Charlie Dodo: A Deal Is Struck In France

Author’s note:  This is a satire.  Sort of…

Don’t you just hate it when people get killed?  Murdered?  Decapitated?  Have their bodies blown up?  Why would anybody in their right mind even consider killing another fellow human being?  Have you yourself killed anybody lately?  Not me.  I’ve never killed nothing.  Cockroaches, maybe — back when I was living rough on the Lower East Side in 1965.  But cockroaches don’t count.  Or do they?  Can you get PTSD from killing bugs?  Probably not.

Yet last week 12 people were shot dead in the streets of Paris by unknown gunmen dressed in black and carrying AK-47s — and apparently even a rocket launcher.  And yet nobody twigged to these odd Halloween costumes before it was too late?    How did this happen?  Apparently a deal had been struck.

Over the past decade or so, the American military-industrial complex in all its glory has moved into the Middle East and killed a million or so people.  And it has handled, trained and armed Al Qaeda and ISIS, a pretty much documented fact.  However.  What goes on in the Middle East stays in the Middle East, right?  Theoretically, yes.

But Pappy Bush said, “Let’s go invade Kuwait and kill us some Iraqis.”  So he did.  And then Baby Bush said, “I can do you one even better than that!”  And he killed even more Iraqis — and, being in a generous mood, threw in some dead Afghans, Palestinians and Persians as well.

Then Obama came along and started bragging, “I went to Harvard.  I can top that!”  And by God he did.  Libya, Syria, Palestine (again) and Ukraine (technically not the Middle East but it did include slaughtering a whole bunch of people — so that should count for something, right?)

And then apparently some Al Qaeda wannabes sent word to their handlers or whatever at the CIA, saying, “We’ve been your grunts since forever and, don’t get us wrong, we really do appreciate all the training and weapons you’ve given us and the chance to behead women and children left and right.  Don’t get us wrong, Consigliere.  We are not ungrateful.  But could you kinda maybe send a bit of a tidbit or bone or reward our way too?  We too want more of the action.  War in the Middle East just isn’t enough.  We’re bored of shelling Mosul and Damascus.  Can we PLEEZE go shoot up Paris as well?  Just a little bit?  Please?”

Well, the CIA understood.  Who can even think of resisting an all-expense-paid trip to Paris?  Certainly not our homeys in ISIS.  Paris being the City of Light and all that.  “Sure, go on ahead with your bad selves,” the ISIS handlers replied.  And a deal was struck.

“What do you got in mind?” asked the handlers.  “A little R&R on the Champs-Élysées?”

“Nah.  We just want to shoot up Charlie Dodo.  Those guys said really really obscene things about the Prophet.  Not, of course, the same really really obscene things we say about the Prophet — but definitely in the ballpark.   Charlie Dodo has made a mockery of the Prophet.  Not as much of a mockery as we have — but a mockery just the same.”

“Done!” cried the handlers — and then the paperwork began.  And why not?  This could definitely be in War Street’s best interests and get everyone in France hating Muslims (even more than they do already).  Just look how well 9-11 turned out for Islamophobics!  “Plus it’s always fun to stage a false-flag operation — and you know how we love to kill journalists.”  It’s a twofer. 

So their CIA handlers quickly dug up the requisite fake passports and the requisite phony ID cards to leave miraculously lying around at the scene   And they even tried to get their new Qaeda-trash protégé thugs some free passes to Euro-Disney as well, but didn’t quite have the clout to pull that one off.  But the stage was set.  Journalists and police and French citizens were gonna be slaughtered and the whole world was gonna be shocked and go around saying “I am Charlie”.  And it would be “Mission Accomplished” all over again, right?  And, even more important, now France also has a carte blanche excuse to bomb Palestine or Russia or Vietnam or Walmart or whatever they please — just like Baby Bush had his excuse to bomb Afghanistan.

But I still really hate it when people get killed.

PS:  I wrote this because I’m really and totally dubious about what actually happened at Charlie Hebdo the other day.

I’ve been to Iraq, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Africa, Palestine, Dallas, etc. and I’ve seen with my own eyes what is actually going on in these places.  But then I go back home to the States and read the MSM newspapers and watch the TV news — and it’s a whole different world they are describing, one filled with fantasies, wistful thinking, propaganda and lies.

I never believe anything I read in the MSM any more.  So why should I suddenly start believing what they say about the bad guys who shot up the Charlie Hebdo offices in France?

Irreversible Decline?

Did the U.S. and the Saudis Conspire to Push Down Oil Prices?

“Saudi oil policy… has been subject to a great deal of wild and inaccurate conjecture in recent weeks. We do not seek to politicize oil… For us it’s a question of supply and demand, it’s purely business.” – Ali al Naimi, Saudi Oil Minister

“There is no conspiracy, there is no targeting of anyone. This is a market and it goes up and down.” – Suhail Bin Mohammed al-Mazroui, United Arab Emirates’ petroleum minister

“We all see the lowering of oil prices. There’s lots of talk about what’s causing it. Could it be an agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to punish Iran and affect the economies of Russia and Venezuela? It could.” – Russian President Vladimir Putin

Are falling oil prices part of a US-Saudi plan to inflict economic damage on Russia, Iran and Venezuela?

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro seems to think so. In a recent interview that appeared in Reuters, Maduro said he thought the United States and Saudi Arabia wanted to drive down oil prices “to harm Russia.”

Bolivian President Evo Morales agrees with Maduro and told journalists at RT that: “The reduction in oil prices was provoked by the US as an attack on the economies of Venezuela and Russia. In the face of such economic and political attacks, the nations must be united.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the same thing,with a slightly different twist: “The main reason for (the oil price plunge) is a political conspiracy by certain countries against the interests of the region and the Islamic world … Iran and people of the region will not forget such … treachery against the interests of the Muslim world.”

US-Saudi “treachery”? Is that what’s really driving down oil prices?

Not according to Saudi Arabia’s Petroleum Minister Ali al-Naimi. Al-Naimi has repeatedly denied claims that the kingdom is involved in a conspiracy. He says the tumbling prices are the result of “A lack of cooperation by non-OPEC production nations, along with the spread of misinformation and speculator’s greed.” In other words, everyone else is to blame except the country that has historically kept prices high by controlling output. That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think? Especially since–according to the Financial Times — OPEC’s de facto leader has abandoned the cartel’s “traditional strategy” and announced that it won’t cut production even if prices drop to $20 per barrel.

Why? Why would the Saudis suddenly abandon a strategy that allowed them to rake in twice as much dough as they are today? Don’t they like money anymore?

And why would al-Naimi be so eager to crash prices, send Middle East stock markets into freefall, increase the kingdom’s budget deficits to a record-high 5 percent of GDP, and create widespread financial instability? Is grabbing “market share” really that important or is there something else going on here below the surface?

The Guardian’s Larry Elliot thinks the US and Saudi Arabia are engaged a conspiracy to push down oil prices. He points to a September meeting between John Kerry and Saudi King Abdullah where a deal was made to boost production in order to hurt Iran and Russia. Here’s a clip from the article titled “Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia”:

“…with the help of its Saudi ally, Washington is trying to drive down the oil price by flooding an already weak market with crude. As the Russians and the Iranians are heavily dependent on oil exports, the assumption is that they will become easier to deal with…

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, allegedly struck a deal with King Abdullah in September under which the Saudis would sell crude at below the prevailing market price. That would help explain why the price has been falling at a time when, given the turmoil in Iraq and Syria caused by Islamic State, it would normally have been rising.

The Saudis did something similar in the mid-1980s. Then, the geopolitical motivation for a move that sent the oil price to below $10 a barrel was to destabilize Saddam Hussein’s regime. This time, according to Middle East specialists, the Saudis want to put pressure on Iran and to force Moscow to weaken its support for the Assad regime in Syria… (Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia, Guardian)

That’s the gist of Elliot’s theory, but is he right?

Vladimir Putin isn’t so sure. Unlike Morales, Maduro and Rouhani, the Russian president has been reluctant to blame falling prices on US-Saudi collusion. In an article in Itar-Tass, Putin opined:

“There’s a lot of talk around” in what concerns the causes for the slide of oil prices, he said at a major annual news conference. “Some people say there is conspiracy between Saudi Arabia and the US in order to punish Iran or to depress the Russian economy or to exert impact on Venezuela.”

“It might be really so or might be different, or there might be the struggle of traditional producers of crude oil and shale oil,” Putin said. “Given the current situation on the market the production of shale oil and gas has practically reached the level of zero operating costs.” (Putin says oil market price conspiracy between Saudi Arabia and US not ruled out, Itar-Tass)

As always, Putin takes the most moderate position, that is, that Washington and the Saudis may be in cahoots, but that droopy prices might simply be a sign of over-supply and weakening demand. In other words, there could be a plot, but then again, maybe not. Putin is a man who avoids passing judgment without sufficient evidence.

The same can’t be said of the Washington Post. In a recent article, WP journalist Chris Mooney dismisses anyone who thinks oil prices are the result of US-Saudi collaboration as “kooky conspiracy theorists”. According to Mooney:

“The reasons for the sudden (price) swing are not particularly glamorous: They involve factors like supply and demand, oil companies having invested heavily in exploration several years ago to produce a glut of oil that has now hit the market — and then, perhaps, the “lack of cohesion” among the diverse members of OPEC.” (Why there are so many kooky conspiracy theories about oil, Washington Post)

Oddly enough, Mooney disproves his own theory a few paragraphs later in the same piece when he says:

“Oil producers really do coordinate. And then, there’s OPEC, which is widely referred to in the press as a “cartel,” and which states up front that its mission is to “coordinate and unify the petroleum policies” of its 12 member countries…. Again, there’s that veneer of plausibility to the idea of some grand oil related strategy.” (WP)

Let me get this straight: One the one hand Mooney agrees that OPEC is a cartel that “coordinates and unify the petroleum policies”, then on the other, he says that market fundamentals are at work. Can you see the disconnect? Cartels obstruct normal supply-demand dynamics by fixing prices, which Mooney seems to breezily ignore.

Also, he scoffs at the idea of “some grand oil related strategy” as if these cartel nations were philanthropic organizations operating in the service of humanity. Right. Someone needs to clue Mooney in on the fact that OPEC is not the Peace Corps. They are monopolizing amalgam of cutthroat extortionists whose only interest is maximizing profits while increasing their own political power. Surely, we can all agree on that fact.

What’s really wrong with Mooney’s article, is that he misses the point entirely. The debate is NOT between so-called “conspiracy theorists” and those who think market forces alone explain the falling prices. It’s between the people who think that the Saudis decision to flood the market is driven by politics rather than a desire to grab “market share.” That’s where people disagree. No denies that there’s manipulation; they merely disagree about the motive. This glaring fact seems to escape Mooney who is on a mission to discredit conspiracy theorists at all cost. Here’s more:

(There’s) “a long tradition of conspiracy theorists who have surmised that the world’s great oil powers — whether countries or mega-corporations — are secretly pulling strings to shape world events.”…

“A lot of conspiracy theories take as their premise that there’s a small group of people who are plotting to control something, to control the government, the banking system, or the main energy source, and they are doing this to the disadvantage of everybody else,” says University of California-Davis historian Kathy Olmsted, author of “Real Enemies: Conspiracy Theories and American Democracy, World War I to 9/11″. (Washington Post)

Got that? Now find me one person who doesn’t think the world is run by a small group of rich, powerful people who operate in their own best interests? Here’s more from the same article:

(Oil) “It’s the perfect lever for shifting world events. If you were a mad secret society with world-dominating aspirations and lots of power, how would you tweak the world to create cascading outcomes that could topple governments and enrich some at the expense of others? It’s hard to see a better lever than the price of oil, given its integral role in the world economy.” (WP)

“A mad secret society”? Has Mooney noticed that — in the last decade and a half — the US has only invaded nations that have huge natural resources (mainly oil and natural gas) or the geography for critical pipeline routes? There’s nothing particularly secret about it, is there?

The United States is not a “mad secret society with world-dominating aspirations”. It’s a empire with blatantly obvious “world-dominating aspirations” run by political puppets who do the work of wealthy elites and corporations. Any sentient being who’s bright enough to browse the daily headlines can figure that one out.

Mooney’s grand finale:

“So in sum, with a surprising and dramatic event like this year’s oil price decline, it would be shocking if it did not generate conspiracy theories. Humans believe them all too easily. And they’re a lot more colorful than a more technical (and accurate) story about supply and demand.” (WP)

Ah, yes. Now I see. Those darn “humans”. They’re so weak-minded they’ll believe anything you tell them, which is why they need someone as smart as Mooney tell them how the world really works.

Have you ever read such nonsense in your life? On top of that, he gets the whole story wrong. This isn’t about market fundamentals. It’s about manipulation. Are the Saudis manipulating supply to grab market share or for political reasons? THAT’S THE QUESTION. The fact that they ARE manipulating supply is not challenged by anyone including the uber-conservative Financial Times that deliberately pointed out that the Saudis had abandoned their traditional role of cutting supply to support prices. That’s what a “swing state” does; it manipulates supply keep prices higher than they would be if market forces were allowed to operate unimpeded.

So what is the motive driving the policy; that’s what we want to know?

Certainly there’s a strong case to be made for market share. No one denies that. If the Saudis keep prices at rock bottom for a prolonged period of time, then a high percentage of the producers (that can’t survive at prices below $70 per barrel) will default leaving OPEC with greater market share and more control over pricing.

So market share is certainly a factor. But is it the only factor?

Is it so far fetched to think that the United States–which in the last year has imposed harsh economic sanctions on Russia, made every effort to sabotage the South Stream pipeline, and toppled the government in Kiev so it could control the flow of Russian gas to countries in the EU–would coerce the Saudis into flooding the market with oil in order to decimate the Russian economy, savage the ruble, and create favorable conditions for regime change in Moscow? Is that so hard to believe?

Apparently New York Times columnist Thomas Freidman doesn’t think so. Here’s how he summed it up in a piece last month: “Is it just my imagination or is there a global oil war underway pitting the United States and Saudi Arabia on one side against Russia and Iran on the other?”

It sounds like Freidman has joined the conspiracy throng, doesn’t it? And he’s not alone either. This is from Alex Lantier at the World Socialist Web Site:

“While there are a host of global economic factors underlying the fall in oil prices, it is unquestionable that a major role in the commodity’s staggering plunge is Washington’s collaboration with OPEC and the Saudi monarchs in Riyadh to boost production and increase the glut on world oil markets.

As Obama traveled to Saudi Arabia after the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis last March, the Guardian wrote, “Angered by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Saudis turned on the oil taps, driving down the global price of crude until it reached $20 a barrel (in today’s prices) in the mid-1980s… [Today] the Saudis might be up for such a move—which would also boost global growth—in order to punish Putin over his support for the Assad regime in Syria. Has Washington floated this idea with Riyadh? It would be a surprise if it hasn’t.” (Alex Lantier,Imperialism and the ruble crisis, World Socialist Web Site)

And here’s an intriguing clip from an article at Reuters that suggests the Obama administration is behind the present Saudi policy:

“U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sidestepped the issue (of a US-Saudi plot) after a trip to Saudi Arabia in September. Asked if past discussions with Riyadh had touched on Russia’s need for oil above $100 to balance its budget, he smiled and said: “They (Saudis) are very, very well aware of their ability to have an impact on global oil prices.” (Saudi oil policy uncertainty unleashes the conspiracy theorists, Reuters)

Wink, wink.

Of course, they’re in bed together. Saudi Arabia is a US client. It’s not autonomous or sovereign in any meaningful way. It’s a US protectorate, a satellite, a colony. They do what they’re told. Period. True, the relationship is complex, but let’s not be ridiculous. The Saudis are not calling the shots. The idea is absurd. Do you really think that Washington would let Riyadh fiddle prices in a way that destroyed critical US domestic energy industries, ravaged the junk bond market, and generated widespread financial instability without uttering a peep of protest on the matter?

Dream on! If the US was unhappy with the Saudis, we’d all know about it in short-order because it would be raining Daisy Cutters from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, which is the way that Washington normally expresses its displeasure on such matters. The fact that Obama has not even alluded to the shocking plunge in prices just proves that the policy coincides with Washington’s broader geopolitical strategy.

And let’s not forget that the Saudis have used oil as a political weapon before, many times before. Indeed, wreaking havoc is nothing new for our good buddies the Saudis. Check this out from Oil Price website:

“In 1973, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat convinced Saudi King Faisal to cut production and raise prices, then to go as far as embargoing oil exports, all with the goal of punishing the United States for supporting Israel against the Arab states. It worked. The “oil price shock” quadrupled prices.

It happened again in 1986, when Saudi Arabia-led OPEC allowed prices to drop precipitously, and then in 1990, when the Saudis sent prices plummeting as a way of taking out Russia, which was seen as a threat to their oil supremacy. In 1998, they succeeded. When the oil price was halved from $25 to $12, Russia defaulted on its debt.

The Saudis and other OPEC members have, of course, used the oil price for the obverse effect, that is, suppressing production to keep prices artificially high and member states swimming in “petrodollars”. In 2008, oil peaked at $147 a barrel.” (Did The Saudis And The US Collude In Dropping Oil Prices?, Oil Price)

1973, 1986, 1990, 1998 and 2008.

So, according to the author, the Saudis have manipulated oil prices at least five times in the past to achieve their foreign policy objectives. But, if that’s the case, then why does the media ridicule people who think the Saudis might be engaged in a similar strategy today?

Could it be that the media is trying to shape public opinion on the issue and, by doing so, actually contribute to the plunge in oil prices?

Bingo. Alert readers have probably noticed that the oil story has been splashed across the headlines for weeks even though the basic facts have not changed in the least. It’s all a rehash of the same tedious story reprinted over and over again. But, why? Why does the public need to have the same “Saudis refuse to cut production” story driven into their consciousness day after day like they’re part of some great collective brainwashing experiment? Could it be that every time the message is repeated, oil sells off, and prices go down? Is that it?

Precisely. For example, last week a refinery was attacked in Libya which pushed oil prices up almost immediately. Just hours later, however, another “Saudis refuse to cut production” story conveniently popped up in all the major US media which pushed prices in the direction the USG wants them to go, er, I mean, back down again.

This is how the media helps to reinforce government policy, by crafting a message that helps to push down prices and, thus, hurt “evil” Putin. (This is called “jawboning”) Keep in mind, that OPEC doesn’t meet again until June, 2015, so there’s nothing new to report on production levels. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to get regular updates on the “Saudis refuse to cut production” story. Oh, no. The media is going to keep beating that drum until Putin cries “Uncle” and submits to US directives. Either that, or the bond market is going to blow up and take the whole damn global financial system along with it. One way or another, something’s got to give.

Bottom line: Falling oil prices and the plunging ruble are not some kind of free market accident brought on by oversupply and weak demand. That’s baloney. They’re part of a broader geopolitical strategy to strangle the Russian economy, topple Putin, and establish US hegemony across the Asian landmass. It’s all part of Washington’s plan to maintain its top-spot as the world’s only superpower even though its economy is in irreversible decline.

