staged event by increasingly desperate Al Qaeda jihadists who are known for their disregard for innocent human life.

While it’s hard to know at this early stage what’s true and what’s not, these alternative explanations, I’m told, are being seriously examined by U.S. intelligence. One source cited the possibility that Turkey had supplied the rebels with the poison gas (the exact type still not determined) for potential use against Kurdish forces operating in northern Syria near the Turkish border or for a terror attack in a government-controlled city like the capital of Damascus.....



Daniel McAdams at RonPaulInstitute
US Bombs Syria - National Security Or Aggression? 
With Guest, US Rep. Thomas Massie

President Trump sent 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Syria yesterday in retaliation for what he claimed was a chemical attack on citizens by President Assad. He sought no Congressional authorization and presented no evidence to either Congress or the American people to justify his actions. What happens next, as Trump opens wider the US military involvement in the Middle East. US Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) joins today's Liberty Report in studio to discuss:


Scott Adams at his blog
The Syrian Gas Attack Persuasion
According to the mainstream media – that has been wrong about almost everything for a solid 18 months in a row – the Syrian government allegedly bombed its own people with a nerve agent.

The reason the Assad government would bomb its own people with a nerve agent right now is obvious. Syrian President Assad – who has been fighting for his life for several years, and is only lately feeling safer – suddenly decided to commit suicide-by-Trump. Because the best way to make that happen is to commit a war crime against your own people in exactly the way that would force President Trump to respond or else suffer humiliation at the hands of the mainstream media.

And how about those pictures coming in about the tragedy. Lots of visual imagery. Dead babies. It is almost as if someone designed this “tragedy” to be camera-ready for President Trump’s consumption. It pushed every one of his buttons. Hard. And right when things in Syria were heading in a positive direction.

    Interesting timing.
    Super-powerful visual persuasion designed for Trump in particular.
    Suspiciously well-documented event for a place with no real press.
    No motive for Assad to use gas to kill a few dozen people at the cost of his entire regime. It wouldn’t be a popular move with Putin either.
    The type of attack no U.S. president can ignore and come away intact.
    A setup that looks suspiciously similar to the false WMD stories that sparked the Iraq war.

I’m going to call bullshit on the gas attack. It’s too “on-the-nose,” as Hollywood script-writers sometimes say, meaning a little too perfect to be natural. This has the look of a manufactured event..........




Peter Hitchens at InformationClearingHouse
It's WMD All Over Again. Why Don't You See It? 

 April 05, 2017 "Information Clearing House" -  Actually knowing something, remembering history or having experience of the world is becoming a disadvantage. How much easier it would be to join in with the flow of opinion about Syria, to listen happily to, and read contentedly, media reports on the subject.

As it is, I feel something close a physical pain as I do this.

Today’s frenzy over alleged use of poison gas in Syria is the 2017 version of Anthony Blair’s WMD in Iraq. Why
can you not see it? Did you think they would do it in exactly the same way again? You are being assailed through your emotions, to act first and think long after, and far too late.

How *can* trained journalists (and experienced diplomats) be so lacking in the desire or ability to question what they are told? How come that they accept without hesitation reports which have not come from their own staff, but instead come from within terrifying war zones where gangs of fanatical murderers are the only law? One or two at least have the decency to refer to the new reports of gas attacks as ‘suspected’ or alleged, but most present them as established fact. ‘All the hallmarks’ means in such cases what? Though millions believe this has been proven, past accusations of gas use by Damascus have never been independently shown to be true.

Well, how can facts *be* independently established about such events? Not easily. Alas, that makes it appalling simple to make propaganda without ever facing serious checks .

The pressures on anyone communicating with western media from such places can only be imagined.

And then there is this simple point. Why would the Syrian government use gas at this stage in a war it has recently begun to win with conventional munitions? You don’t have to believe that the Assad state is saintly to ask this question, and I don’t believe that. Please see http://dailym.ai/2h1XZAv Carla del Ponte, for the UN, has in the past accused the *rebels* of gas use http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10039672/UN-accuses-Syrian-rebels-of-chemical-weapons-use.html

Wicked and brutal they may well be, but they would have to be stupid and possibly mad to do such an thing, just as an important conference convenes in Brussels ...




Rick Sterling at DissidentVoice
The Escalating War on Syria and the Need for International Law

....As I will show below, it is likely the deaths in Khan Sheikhoun were caused by an armed opposition faction, not the Syrian government. The goal was precisely what has happened: a media firestorm leading to direct U.S. aggression against Syria.

What Happened and How?