Why Obama Wants Maliki Removed

Standing In Washington’s Way…

The Obama administration is pushing for regime change in Iraq on the basis that current prime minister Nouri al Maliki is too sectarian. The fact is, however, that Maliki’s abusive treatment of Sunnis never factored into Washington’s decision to have him removed. Whether he has been  “too sectarian” or not is completely irrelevant. The real reason he’s under attack is because he wouldn’t sign the Status of Forces Agreement in 2011.  He refused to grant immunity to the tens of thousands of troops the administration wanted to leave in Iraq following the formal withdrawal.  That’s what angered Washington. That’s why the administration wants Maliki replaced.

Check out this White House statement of support  for new prime minister-designate Haider al-Ibadi (Maliki’s rival) by Vice President Joe Biden just hours after the change (coup?) was announced. The document is titled  “Readout of the Vice President’s Call with Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi”.

“Vice President Joe Biden called Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi to congratulate him on his nomination to form a new government and develop a national program pursuant to Iraq’s constitutional process. The Prime Minister-designate expressed his intent to move expeditiously to form a broad-based, inclusive government capable of countering the threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and building a better future for Iraqis from all communities. The Vice President relayed President Obama’s congratulations and restated his commitment to fully support a new and inclusive Iraqi government, particularly in its fight against ISIL. The two leaders also discussed practical steps towards fully activating the bilateral Strategic Framework Agreement in all of its fields, including economic, diplomatic, and security cooperation. Prime Minister-designate Abadi thanked Vice President Biden for the call, and they agreed to stay in regular communication as the government formation process proceeds.”  (White House)

Did you catch that part about the “bilateral Strategic Framework Agreement in all of its fields”. That’s the kicker right there. That’s what this is all about. Here’s one small section of that document under the heading of “Defense and Security”:

“…. Iraq Joint Military Committee (JMC),…. addressed issues such as border security, Iraqi military strategy, and engagement of Iraqi Security Forces in regional training exercises. The next JCC likely will be held in Washington this year.

Acting Defense Minister al-Dlimi signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Security Cooperation with the U.S. Department of Defense. This agreement represents the strong military to military relationship between the United States and Iraq, and provides mechanisms for increased defense cooperation in areas including defense planning, counterterrorism cooperation, and combined exercises.

… The Iraq FMS program is one of the largest in the world and is an important symbol of the long-term security partnership envisioned by both countries. We remain committed to meeting Iraqi equipment needs as quickly as possible.” (US Strategic Framework Agreement, US Department of State)

This is just the camel’s nose under the tent. There’s no doubt that the administration’s ultimate objective is to put US “boots back on the ground” which, by the way, is the reason why Obama is allowing the terrorist militia (ISIS) to seize 30 percent of the Iraqi landmass, capture the nation’s second biggest city, and move to within 50 miles of Baghdad without lifting a finger to help. It’s because Obama wants to create a pretext for boosting troop levels in the country. What better way to redeploy thousands of US combat troops to Iraq, then to scare Iraqi policymakers into submission with visions of bloodthirsty terrorists (ISIS) lopping off heads and slitting throats at every opportunity. It’s all about persuasion. (Note: It’s easy to see that–while ISIS may not be directly under US control–its presence in Iraq certainly serves Washington’s overall strategic aims. )

Independent researcher and journalist, Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich, appears to be one of the few analysts who’s figured out what’s going on. Check out this clip from Iran’s Press TV from interview with Ulrich:

“America has long-standing plans to be permanently present in Iraq, and in the Persian Gulf region as a whole”, said Ulrich.   “Domination of the Persian Gulf is the lynchpin of US strategy…the presence of ISIL helps them in this goal.”

After Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki forced American forces out of Iraq by refusing to sign a Status of Forces Agreement allowing the forces to stay on permanently, US found its way back again, she added.

The government of Maliki refused to grant immunity to thousands of US troops, who were to remain in Iraq beyond 2011 under the pretext of training local forces.

The government had agreed to allow some of the US forces to stay longer for “training” purposes, but refused to shield them from prosecution. As a result, that residual force was never deployed.

According to a 2008 bilateral security accord, known as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), all the US troops left the country by December 2011.

Ulrich said, “It’s very interesting that ISIL has captured towns and regions that have been vital for the US policy in the region — one is the oil-rich [region], America’s training and funding of Kurds, and Israel in fact started training of the Kurds in 2005 and the thinking that oil from Iraq would go to Israel, and it’s happening.”….

“I don’t believe for a moment that America has given up the idea of having Iraq and Syria and Iran under its full control,” the independent researcher and writer empathized.” (“‘US raises ISIL specter to stay in Iraq’”, Press TV) 

Bingo. The “too sectarian” trope is a fraud. This is all about Washington stationing combat troops where the oil is. It always gets back to oil, doesn’t it?  U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel summed it up perfectly in July, 2007, when he said:

“People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are. They talk about America’s national interest. What the hell do you think they’re talking about? We’re not there for figs.” (Washington’s blog)

So how does Obama’s bombing of ISIS jihadis outside of Ebril (N Iraq) fit with his earlier comments that he wouldn’t help defend Iraq unless their was movement on the political front? (In other words, until Maliki was removed from office.)

He sure changed his tune fast, didn’t he? But, why?

Oil, that’s why.   Let’s put it this way: There are 10 reasons why Obama bombed ISIS positions outside of Ebril. They are:

1–Exxon Mobil

2–Chevron

3–Aspect Energy

4–Marathon Oil Corporation

5–Hillwood International Energy

6–Hunt Oil

7–Prime Oil

8–Murphy Oil

9–Hess Corporation

10–HKN Energy

So what’s the message here? What is Obama telegraphing to ISIS about US policy?

It’s simple. “You can kill as many Arabs and Christians as you want, but if you lay a finger on even one oil well, we’ll nuke you into oblivion.” Isn’t that the message?

Of course, it is. By the way, the reason the US exited Iraq to begin with wasn’t because Obama wanted to keep his campaign promise. Oh no. That was just public relations hype. The real reason was because Obama handed the Iraq Brief over to lunkhead Biden when he first took office, and Biden flubbed the deal.  Hard to believe, isn’t it?  Take a look at this blurb from the New Yorker:

“When I was profiling Biden last month, his advisers argued …that they had never favored Maliki, and had backed him because he won the support of a majority in Iraq. But that reading of history underplays Biden’s activism. …. Biden predicted that Maliki would sign on to a Status of Forces Agreement to keep U.S. troops on the ground. “Maliki wants us to stick around because he does not see a future in Iraq otherwise,” Biden said, according to the account. “I’ll bet you my vice presidency Maliki will extend the SOFA.”

Neither of those predictions came true. Maliki did not deliver, and U.S. forces left Iraq in December, 2011. As the crisis deepened this spring, the White House did not openly disparage Maliki, but made it clear that it was ready for a change. By all estimates, that sentiment was long overdue, and this week, America’s protracted divorce from Maliki is nearing completion. Obama has returned American military aircraft to the skies over Iraq, authorizing strikes to protect U.S. diplomatic missions and religious and ethnic minorities, and to prevent Sunni militants from advancing on the Kurdish city of Erbil. On Monday, another political sinkhole opened in Baghdad: the President nominated a new Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, to replace Maliki. But Maliki has refused to give up power; on television, he vowed to use legal action to challenge the decision, while security forces loyal to him were seen taking up positions around the city.” (“Breaking Up: Maliki and Biden“, The New Yorker)

Read that passage over again; that’s the whole ball of wax, right there. Biden botched the SOFA agreement, so Obama decided to get rid of Maliki. Soon after,  the plan to replace Maliki with Haider al-Abadi was put into motion.

It’s worth noting, that Obama has been blasted in the media for more than a year for withdrawing the troops from Iraq. A simple Google search of “Maliki Status of Forces agreement” will produce hundreds of articles lambasting Obama as the man “who lost Iraq”, or who “abandoned Iraq”, or the man who organized “the tragic withdrawal”. To America’s right wing pundits, the problem was never the war itself, but the way it ended.  They blame Obama for everything that’s gone wrong. That’s why Obama wants to remove Maliki and deploy troops back to Iraq. It’s an attempt to placate the right.

Naturally, the fact that Obama, Biden, Kerry and everyone else in the administration has expressed their support for the nearly-unknown Abadi, has led to suspicions that US Intel agencies (and perhaps the State Department) have been acting behind the scenes to depose Maliki. But Obama vehemently denies any involvement. Check out this article in the Guardian:

“American officials have denied participating in a plot to oust Iraq prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, despite a series of phone calls made by Barack Obama and Joe Biden to support the appointment of his successor…..

The Obama administration had become increasingly strident in its criticism of Maliki in recent weeks, accusing him of the current Islamic uprising by failing to govern in the interest of all Iraqis…..Obama had “instructed his diplomats in Washington and Baghdad to find an alternative” to Maliki. ….(Obama) also dangled the prospect of direct US military support against the Islamic State, the separatists also known as Isis or Isil, if the putative new prime minister Haider al-Abadi succeeds in forming a lasting government.

But officials rejected allegations on Monday that it was encouraging “regime change”, insisting instead that the US was merely supporting a constitutional process rather than favoring individual politicians in Baghdad.” ….(“US denies role in plot to oust Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki”, Guardian)

Let’s summarize:

Obama stepped up his criticism of Maliki in the last few weeks.

Obama blamed Maliki for the “current Islamic uprising” which was nurtured by US Intel agencies that armed, trained and funded the respective wahhabi crackpots who then moved into Iraq.

Obama says the US will not help to defeat the jihadi invasion unless Maliki is replaced.

Obama told” his diplomats in Washington and Baghdad to find an alternative” to Maliki.

At the same time, US “officials rejected allegations on Monday that it was encouraging “regime change”, insisting instead that the US was merely supporting a constitutional process.”

What a joke. If it walks like a coup and quacks like a coup; it’s a coup. It doesn’t matter what Obama says. It doesn’t matter what the media say. It’s painfully obvious that the US is involved.

On top of that, we have this from the New York Times:

“Other senior Obama administration officials said American representatives in Iraq had been increasingly and deeply involved in Baghdad discussions during the last 10 days to settle on an alternative to Mr. Maliki.” (“Iraqis Nominate Maliki Successor, Causing Standoff”, New York Times) 

Isn’t that an admission of guilt?  If “senior Obama administration officials” had been huddling for the last ten days to decide on a successor to the current Prime Minister, then how is that different than Victoria Nuland plotting the removal of Ukrainian prime minister Viktor Yanukovych  for US-puppet “Yats”? It’s the same thing, isn’t it?

Here’s something else from the NYT that’s worth mulling over:

“It was only during the past week that Mr. Abadi became a candidate. He is a onetime ally of Mr. Maliki’s, and because Mr. Abadi is from the same party his candidacy became attractive, as it recognized the legitimacy of the election victory for Mr. Maliki’s bloc in April’s national elections.

This is what “encouraged them to make a coup against Maliki,” said one of the Shiite negotiators, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal deliberations.”

Can you believe what they’re saying? So, it wasn’t Abadi’s position on the issues or his views on sectarianism that made him the “preferred” candidate at all.   He was chosen strictly on the basis that his candidacy had the greatest chance of success. That’s it. This isn’t democracy; it’s a “dump Maliki at all cost” campaign orchestrated by the Obama troupe.  That’s how desperate these people are.

But maybe Obama is right this time; is that what you are thinking, dear reader? After all, Maliki IS a vicious, iron-fisted tyrant who has fueled sectarian hatred and divisiveness. Maybe it would be better if he WAS gone. Maybe Obama is sincere in wanting  (as the New York Times says) “to  preserve Iraq’s cohesion while helping to stop ISIS’ avowed goal of creating a monolithic Islamic caliphate that ignores national boundaries.”

If that’s what you are thinking, you’re wrong. Changing the man at the top, will not change the system. Nor does Washington want to change the system. The US wants a savage, remorseless tyrant, (Have you taken a look at Egypt lately?) they just want one that will follow orders, that’s all. Maliki went off the reservation, so now he’s getting his pink slip.  That’s all there is to it.

The idea that Abadi will reunify Iraq is ridiculous. The de facto partitioning of Iraq has already taken place. It won’t be reversed. In fact, this is what many in the political establishment (including Joe Biden) wanted from Day 1. A separate Kurdish state that will sell cheap oil to Israel and refuse to pass its oil revenues on to Baghdad, is already a reality, just as the borderless Sunni heartland (that will eventually take shape over the next few years) is a reality. Abadi will not alter these facts on the ground. Iraq is being torn apart by forces too powerful for him to contain or control. His function is merely to sign on the dotted line and allow the US to reopen its bases, redeploy its troops and get on with the business of empire.

The United States does not want a strong, independent Iraq. The US wants oil. The US wants power. The US wants Arabs killing Arabs. The US wants to extinguish Arab identity, culture, pride, literature, science, poetry, etc; anything that could lead to a reemergence of Arab nationalism, anything that could lead to an independent, sovereign state, anything that could impede the looting of Arab countries.

This is just the way that empire’s work. Maliki got in Washington’s way, so now Maliki is going to vanish.  End of story.

Whether he was “too sectarian” or not, doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. His fate was sealed the moment he refused to sign the SOFA agreement.

The Latest In The New Cold War

My Money’s On Putin…

“History shows that the United States has benefited politically and economically from wars in Europe. The huge outflow of capital from Europe following the First and Second World Wars, transformed the U.S. into a superpower … Today, faced with economic decline, the US is trying to precipitate another European war to achieve the same objective.”… Sergey Glazyev, 

“The discovery of the world’s largest, known gas reserves in the Persian Gulf, shared by Qatar and Iran, and new assessments which found 70 percent more gas in the Levantine in 2007, are key to understanding the dynamics of the conflicts we see today. After a completion of the PARS pipeline, from Iran, through Iraq and Syria to the Eastern Mediterranean coast, the European Union would receive more than an estimated 45 percent of the gas it consumes over the next 100 – 120 years from Russian and Iranian sources. Under non-conflict circumstances, this would warrant an increased integration of the European, Russian and Iranian energy sectors and national economies.” Christof Lehmann,Interview with Route Magazine

The United States failed operation in Syria, has led to an intensification of Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine. What the Obama administration hoped to achieve in Syria through its support of so called “moderate” Islamic militants was to topple the regime of Bashar al Assad, replace him with a US-backed puppet, and prevent the construction of the critical Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline. That plan hasn’t succeeded nor will it in the near future, which means that the plan for the prospective pipeline will eventually go forward.

Why is that a problem?

It’s a problem because–according to Dr. Lehmann–”Together with the Russian gas… the EU would be able to cover some 50 percent of its requirements for natural gas via Iranian and Russian sources.” As the primary suppliers of critical resources to Europe, Moscow and Tehran would grow stronger both economically and politically which would significantly undermine the influence of the US and its allies in the region, particularly Qatar and Israel. This is why opponents of the pipeline developed a plan to sabotage the project by fomenting a civil war in Syria. Here’s Lehmann again:

“In 2007, Qatar sent USD 10 billion to Turkey´s Foreign Minister Davotoglu to prepare Turkey´s and Syria´s Muslim Brotherhood for the subversion of Syria. As we recently learned from former French Foreign Minister Dumas, it was also about that time, that actors in the United Kingdom began planning the subversion of Syria with the help of “rebels”’ (Christof Lehmann, Interview with Route Magazine)

In other words, the idea to arm, train and fund an army of jihadi militants, to oust al Assad and open up Syria to western interests, had its origins in an evolving energy picture that clearly tilted in the favor of US rivals in the region. (Note: We’re not sure why Lehmann leaves out Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the other Gulf States that have also been implicated.)

Lehmann’s thesis is supported by other analysts including the Guardian’s Nafeez Ahmed who explains what was going on behind the scenes of the fake civil uprising in Syria. Here’s a clip from an article by Ahmed titled “Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern”:

“In May 2007, a presidential finding revealed that Bush had authorised CIA operations against Iran. Anti-Syria operations were also in full swing around this time as part of this covert programme, according to Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker. A range of US government and intelligence sources told him that the Bush administration had “cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations” intended to weaken the Shi’ite Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria,” wrote Hersh, “a byproduct” of which is “the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups” hostile to the United States and “sympathetic to al-Qaeda.” He noted that “the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria”…

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009: “I was in England two years before the violence in Syria on other business”, he told French television:

“I met with top British officials, who confessed to me that they were preparing something in Syria. This was in Britain not in America. Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria.”
… Leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”

So what was this unfolding strategy to undermine Syria and Iran all about? According to retired NATO Secretary General Wesley Clark, a memo from the Office of the US Secretary of Defense just a few weeks after 9/11 revealed plans to “attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years”, starting with Iraq and moving on to “Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.” In a subsequent interview, Clark argues that this strategy is fundamentally about control of the region’s vast oil and gas resources.”
(“Syria intervention plan fueled by oil interests, not chemical weapon concern“, The Guardian)

Apparently, Assad was approached by Qatar on the pipeline issue in 2009, but he refused to cooperate in order “to protect the interests of [his] Russian ally.” Had Assad fallen in line and agreed to Qatar’s offer, then the effort to remove him from office probably would have been called off. In any event, it was the developments in Syria that triggered the frenzied reaction in Ukraine. According to Lehmann:

“The war in Ukraine became predictable (unavoidable?) when the great Muslim Brotherhood Project in Syria failed during the summer of 2012. …In June and July 2012 some 20,000 NATO mercenaries who had been recruited and trained in Libya and then staged in the Jordanian border town Al-Mafraq, launched two massive campaigns aimed at seizing the Syrian city of Aleppo. Both campaigns failed and the ”Libyan Brigade” was literally wiped out by the Syrian Arab Army.

It was after this decisive defeat that Saudi Arabia began a massive campaign for the recruitment of jihadi fighters via the network of the Muslim Brotherhoods evil twin sister Al-Qaeda.

The International Crisis Group responded by publishing its report ”Tentative Jihad”. Washington had to make an attempt to distance itself ”politically” from the ”extremists”. Plan B, the chemical weapons plan was hedged but it became obvious that the war on Syria was not winnable anymore.” (“The Atlantic Axis and the Making of a War in Ukraine“, New eastern Outlook)

There were other factors that pushed the US towards a conflagration with Moscow in Ukraine, but the driving force was the fact that US rivals (Russia and Iran) stood to be the dominant players in an energy war that would increasingly erode Washington’s power. Further economic integration between Europe and Russia poses a direct threat to US plans to pivot to Asia, deploy NATO to Russia’s borders, and to continue to denominate global energy supplies in US dollars.

Lehmann notes that he had a conversation with “a top-NATO admiral from a northern European country” who clarified the situation in a terse, two-sentence summary of US foreign policy. He said:

“American colleagues at the Pentagon told me, unequivocally, that the US and UK never would allow European – Soviet relations to develop to such a degree that they would challenge the US/UK’s political, economic or military primacy and hegemony on the European continent. Such a development will be prevented by all necessary means, if necessary by provoking a war in central Europe”.

This is the crux of the issue. The United States is not going to allow any state or combination of states to challenge its dominance. Washington doesn’t want rivals. It wants to be the undisputed, global superpower, which is the point that Paul Wolfowitz articulated in an early draft of the US National Defense Strategy:

“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”

So the Obama administration is going to do whatever it thinks is necessary to stop further EU-Russia economic integration and to preserve the petrodollar system. That system originated in 1974 when President Richard Nixon persuaded OPEC members to denominate their oil exclusively in dollars, and to recycle their surplus oil proceeds into U.S. Treasuries. The arrangement turned out to be a huge windfall for the US, which rakes in more than $1 billion per day via the process. This, in turn, allows the US to over-consume and run hefty deficits. Other nations must stockpile dollars to purchase the energy that runs their machinery, heats their homes and fuels their vehicles. Meanwhile, the US can breezily exchange paper currency, which it can print at no-expense to itself, for valuable imported goods that cost dearly in terms of labor and materials. These dollars then go into purchasing oil or natural gas, the profits of which are then recycled back into USTs or other dollar-denominated assets such as U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate, or ETFs. This is the virtuous circle that keeps the US in the top spot.