On April 4 news broke of a ‘chemical weapon’ attack in Syria. Western media and governments quickly blamed the Syrian government. Just as quickly, neoconservatives such as Sen. John McCain recalled the 2013 crisis when Pres Obama ultimately decided not to attack Syria. Israeli PM Netanyahu chimed in with a not-too-subtle renewed call for war on Syria. He tweeted that it’s time for the international community to “fulfill its obligations from 2013.”....

....Who is responsible?

There are three theories about what happened:

– The western government narrative is that the Syrian “regime” is responsible. They fired illegal chemical weapons into the town, primarily killing innocent civilians and many children.

– The Syrian army acknowledges firing air strikes but deny using chemical weapons at this or any time. This area was the base for militant attacks against government areas in Hama province in the preceding weeks. The Russian Ministry of Defense says that militants had a weapons production factory including chemical weapon ingredients, and that may have been hit and caused the chemical weapon deaths.

– A third theory is the kidnapped civilians from Khattab were killed or poisoned by the militants as part of a staged event....

From GlobalResearch
Deleted Daily Mail Online Article:
“US Backed Plan for Chemical Weapon Attack in Syria to Be Blamed on Assad”
This article was first published by GR in June 2013,  the author is the truthnewsinternational blogsite. 

In January 29, 2013, Britain’s most popular Daily Newspaper, in its online version Dailymail.co.uk published an article titled:
U.S. ‘backed plan to launch chemical weapon attack on Syria and blame it on Assad’s regime’

A few days later they pulled the article.

What the reason was for the deletion remains unclear. The article was published at this URL:

http://dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270219/U-S-planned-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-Syria-blame-Assad.html

There exists a cached version of the article which can be found here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20130129213824/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270219/U-S-planned-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-Syria-blame-Assad.html.....

Claire Bernish at FreeThoughtProject
It’s Time To Pay Attention — In The Last 24 Hours,
Trump Admin. Has Pushed US To The Brink of WW3
Falling in unfortunate lockstep with a succession of belligerent previous presidents, Donald Trump is fomenting retaliatory military measures against Syria for a horrific chemical gas attack that killed at least 86 innocent people, dozens of them children — even while imperative questions swirl regarding who, precisely, carried out the atrocity.

While the West’s propaganda machine summarily crucified Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — deeming him a monstrous oaf deserving of the worst possible retribution — calmer minds exhorted U.S. officials to consider the simplest of legitimacy litmus test questions before decimating Syria:
What could Assad possibly stand to gain from gassing his own people to death?

Not only that, but, most necessitously, what could a hasty military response accomplish — mere days after a degree of diplomacy indicated an end to the conflict on the horizon — besides killing yet more Syrians and jarring the world into war?....



Press Release from Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
Trump’s Military Strikes in Syria Are Reckless and Short-Sighted

Honolulu, HI—Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI-02) released the following statement today after the U.S. launched military strikes on Syrian government targets:

“It angers and saddens me that President Trump has taken the advice of war hawks and escalated our illegal regime change war to overthrow the Syrian government. This escalation is short-sighted and will lead to more dead civilians, more refugees, the strengthening of al-Qaeda and other terrorists, and a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia—which could lead to nuclear war.

“This Administration has acted recklessly without care or consideration of the dire consequences of the United States attack on Syria without waiting for the collection of evidence from the scene of the chemical poisoning.  If President Assad is indeed guilty of this horrible chemical attack on innocent civilians, I will be the first to call for his prosecution and execution by the International Criminal Court. However, because of our attack on Syria, this investigation may now not even be possible. And without such evidence, a successful prosecution will be much harder.”

Kim Petersen at DissidentVoice
Is Noam Chomsky Manufacturing Consent for Regime Change in Syria?
One might well expect the corporate/state media to twice be complicit for the gas attack perpetrated by the Syrian regime scenario. One would hope, however, that media independent of the state and corporate sponsors would apply a higher journalistic standard. Yet Democracy Now! has been pushing the imperialist agenda for regime change in Syria. Tendentious recent reports from DN make this abundantly clear. The so-called independent1 DN has also lured octogenarian professor Noam Chomsky to criticize the “Assad regime.”

DN begins with the leading statement of “worldwide outrage mounts over an alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib province, which was reportedly carried out by the Assad government…” No evidence is presented to support the accusation, and the accusers also are unnamed. What kind of journalism is this?