As one critic put it: “World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy.”

The petrodollar system helps to maintain the dollar’s monopoly pricing which, in turn, sustains the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It creates excessive demand for dollars which allows the Fed to expand the nation’s credit by dramatically reducing the cost of financing. If oil and natural gas were no longer denominated in USDs, the value of the dollar would fall sharply, the bond market would collapse, and the US economy would slip into a long-term slump.

This is one of the reasons why the US invaded Iraq shortly after Saddam had switched over to the euro; because it considers any challenge to the petrodollar looting scam as a direct threat to US national security.

Moscow is aware of Washington’s Achilles’s heel and is making every effort to exploit that weakness by reducing its use of the dollar in its trade agreements. So far, Moscow has persuaded China and Iran to drop the dollar in their bilateral dealings, and they have found that other trading partners are eager to do the same. Recently, Russian economic ministers conducted a “de-dollarization” meeting in which a “currency switch executive order” was issued stating that “the government has the legal power to force Russian companies to trade a percentage of certain goods in rubles.”

Last week, according to RT:

“The Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments. “The draft document between the Central Bank of Russia and the People’s Bank of China on national currency swaps has been agreed by the parties…..The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China,” the Russian regulator said.

Currently, over 75 percent of payments in Russia-China trade settlements are made in US dollars, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.” (“De-Dollarization Accelerates – China/Russia Complete Currency Swap Agreement“, Zero Hedge)

The attack on the petrodollar recycling system is one of many asymmetrical strategies Moscow is presently employing to discourage US aggression, to defend its sovereignty, and to promote a multi-polar world order where the rule of law prevails. The Kremlin is also pushing for institutional changes that will help to level the playing field instead of creating an unfair advantage for the richer countries like the US. Naturally, replacing the IMF, whose exploitative loans and punitive policies, topped the list for most of the emerging market nations, particularly the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) who, in July, agreed to create a $100 billion Development Bank that will “will counter the influence of Western-based lending institutions and the dollar. The new bank will provide money for infrastructure and development projects in BRICS countries, and unlike the IMF or World Bank, each nation has equal say, regardless of GDP size.

According to RT:

“The big launch of the BRICS bank is seen as a first step to break the dominance of the US dollar in global trade, as well as dollar-backed institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, both US-based institutions BRICS countries have little influence within…

“This mechanism creates the foundation for an effective protection of our national economies from a crisis in financial markets,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said.”
(“BRICS establish $100bn bank and currency pool to cut out Western dominance“, RT)

It’s clear that Washington’s aggression in Ukraine has focused Moscow’s attention on retaliation. But rather than confront the US militarily, as Obama and Co. would prefer, Putin is taking aim at the vulnerabilities within the system. A BRICS Development Bank challenges the IMF’s dominant role as lender of last resort, a role that has enhanced the power of the wealthy countries and their industries. The new bank creates the basis for real institutional change, albeit, still within the pervasive capitalist framework.

Russian politician and economist, Sergei Glazyev, summarized Moscow’s approach to the US-Russia conflagration in an essay titled “US is militarizing Ukraine to invade Russia.” Here’s an excerpt:

“To stop the war, you need to terminate its driving forces. At this stage, the war unfolds mainly in the planes of economic, public relations and politics. All the power of US economic superiority is based on the financial pyramid of debt, and this has gone long beyond sustainability. Its major lenders are collapsing enough to deprive the US market of accumulated US dollars and Treasury bonds. Of course, the collapse of the US financial system will cause serious losses to all holders of US currency and securities. But first, these losses for Russia, Europe and China will be less than the losses caused by American geopolitics unleashing another world war. Secondly, the sooner the exit from the financial obligations of this American pyramid, the less will be the losses. Third, the collapse of the dollar Ponzi scheme gives an opportunity, finally, to reform the global financial system on the basis of equity and mutual benefit.”

Washington thinks “modern warfare” involves covert support for proxy armies comprised of Neo Nazis and Islamic extremists. Moscow thinks modern warfare means undermining the enemy’s ability to wage war through sustained attacks on it’s currency, its institutions, its bond market, and its ability to convince its allies that it is a responsible steward of the global economic system.

I’ll put my money on Russia.

A False Flag, Or Fog Of War Over Ukraine?

A Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 bound for Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam was shot down in eastern Ukraine Thursday afternoon, killing all 298 passengers and crew. It was hit as it cruised at 33,000 feet above the war-ravaged Donetsk Oblast, 35 miles west from the Russian border. The airliner’s demise has the potential to escalate the Ukrainian crisis to an entirely new level.

The White House was  that the Russians were to blame for the disaster: “While we do not yet have all the facts, we do know that this incident occurred in the context of a crisis in Ukraine that is fueled by Russian support for the separatists, including through arms, materiel, and training,” its statement read only hours after the crash. “This incident only highlights the urgency with which we continue to urge Russia to immediately take concrete steps to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine.”

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko promptly accused the rebels for the incident, calling it an “act of terrorism.” Late last night I received an email from the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry with the link to an audio file containing two “intercepted conversations” in which pro-Russian separatists discuss having just shot down a civilian plane with their alleged GRU handlers:

———- Original Message ———-

From: “press” <>
To: <“Undisclosed-Recipient:;”@mfa.gov.ua>
Subject: MFA: English and German Subtitles – Evidences of shooting down the civil Boeing-777 by terrorists in Donetsk
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 00:27:11 +0300

Evidences of shooting down the civil Boeing-777 by terrorists in Donetsk region, Ukraine, on 17th July

(Rus lang – ENGLISH SUBTITLES)

———- End of Original Message ———-

The link was simultaneously released to various media outlets around the world, and reported as credible. The authenticity of the tape was , however, including the apparent evidence that the Ukrainian security service USB had prepared its recording for quick release several hours before the airliner went down. (Thus far I have not been able to track any refutation of this interesting claim.)

There is at least one “known-known”: it is widely accepted that the plane was hit by a ground-to-air missile, probably launched from an SS11 “Buk” medium-range, self-propelled battery (NATO codename “Grizzly”). It is certain that the Ukrainian government forces have had such missiles in the region since July 4 at the latest. It is not certain whether pro-Russian rebels also have them. They have denied it, but last Monday they shot down a government-operated Antonov An26 transport plane at an altitude of 20,000 feet, which is well above the range of shoulder-launched missiles (MANPADs) or anti-aircraft artillery which they are known to possess. Furthermore, a Russian website reported the downing of a government transport plane yesterday afternoon in the area where the Malaysian airliner was hit. From the Russian-language text it is unclear, however, whether the source of the report on the ground knew with certainty who fired the missile or made a hasty assumption about the plane’s identity after the crash.

Even if the rebels pressed the launch button, the key question is whether they were deliberately set up to do so by the Ukrainian authorities. A key piece of information, overlooked elsewhere, came in this report by The Guardian:

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian military specialist at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said … that a Ukrainian transport plane had been flying overhead close to the time that the missile was fired at the Malaysia Airlines plane, suggesting that may have been the original target. The transport plane had been trying to relieve a beleaguered Ukraine garrison.

The Malaysian airliner was guided by the Kiev flight control center at the time of the accident, in apparent violation of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council decision to close the airspace over eastern Ukraine because of the government’s ongoing “anti-terrorist operation” in the region. Significantly, on July 8, Ukraine’s State Aviation Service banned all flights over the Donetsk and Lugansk regions in order to provide “adequate safety and security for all flights of civil aircraft.” No civilian airliner should have been there, on Kiev’s own reckoning.

In a rare show of tacit agreement with Kiev, a representative of the self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic said that civil aviation planes could not fly over Donetsk and Lugansk regions since all necessary traffic control and navigation equipment was damaged. “Dispatching support of all passenger flights is being conducted from Kiev. How this plane could be there – is not clear,” he said, adding that the Donetsk airport communication tower, “which is a part of the integrated air traffic control system, was blown up during fighting. Planes cannot fly here.”

An outright false-flag operation would have entailed the Kiev authorities shooting down the airliner and blaming the rebels. An elaborate false-flag operation would have entailed guiding the airliner into a war zone, in contravention of the regime’s own proclaimed rules, sending a government military transporter into that same zone at exactly the same time when the Malaysian airliner was entering it, and hoping that the rebels fire the missile in the reasonable assumption that anything that flies is non-civilian and therefore a legitimate target.

This is what I believe has happened, less than 24 hours after the event, having spent a sleepless night examining the available evidence. I may be wrong, but reputation-defining gut feelings have been proven right in the past. The Western media pack’s inevitable focus will be on “who fired the missile,” and not “under what circumstances, and why.” The intended political payoff is summarized in John McCain’s predictably bloodthirsty howl that there would be “hell to pay” if the plane was shot down by the Russian military or separatists. The Nulandesque clique in Washington will use such statements prudently. It is likely to have engineered the ploy – the exercise would be way beyond Pororshenko’s or the Right Sector’s league – and the trans-Atlantic advisors have ample experience in the field: think Saddam’s WMDs in 2003, Bosnia’s Markale in 1994, Kosovo’s Racak “massacre” stage-managed in January 1999 compliments of CIA agent William Walker, Bashar al Assad’s “gassing of his own people” in the suburbs of Damascus last August, or Gaddafy’s “imminent genocide” in Benghazi two years earlier…

Yes, there will be calls for an all-out proxy war against Moscow, or lethal sanctions against Russia as “the ultimate culprit” for “the atrocity.” It will be conveniently forgotten that an Iranian civilian Airbus with 300 passengers and crew was wantonly shot down – with far less contextual justification – by the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf in 1988. It will not be mentioned that on October 4, 2001, a Russian Tu-154M passenger plane flying from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk crashed over the Black Sea, having been shot down by a Ukrainian S-200 missile fired during military exercises in Crimea, killing all 78 passengers and crew. It was flying at 33,000 feet – just like the Malaysian airliner – but it was not subject to any restrictions, unlike the doomed Boeing 777, whose 298 passengers and crew were sacrificed to broader geopolitical objectives.

Syrians Working To Preserve Jewish Cultural Heritage

Jewish Quarter, the Old City, Damascus…

It’s always encouraging when one comes upon some inspiring human enterprise, here in Syria or elsewhere, that refutes the worn shibboleths and clichés about how this or that group, or this or that religion, hates others and won’t cease targeting them until they are destroyed and burning in Hell.

In Syria today there is much evidence to refute the claims, often politically motivated, that Jewish cultural heritage sites are being singled out for destruction by rabid anti-Semites. One example of this is the Eliyahu Hanabi Synagogue in the neighborhood of Jobar, on the outskirts of Damascus. For centuries, Jobar has been inhabited by a peaceful, mixed community of Muslims, Christians, and Jews, many of whom often attended events together at the synagogue.

Reports this week in Zionist media about the destruction of the 400-year-old (not 2000-year-old, as claimed, erroneously, by one report in Israeli media) synagogue, along with the loss of all its contents, are similar to reports over the past three years which turned out to be patently false. This observer has been waiting for clearance to visit the site, to learn exactly what happened there this week, to assess its current condition and inventory its religious artifacts, which comprise part of Syria’s, and humanity’s, collective heritage.

One of the more virulent charges to come forth this week, particularly from the colonial Zionist regime occupying Palestine, is the mantra of ‘see what the hatred of those Arabs for the Jewish people has done.’ Admittedly it’s an effective fund-raising mechanism—as well as a handy intimidation tool—for the Zionist lobby, as it scrabbles to retain control of the US government and American public sentiment, a public which seems to be growing increasingly vexed by the lobby’s actions and which are finally pulling back from rubber-stamping the crimes of the apartheid regime.

Jobar is a suburb of Damascus, and location-wise the Eliyahu Hanabi Synagogue (measuring approximately 17 meters long by 15.7 meters wide) sits undeniably at a crossroads, in an area that has been occupied by rebel forces since the beginning of the Syrian conflict—which means it was sure to get damaged. With each shelling of the district over the past three years, claims were made that the synagogue had been destroyed by government forces. One such report, published on April fool’s day in 2013 by the Times of Israel and widely circulated by Zionist media outlets, claimed that, “The 2,000-year-old Jobar Synagogue in the Syrian capital of Damascus—the country’s holiest Jewish site—was looted and burned to the ground by government forces.” The report was patently false but got spread far and wide, despite the fact that there have been no government forces in Jobar since the conflict began. Two copy-cat reports followed later in 2013, but they were equally false. Nearly a year later, however, in March of 2014, media reports conceded that the synagogue was still standing, with only minor damage, and that its contents appeared to be in good condition.

This observer has received credible reports about certain stolen artifacts, including gold chandeliers, from the Eliyahu Hanabi Synagogue being offered for sale. It is well known in Syria that certain militia and other opportunists have been financing themselves by selling this country’s cultural heritage whenever and wherever they get the opportunity. There is in fact a multi-million-dollar black market in this type of illicit trade. Security agencies in Syria, in coordination with INTERPOL, have been alerted to the thefts of Jewish property, just as with thefts of other antiquities, and they periodically issue what are referred to as “watch for and confiscate” lists of stolen artifacts.

It is not true…based upon this observer’s many personal experiences in Syria…that Arabs hate Jews, although they would have plenty of reasons to, or that animosities between the two peoples are irreversible and irretrievable, and the reason I say this is that increasingly, in the Middle East as well as globally, people are beginning to distinguish between Jews as individuals (as “people of the book” and basically more or less like the rest of us) and fascist Zionism—an ideology being exposed as the greatest enemy and threat to Jews everywhere.

The latest, but so far unverified, information received by this observer from rebel sources claiming to have “contacts” in the Jobar Synagogue indicate that some early 20^th century artifacts, including gold chandeliers and icons, were stolen early on in the conflict, and also that the area surrounding the synagogue has been shelled sporadically over the past nearly two years, resulting in modest damage to the exterior walls. This information was obtained as of last month. Conditions may well have changed this week. Other Syrian sources indicate that there has been interior damage with some scattered rubble in the nave and prayer rooms of the temple. But there has been no confirmation to claims of thousands of manuscripts, including Bibles, being looted from Jobar. On the contrary, many documents, including Bibles and other artifacts, were transferred by the local Jobar Council, with the full cooperation of the Syrian government, to an Ottoman-era synagogue in the Old City of Damascus for safe keeping. The location, which this observer has visited and where many Jobar Synagogue artifacts are today in storage, is one of six areas in Syria currently listed on the World Heritage List of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The site currently has round-the-clock government security that continues to guard the Old City of Damascus. It is also one of the 11 synagogues that President Assad had promised in 2011 to repair and restore, but alas that’s a project that the rebellion has put on hold.

In light of all the unverified claims about the synagogue in Jobar, one is reminded again of the decade-long US/UK War against Iraq and the false reporting about what happened at certain archaeological sites in that country. Specifically we might recall the Iraqi Jewish artifacts that Ahmad Chalabi claimed he was able to ‘rescue’ for the Coalition Provisional Authority. Chalabi, of the ill-fated Iraqi National Congress, along with the Bush administration’s Coalition Provisional Authority, sought to gain some much needed good press for himself and pals Richard Perle, Nathan Sharansky, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, this after April 2003 reports of thousands of priceless ancient artifacts being looted from Iraqi museums. The war planners were being castigated for their failure to protect Iraq’s cultural treasures, and it soon became clear that some of Chalabi’s pronouncements regarding the fate of Jewish artifacts were false and politically self-serving. Discredited, Chalabi’s party did not win any seats in the December 2005 election.

Some suspect similar political grandstanding motives in the current reports about Jobar, and it may be a while before credible eyewitness accounts from the scene are gathered. At that point we will we know the truth about the fate of the Eliyahu Hanabi Synagogue and the whole of Jobar. A delegation, including a Jewish representative from Damascus as well as this observer, has been trying to visit the area, but armed conflict and the continued occupation of the synagogue by rebels has prevented us so far from gaining entry.

What’s important to note, though, is that the people of Syria and their government have made herculean efforts to avoid what happened in Iraq, and to assure the preservation of their global cultural heritage, of which Jewish antiquities is an important pillar. One example of these efforts is the fascinating case of the Dura-Europos Synagogue, discovered in 1932.

The synagogue in Dura Europos had survived in such good condition because of its location, near a small Roman garrison on the Euphrates River. Parts of the building, which abutted the main city wall, were requisitioned by the Roman army and filled with sand as a defensive measure against northern and eastern marauders. The city was abandoned after Rome’s fall, never to be resettled, and the lower walls of the rooms remained buried and largely intact until excavated. The archaeological dig discovered many Jewish wall-paintings and also Christian texts written in Hebrew. Especially interesting perhaps was the discovery of paintings in the synagogue depicting limited aspects of Mithraism, a religion practiced in the Roman Empire between the first and 4^th centuries and that was especially popular within the ranks of the Roman legions. Named for the Persian god Mithra, many Syrians followed the cult, as did some Roman senators who resisted the ‘new’ Christianity.

Itemized in the list below are specific Jewish-Syrian antiquities, including Old-Testament-themed paintings, this observer has verified as being under protection. Keep in mind, these are only a few examples, among many thousands, that I have been advised appear to be in excellent condition as of late May 2014:

• The Torah niche from the ancient Synagogue of Dura Europos on which are drawings of the Prophet Abraham, including the scene of his offering his son. Also beside them a drawing of the candle stick and the temple façade.
• A drawing featuring the Prophet Ezra reading a papyrus, Prophet Moses in the flames of boxthorn, the Ark of the Covenant in the hands of Philistines, and David anointed as a king by Samuel.
• A number of paintings with themes from the Old Testament
• A drawing of the pharaoh and Moses as a child, and a beautiful painting of Abraham between the two symbols of the sun and the moon.
• A drawing representing the story of Mordechai and Esther and Elijah bringing life back to a baby.

Despite the current and legitimate focus on Jobar, the record of the Syrian people on preserving their cultural heritage, especially during the current crisis, is admirable. Two weeks ago this observer visited the old city of Homs, and spent a fair bit of time at the Um Al-Zenar Church of Saint Mary, Church of the Holy Belt, which dates from 52 AD. Tradition has it that this seat of the Syriac Orthodox archbishopric contains a venerated relic, and indeed the Bishop spoke to me about it one day as he shoveled rubble from around the altar. The relic is claimed to be a section of the belt of St. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is said to be hidden near a below-ground spring. One arrives at the spring by walking down a long, very narrow, pitch black set of stone steps. The Holy Water that can be found there, a small pond in essence, is filled with fragments of stone and wood chunks from the fighting, yet supposedly this water has curative powers. I scooped up a couple of handfuls, and it was indeed very refreshing, but did nothing, so far, to cure my leg problem.

Be that as it may, this observer was struck by the number of parishioners, along with volunteers from the neighborhood, mostly Muslims, covered in dust and soot as they worked at cleaning out the rubble. In the courtyard in front of the church this observer stoked a still smoldering heap of burned bibles and other church documents and icons which I was told rebels had torched as they prepared to vacate the compound earlier this month. Two days after I departed Homs, the Um Al-Zenar Church, though a partially burned out shell devoid of pews and religious artifacts, held its first Holy Communion since the conflict began.

From my experience, Syrians, without exception, are deeply connected with their cultural heritage and do not distinguish all that much among its origins. Many Syrians are proud to help others protect and rebuild their damaged religious and cultural sites, and in fact it seems to be a unifying factor among this besieged population. People this observer speaks with as he travels around Syria to visit archeological sites seem to blame both sides for the damage, but they tend to focus more on the task of restoring their heritage sites. Space does not allow me to enumerate the countless examples of this, but I will mention one.

This observer was served tea one day by some members of the Jewish community in the old City of Damascus, including my friend Saul, who claims to be the last Jewish tailor in Syria, as well as the lovely elderly ladies known as ‘the Jewish sisters’ and whose apartment is near where St. Paul, according to tradition, converted to Christianity. The view expressed by my hosts that day—and I believe them—is that Jewish cultural heritage in Syria is being respected, protected and preserved with the same care as Muslim, Christian, and pagan antiquities.

A Million People Killed In Iraq: The Biggest Petroleum Heist In History?

“Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq’s oil market. But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973.”

– Antonia Juhasz, oil industry analyst,  Al Jazeera.

These are the ‘best of times’ for the oil giants in Iraq.  Production is up, profits are soaring, and big oil is rolling in dough.  Here’s the story from the Wall Street Journal:

“Iraq’s oil production surged to its highest level in over 30 years last month, surprising skeptics of the country’s efforts to restore its oil industry after decades of war and neglect.”  (Wall Street Journal)

Mission accomplished?

You bet.  But for those who still cling to the idea that the US was serious about promoting democracy or removing a vicious dictator or  eliminating WMD or any of the other kooky excuses, consider what we’ve learned in the last couple weeks. Here’s the story from Aljazeera:

“While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain.

On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal. Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq’s giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

Earlier this year, Emerson was awarded a contract to provide crude oil metering systems and other technology for a new oil terminal in Basra, currently under construction in the Persian Gulf, and the company is installing control systems in the power stations in Hilla and Kerbala. Iraq’s supergiant Rumaila oil field is already being developed by BP, and the other supergiant reserve, Majnoon oil field, is being developed by Royal Dutch Shell. Both fields are in southern Iraq.” (“Western oil firms remain as US exits Iraq”, Dahr Jamail, Aljazeera.)

If it sounds like the big boys are dividing the spoils among themselves; it’s because they are. Exxon, BP, Shell; they’re all here. They all have their contracts in hand, and they’re all drilling their brains out thanks to the American servicemen and women who gave their lives for some trumped up baloney about WMD. Isn’t that what’s going on?

Sure it is. And even now–after all the reasons for going to war have been exposed as lies–the farce continues. Nothing has changed. Nothing. There’s still no talk of reparations, no official investigation, no indictments, no prosecutions, no trials, no penalties, no nothing. Not even a stinking apology. Just a big “up yours” Iraq. We’re way too important to apologize for killing a million of your people and reducing your five thousand year old civilization to a pile of rubble.  Instead, we’ll just screw you some more and paper it over with a little public relations, like Obama did a couple weeks ago when he promised to “leave behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people”.

Oh yeah. Obama’s all about sovereignty and stability, everyone knows that.  That’s why Baghdad is the terror capital of the world, because Obama’s so committed to security.

These PR blurbs are effective though, they provide the necessary cover for leaving enough troops behind to protect the oil installations and pipelines.  That’s the kind of security Obama cares about. Security for the oiligarchs and their stolen property.  Everyone else can fend for themselves, which is why Baghdad is such a bloody mess.  Here’s more from Aljazeera:

“Prior to the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq, US and other western oil companies were all but completely shut out of Iraq’s oil market,” oil industry analyst Antonia Juhasz told Al Jazeera. “But thanks to the invasion and occupation, the companies are now back inside Iraq and producing oil there for the first time since being forced out of the country in 1973.” (Aljazeera)

Yeah, thanks for that invasion, Mr. Bush. We couldn’t have done it without you, guy. Hope you have a great retirement painting pictures of poodles and stuff while people continue to get blown to pieces in the terrorist Hellhole you created. Here’s more Al Jazeera:

“Juhasz, author of the books The Tyranny of Oil and The Bush Agenda, said that while US and other western oil companies have not yet received all they had hoped the US-led invasion of Iraq would bring them, “They’ve certainly done quite well for themselves, landing production contracts for some of the world’s largest remaining oil fields under some of the world’s most lucrative terms.”

Dr Abdulhay Yahya Zalloum, an international oil consultant and economist …(said) he believes western oil companies have successfully acquired the lions’ share of Iraq’s oil, “but they gave a little piece of the cake for China and some of the other countries and companies to keep them silent”. (Aljazeera)

How do you like that? These guys operate just like the Mafia. The Bossman pays off China with a few million barrels, and China keeps its mouth shut. Nice. Everyone gets “their cut” so they don’t go blabbing to the media about the ripoff that’s taking place in broad daylight. The stench of corruption is overpowering.

And here’s something else you won’t see in the media. In a White House press release,  the Obama administration announced that they would continue to support Iraq’s “efforts to develop the energy sector” in order  to “help boost Iraq’s oil production.”….

According to Assim Jihad, spokesman for Iraq’s ministry of oil, “Iraq has a goal of raising its oil production capacity to 12m bpd by 2017, which would place it in the top echelon of global producers.” (Aljazeera)

“12 million barrels-per-day by 2017″?

That makes this the biggest petroleum heist in history. And we’re supposed to believe that the oil bigwigs didn’t know anything about this before the war? What a crock! I’ll bet you even money the CEOs and their lackeys figured out that Saudi Arabia was running out of gas, so they decided to pick up stakes and move their operations to good old Mesopotamia. That’s why they put their money on Bush and Cheney, because they knew that two former oil men would do the heavy lifting once they got shoehorned into the White House.  The whole thing was a set-up from the get-go, right down to the 5 shady Supremes who suspended the voting in Florida and crowned Bush emperor in 2000. The whole thing was probably mapped out years in advance.

Big oil runs everything in America. People talk about the power of Wall Street and Israel, but oil is still king. They run it all, and they own it all. And “what they say, goes.”  Here’s more:

“Juhasz explained that ExxonMobil, BP and Shell were among the oil companies that “played the most aggressive roles in lobbying their governments to ensure that the invasion would result in an Iraq open to foreign oil companies”.

They succeeded,” she added. “They are all back in.” (Aljazeera)

Hooray. Big oil wins again, and all it cost was a million or so Iraqis who got blown to bits air raids or shot up at checkpoints, or beaten to death with a rubber hose at Abu Ghraib or any of the other democracy reeducation centers that dot the countryside. But, hey, look at the bright side: At least production is up, right? Can you see how sick this is? Here’s more:

“Under the current circumstances, the possibility of a withdrawal of western oil companies from Iraq appears remote, and the Obama administration continues to pressure Baghdad to pass the Iraq Oil Law.” (Aljazeera)

And what is the “Iraq Oil Law”, you ask?

It’s a way to privatize the oil market using Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) which disproportionately benefit the corporations.  Obama’s a big backer of the law since it means even heftier profits for his thieving  friends.  In other words, the humongous profits they’re already skimming off aren’t quite good enough. They want more. They want to own the whole shooting match lock, stock and barrel.

This is really an outrage. What other country behaves like this?

No one. No other country in the world goes out and kills a million people, destroys their country, and leaves them to scrape by on next to nothing just so they can pad the bank accounts of voracious plutocrats have more dough than they know what to do with. No one else would even dare to act like that for fear that they’d get bombed into annihilation by the world’s biggest bullyboy, the US of A.  Only the US can get away with this type of crap, because the US is a law unto itself.

Iraq was the Cradle of Civilization. Now it’s the cradle of shit. The US decimated Iraq; blew it to bits, bombed its industries, its bridges, its schools, its hospitals, leveled its cities, polluted its water, spread diseases everywhere, killed its kids,  pitted brother against brother,   and transformed a vibrant, unique country into a dysfunctional cesspit run by opportunists, gangsters, and fanatics.

And, here’s the corker:  No one gives a rip. Face it: No one gives a flying fu** about Iraq. The American people lost interest long ago, the politicians can’t be bothered, and the UN is too afraid of the US to lift a finger to help. They’d rather stamp their feet and scold Putin over Crimea than utter a peep about the genocide in Iraq.  That’s the state of things today, right?  No accountability for the men who started the war, and no justice for the victims. Just the infrequent (phony) pronouncement of support from the White House or the all-too-frequent sectarian bombing that leaves an untold number of civilians dead or wounded. This is all the US leaves behind; hatred, death and destruction.

Here’s a clip from a poem by Iraqi writer who wants readers to take a minute and think about all the suffering the United States has created. The poem is titled “Flying Kites”:

“Come and see our overflowing morgues and find our little ones for us…

You may find them in this corner or the other, a little hand poking out, pointing out at you…

Come and search for them in the rubble of your “surgical” air raids, you may find a little leg or a little head…pleading for your attention.

Come and see them amassed in the garbage dumps, scavenging morsels of food…

Come and see  our little ones, under-nourished or dying from disease. Cholera, dysentery, infections…

Come and see, come….”  (“Flying Kites” Layla Anwar)

A million people were killed so a few rich fu**ers could get even richer. That’s a hell of a legacy.

Occult Evolution: Antediluvian, Babylonian, & Modern Expressions

In “The attack on biblical creation in UK schools continues,” Phil Robinson reports that in the dechristianized U.K. unrelenting attacks against special creation (Genesis account) display a level of aggressive intolerance that is hard to stomach, coming as they do from self-proclaimed scientifically-enlightened ‘voices of reason.’  Some schools have already banned the teaching of special creation in favor of evolutionary science.   (, Mar. 9, 2014)

Other shrill ‘voices of reason’ go so far as to connect special creation to mental illness and child abuse. During a radio interview in Australia famous physicist and atheist propagandist Lawrence Krauss said that while in the United States recently, he stated that “teaching creationism is child abuse and I think it is.” (Prayer News, a publication of Creation Ministries, Apr. 2014)

Throughout the West and here in America a slash-and-burn operation conducted against the Genesis account, particularly its’ literal and historical elements, is justified by the false idea that evolution is science, thus intolerance of special creation is often presented as a ‘science versus religion’ or ‘faith versus reason’ issue.   So successful has this war of attrition been that younger generations of Westerners and Americans have been disconnected from both Western history and its’ founding Christian-based worldview, thus like seedlings recently popped up from the soil are unconcerned that special creation, where the ultimate source of life, being and unalienable rights are found, has nearly been displaced by anti-human pagan conceptions positing billions of years of evolutionary transformism from lower kinds of things to higher and higher kinds of things— even non-human kinds of things:

“For us, the best way to create new (‘artificial’) life forms and intelligence is to allow them to emerge through evolution, as nature does, only in much shorter timeframes and with much greater efficiency and variety.”

“For conscious evolution to be successful, we need to observe and understand the actual workings of nature, in all its dynamism, to the point of profound reverence, or ‘worship.’ This is what I call extreme nature-worshipping… From the perspective of extreme nature-worshipping, the real significance of Darwin’s evolutionary theory is not that humans descended from lower species, but that we can continue to evolve.”(Cosmic Beings: Transhumanist Deism in Ted Chu’s Cosmic View, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology, Giulio Prisco)

The vicious name-calling, seething resentment toward and censorship of the six day creation account and of all who profess and teach it should raise the eyebrows of any rational thinking person.  If evolution really is a fact of science then why the irrational name-calling, ridicule, scorn, shunning, resentment, intolerance and demonization?

The answer is that the zealous worshipper of evolution is the Spirit of our age that emerged out of the Renaissance whose answer to the Lord Jesus Christ is the Cross (crucify Him) and whose fulfillment will be the Wicked One. (2 Thess. 2:1-8)

From the Renaissance to our own time the Spirit has been transgressing, blaspheming, and departing that it need not obey His voice.   Like a dog returning to its own vomit, the Spirit has returned to its first love: the cult of demons in the Godless universe of matter, psychic energy, and animated forces where time is changed, past history rendered meaningless, and the liberated Spirit imbibes the cup of wrath, an intoxicating mixture of Babylonian Mysteries, incantations, spiritism, Gnosticism, sorcery, witchcraft, Hermetic magic, Kabbalah, reincarnation, astrology, and other devilish occult traditions.

The Book of Revelation pinpoints Babylon as the post-flood center of an occult pagan Mystery religion based on advaitic monism, science of magic transformism, exalted priesthood, gnosis, secret initiations, psychic-powers, familiar spirits, androgyny, sexual perversions, and other evils.

Babylon embraced the Great Lie. Its inhabitants claimed the title, “I AM.” The root source of this evil religion and its occult power was the Great Dragon himself….Lucifer:

“…. the Great Lie (is) the foundation stone of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, the Kabala, the Greek Hermetic, Eleusinian and Gnostic beliefs, Neo-Platonism, all the occult creeds from Theosophy and the Masonic orders to the Rosicrucian’s (and) the New Age movement. The Great Lie is…the belief that man is God, that his true identity is the immortal self…that as God, he will never die (and) Sin and depravity are…illusions since this inner divinity is at man’s core.” (The Great Lie, Tal Brooke, SCP Journal, Vol. 29:2-29:3, 2005)

Though the Spirit of our age claims the title “I AM” it nevertheless follows after and falls down before other fascinating men: theoreticians of evolutionary science, nature philosophy and evolutionary pagan theology. These charismatic Pied Pipers are possessed of surpassing powers of persuasion and inflexible determination of will to which the Spirit assigns more honor than to anything else.

The Spirit has usurped the throne of the Word Incarnate (John 1:1) because He is not good, not just or benevolent but a devil, an evil Tyrant Who, with His infliction of suffering in this life and eternal punishment in the next must be deposed. (Psalm 2:2-3)

Blaming our Lord for their own sins the proud, self-righteous Spirit of rebellion, hypocrisy and negation says to Him, “…you are not my father.”  My father is the god of forces, therefore:

“I am I, I come out of myself, and in choice and action I make myself.” (Daniel Bell, quoted by Herbert Schlossberg in “Idols for Destruction,” p. 43)

In the final analysis, the Spirit of our age is the “striving human will” seeking desperately to launch itself,

“…into minor godhood in an evolving cosmos through the mechanisms of directed spiritual evolution, spiritualized science and spirit contact.” The ‘new’ spirituality now presents itself as the “rightful replacement for the Revealed Word (and) proclaims its spiritual liberation from the worldview that informs Christianity and its freedom from (the) personal and wholly other God.  But this new way of self-salvation (is) little more than the refurbishing of an ancient spiritual mistake.”  (The Making of the New Spirituality: the Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, James A. Herrick, p. 279)

“As it was in the days of Noah…” 

The ominous signs of this age are obvious, said the English theologian G.H. Pember (1837-1910) in his book, “The Antichrist Babylon and the Coming Kingdom.”  Just as it was during the pre-flood generations, open intercourse with demons (spiritism) is now common throughout Christendom and even in Russia.   In France it is the national pastime.   The apostles of the powers of darkness are everywhere proclaiming their scientific and evolutionary theories demonstrating that the world created itself and had no need of a Creator (p. 60) while the miseries which have resulted from sin,

“….are blasphemously charged upon the Almighty, Who so loved the world as to give His son for it (but is now) impiously forbidden to curb and discipline the rebels who owe their existence to the breath of His mouth.  And when we see such men as John Stuart Mill (and) John Morley, the late Chief Secretary for Ireland…guiding their fellows to defiant insubordination, we can scarcely wonder that Bradlaugh…said, ‘This world might have been happy, had not the shadow of God fallen upon it.” (pp. 35-36, 1888)

Rise of Occult Evolutionary Science 

In the impeccably researched, “The Making of the New Spirituality,” James Herrick observes that the scientific tradition in Renaissance Europe developed around three basic approaches: the organic, the mechanical and the magical.   It was magical and/or occult science that provided the greatest impetus for scientific exploration. (p. 45)

C.S. Lewis underscores this point in “The Abolition of Man:”

“You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse. I allow that some (certainly not all) of the early scientists were actuated by a pure love of knowledge. But if we consider the temper of that age as a whole we can discern the impulse of which I speak.”

In “God and the Knowledge of Reality,” the Catholic philosopher and historian, Thomas Molnar (1921–2010), reveals the ‘temper of that age’ as a spirit of rebellion against the Christian God, and this is why occult science and evolutionary thinking provided the greatest impetus. During the Renaissance, certain Christian theologians, mystics and scholars such as Emanuel Swedenborg had discovered Hermetic magic and occult Jewish Kabbalah texts which they studied and translated resulting in Hermetic Kabbalah. Then like Pico della Mirandola, they argued that occult hermetic science – the divine technology or Magic Way of reaching divine status and powers through ritual procedures (spiritual evolution) is the best proof of the divinity of Christ. In other words said Molnar,

“…..by the time of the Renaissance the esoteric texts of the first centuries A.D. had acquired in scholarly and humanist circles an unparalleled prestige, confronting as equals the texts held sacred by the church. In Pico’s estimation, ‘nulla est scientia que nos magis certificet de divinitate Christ quam magia et Cabala’ (there is no science that would prove for us Christ’s divinity better than magic and the Cabala.)” (pp. 78-79)

Hermetic magic and Jewish Kabbalah are ancient Mystery Religion traditions, as affirmed by G. H. Pember in his classic work, “Earth’s Earliest Ages.”   Pember thoroughly examines the role of fallen angels in connection with the magic (occult transformism) they taught to pre-flood generations and compares them to the explosion of spiritism (open intercourse with evil spirits), astrology, the Mysteries and other occult traditions sweeping over Christendom.