It would be completely nonsensical and insane for Syria to use chemical weapons while the war is turning in its favor. And, of course, there is evidence that refutes the allegation. For the record, when a Zionist and war criminal Barack Obama was bent on attacking Syria in 2013 following false accusations that the Assad government used sarin gas in Ghouta, Syria – to preempt the threatened invasion Assad agreed (UN Resolution 2118) to give up Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons (a deterrence against Israel’s nuclear weapons). Now the Syrian government stands accused of using a chemical that was disposed of under international supervision. Is the Syrian government that stupid to risk another threat of invasion by using a non-conventional attack? And why is this new gas attack in Idlib taking place just after Rex Tillerson declared that it is the Syrian people who should decide the fate of their current president?

The professor tells DN: “Syria is a horrible catastrophe. The Assad regime is a moral disgrace. They’re carrying out horrendous acts, the Russians with them.”

How about a dose of skepticism? After all, Chomsky speculated recently of a Donald Trump-orchestrated false flag. Chomsky’s opening omissions speak loudly. He goes straight at the Syrian government; he does not mention involvement by the US, Israel, and other western states. He does not mention the western, Saudi, and Qatari-backed terrorist mercenaries that seek to topple a foreign government through violence....

....It is imperative is that people become informed. We should all listen to the words of intellectuals and persons who have demonstrated great integrity, but we must also pay heed to our internal dissonance to seemingly incongruous information; we must question and apply rigorous challenge to that information; and based on our assessment of the factual accuracy, logic, and morality of the information we must reach our own conclusions. Avoid the allure of unquestioningly accepting the words of authority! Regardless of personage, open-minded skepticism is the key to developing our own ability to cut through disinformation and thwart the insidious acts propaganda is intended to disguise.

Critical and moral thinking is crucial to the revolution for a free and socially just world.....


Thursday, April 6, 2017

"Get out of the Middle East" good advise, but USA's warmongers will never take it


The bully nation cannot be weaned off wars and destruction.  The warlord in power now in that nation, lied about being a non-interventionist until he became an occupant of the White House and now we begin to see his true colors, and they are very, very ugly.
The article below is a good sober read.

Jeffrey D Sachs at BostonGlobe
US military should get out of the Middle East

It’s time to end US military engagements in the Middle East. Drones, special operations, CIA arms supplies, military advisers, aerial bombings — the whole nine yards. Over and done with. That might seem impossible in the face of ISIS, terrorism, Iranian ballistic missiles, and other US security interests, but a military withdrawal from the Middle East is by far the safest path for the United States and the region. That approach has instructive historical precedents.

America has been no different from other imperial powers in finding itself ensnared repeatedly in costly, bloody, and eventually futile overseas wars. From the Roman empire till today, the issue is not whether an imperial army can defeat a local one. It usually can, just as the United States did quickly in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The issue is whether it gains anything by doing so. Following such a “victory,” the imperial power faces unending heavy costs in terms of policing, political instability, guerilla war, and terrorist blowback.

Terrorism is a frequent consequence of imperial wars and imperial rule. Local populations are unable to defeat the imperial powers, so they impose high costs through terror instead. Consider the terrorism used by Jewish settlers against the British Empire and local Palestinians in their fight for Israel’s independence and territory; or Serbian terrorism deployed against the Hapsburg Empire; or Vietnamese terrorism used against the French and United States in Vietnam’s long war for independence; or American terrorism, for that matter, that independence fighters used against the British in America’s war of independence.

This is of course not to condone terrorism. Indeed, my point is to condemn imperial rule, and to argue for political solutions rather than imperial oppression, war, and the terror that comes in its wake. Imperial rulers, whether the British in pre-independence America; the Americans in Cuba and the Philippines after 1898; the French and Americans in Vietnam; and the United States in the Middle East in recent decades, foment violent reactions that destroy peace, prosperity, good governance, and hope. The real solutions to these conflicts lie in diplomacy and political justice, not in imperial rule, repression, and terror. ....

....To examine the political histories of Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Israel-Palestine after 1950, is to observe the United States engaged in the intrigues, wars, CIA-led coups, and military overthrows that had been the handiwork of Britain and France during earlier decades. The CIA toppled governments in the Middle East on countless occasions. Media pundits tended to overlook the US role in this instability. ....

Are your children being programmed?



The Mosul Massacres of March 2017



When the Empire kills women and children, doncha know it's collateral damage?!!  The West's MSM knows that, but why can't others stop whining about it, huh?!  The goal of the Empire's new boss is to murder as many Muslims as possible and with the willing and eager help from other Muslims, it's an achievable goal.  So come on, you thinking Muslims, stop thinking and either join the murdering Muslims or get murdered by them using those sophisticated and expensive WMDs  sold to your religious brethren from USA/EU/UK and others.