Pember writes that the Mysteries are no longer veiled in mystery but boldly presented by the powerful occult brotherhood that emerged out of the Renaissance as the fruit of modern science, especially evolutionary philosophy, which the brotherhood assert was included in the instructions given,

“…to the initiates of the Hermetic, Orphic, Eleusinian, and Cabbalistic mysteries, and were familiar to Chaldean Magi, Egyptian Priests, Hindu Occultists, Essenes, Therapeutae Gnostics, and Theurgic Neo-Platonists.” (Pember, pp.243-244)

Hermetic Magic

Hermeticism is an ancient Egyptian secret magic tradition based on a set of fourteen books known

collectively as the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to a mysterious figure known as Hermes Trismegistus. Implied in Hermeticism is an evolutionary process of magical transformism (spiritual evolution) moving from one kind of lower thing to another kind of higher thing:

“Human beings are themselves the product of a long spiritual evolutionary process that moves from ‘creeping things’ to fish, mammals, birds and then people.  Humans can—through occult knowledge and extraordinary ability—continue this evolutionary process and become daemons, then gods, and finally planets or stars.” (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition, James A. Herrick, p. 40)

With respect to Hermes identity, researchers of antiquity are divided.  Some believe Hermes was a mythical figure.  Others argue he was Ham or his son Cush.  The historian Samuel Shuckford argues that Hermes was Pathrusim, king of Thebais, the son of Mizraim, the son of Ham.   His Egyptian name was Tyoth or Thoth.  (The Sacred and Profane History of the World Connected, 1808)

In any case, it was Thoth-Hermes who instructed his brothers in the arts and science magic of alchemy or transmutation of a lower kind of thing into a higher kind of thing. For example, after a lengthy transformative process out of the eternally existing divine abyss (primordial matter), the self-created Sun-God Ra boasted that he “came into being from primordial matter.”  He made all the forms under which he “appeared by means of the god-soul” which he raised up out of Nu, primordial matter. (The Long War Against God, Dr. Henry Morris, p. 243)

Occult Kabalah

“The Kabalah is the key to the occult sciences; and the Gnostics were born of the Kabalists.” (Occult Mason Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, p. 626)

Like its’ Hermetic counterpart, Kabala implies a process of evolutionary transformism:

“…the older Enoch book (gives) a fuller insight into the “Merkabah” and “Bereshit” lore of the ancients than the “Hekalot,” which present but fragments, while the central figure of the Cabala, Meṭaṭron-Enoch, is seen in ch. lxx.-lxxi. in a process of transformation.” (Cabala, Jewish Encyclopedia)

According to Helena Blavatsky, one of the key architects of Luciferian New Age pantheism, Kabalah derived,

“…. from the older secret doctrines concerning divine things and cosmogony, which were combined into a theology after the time of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon. All the works that fall under the esoteric category are termed Kabalistic.” (Blavatsky, Theosophical Glossary, p. 168)

The godless cosmogony of Kabala teaches the gradual condensation or evolutionary progression of a primal substance into visible matter.  This is a fundamental,

“… doctrine of the Cabala (and) is the ancient Semitic conception of the ‘primal ocean,’ known to the Babylonians as ‘Apsu’ and called by the Gnostics βύθος =  (Anz, ‘Die Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus,’ p. 98).

The Chaldean occult science and pagan Mystery Religion was embraced by apostate Jews during their captivity in Babylon and delivered to subsequent generations of initiates by word of mouth. According to Blavatsky, these initiates of the Chaldean tradition in the centuries before Christ were known as Tanaim:
“The kabalist is a student of ‘secret science’, one who interprets the hidden meaning of the

Scriptures with the help of the symbolical Kabala… The Tanaim were the first kabalists among the Jews; they appeared at Jerusalem about the beginning of the third century before the Christian era… This secret doctrine is identical with the Persian wisdom, or ‘magic’.” (Ibid. p.167)

The Essenes were also associated with the Kabala. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the cabalistic practices of the Essenes, which were Judaized elements of Eastern mystical traditions:

“So, too, were the Essenes familiar with the idea of the journey to heaven…and they were also masters of angelology. The practice of magic and incantation, the angelology and demonology, were borrowed from Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt; but these foreign elements were Judaized in the process, and took the form of the mystical adoration of the name of God and of speculations regarding the mysterious power of the Hebrew alphabet …, ‘the name of God creates and destroys worlds’, to become, finally, foundations of the philosophy of the ‘Sefer Yetzirah.”  (Cabala, Jewish Encyclopedia)

According to Blavatsky the Essenes were pagan priests of the Greek goddess, Diana of Ephesus, where the Tanaim had established a college for instruction in the Chaldean mystery religion:

“Essenes… had many Buddhistic ideas and practices; and it is noteworthy that the priests of the Great Mother at Ephesus, Diana-Bhavani with many breasts, were also denominated… It was at Ephesus where was the great College of the Essenes and all the lore the Tanaim had brought from the Chaldees… Essenes, believed in reincarnation.” (Theosophical Glossary, pp. 113-14; The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II, p. 111n)

Eventually Alexandria, Egypt became the epicenter of cosmological and pagan religious ideas as well as the intellectual meeting point between Greek Mystery Religion/Hermetic magic initiates and nature sages and guardians of Kabala.  After the fall of Jerusalem, Alexandria was the center from which occult pagan Jews would disguise their mystery tradition in Christian terminology and attempt to penetrate the fledgling Church with heresy.

One of the primary tactics employed by Cabbalist pagan Jews for this purpose is the same one employed by their modern evolutionary Gnostic pagan counterparts.   It involves the reduction of the Genesis account, particularly the first three books, to allegory and myth, a ploy that eliminates the physical Adam from which all people descended and the sin that he transferred to the rest of the human race. This strikes directly at the heart of the Gospel: the need for the ‘last Adam’ to provide for us an escape from the wrath of God against sin incurred by the first Adam.  In this way, not only is the work of Christ on the cross rendered superfluous, meaning the heart of the faith is ripped out, but God is made responsible for sin and evil. (1 Peter 3:18-22; 1 John 2:22)

Long ago, the teachings of some of the early Church Fathers regarding the apostasy toward the end of the church age predicted the reappearance of this evil tactic. The fathers categorized it a Gnostic pagan heresy.

In “Heresies 6.10″ Hippolytus writes that the Gnostic pagan Simon Magus feigned faith and allegorized much of Scripture, especially Genesis, to support his evolutionary Hermetic and Gnostic occult pantheist teachings.   Church Fathers Ireneaus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria reveal that Gnostic cult leader Marcion rejected the Old Testament, taught that the God of the Old Testament and his prophets are evil, made God the author of sin and removed all references that Christ was Creator (John 1:1)   (Ireneaus, “Against Heresies 1.26, 5.1,” Tertullian “Against Marcion 2.17,” Clement of Alexandria, “Against Heresies 4.29)

In conclusion, the Babylonian Mystery Religion is the mother of evolutionary Cabala, Gnosticism and all other occult pagan traditions:

“….especially does Gnosticism testify to the antiquity of the Cabala. Of Chaldean origin… Gnosticism was Jewish in character long before it became Christian… Gnosticism—that is, the cabalistic ‘Hokmah’ (wisdom)—seems to have been the first attempt on the part of the Jewish sages to give the empirical mystic lore, with the help of Platonic and Pythagorean or Stoic ideas, a speculative turn; hence the danger of heresy…of which the systems of Philo, an adept in Cabala…show many pitfalls…Jewish gnosticism unquestionably antedates Christianity, for Biblical exegesis had already reached an age of five hundred years by the first century C.E.  Judaism had been in close contact with Babylonian-Persian ideas for at least that length of time, and for nearly as long a period with Hellenistic ideas. Magic, also, which,…was a not unimportant part of the doctrines and manifestations of gnosticism, largely occupied Jewish thinkers. There is, in general, no circle of ideas to which elements of gnosticism have been traced, and with which the Jews were not acquainted.”  (Cabala, Jewish Encyclopedia)

Building  the New Tower of Babylon

In the essay, “The Paganization of Biblical Studies,” Dr. Peter Jones, director of truthxchange and adjunct professor of Westminster Seminary CA., writes that the books of the evolutionary Gnostic pagan Presbyterian heretic Lloyd Geering, Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Victoria University, are promoted by the most powerful element of the Spirit of our age—the international occult New Age Luciferian elite-pagans—as programmatic templates for the future utopian pagan community from the point of view of Christian apostasy and socialism undergirded by evolutionary pantheist orthodoxy.

According to Geering, the world’s future culture will be post-Christian, global, religiously pagan and evolutionary.  This agenda is remarkably similar to that of Teilhard de Chardins’ disciple, the ex-Roman Catholic Thomas Berry in his book, “The Great Work” which is also being implemented through texts of the UN’s global programs.

The rising New World Order will be post-Christian because evolution proves that human beings, as they evolved out of primordial matter, created language, then symbols, then religious explanations and God Himself.  Therefore tomorrow’s culture will be pluralistic, syncretistic, relativistic and poly-gendered because evolution integrates all scientific, cultural, religious, economic and human gender into one worldwide anthill thus when the global society emerges from the evolutionary process,

“…it will require humanity to develop a new consciousness and a new form of spirituality” because “the new story which has become basic to the global world begins with a new word or idea…evolution.” (ibid, Jones)

Like its’ mother, Mystery Babylon, the scientifically-enlightened ‘new’ global religion of evolutionary transformism is occult pantheist advaita monism, which means that as an ancient impersonal god-force is within the cosmos, earth, human beings, rats, weeds, tumble bugs, cancer and everything else then all things are essentially ‘one.’  Since the god-force is within all things it is within the demonically ‘illumined’ consciousness of every spiritually evolved initiate and adept.

This being the case, by means of trance states, brain-altering drugs, transcendental meditation, visualization, channeling, Zen Buddhism, Kundalini yoga, tantra, and other occult ways, the initiate can channel the god-force within thereby becoming a little god who controls matter because he controls mind. The physical world then, is an illusion because reality is inside the divine mind of the god-man.

This way of thinking is captured by Orwell in his book, “Nineteen Eighty-Four” in which negation of the physical world is an integral part of the social and political philosophy of Big Brother and his despotic Party. At one stage in the book, Winston stumbles upon the shocking realization that in the end the Party would announce that two plus two made five because the logic of Big Brothers’ position required it since the existence of external reality was denied by his philosophy.  Thus when the Thought Police agent O’Brien tortures Winston for politically incorrect “wrong thought” he states,

“We control matter because we control the mind.  Reality is inside the skull.  You will learn by degrees, Winston.  There is nothing that we could not do.  Invisibility, levitation—anything.  I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to….You must get rid of these nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of Nature.  We make the laws of Nature.” (Orwell, “The New Spirituality and its Hallmarks, Alan Morrison, SCP Journal, Vol. 30:4-31:1, 2007, p. 19)

Evolving Toward Catastrophe

In “The Aquarian Conspiracy,” a book that has been called ‘the New Age Bible,’ Marilyn Ferguson (1938-2008) admits that the ‘new age’ evolutionary pantheism and occult technologies being employed throughout America were at one time the private domain of ancient initiates.   In fact, as Constance Cumbey reveals in her thoroughly researched book, “The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow,” many New Age historians claim their occult religion and techniques originated in Atlantis and afterward were preserved in the ancient land of Babylon,

“…and surrounding Plains of Shinar and from there disseminated throughout the earth, including Taoist doctrines of China, Mayan-Aztec teachings of Mexico and Central/South America; Great Spirit teachings of the American Indians, Hindu/Buddhist teachings of Asia, etc.” (pp. 250-251)

After the Flood, said Shuckford, while the faithful Noah remained in the East and established the worship of the true God, eighty years after the Flood his rebellious son Ham and his sons together with other family members departed and eventually settled in the plains of Shinar where they resolved to build a tower, a monument to their own pride, vanity, ambition and rebellion against God. (ibid, p.94)

It was Noah’s son Ham, according to ancient Church Father Clement, who  ‘preserved’ and revived the Mystery Religion of ‘Atlantis’ and its attendant evils:

“Fallen angels taught men the use of magical incantations that would force demons to obey man. After the flood Ham the son of Noah…discovered this and taught it to his sons.  This became ingrained into the Egyptians, Persians, and Babylonians.  Ham died shortly after the fall of the Tower of Babel.  Nimrod, called Ninus by the Greeks, was handed this knowledge and by it caused men to go away from the worship of God and go into diverse and erratic superstitions and they began to be governed by the signs in the stars and motions of the planets.” (Recognitions of Clement 4.26-29)

In his well-researched book, “Ancient Post-Flood History,” Ken Johnson, Th.D., reports that the sons of Ham persuaded the people to accept that the true God was merely an impersonal creative force within all of nature, making man the highest form of life/god.  Through the power of persuasion, Ham and his sons revived magical evolutionary transformism, pantheism and idolatry. (pp. 47-48)

Eventually Ham was deified and worshipped by later pagans as the gods Cronus and Jupiter:

“Ham is represented by many writers as a very wicked, immodest, and profligate creature: Berosus (i) makes him a magician, and to be the same with Zoroast or Zoroastres, and speaks of him as the public corrupter of mankind; and says that he taught men to live as before the flood, to lie with mothers, sisters, daughters, males and brutes, and creatures of all sorts; and that he actually did so himself, and therefore was cast out by his father Janus, or Noah, and got the name of “Chem”, the infamous and immodest…” Upon seeing his father’s nakedness Ham,  “told his two brethren without; he went out of the tent after he had pleased himself with the sight… and in a wanton, ludicrous, and scoffing manner, related what he had seen: some of the Jewish Rabbins (k), as Jarchi relates, say that Canaan first saw it, and told his father of it; and some say (l), that he or Ham committed an unnatural crime with him; and others (m), that he castrated him; and hence, it is supposed, came the stories of Jupiter castrating his father Saturn, and Chronus his father Uranus.”    Genesis 9:22 Gill’s Exposition

History did not begin after billions of years of evolution when primitive hominids swung down from the trees and discovered how to scratch crude symbols onto rocks.    Nor did it begin after the Flood.  At least 2,000 years of human existence preceded the Flood, meaning that when Noah and his family entered the ark they carried at least one hundred years of pre-flood memories, traditions, technology, and superior knowledge. Their world view was shaped by the historical Adam and Eve and the generations of their offspring.   Thus Noah and his family brought with them not only the knowledge of the personal God, Special Creation, fall of man, the Deluge, sacrifice to God for the propitiation of sin, the arts of weapon-making and warfare, knowledge of letters, symbols, math, architecture, science, cosmetics, and agriculture  but knowledge of  first-hand encounters with Watchers, their occult teachings, the Nephilim, and primeval pantheism tied to magic, spiritism, herbal abortifacients, human and animal sacrifice, drinking of blood, males marrying males and even beasts, and many other evils.

In affirmation, the eminent researcher of antiquity James Bailey said:

“…human history can now be hesitantly traced back as an unbroken narrative to 4000 B.C….the picture emerging…is one of the Fall of Man in historic terms as well as his rise; it is a picture…more of degradation than of success; it is a picture of monotheism breaking down into polytheism and of the struggle to return to monotheism.  The establishment view of the history of religion gradually progressing from animism to polytheism (then) to monotheism is the reverse of facts.” (“The God-Kings and the Titans: The New World Ascendancy in Ancient Times 1973, p. 296)

Four thousand years before Christ were the antediluvian generations and the Watchers in the post-flood world, making the billions of years of evolutionary transformism a fabulous fable.  It is neither ‘new’ (Ecclesiastes 1: 9-11) nor scientific except in the sense of pre-flood and post-flood occult science and attendant traditions revised and revamped for our own time, as Geering unhappily discovered.

Dr. Jones writes that Geering was surprised when he found out that the ‘New Spirituality’ has “links with pre-monotheistic…nature religions,” leading Jones to wryly comment that in an odd turn of events,

“….contemporary spiritual’ evolution goes backwards!  Biblical theism disturbed evolutionary progress.  The clocks have to be put back (for we are in the presence of) a powerful pagan/Gnostic theological agenda, claiming to be spanking new, objective and scientific, but as old as the hills.”

Clocks have to be turned back, all the way back to the days of Noah in the pre-flood world where evolution is closely connected to the devil’s lie that man is a being who though presently limited in time and space is nevertheless capable of achieving a great leap of being and magically evolving into a much more powerful god-like being in the future.

As the scientifically endarkened Gnostic pagan Spirit of our age simultaneously worships on the altar of ‘self’ as it self-righteously peers down its’ long, pointy nose and contemptuously sniffs and sneers at the remnant of backwards, unscientific, anti-evolution  faithful, in reality it is the entirely deluded pagan Spirit that is on a collision course with a modern version of the pre-flood world catastrophe—-and we know how badly that ended.

Ukraine As The US Dollar Waterloo

The desperation of the Anglo-American leadership, guided by the steady corrupt banker hands, has never been more acutely high, nor obvious in full view. The entire Ukraine situation is a travesty. It includes Langley agents killing police and street demonstrators from rooftops, the confirmation coming from the Estonian Embassy (translation of scripts). It includes thefts of official Ukrainian Govt funds, again sent to the Swiss hill sanctuary. It includes sanctions delivered by a US Paper Tiger, sure to cause horrific backlash. It involves the last gasp attempt to obstruct the Gazprom energy pipelines, which will inevitably corner the European market in monopoly. It involves subterfuge with the NATO card (aka Narcotics And Treachery Outlaws) with missiles placed on the Russian borders. Look for NATO members to find a back door to exit the spurious treaty. It involves playing with nitro-glycerine in the Petro-Dollar room. It involves putting tremendous risk for much more clear isolation of the United States. The more the USGovt pushes, the more the US will be isolated. Remember that Nazis steal from their enemy states, de-fraud from their allied states, and force themselves into an isolated state. In Ukraine, the United States has over-played its weak hand. Already, a secret document was leaked in London that the UKGovt would not support the US-led sanctions against Russia.

History repeats itself from the Kremlin phone calls made during the Syrian conflict just a few months ago, when the UKGovt withdrew its support and left the US isolated, looking very weak. Already, Putin has threatened to dump USTreasury Bonds. Putin aptly calls the Anglo-Americans as Mutants. Imagine the lunacy of trying to cut off the only Russian warm water military naval port in the Crimea. Just as stupid as the Trans Pacific Partnership faux pas, trying to cut off China from its Asian neighbors and partners in trade. The intelligence level of the USGovt has never been more stupid, destructive, and in full view. The lost ground for the United States is obvious and glaring in the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Caucasus region.

IMMEDIATE PETRO-DOLLAR RISK

If the Kremlin demands Gold bullion (or even Russian Rubles) for oil payments, then the interventions to subvert the Ruble currency by the London and Wall Street houses will backfire and blow up in the bankster faces. Expect any surplus Rubles would be converted quickly to Gold bullion. If the Chinese demand that they are permitted to pay for oil shipments in Yuan currency, then the entire Petro-Dollar platform will be subjected to sledge hammers and wrecking balls. The new Petro-Yuan defacto standard will have been launched from the Shanghai outpost. If the Saudis curry favor to the Russians and Chinese by accepting non-USDollar payments for oil shipments, then the Petro-Dollar is dead and buried. The rise of the Nat Gas Coop run by Gazprom is in progress, its gas pipelines to strangle the OPEC and its bastard Petro-Dollar child. The entire USDollar foundation with the USTreasury Bond bank reserve structure is at risk is collapsing, as consequence to the desperate adventure and criminal activity conducted in Ukraine.Just like with Syria, a hidden giant energy deposit is concealed under the table. Off the Lebanese and Syrian coast, a massive off-shore energy deposit was recently discovered. The US & UK & Israeli oligarchs wish to take it all. Confusion is their game. In the western plains of Ukraine, a massive gas deposit was recently discovered. The US & European oligarchs wish to take it all. Confusion is their game.

The danger level has never been higher. No resolution to the Global Monetary War can come, which we have been seeking, without a climax. It is hardly just a financial crisis amidst a stubborn economic recovery. The nature of the currencies and their underlying sovereign bond foundation is highly toxic, which requires a strong replacement as solution, using an alternative to the USDollar alongside its reserve ledger item the USTreasury Bond. A return to the Gold Standard is coming, but the birth will have loud pangs and possibly broad damage suffered. The Global Currency Reset is better named the Return to the Gold Standard. The United States and London will not give up their control of the Weimar Printing Press easily, used for elite self-dole of extreme wealth. It has served well as the Elite credit card. They will not go quietly, and assume their place in the backwater without taking the world to the brink. No climax can occur without enormous risk and loss. The Global Paradigm Shift is in full gear, with attendant risk huge here and now. My Jackass firm belief is that the US/UK fascist team face a Waterloo event in Ukraine, the victim to be the Imperial Dollar. This bulletin will not be a comprehensive note, as the situation is too vast. The information in the Hat Trick Letter is used to interweave a story of the impending removal of the USDollar from its corrupt throne.