Anwar Khan at TheSaker
The Mosul Massacres: the Banality of Evil revisited

What is the moral difference–if any– between the intentional shooting at fleeing civilians and using them as human shields on the one hand, and the flattening of entire neighborhoods, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, on the pretext of the presence of enemy fighters there-in, on the other? The answer is that there is no moral difference. Both are high crimes under any book, and it is being perpetrated on the people of Mosul as we speak. The first is done by ISIS– the Frankenstein that crept out of the Empire’s Research and Development labs, with the sole aim of destroying Muslim societies, disparaging the name of Islam, and advancing the march towards Full Spectrum Dominance— and the second is perpetrated by the Empire’s military might in broad day light, on the pretext of annihilating the very monster that it created. In between a most vicious massacre of innocent people is being perpetrated, with an almost complete media blackout.

(Side Note: Not that the knowledge of such crimes would bother much the moral nerves of the western world, who have come to accept scenes of dead Muslims as a phenomenon as normal as cloud formation. Between slavish work to pay for what they call life, celebrity worship, and the collective immolation of the soul that takes place in the dark temples we call cinemas— mirroring very much the darkness that encompasses the modern conscience—one wonders if idle time could be spared to show moral revulsion to such crimes. Yes, candles are lit and tears shed to the unfortunate victims at home, but the Muslim lands are simply too far, too unknown, and too “other” to cause any discomfort of the conscience)

While the Syrian and Russian offensive to retake Aleppo from the terrorists saw much crocodile tears from the Empire’s media, the Mosul offensive or Inherent Resolve—where Coalition air strikes have turned the city into a heap of rubble hiding a virtual urban graveyard inside its belly— is not even mentioned in passing. The amount of suffering that the people of Mosul have faced since the operation began is difficult to compare to anything in our times, including the Syrian war theatre which is as cruel as modern warfare can be. The scenes from Mosul Jadida(New Mosul) area are reminiscent of Dresden during the Second World War.

The Guardian reported Chris Woods, the director of monitoring group Airwars, to have said: “The Jadida incident alone is the worst toll of a single [airstrike] incident that I can recall in decades. The coalition’s argument that it doesn’t target noncombatants risks being devalued when so many civilians are being killed in west Mosul.” He is referring to a coalition airstrike that killed over 200 civilians mostly children, women and elderly seeking shelter in a building. The mounting human suffering and infrastructural destruction is of such a scale that the Iraqi Army, conducting the ground offensive, had to call off its advance fearing that the operation has slid into a catastrophe, thanks to the coalition’s Make America Great Again strategy....

(Side Note: You wonder where is Hollywood and George Clooney and their crocodile tears which they shed incessantly for the people of Sudan– who we were told were going through a “genocide”– eventually leading to imperial intervention and creation of South Sudan. How courageous of these celebrities to root for imperial causes and then hide in their holes when true courage is needed?).......

Dr Ron Paul on 100 years since WWI



Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Two recent terror attacks in non-Muslim lands ... one is mourned by the West's MSM much more than the other.



Do you know which one got more media attention? 

Those who don't have the answer, are of course being dishonest. While the Anglo-world talked non-stop about the UK attack (and  Russia did too, btw), the one in Russia was either down-played or outright pooh-poohed.
This is the state of our world now.  Russia and Russians are to be treated as pariahs and those stalwarts who insist on peace and unity between all nations and are voicing their concerns about the horrendous treatment meted out to Russia, are to be ridiculed and name-called.

This one from UK's BBC about the attack in the UK on March 22. 
Total humans killed = 4.  Total terrorists killed = 1. 
Total injured = 20 humans




This one from UK's BBC about the attack in St. Petersberg's metro, Russia. 
Total humans killed = 14 +/- suicide bomber.
Total injured =  45 humans




Below, from RT (Russia Today TV network) on the terrorism attack in St. Petersburg's metro, April 3



AND, while UK's BBC thought it fit to disparage Russia's government and hint at the Russian government's hand in the metro attack,  RT carried on and on covering the London attack and showing full sympathy and empathy with the humans of UK.


Hence, I surmise Russians have red blood like many of us.  The Brits have blue blood just like many of the Russia haters. 
Humans have red blood, I am told.

For "Greater Israel" - the Zionist warfare blueprint that is killing millions of earthlings in the Middle East


The leaders of the West as well as the MSM, largely owned by billionaires (and yes, I mean both the leaders and the MSM, both entities are bought lock, stock and barrel) with a view to expanding the borders of Israel, will hopefully one day pay dearly for the mortal sin of  genocide they are committing, all in the interest of Israel.