UNITED STATES TRAPPED AND CORNERED

The Anglo Americans have fallen into a carefully designed trap by the Russians and Chinese in a clever designed sequence. More Sun Tzu tactics have been put into practice, which utilize the momentum from the enemy to be thrust back on them. Planning for final steps must have taken place during high level Putin meetings with Xi from the elite Sochi viewing box. The unfolding of events has been more carefully engineered and orchestrated than what appears. The US/UK team has been caught in a vise for months, as the rejection of the USDollar as global reserve currency is in high gear, the refusal of the USTBond a recognized trend in diversifications. The death process is slow and grueling. Much of the American Hemisphere is surrounded and controlled by Russia & China, whether the canal, the port facilities, the oil supply, the mineral deposits, even Yuan Swap facilities. Africa has largely gone under Chinese control, with Russia playing a hidden role as well.

The Persian Gulf is in transition, with the critical protectorate role shifting to China. The Qatar royals have just ordered a dismissal of USGovt ambassadors from their nation. Note that Qatar is the site of a giant USNaval base. To be sure, the Sochi Olympic Games are over, a successful event. The gloves have thus come off. The risks have reached acute levels. The US leadership seems cavalier to the risks that over half the USGovt debt is in foreign hands, over 30% of it in Russian & Chinese hands. A severe backlash cometh. The most vulnerable player in the room is the most aggressive, arrogant, vile, and obnoxious. The instability of the situation is far beyond acute. The victim will be the USDollar and its sidekick the USTreasury Bond. The USTBonds will be kicked out of the global banking system. The Third World awaits the United States, for its domestic betrayals, its financial failures, its criminal deeds, and its war aggression.

THE RUSSIAN BACKLASH TO BE SUDDEN

Russian President Vladimir Putin will slam the West, and very soon. The initial salvo might be a natural gas cutoff by Gazprom, the Russian giant which has fast moved into the global monopoly position. Eventually, Putin might demand gold payment for the natgas in the captured pipelines, that being the plan according to The Voice. Russia supplies one quarter of Western European gas needs. It will be the opening salvo for Gold Trade Settlement, for which the Iran workarounds to the sanctions provided the critical prototype. Combined with a formal announcement of USTreasury Bond sales in volume by Russia & China, the impact would be tremendous, even devastating. The reverberation will be soon seen as the pending demise of the defacto Petro-Dollar Standard, dictated by crude oil sales in USD terms. It will also be soon seen as the end of the USTBond as the global reserve standard in banking systems. Notice for over two years, the primary buyer of USGovt debt (and its refunded rollover) has been the US Federal Reserve via bond monetization, an absolute heresy to central banking. Hyper monetary inflation cannot stand as fixed policy. The world has responded by constructing an alternative to trade settlement. The forum has been the BRICS conferences and the G-20 Meetings of finance ministers. The US & UK will gradually be excluded from both forums, a process well along. Even traditional allies like Japan are buying gold in high volume, with suppressed lowball data so far. This is game over for the USDollar, the direct victim of Ukraine backlash. The war against Russia has been veiled, but the Jackass has exposed it.

VEILED ATTACKS AGAINST RUSSIAN GAZPROM

First was the attack against Russian Gazprom in Cyprus. It was a hidden attack made to look like a bank confiscation event. Notice no bank account confiscations outside the small but important island nation. The entire Russian banking clearance system had been done through Cyprus. Also, Russia was making significant transactions to purchase Gold bullion using Cyprus as clearing house for the purchases. Second was the attack against Russian Gazprom in Syria, another complicated event. The US had used the Libyan Embassy as a weapons running facility (major diplomatic violation), after which the US lost Egypt as a transfer station on the weapons running. The false flag attack in Syria was made to look like a chemical weapons event. However, the Saudis were the guilty party. The motive by the US was to block the advance of Russian Gazprom pipelines, which are to connect to the vast Iran supply centers. Iran has far more oil & gas than Iraq. In fact, Iran is the linchpin nation, which will throw its support toward Russia. Iran will push the Nat Gas Coop certain to eclipse Saudi Arabia and the loud gaggle of OPEC members. With the Russian Gazprom, together Iran and the Nat Gas Coop will usher in the Petro-Yuan Standard and bury the Petro-Dollar, the price set by Russia, the contracts set in Shanghai. Thus the Saudis will be expendable, and their Gold in London to be totally stolen.

Move to the present. Third was the attack against Russia Gazprom in Ukraine, done by the CIA and its partner security agents from the small ally nation on the SouthEast Med corner. The old game of destabilization, popular uprising, bank thefts, and now data files stolen has been put into action. The theft of significant funds in Ukraine has only started, funds gone to Swiss banks. The full betrayal will be seen soon. The US & UK have a lunatic plan to corral the Ukraine pipelines and possibly the vast farmlands of Ukraine. The wrong-footed plan will backfire, when Putin cuts off the natgas supply to Europe, when Putin demands a new type of energy supply payment structure, and when Putin engineers certain other steps. They might execute a Nat Gas Coop double in price, much like the OPEC event in 1973. Witness the upcoming Birth of the Eurasian Trade Zone, the birth pangs heard in Ukraine. The United States and Great Britain will not be included. The Eurasian Trade Zone will span 14 time zones and will settle in gold.

IRAN WORKAROUND AS KEY PROTOTYPE SOLUTION

The Anglo Americans have disrupted a key nation with longstanding historical and religious ties to Russia. The land of Ukraine also contains Russia’s only warm water naval port in the Crimea, the site of a recent suspicious earthquake. The response will be swift and firm. The Eastern nations (led by China & Russia) have been making detailed preparations in the last couple years to launch the alternative trade system founded in Gold Settlement. Its launch lacks a potential open door trigger, possibly offered by the Ukraine situation. The Gold Standard could return in a baptism by fire. The open door trigger appears to be the Western interventions into Ukraine, since the Western banking structures will not be permitted to collapse, the ugly reality. The abuse of the central bank monetary expansion and fraudulent bond redemption has gone totally out of control, forcing an endless cycle of alternative preparations and motivated reactions, including the Iran workaround with Turkey as intermediary in gold provision. Other attacks have taken place in the last few months against the Russian Ruble by Wall Street firms. The reaction will possibly be the launch of what could eventually be understood to be a gold-backed Ruble currency, combined with natgas cutoffs to Europe and USTBond dumps. At first it could be perceived as the oil-backed Ruble, but its quick hidden conversion to Gold bullion could be revealed later on. The USDollar will be discarded as obsolete, even toxic. The USDollar debt basis might be widely accepted to be the cause of the global financial crisis, and the USFed Quantitative Easing be widely understood to be the cause of the global financial collapse.

EUROPE AS KEY REGION TO TIP EASTWARD

Events inside Western Europe could unfold rapidly. Behind the scenes, much is happening. The important German-French Axis is breaking down, weakened by each passing month and bailout exercise. The motive for much of the German support of bailouts and rescue plans, as faulty as they have been, is the oversized German ownership of both French Govt debt and big French banks. They will fail, both the French sovereign debt and the big French banks. Germany must undergo a split, with a restructure from the devastating damage due to Southern European sovereign debt and related big bank losses. At the same time, Germany is on the verge of turning East to Russia. Already Russia is a large energy and mineral supplier to Germany, the heavy railway facilities in place. The core of Nordic Europe is firm. Austria and Finland are aligned with the pragmatic forces in Germany and the Netherlands. Italy is being transformed, but Spain might be lost to chaos. Turkey is also undergoing change during chaotic reform. The entire NATO Alliance has never been weaker. The military action in Ukraine is framed as a supposed NATO exercise to honor a treaty. Watch the loose end like Turkey fall off the NATO wagon, while Finland falls off the Euro currency wagon. The Jackass is eager to see the Snowden NSA files reveal key data on the illicit usage of NATO bases for narcotics distribution, the origin being Afghanistan. What a bombshell it would be if Turkey announced that their government would no longer permit heroin shipments from USMilitary aircraft on their Incirlik Airbase.

A key player in the mix is Israel. They have a Tamar floating platform, whose natgas has been pledged under contract to Russian Gazprom. The tiny nation is possibly changing its alliances out of pragmatism, seeing its drained weakened host that has duly served its purpose. The next big step is for Western Ukraine to suffer the drain of remaining resources (financial and agricultural) to the West, using all the diplomatic tools the Euro Elite can muster. The people in the East will realize that they have been betrayed once more by the Western powers. This is the critical final step. Several swing nations will consequently align with Germany, if only to make being integrated by Russia less painful. During all the transitions, China will take care of Asia in this game. The remaining overriding question is whether the US & Britain will go quietly in the night of faded empires, or else to wreck the world with nukes and viruses. The main exports out of the United States and its royal handlers have been fraudulent bonds, military hardware, genetically modified food, fast food with diabetes, pharmaceuticals, surveillance software, computer viruses, and jamming software technology. Such is the nature of the fascist transformation.

RUSSIA CANNOT BE ISOLATED

The West is in for a gigantic surprise in the sequence of events to unfold. They have placed criminal oligarchs into top government positions in Ukraine. Doing so might suit the West but not the Ukrainian people. The political brain trust in Berlin shows extremely errant strategy, still kowtowing to the USGovt and London Elite in an incomprehensible manner. The West cannot isolate Russia, which is the latest absurd bone-headed strategy. They need Russia in vital ways that will become apparent when the West faces energy supply cutoff or forced Gold payments during an open global USDollar rejection. The US will quickly feel the lost Petro-Dollar gear mechanisms. China has already aligned itself beside Russia, which makes isolation impossible. Consider the Russian commodity supply and Chinese industrial power, the new axis to the Eurasian Trade Zone.

The West cannot continue to bully Russia & China. Poking a stick in the bear’s face will not work for long. Disrespecting the Chinese creditor is deep folly. The risk that coincides is for the two Asian superpowers to threaten or actually execute a dumping initiative of USTreasury Bonds, and force the United States to use its last card in a grotesque display of hugely amplified monetary expansion. The US would collapse by falling on its own sword, the event occurring in the Weimar chamber. A super high volume bond monetization machine to cover globally dumped USTBonds is a strong likelihood as climax event, with a broken derivative mechanism that is revealed during its fracture. The London banker murders (another Jackass correct forecast, made in mid-2011) indicate a motive to keep covered up the extreme $100 billion JPMorgan derivative losses at the hands of the London Whale Bruno Iksil, first sighted in May 2012. The accelerated hyper monetary inflation in response to Russian & Chinese joint retaliation would finally kill the USDollar. The echo event, born from failure, would be for the USGovt to launch the new split Scheiss Dollar. Then the USGovt could have its domestic currency finally, and then wreck it with an assured painful sequence of devaluations. The fundamentals for the US domestic only currency are truly horrible, typical of a Third World nation. Ukraine is about the last gasp of the USDollar. It has no viable defense.

UKRAINE AS WATERLOO FOR THE US DOLLAR

Ukraine is the Waterloo event for Team Obama and the Wall Street handlers, the true controllers of the White House puppet. Ukraine will lead to wreckage to the USDollar and its USTBond partner in crime. Witness the death of the USDollar and the Birth of both the Gold Trade Standard, on the new Eurasian Trade Zone landscape. Neither Russia nor China will cooperate on the IMF super sovereign reformed currency basket at this point, not during extreme hostility and conflict. Hope and pray for cooler heads to prevail, since already many serious military attacks have occurred with advanced weapons off the Syrian coast. The Western Press prefers to frame the Ukraine situation as one more curious Orange Revolution event staged in Eastern Europe, akin to the other deceptive Arab Spring events. The old Soviet Union was trapped years ago, forced to use hyper monetary inflation in defense, as the nation imploded financially. The United States is now trapped in an ironic parallel manner, and will be exposed for its heretic inflationary response that ramps up to obscene volumes, followed by financial implosion. In fact, the events from here onward are the final hurrah for the USDollar regime and the criminal cabal.

Now has never been a better time to own a big stack of gold & silver coins & bars, stored in a secure place outside the United States, outside England, outside Switzerland, even outside Canada. The people must defend against a climax of systemic failure, led by arrogance, stupidity, desperation, and delusion, even armed aggression. It remains to be seen whether the Kremlin has some secret allies who might emerge in time, from other worlds. But that is an entire other story to be told someday maybe. We earthlings will all find out soon enough. Times are changing fast, and better to be alert than to get hurt. The Global Currency Reset lies directly ahead, complete with its doubled Gold price and doubled Silver price. The Russians & Chinese are motivated to respond to a military prod, poke, and nudge by delivering a financial response. The rejection of the USDollar is near. The rapid diversification away from the USTreasury Bond is near. The arrival of the new Global Gold Standard is imminent.

Source: GoldSeek.com | Jim Willie CB, GoldenJackass.com

Ukraine Falls Under Fascist Bankster Thumb

Their al Qaeda terrorists soundly defeated by Hezbollah forces in Syria, the City of London Illuminati banksters have turned their sights on resource-rich Ukraine. They knew Russian President Vladimir Putin would be distracted by the Sochi Olympics, along with the barrage of threats and propaganda being hurled his way by these demonic Zio-fascists and their Western media lapdogs.

With unlimited time and money at their disposal, this is the bankster modus operandi. They attack where they see opportunity, retreat when defeated, then attack another sector of the planet within days based on vulnerability and resources.

Ukraine declared independence from the old Soviet Union in 1990. In 2004-2005 Western NGOs worked with CIA/Mossad/MI6 assets to stage the phony Orange Revolution. Victor Yuschenko became Prime Minister but was poisoned during the campaign. Western media blamed it on the Russians, but it was likely a Mossad operation since he was succeeded by more bankster-friendly right-wing billionaire Yulia Tymoshenko.

Tymoshenko had co-led the Orange Revolution and is one of Ukraine’s richest people. In 2005 Forbes named her the third most powerful woman in the world. In 2007 she traveled to the US to meet with Vice-President Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice to talk energy. Tymoshenko became rich as an executive at a natural gas company.

Ukraine was being plugged into Cheney’s crooked Energy Policy Task Force, which opened the planet to unregulated oil & gas exploration, including fracking. Tymoshenko privatized over 300 state industries during her reign,

But the Ukrainian people smelled a rat.

In 2010 they voted in Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych with 48% of the vote. His Party of Regions again defeated Tymoshenko’s Fatherland Party in parliamentary elections of 2012.

Tymoshenko was convicted of embezzlement of state funds and abuse of power. She was given a seven year prison sentence and fined $188 million. The crimes occurred in the natural gas sector.

Two weeks ago Tymoshenko was released from prison as part of a deal hatched at a secret meeting between Yanukovych, EU, NATO and Russian officials first reported by William Engdahl in an article for Veterans Today. Soon after her release all hell broke loose.

Mossad’s Fascist Friends

On February 22nd snipers opened fire from rooftops on Kiev’s square. Engdahl says these snipers were members of a far-right fascist terror cell known as Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self Defense (UNA-UNSO).

Led by Andriy Shkil, the group has ties to the neo-Nazi German National Democratic Party. According the Engdahl’s intelligence sources UNA-UNSO is part of a secret NATO Gladio cell and was involved in conflicts ranging from Georgia to Kosovo to Chechnya as part of a strategy of tension aimed at Russia.

Shkil also has direct ties to Tymoshenko, as does newly installed Prime Minster Oleksandr Turchynov, a Baptist preacher and former Tymoshenko advisor who took over after Yanukovych fled under threat to his life to Russia.

In 2006 state prosecutors opened a criminal case against Turchynov, who was accused of destroying files which showed Tymoshenko’s ties to organized crime boss Semion Mogilevich. With Turchynov as Prime Minister Ukraine is now under the thumb of fascist organized criminals known collectively as Right Sector.

It came as no surprise then, when Press TV reported that both Haaretz and the Times of Israel openly bragged of how a group of “former” Israeli soldiers known as the Blue Helmets of the Maidan had led the “protesters” in Kiev’s square under the leadership of a man code-named Delta. According to Paul Craig Roberts, these “protestors” were also being paid by the EU and US.

A Mossad coup brought Right Sector to power, pushing aside more moderate voices being funded and backed by the US, as revealed in the now-infamous YouTube video showing Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland discussing with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (both Israeli assets within the State Department) who they would want to install as Ukrainian Prime Minster once they got rid of Yanukovych.

A Resource Grab

As usual this Rothschild-led bankster putsch is all about resources. Ukraine lies in a highly strategic geographic location, fronting both the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Ukraine is the bread basket of the Eastern Hemisphere. In 2011 it was the world’s 3rd largest grain exporter. It ranks in the top 10 countries in the world for sought-after farmland.

Ukraine has the 2nd largest military in Europe after Russia and the NATO Rothschild tool would love nothing better than to run out theRussian Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol – a symbol of Russian naval power since the 18th century.

Ukraine has vast natural gas deposits, an advanced industrial base and is a highly strategic crossroads for oil & gas pipelines connecting  Caspian Sea energy fields with European consumers. In 2009 a dispute between Putin and Tymoshenko over Russia’s trans-Ukrainian gas supplies caused a huge spike in gas prices in Europe.

In October 2013 the IMF met with Ukrainian officials to discuss the country’s alleged “budget crisis”. The bankster enforcer arm demanded that Ukraine double consumer prices for natural gas and electricity, devalue its currency, slash state funding for schools and the elderly, and lift a ban on the sale of its rich farmland to foreigners. In return for this Ukraine was promised a measly $4 billion.

Yanukovych told the IMF to take a hike and Russia soon stepped in promising cheaper energy and stating it would buy $15 billion in Ukrainian bonds. Yanukovych was now on the bankster hit list, and the rest is history.

Russia has responded to the Ukrainian coup by sending troops into the Crimea to protect its mostly Russian-speaking population and the Black Sea Fleet. It was here 160 years ago where Catherine the Great launched a major campaign to seize the Crimea from Ottoman sultans.

During WWII ethnic Tatars in Crimea collaborated with Hitler in seizing the region briefly, before Stalin routed them and expelled the Tatar separatists. Many have since returned.

As this drama unfolds, look for the banksters’ Western media tool to make up some “humanitarian crisis” involving the Tatars. There will be more trouble in Crimea.

But the Russians have responded swiftly, as has the alternative media. It ain’t like the good old days, where bankster coups went unquestioned and unnoticed. The Ukrainian people will not stand for these fascists for long either. They saw the empty promises brought forth by the last bankster “event”- the Orange Revolution. They have experience in the field.

The demonic City of London Illuminati banksters may have unlimited time and money. But the people are awakening. The human spirit has unlimited potential. We are much closer to the beginning of this story than to the end.

Dean Henderson is the author of four books: , , , Das Kartell der Federal Reserve and .

Source: Dean Henderson

Sleepwalking Again

On the 100th Anniversary of World War 1, the Western powers are again sleepwalking into destructive conflict. Hegemonic ambition has Washington interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine, but developments seem to be moving beyond Washington’s control.

Regime change in Ukraine for a mere $5 billion dollars would be a bargain compared to the massive sums squandered in Iraq ($3,000 billion), Afghanistan ($3,000 billion), Somalia, and Libya, or the money Washington is wasting murdering people with drones in Pakistan and Yemen, or the money Washington has spent supporting al Qaeda in Syria, or the massive sums Washington has wasted surrounding Iran with 40 military bases and several fleets in the Persian Gulf in an effort to terrorize Iran into submission.

So far, in Washington’s attempt at regime change in Ukraine large numbers of Americans are not being killed and maimed. Only Ukrainians are dying, all the better for Washington as the deaths are blamed on the Ukrainian government that the US has targeted for overthrow.

The problem with Washington’s plot to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine and install its minions is twofold: The chosen US puppets have lost control of the protests to armed radical elements with historical links to nazism, and Russia regards an EU/NATO takeover of Ukraine as a strategic threat to Russian independence.

Washington overlooked that the financially viable part of today’s Ukraine consists of historical Russian provinces in the east and south that the Soviet leadership merged into Ukraine in order to dilute the fascist elements in western Ukraine that fought for Adolf Hitler against the Soviet Union. It is these ultra-nationalist elements with nazi roots, not Washington’s chosen puppets, who are now in charge of the armed rebellion in Western Ukraine.

If the democratically elected Ukraine government is overthrown, the eastern and southern parts would rejoin Russia. The western part would be looted by Western bankers and corporations, and the NATO Ukraine bases would be targeted by Russian Iskander missiles.

It would be a defeat for Washington and their gullible Ukrainian dupes to see half of the country return to Russia. To save face, Washington might provoke a great power confrontation, which could be the end of all of us.

My series of articles on the situation in Ukraine resulted in a number of interviews from Canada to Russia, with more scheduled. It also produced emotional rants from people of Ukrainian descent whose delusions are impenetrable by facts. Deranged Russophobes dismissed as propaganda the easily verifiable report of Assistant Secretary of State Nuland’s public address last December, in which she boasted that Washington had spent $5 billion preparing Ukraine to be aligned with Washington’s interests. Protest sympathizers claim that the intercepted telephone call between Nuland and the US Ambassador in Ukraine, in which the two US officials chose the government that would be installed following the coup, is a fake.

One person actually suggested that my position should be aligned with the “sincerity of the Kiev students,” not with the facts.

Some Trekkers and Trekkies were more concerned that I used an improper title for Spock than they were with the prospect of great power confrontation. The point of my article flew off into space and missed planet Earth.

Spock’s mental powers were the best weapon that Starship Enterprise had. Among my graduate school friends, Spock was known as Dr. Spock, because he was the cool, calm, and unemotional member of the crew who could diagnose the problem and save the situation.

There are no Spocks in the US or any Western government and certainly not among the Ukrainian protesters.

I have often wondered if Spock’s Vulcan ancestry was Gene Roddenberry’s way of underlining by contrast the fragility of human reason. In the context of modern military technology, is it possible for life to survive humanity’s penchant for emotion to trump reason and for self-delusion to prevail over factual reality?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest books are, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America Was Lost. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org

Source: Paul Craig Roberts

Bias By Omission: In The Entire American Mainstream Media

“Bias in favor of the orthodox is frequently mistaken for ‘objectivity’. Departures from this ideological orthodoxy are themselves dismissed as ideological.” – Michael Parenti

An exchange in January with Paul Farhi, Washington Post columnist, about coverage of US foreign policy:

Dear Mr. Farhi,

Now that you’ve done a study of al-Jazeera’s political bias in supporting Mohamed Morsi in Egypt, is it perhaps now time for a study of the US mass media’s bias on US foreign policy? And if you doubt the extent and depth of this bias, consider this:

There are more than 1,400 daily newspapers in the United States. Can you name a single paper, or a single TV network, that was unequivocally opposed to the American wars carried out against Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam? Or even opposed to any two of these wars? How about one? In 1968, six years into the Vietnam war, the Boston Globe  surveyed the editorial positions of 39 leading US papers concerning the war and found that “none advocated a pull-out”.

Now, can you name an American daily newspaper or TV network that more or less gives any support to any US government ODE (Officially Designated Enemy)? Like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela or his successor, Nicolás Maduro; Fidel or Raúl Castro of Cuba; Bashar al-Assad of Syria; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran; Rafael Correa of Ecuador; or Evo Morales of Bolivia? I mean that presents the ODE’s point of view in a reasonably fair manner most of the time? Or any ODE of the recent past like Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Moammar Gaddafi of Libya, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, or Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti?

Who in the mainstream media supports Hamas of Gaza? Or Hezbollah of Lebanon? Who in the mainstream media is outspokenly critical of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians? And keeps his or her job?

Who in the mainstream media treats Julian Assange or Chelsea Manning as the heroes they are?

And this same mainstream media tell us that Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, et al. do not have a real opposition media.

The ideology of the American mainstream media is the belief that they don’t have any ideology; that they are instead what they call “objective”. I submit that there is something more important in journalism than objectivity. It is capturing the essence, or the truth, if you will, with the proper context and history. This can, as well, serve as “enlightenment”.

It’s been said that the political spectrum concerning US foreign policy in the America mainstream media “runs the gamut from A to B”.

Sincerely, William Blum, Washington, DC

(followed by some of my writing credentials)

–

Reply from Paul Farhi:

I think you’re conflating news coverage with editorial policy. They are not the same. What a newspaper advocates on its editorial page (the Vietnam example you cite) isn’t the same as what or how the story is covered in the news columns. News MAY have some advocacy in it, but it’s not supposed to, and not nearly as overt or blatant as an editorial or opinion column. Go back over all of your ODE examples and ask yourself if the news coverage was the same as the opinions about those ODEs. In most cases. I doubt it was.

–

Dear Mr. Farhi,

Thank you for your remarkably prompt answer.

Your point about the difference between news coverage and editorial policy is important, but the fact is, as a daily, and careful, reader of the Post for the past 20 years I can attest to the extensive bias in its foreign policy coverage in the areas I listed. Juan Ferrero in Latin America and Kathy Lally in the Mideast are but two prime examples. The bias, most commonly, is one of omission more than commission; which is to say it’s what they leave out that distorts the news more than any factual errors or out-and-out lies. My Anti-Empire Report contains many examples of these omissions, as well as some errors of commission.

Incidentally, since 1995 I have written dozens of letters to the Post pointing out errors in foreign-policy coverage. Not one has been printed.

Happy New Year

–

I present here an extreme example of bias by omission, in the entire American mainstream media: In my last report I wrote of the committee appointed by the president to study NSA abuses – Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies – which actually came up with a few unexpected recommendations in its report presented December 13, the most interesting of which perhaps are these two:

“Governments should not use surveillance to steal industry secrets to advantage their domestic industry.”

“Governments should not use their offensive cyber capabilities to change the amounts held in financial accounts or otherwise manipulate the financial systems.”

So what do we have here? The NSA being used to steal industrial secrets; nothing to do with fighting terrorism. And the NSA stealing money and otherwise sabotaging unnamed financial systems, which may also represent gaining industrial advantage for the United States.

Long-time readers of this report may have come to the realization that I’m not an ecstatic admirer of US foreign policy. But this stuff shocks even me. It’s the gross pettiness of “The World’s Only Superpower”.

A careful search of the extensive Lexis-Nexis database failed to turn up a single American mainstream media source, print or broadcast, that mentioned this revelation. I found it only on those websites which carried my report, plus three other sites: Techdirt, Lawfare, and Crikey (First Digital Media).

For another very interesting and extreme example of bias by omission, as well as commission, very typical of US foreign policy coverage in the mainstream media: First read the January 31, page one, Washington Post article making fun of socialism in Venezuela and Cuba.

Then read the response from two Americans who have spent a lot of time in Venezuela, are fluent in Spanish, and whose opinions about the article I solicited.

I lived in Chile during the 1972-73 period under Salvadore Allende and his Socialist Party. The conservative Chilean media’s sarcastic claims at the time about shortages and socialist incompetence were identical to what we’ve been seeing for years in the United States concerning Venezuela and Cuba. The Washington Post article on Venezuela referred to above could have been lifted out of Chile’s El Mercurio, 1973.

[Note to readers: Please do not send me the usual complaints about my using the name “America(n)” to refer to “The United States”. I find it to be a meaningless issue, if not plain silly.]

JFK, RFK, and some myths about US foreign policy

On April 30, 1964, five months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, was interviewed by John B. Martin in one of a series of oral history sessions with RFK. Part of the interview appears in the book “JFK Conservative” by Ira Stoll, published three months ago. (pages 192-3)

RFK: The president … had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam.

MARTIN: What was the overwhelming reason?

RFK: Just the loss of all of Southeast Asia if you lost Vietnam. I think everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall.

MARTIN: What if it did?

RFK: Just have profound effects as far as our position throughout the world, and our position in a rather vital part of the world. Also it would affect what happened in India, of course, which in turn has an effect on the Middle East. Just as it would have, everybody felt, a very adverse effect. It would have an effect on Indonesia, hundred million population. All of those countries would be affected by the fall of Vietnam to the Communists.

MARTIN: There was never any consideration given to pulling out?

RFK: No.

MARTIN: … The president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there …

RFK: Yes.

MARTIN: … And couldn’t lose it.

RFK: Yes.

These remarks are rather instructive from several points of view:

1. Robert Kennedy contradicts the many people who are convinced that, had he lived, JFK would have brought the US involvement in Vietnam to a fairly prompt end, instead of it continuing for ten more terrible years. The author, Stoll, quotes a few of these people. And these other statements are just as convincing as RFK’s statements presented here. And if that is not confusing enough, Stoll then quotes RFK himself in 1967 speaking unmistakably in support of the war.

   It appears that we’ll never know with any kind of certainty what would have happened if JFK had not been assassinated, but I still go by his Cold War record in concluding that US foreign policy would have continued along its imperial, anti-communist path. In Kennedy’s short time in office the United States unleashed many different types of hostility, from attempts to overthrow governments and suppress political movements to assassination attempts against leaders and actual military combat; with one or more of these occurring in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, British Guiana, Iraq, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Brazil.

2. “Just have profound effects as far as our position throughout the world, and our position in a rather vital part of the world.”

   Ah yes, a vital part of the world. Has there ever been any part of the world, or any country, that the US has intervened in that was not vital? Vital to American interests? Vital to our national security? Of great strategic importance? Here’s President Carter in his 1980 State of the Union Address: “An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America”.

   “What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war.” – Simone Weil (1909-1943), French philosopher

3. If the US lost Vietnam “everybody was quite clear that the rest of Southeast Asia would fall.”

   As I once wrote:

   Thus it was that the worst of Washington’s fears had come to pass: All of Indochina – Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos – had fallen to the Communists. During the initial period of US involvement in Indochina in the 1950s, John Foster Dulles, Dwight Eisenhower and other American officials regularly issued doomsday pronouncements of the type known as the “Domino Theory”, warning that if Indochina should fall, other nations in Asia would topple over as well. In one instance, President Eisenhower listed no less than Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia amongst the anticipated “falling dominos”.

   Such warnings were repeated periodically over the next decade by succeeding administrations and other supporters of US policy in Indochina as a key argument in defense of such policy. The fact that these ominous predictions turned out to have no basis in reality did not deter Washington officialdom from promulgating the same dogma up until the 1990s about almost each new world “trouble-spot”, testimony to their unshakable faith in the existence and inter-workings of the International Communist Conspiracy.

Killing suicide

Suicide bombers have become an international tragedy. One can not sit in a restaurant or wait for a bus or go for a walk downtown, in Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iraq or Russia or Syria and elsewhere without fearing for one’s life from a person walking innocently by or a car that just quietly parked nearby. The Pentagon has been working for years to devise a means of countering this powerful weapon.

As far as we know, they haven’t come up with anything. So I’d like to suggest a possible solution. Go to the very source. Flood selected Islamic societies with this message: “There is no heavenly reward for dying a martyr. There are no 72 beautiful virgins waiting to reward you for giving your life for jihad. No virgins at all. No sex at all.”

Using every means of communication, from Facebook to skywriting, from billboards to television, plant the seed of doubt, perhaps the very first such seed the young men have ever experienced. As some wise anonymous soul once wrote:

A person is unambivalent only with regard to those few beliefs, attitudes and characteristics which are truly universal in his experience. Thus a man might believe that the world is flat without really being aware that he did so – if everyone in his society shared the assumption. The flatness of the world would be simply a “self-evident” fact. But if he once became conscious of thinking that the world is flat, he would be capable of conceiving that it might be otherwise. He might then be spurred to invent elaborate proofs of its flatness, but he would have lost the innocence of absolute and unambivalent belief.

We have to capture the minds of these suicide bombers. At the same time we can work on our own soldiers. Making them fully conscious of their belief, their precious belief, that their government means well, that they’re fighting for freedom and democracy, and for that thing called “American exceptionalism”. It could save them from committing their own form of suicide.

Get Over It: Jesus And Santa Are White

Some people want to give Fox News’s Megyn Kelly a lump of coal for Christmas after she remarked on Wednesday that Jesus and Santa Claus were white and that those who had a problem with it should just get over it. Well, I’m making a list and checking it twice, and I can tell you that, in this case, Kelly’s critics are naughty and Kelly is nice.

That is to say, you critics, you will have to get over it because Jesus and Santa are white. It’s really not a hard matter to sort out, either.

We should first be clear on what the various racial classifications actually are. Anthropologists generally define only three, and sometimes four, races. They are Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid (Asian) — and Australoid would be the fourth. And especially relevant here are Caucasoid’s subgroups: Aryans, Hamites and Semites.

So as far as Jesus goes, the answer should already be clear. Assuming He was Semitic — which isn’t disputed too much — He was white. And, yes, Arabs and Persians are technically white as well.

As for Santa, it’s also a slam dunk, as all the possible sources of his tradition involve white figures, whether real or fictional. The most common one, Saint Nicholas, was a fourth-century Christian bishop of what was then Myra, in Lycia, Anatolia, but is now part of Turkey. Of course, one could point out that Turks are mainly Caucasoid with a bit of Mongoloid influence, but even that’s deceptive. Anatolia was Christian and Greek in the fourth century and part of the Roman Empire, and Saint Nicholas was a Greek. As for other possible Santa influences, such as Germanic paganism, Odin and Father Christmas, they are all European and, again, involve white characters.

Personally, I’m sick and tired of people trying to revise our culture. You have to be hung up worse than a Christmas stocking to want to question Jesus’ and Santa’s race in the first place and a mighty dim bulb to not be able to figure out what it most certainly was. And, really, what we’re seeing here are people who want it both ways. While these critics dislike Western culture on an emotional level, they’re nonetheless emotionally attached to certain elements of it (I apply this only to Santa; I wouldn’t limit Jesus by defining Him as part of only a certain culture). So they want to co-opt those elements and remake them in a politically correct image.

Look, you leftists, if you don’t like our culture, there’s a whole diverse world out there offering a smorgasbord of possibilities. Heck, some of it even hates our culture almost as much as you do.  So follow your hearts, and if they take you where they apparently already are — away from the US — don’t let the door hit ya’ on the way out.

Gun Control Laws Kill People

Here we go again. We have another mass shooting at yet another “gun-free” zone. Not only was the location a “gun-free” zone, it was located inside the nation’s capital, which has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the entire country.

I thought gun-control laws and “gun-free” zones were supposed to protect people from gun violence. If one listens to the vast majority of talking heads on network and cable news shows, including Piers Morgan and Joe Scarborough, that is exactly what we are led to believe. But in reality, just the opposite is true. “Gun-Free” zones are actually “Free Killing” zones. And in truth, guns don’t kill people; gun-control laws kill people.

This is the second time in recent memory when some wacko shoots up a military installation. The first killer was a Muslim; this one was a Buddhist. He also happened to be a black man and an Obama supporter. This combination must drive the politically-correct mainstream media and the left-wing extremist hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), batty. According to these folks, the only people who commit gun violence are angry Christian white guys. But as most of us know, no race or religion or political affiliation has a monopoly on criminal conduct. Unless it’s those miscreants in Washington, D.C., of course.

True to form, the idiotic Washington press corps initially reported that the killer used an AR-15 rifle. To their chagrin, it turned out he used a shotgun. This hasn’t stopped gun-hater Senator Dianne Feinstein from immediately calling for more gun control. And the White House is saying Barack Obama is going to issue some kind of anti-gun executive orders. Leave it to a lame duck Marxist President to try to bypass Congress and ignore the overwhelming majority of the American people (including Democrats) who have made it clear they are in no mood to accept any additional gun control.

It was only a few days ago when two liberal anti-gun legislators who spearheaded the drive for egregious gun-control laws in the State of Colorado were recalled from office. And they won’t be the only ones. Come next year, there will be a host of anti-gun legislators all over the country who are going to be given their walking papers by their respective electorates. The only states where it is safe for politicians to promote gun control are socialist states such as New York, Massachusetts, and California. By and large, the American people have had all of the gun control laws they can stomach. They have drawn their line in the sand. They are not only voting at the ballot box, they are voting with their pocketbooks. Gun manufacturers and retail stores cannot keep up with the demand for guns and ammo. Even .22 rimfire ammunition is as scarce as hen’s teeth.

Mind you, this DC killer had passed at least two background checks by the US military; he had what is called a “secret” clearance; he was given an honorable discharge from the United States Navy; he had been awarded the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. Born and raised in one of the most anti-gun cities in America, New York City, the man was given a rifle permit by the New York Police Department. So, pray tell, please explain how any existing gun-control laws–or any future gun-control laws–would have been able to prevent this guy from doing what he did?

In fact, the gun-control laws that Obama, Feinstein, et al, are clamoring for are the very laws that contributed to the deaths of those 12 innocent victims. Had these victims been allowed and encouraged to carry their own arms for self-defense, the death toll would doubtless have been much less. But this is the same story in every single one of these mass shootings. The perpetrator knows he is entering a “gun-free” zone and none of his targets will be able to shoot back. I repeat: guns don’t kill people; gun-control laws kill people.

Our Constitution recognizes the organic right of free people to serve as self-defenders. The Militia of the several states is comprised of every able-bodied man and woman (excepting conscientious objectors) within the State. And each man and woman is recognized as having the responsibility to: 1) be personally and adequately armed, 2) be adequately trained and skilled in the use of arms, and 3) be expected to defend themselves and others from attack when necessary.

It has never been the government’s responsibility to protect us; it has always been the people’s responsibility to protect themselves. It is the government’s responsibility to protect the right of the people to protect themselves. As seen in every single mass shooting, the government is completely incapable of protecting the citizenry from these kinds of attacks. If the people do not protect themselves, there is no protection. All these gun-control laws do is prohibit the people from protecting themselves. This is why we desperately need State leaders to declare any and all federal gun-control laws to be null and void and boldly declare to the people of their states that they will honor and protect the people’s right and duty to defend themselves.

Furthermore, if Mr. Obama attempts to circumvent Congress and enact gun-control measures via executive order, it is the duty of the US House of Representative to immediately issue articles of impeachment against him. It is past time for these so-called conservatives in the GOP to grow some man stuff and start taking their oaths to the Constitution seriously. It is when the legislators in Washington, D.C., and in the respective states refuse to protect the liberties of the American people that the people themselves must protect their liberties.

I think I speak for millions of Americans when I say I have had it with Obama, Feinstein, Scarborough, Morgan, and the rest of these would-be tyrants who want to strip us of our Natural right of self-defense–and that includes the right to defend ourselves from our own government.