From GlobalResearch:
“Greater Israel”: The Zionist Plan for the Middle East
The Infamous "Oded Yinon Plan". Introduction by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research Editor’s Note

The following document pertaining to the formation of “Greater Israel” constitutes the cornerstone of powerful Zionist factions within the current Netanyahu government,  the Likud party, as well as within the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. (article first published by Global Research on April 29, 2013).

In recent developments, President Donald Trump has confirmed his support of Israel’s illegal settlements and his opposition to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which confirms the illegality of the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”  According to Rabbi Fischmann,  “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

When viewed in the current context, the war on Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing wars on Syria and Iraq, the war on Yemen, the process of regime change in Egypt, must be understood in relation to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East.

The latter consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of an Israeli expansionist project.

Bear in mind this design is not strictly a Zionist Plan, it is an integral part of US foreign policy, namely Washington’s intent to fracture and balkanize the Middle East.

“Greater Israel” consists in an area extending from the Nile Valley to the Euphrates. According to Stephen Lendman, “A near-century ago, the World Zionist Organization’s plan for a Jewish state included:......


........The Zionist Plan for the Middle East
Translated and edited by

Israel Shahak
The Israel of Theodore Herzl (1904) and of Rabbi Fischmann (1947)

In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”

Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on 9 July 1947: “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates, it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.”

from
Oded Yinon’s
“A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”

Published by the........

.....A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties

by Oded Yinon.........

.......Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. As a matter of fact Amman is as Palestinian as Nablus. All of these countries have powerful armies, relatively speaking. But there is a problem there too. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: The hostility towards Israel, and today even that is insufficient......

Monday, April 3, 2017

On Ecuador's election results and Wikileaks' Vault 7


The most important aspect of the Ecuadorian election result is: The pro-Assange guy has won. Yay!
If you don't want the PTB to crucify and cut Assange into small pieces, you should be happy that the anti-Assange banker guy was defeated by the Ecuadorian Leftists. Don't be an ideologue, go with what is right and just.





Vault 7: Projects

Marble Framework
31 March, 2017

Today, March 31st 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 "Marble" -- 676 source code files for the CIA's secret anti-forensic Marble Framework. Marble is used to hamper forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks to the CIA.

Marble does this by hiding ("obfuscating") text fragments used in CIA malware from visual inspection. This is the digital equivallent of a specalized CIA tool to place covers over the english language text on U.S. produced weapons systems before giving them to insurgents secretly backed by the CIA.

Marble forms part of the CIA's anti-forensics approach and the CIA's Core Library of malware code. It is "[D]esigned to allow for flexible and easy-to-use obfuscation" as "string obfuscation algorithms (especially those that are unique) are often used to link malware to a specific developer or development shop."

The Marble source code also includes a deobfuscator to reverse CIA text obfuscation. Combined with the revealed obfuscation techniques, a pattern or signature emerges which can assist forensic investigators attribute previous hacking attacks and viruses to the CIA. Marble was in use at the CIA during 2016. It reached 1.0 in 2015.

The source code shows that Marble has test examples not just in English but also in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi. This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion, --- but there are other possibilities, such as hiding fake error messages.

The Marble Framework is used for obfuscation only and does not contain any vulnerabilties or exploits by itself.
Leaked Documents
Marble Framework (Source Code)

Dark Matter
23 March, 2017

Today, March 23rd 2017, WikiLeaks releases Vault 7 "Dark Matter", which contains documentation for several CIA projects that infect Apple Mac firmware (meaning the infection persists even if the operating system is re-installed) developed by the CIA's Embedded Development Branch (EDB). These documents explain the techniques used by CIA to gain 'persistence' on Apple Mac devices, including Macs and iPhones and demonstrate their use of EFI/UEFI and firmware malware.

Among others, these documents reveal the "Sonic Screwdriver" project which, as explained by the CIA, is a "mechanism for executing code on peripheral devices while a Mac laptop or desktop is booting" allowing an attacker to boot its attack software for example from a USB stick "even when a firmware password is enabled". The CIA's "Sonic Screwdriver" infector is stored on the modified firmware of an Apple Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter.

"DarkSeaSkies" is "an implant that persists in the EFI firmware of an Apple MacBook Air computer" and consists of "DarkMatter", "SeaPea" and "NightSkies", respectively EFI, kernel-space and user-space implants.....