At this juncture, let me inform readers that a brand new documentary film is about to be released to the public. The film is called “MOLON LABE: How The Second Amendment Guarantees America’s Freedom” produced by James Jaeger. This is the same man who produced the outstanding film released a few years ago called “The Spoiler.” MOLON LABE features such outstanding freedomists as Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Larry Pratt, Alex Jones, Stewart Rhodes, G. Edward Griffin, and Edwin Vieira, Jr. And, yes, I am in the film also. The film is scheduled to be rolled out next month. Whatever you do, be sure to watch this film and encourage everyone you know to watch it. Never has a film been more timely or more necessary.

By the way, MOLON LABE means “Come and take them.” This is what Spartan King Leonidas said to Persian King Xerxes at the Battle of Thermopylae when he was told to lay down his weapons.

To learn more about the film, go to:

MOLON LABE

Plus, it is not too late to become a sponsor of the film. Your donation could help awaken hundreds of thousands of Americans to the importance of the Second Amendment and its relevance to us today. Watch the trailer then consider becoming a sponsor.

Once again, the government’s denial of the people’s right of self-defense has led to the untimely deaths of a dozen innocent Americans. So, I say again: guns don’t kill people; gun-control laws kill people.

Damascus Notes: Late Night ‘Town Meetings’ Common Before The American Attack

Damascus — This observer judges that the Persians, whose bright, articulate students are well known internationally, and with whom he has been honored to discuss international politics on several occasions,   may well have met their intellectual match with the Syrian Arabs. This conclusion is based on what is happening among the public in Damascus, not just in the universities and schools, but during impromptu “marketplace of ideas” sessions increasingly taking place on the streets and in coffee houses and places of public gathering.

Last night was one example.  Way past this observer’s bedtime, some friends came to see me and wanted to sit outside “for a few minutes” to discuss the latest speculation from Washington and St. Petersburg. We ended up sitting on concrete slabs that divides Al Bahsa Street where no cars are allowed in front of my hotel for more than three hours!  Miss Hiba, a wild and wonderful Palestinian journalist born in Yarmouk camp, interpreted for us. The congregation very quickly grew as a few soldiers, shabiha and national defense force types showed up to see what was going on. Some even joined in the fast moving animated discussions.

There were several students and neighborhood residents assembling and at the start of the ‘seminar” it quickly became obvious that Syrians are carefully tracking developments in the run-up to the widely expected “9/12/13 black Thursday” now less than one week away. It is this date when many Damascenes and foreign observers believe the American attack with begin.

As a backdrop, for certain life appears on the surface fairly normal but tensions are rising and people are alarmed at the prospects of an American attack. This observer was educated by these Syrians about many views of the conflict raging here and how events locally and internationally are apt to unfold.

One sentiment that is virtually unanimous here is that very few, if any at all, credit the White House smooth talk to the effect that the purpose of the American attack, without benefit of UN Security Council approval, is to be very limited and short and is only designed to send a message or punish the Syrian leadership, even though the last couple of days the Presidents team is using the “degrade” (as in demolish and utterly destroy) word frequently.

An elderly gentleman who owns a pharmacy around the corner explained, “It’s regime change here and in Tehran and nothing less!  They will bomb anywhere at will because their top 75 listed targets have already been emptied and keep shifting.  We are all working to provide Obama with no targets.”

This observer was dumbfounded by the sophistication and quality of interventions by the impromptu gathering. One student preparing to return to classes late this month at Damascus University rattled off statistics regarding the Congressional vote prospects and explained to the growing assembly that the House of Representative count as of 9/4/13 were 47  members of the House as firm or inclined to a yes vote, 187 firm or inclined to a no vote, and 220 unknown or undecided. Then she expressed her view that she was pretty certain that the President will be forced to withdraw the resolution or postpone a vote in the House.

Another lady, who I have seen around my hotel garden, mentioned yesterday’s report in the Washington Post that the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations has linked with the Israeli lobby AIPAC in an all-out public campaign for a U.S. war on Syria.  I had no idea about this and wondered how she was so current with her information.  She then explained, “So far, only 21 senators have said they support or are likely to support the Obama resolution, thirteen have said they oppose or are likely to oppose the resolution, while 66 votes are undecided or unknown.”

The question that ended our gathering early this morning was when one young man, presumably a law student, zeroed in on this observer and started reciting from memory, not a summary mind you, but rather word for word,   Article One, Section Eight, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water.

He then explained that the particular passage provides no specific format for what form any legislation must have in order to be considered a “Declaration of War” nor does the Constitution itself use this term.

Then came the zinger, “Sir can you compare and contrast this Article and Clause with the 1973 War Powers Act and share with us your interpretation of both with respect to what your President is threatening to do to my country.”

“Who is this guy?” I thought to myself and I began to stutter and in anguish thought to myself, “Where is Professor Richard Falk when I need him. He could handle this question perfectly!”

I did not know where or how to begin to answer the gentleman. I started to mumble something like “that’s an excellent question, can we meet later to discuss it because it’s very late now.”

But just as I glanced at my watch and noticed it was 4:28 a.m. mercifully, we all heard the Adhan, (Islamic call to prayer) which is called out by a muezzin from the nearby mosque.  The somehow reassuring strains, even a bit eerie,  wafted around us. It was time for al fajr (Dawn) prayers.

It was this observers very good luck and I could duck the question.  The soldiers on the street fell silent and listened and became contemplative. One can only imagine their thought about next week’s likely American bombing campaign. They started to disperse as did about half of the assembly.

I was saved. No thanks to Professor Falk.

The people of the Syrian Arab Republic are politically very sophisticated and amazingly well informed about the details of the current crisis and with specifics about external players and their plans.

One can only wish the Syrian people well and join with them and all people of good will, as many Christians and, reportedly more Muslims will do, for the day of fasting and prayer that his Holiness Pope Francis has called to be observed on September 7, 2013

Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Have Finally Been Found – In Syria!

Secretary of  State John Kerry: “There is no doubt that Saddam al-Assad has crossed the red line. … Sorry, did I just say ‘Saddam’?”

A US drone has just taken a photo of Mullah Omar riding on a motorcycle through the streets of Damascus. 1

So what do we have as the United States refuses to rule out an attack on Syria and keeps five warships loaded with missiles in the eastern Mediterranean?

• Only 9 percent of Americans support a US military intervention in Syria. 2
• Only 11% of the British supported a UK military intervention; this increased to 25% after the announcement of the alleged chemical attack. 3
• British Prime Minister David Cameron lost a parliamentary vote August 29 endorsing military action against Syria 285-272
• 64% of the French people oppose an intervention by the French Army. 4 “Before acting we need proof,” said a French government spokesperson. 5
• Former and current high-ranking US military officers question the use of military force as a punitive measure and suggest that the White House lacks a coherent strategy. “If the administration is ambivalent about the wisdom of defeating or crippling the Syrian leader, possibly setting the stage for Damascus to fall to Islamic fundamentalist rebels, they say, the military objective of strikes on Assad’s military targets is at best ambiguous.” 6
• President Obama has no United Nations approval for intervention. (In February a massive bombing attack in Damascus left 100 dead and 250 wounded; in all likelihood the work of Islamic terrorists. The United States blocked a Russian resolution condemning the attack from moving through the UN Security Council)
• None of NATO’s 28 members has proposed an alliance with the United States in an attack against Syria. NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he saw “no NATO role in an international reaction to the [Syrian] regime.” 7
• The Arab League has not publicly endorsed support of US military action in Syria; nor have key regional players Saudi Arabia and Qatar, concerned about a possible public backlash from open support for US intervention. 8
• We don’t even know for sure that there was a real chemical attack. Where does that accusation come from? The United States? The al-Qaeda rebels? Or if there was such an attack, where is the evidence that the Syrian government was the perpetrator? The Assad regime has accused the rebels of the act, releasing a video showing a cave with alleged chemical-weapon equipment as well as claiming to have captured rebels possessing sarin gas. Whoever dispensed the poison gas – why, in this age of ubiquitous cameras, are there no photos of anyone wearing a gas mask? The UN inspection team was originally dispatched to Syria to investigate allegations of earlier chemical weapons use: two allegations made by the rebels and one by the government.
• The United States insists that Syria refused to allow the UN investigators access to the site of the attack. However, the UN request was made Saturday, August 24; the Syrian government agreed the next day. 9
• In rejecting allegations that Syria deployed poison gas, Russian officials have argued that the rebels had a clear motivation: to spur a Western-led attack on Syrian forces; while Assad had every reason to avoid any action that could spur international intervention at a time when his forces were winning the war and the rebels are increasingly losing world support because of their uncivilized and ultra-cruel behavior.
• President George W. Bush misled the world on Iraq’s WMD, but Bush’s bogus case for war at least had details that could be checked, unlike what the Obama administration released August 29 on Syria’s alleged chemical attacks – no direct quotes, no photographic evidence, no named sources, nothing but “trust us,” points out Robert Parry, intrepid Washington journalist.

So, in light of all of the above, the path for Mr. Obama to take – as a rational, humane being – is of course clear. Is it not? N’est-ce pas? Nicht wahr? – Bombs Away!

Pretty discouraging it is. No, I actually find much to be rather encouraging. So many people seem to have really learned something from the Iraqi pile of lies and horror and from decades of other American interventions. Skepticism – good ol’ healthy skepticism – amongst the American, British and French people. It was stirring to watch the British Parliament in a debate of the kind rarely, if ever, seen in the 21st-century US Congress. And American military officers asking some of the right questions. The Arab League not supporting a US attack, surprising for an organization not enamored of the secular Syrian government. And NATO – even NATO! – refusing so far to blindly fall in line with the White House. When did that last happen? I thought it was against international law.

Secretary of State John Kerry said that if the United States did not respond to the use of chemical weapons the country would become an international “laughingstock”. Yes, that’s really what America and its people have to worry about – not that their country is viewed as a lawless, mass-murdering repeat offender. Other American officials have expressed concern that a lack of a US response might incite threats from Iran and North Korea. 10

Now that is indeed something to laugh at. It’s comforting to think that the world might be finally losing the stars in their eyes about US foreign policy partly because of countless ridiculous remarks such as these.

United States bombings, which can be just as indiscriminate and cruel as poison gas. (A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn’t have an air force.)

The glorious bombing list of our glorious country, which our glorious schools don’t teach, our glorious media don’t remember, and our glorious leaders glorify.

• Korea and China 1950-53 (Korean War)
• Guatemala 1954
• Indonesia 1958
• Cuba 1959-1961
• Guatemala 1960
• Congo 1964
• Laos 1964-73
• Vietnam 1961-73
• Cambodia 1969-70
• Guatemala 1967-69
• Grenada 1983
• Lebanon 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
• Libya 1986
• El Salvador 1980s
• Nicaragua 1980s
• Iran 1987
• Panama 1989
• Iraq 1991 (Persian Gulf War)
• Kuwait 1991
• Somalia 1993
• Bosnia 1994, 1995
• Sudan 1998
• Afghanistan 1998
• Yugoslavia 1999
• Yemen 2002
• Iraq 1991-2003 (US/UK on regular no-fly-zone basis)
• Iraq 2003-2011 (Second Gulf War)
• Afghanistan 2001 to present
• Pakistan 2007 to present
• Somalia 2007-8, 2011 to present
• Yemen 2009, 2011 to present
• Libya 2011
• Syria 2013?

The above list doesn’t include the repeated use by the United States of depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and other charming inventions of the Pentagon mad scientists; also not included: chemical and biological weapons abroad, chemical and biological weapons in the United States (sic), and encouraging the use of chemical and biological weapons by other nations; all these lists can be found in William Blum’s book “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”.

A story just released by Foreign Policy magazine, based on newly-discovered classified documents, reports how, in 1988, the last year of the 8-year Iraq-Iran War, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks by Iraq far more devastating than anything Syria has seen. 11 Indeed, during that war the United States was the primary supplier to Iraq of the chemicals and hardware necessary to provide the Saddam Hussein regime with a chemical-warfare capability. 12

Now, apparently, the United States has discovered how horrible chemical warfare is, even if only of the “alleged” variety.

Humanitarian intervention

Some of those currently advocating bombing Syria turn for justification to their old faithful friend “humanitarian intervention”, one of the earliest examples of which was the 1999 US and NATO bombing campaign to stop ethnic cleansing and drive Serbian forces from Kosovo. However, a collective amnesia appears to have afflicted countless intelligent, well-meaning people, who are convinced that the US/NATO bombing took place after the mass forced deportation of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo was well underway; which is to say that the bombing was launched to stopthis “ethnic cleansing”. In actuality, the systematic forced deportations of large numbers of people from Kosovo did not begin until a few days after the bombing began, and was clearly a Serbian reaction to it, born of extreme anger and powerlessness. This is easily verified by looking at a daily newspaper for the few days before the bombing began the night of March 23/24, and the few days after. Or simply look at the New York Times of March 26, page 1, which reads:

… with the NATO bombing already begun, a deepening sense of fear took hold in Pristina [the main city of Kosovo] that the Serbs would NOW vent their rage against ethnic Albanian civilians in retaliation.

On March 27, we find the first reference to a “forced march” or anything of that sort.

But the propaganda version is already set in marble.

If you see something, say something. Unless it’s US war crimes.

“When you sign a security clearance and swear oaths, you actually have to abide by that. It is not optional.” – Steven Bucci, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, speaking of Chelsea Manning (formerly known as Bradley) 13

Really? No matter what an individual with security clearance is asked to do? No matter what he sees and knows of, he still has to ignore his conscience and follow orders? But Steven, my lad, you must know that following World War II many Germans of course used “following orders” as an excuse. The victorious Allies of course executed many of them.

Their death sentences were laid down by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany, which declared that “Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring.”

Nuremberg Principle IV moreover states: “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”

Manning, and Edward Snowden as well, did have moral choices, and they chose them.

It should be noted that Barack Obama has refused to prosecute those under the Bush administration involved in torture specifically – he declares – because they were following orders. Has this “educated” man never heard of the Nuremberg Tribunal? Why isn’t he embarrassed to make this argument again and again?

I imagine that in the past three years that Manning has had to live with solitary confinement, torture and humiliation, adding mightily to her already existing personal difficulties, the thought of suicide has crossed her mind on a number of occasions. It certainly would have with me if I had been in her position. In the coming thousands and thousands of days and long nights of incarceration such thoughts may be Manning’s frequent companion. If the thoughts become desire, and the desire becomes unbearable, I hope the brave young woman can find a way to carry it out. Every person has that right, including heroes.

The United States and its European poodles may have gone too far for their own good in their attempts to control all dissenting communication – demanding total information from companies engaged in encrypted messaging, forcing the closure of several such firms, obliging the plane carrying the Bolivian president to land, smashing the computers at a leading newspaper, holding a whistle-blowing journalist’s partner in custody for nine hours at an airport, seizing the phone records of Associated Press journalists, threatening to send a New York Times reporter to jail if he doesn’t disclose the source of a leak, shameless lying at high levels, bugging the European Union and the United Nations, surveillance without known limits … Where will it end? Will it backfire at some point and allow America to return to its normal level of police state? On July 24, a bill that would have curtailed the power of the NSA was only narrowly defeated by 217 to 205 votes in the US House of Representatives.

And how long will Amnesty International continue to tarnish its image by refusing to state the obvious? That Cheleas Manning is a Prisoner of Conscience. If you go to Amnesty’s website and search “prisoner of conscience” you’ll find many names given, including several Cubans prominently featured. Can there be any connection to Manning’s omission with the fact that the executive director of Amnesty International USA, Suzanne Nossel, came to her position from the US Department of State, where she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations?

A phone call to Amnesty’s office in New York was unable to provide me with any explanation for Manning’s omission. I suggest that those of you living in the UK try the AI headquarters in London.

Meanwhile, at the other pre-eminent international human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, Tom Malinowski, the director of HRW’s Washington office, has been nominated by Obama to be Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Is it really expecting too much that a high official of a human rights organization should not go to work for a government that has been the world’s leading violator of human rights for more than half a century? And if that designation is too much for you to swallow just consider torture, the worst example of mankind’s inhumanity to man. What government has been intimately involved with that horror more than the United States? Teaching it, supplying the manuals, supplying the equipment, creation of torture centers in much of the world, kidnaping people to these places (“rendition”), solitary confinement, forced feeding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Chicago … Lord forgive us!

Surrounding Russia

One of the reactions of the United States to Russia granting asylum to Edward Snowden was reported thus: “There was a blistering response on Capitol Hill and calls for retaliatory measures certain to infuriate the Kremlin. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), long one of the Senate’s leading critics of Moscow, blasted the asylum decision as ‘a slap in the face of all Americans’ and called on the administration to turn up the pressure on Moscow on a variety of fronts, including a renewed push for NATO expansion and new missile-defense programs in Europe.” 14

But we’ve long been told that NATO expansion and its missiles in Europe have nothing to do with Russia. And Russia has been told the same, much to Moscow’s continuous skepticism. “Look,” said Russian president Vladimir Putin about NATO in 2001, “this is a military organization. It’s moving towards our border. Why?” 15 He subsequently described NATO as “the stinking corpse of the cold war.” 16

We’ve been told repeatedly by the US government that the missiles are for protection against an Iranian attack. Is it (choke) possible that the Bush and Obama administrations have been (gasp) lying to us?

America’s love affair with Guns

Adam Kokesh is a veteran of the war in Iraq who lives in the Washington, DC area. He’s one of the countless Americans who’s big on guns, guns that will be needed to protect Americans from their oppressive government, guns that will be needed for “the revolution”.

On July 4 the 31-year-old Kokesh had a video made of himself holding a shotgun and loading shells into it while speaking into the camera as he stood in Freedom Plaza, a federal plot of land in between the Washington Monument and the Capitol. This led to a police raid of his home and his being arrested on the 25th for carrying a firearm outside his home or office. The 23-second video can be seen on YouTube. 17

I sent Kokesh the following email:

“Adam: All your weapons apparently didn’t help you at all when the police raided your house. But supposedly, people like you advocate an armed populace to protect the public from an oppressive government. I’ve never thought that that made much sense because of the huge imbalance between the military power of the public vs. that of the government. And it seems that I was correct.”

I received no reply, although his still being in jail may explain that.

Kokesh, incidentally, had a program on RT (Russia Today) for a short while last year.

Notes

1. The three preceding jokes are courtesy of my friend Viktor Dedaj of Paris ↩
2. Reuters/Ipsos poll, August 26, 2013 ↩
3. Sunday Times (UK), YouGov poll, August 25 ↩
4. Le Parisien, August 30, 2012 ↩
5. Christian Science Monitor, August 29, 2013 ↩
6. Washington Post, August 29, 2013 ↩
7. The Wall Street Journal, August 30, 2013 ↩
8. Washington Post, August 31, 2013 ↩
9. UN Web TV, August 27, 2013 (starting at minute 12:00) ↩
10. The Washington Post, August 31, 2013 ↩
11. Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid, “CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran”, Foreign Policy, August 26, 2013 ↩
12. William Blum, “Anthrax for Export”, The Progressive (Madison, Wisconsin), April 1998 ↩
13. Washington Post, August 22, 2013 ↩
14. Washington Post, July 31, 2013 ↩
15. Associated Press, June 16, 2001 ↩
16. Time magazine, December 2007 ↩
17. Washington Post, August 13, 2013 ↩

Next Page »