Combating Nigeria’s Growing Insecurity

A roundtable, held last week at the Institute of African Studies reports that the Nigerian government’s “…campaigns have not addressed their plans for combating the growing insecurity that has left Nigerians living in fear, and paralyzed educational and economic activities in large swaths of Northeastern Nigeria.” A string of terrorist attacks have occurred as Nigeria has struggled to build a functional and coherent response. Fortunately, there is a science-based approach to create societal coherence that can protect Nigeria from both internal and external threats. It is called Invincible Defense Technology (IDT) because it assures invincibility, peace, and even economic progress, to the nation and the military that employ it.

Invincible Defense Technology (IDT), a Proven, State-of-the-Art, Non-violent Military Solution

The IDT approach to defense has its basis in a radically new preventive model that has been thoroughly field-tested in numerous world battlegrounds. This approach results in rapid reduction of individual, societal and national collective stress. Its methods have been proven and adopted as part of the training of America’s future commanders at Norwich University, a nationally respected and oldest military academy in the USA (see also the YouTube video “” and the Official Homepage of the US Army). IDT is further validated by 23 peer-reviewed studies carried out in both developed and developing nations. Its coherence-creating effect has also been documented on a global scale in a study published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. When large assemblies of civilian IDT experts gathered during the years 1983 – 1985, international conflict decreased 32%, terrorism-related casualties decreased 72%, and overall violence was reduced in nations without intrusion by other governments.

IDT is totally unlike any other defense technology because it does not use violence in an attempt to quell violence. It is a more civilized approach, one especially worthy of nations that abhor violence as a means to power. IDT uniquely goes to the root cause of violence – the built-up stress in the individual and collective consciousness. Scientists have evidence that high levels of collective societal stress are the underlying cause of war, violence, crime and terrorism. When the IDT methodology is applied, stress levels throughout the population are rapidly reduced.

In an environment of lowered stress even staunch adversaries find ways to cooperate and overcome long-standing differences.

IDT Reduces Societal Stress

IDT uniquely neutralizes the underlying power base of contending groups, which is the stress, frustration and civil dissatisfaction prevailing in the general population. By eliminating the root cause of insurgency, violent outbreaks are pre-empted and prevented. IDT is effective because it gets to the heart of the matter. Terrorism often thrives in nations in which decades or even centuries of under-employment, poverty, and hunger have created a huge societal weight of stress, frustration and endemic unhappiness. This inevitably finds expression in acts of terrorism, civil unrest, social violence, and a downward spiral of economic degradation.

A specially trained military unit, an “IDT Prevention Wing of the Military,” uses IDT to reduce stress in the national collective consciousness. IDT could also be introduced into other large groups such as the police forces, or militias. As the stress and frustration ease, the population is more capable of finding orderly and constructive solutions to their problems.

Experience with IDT in other war-torn nations demonstrated increases in economic incentive and growth. Entrepreneurship and individual creativity also increased. With increased civic calm, people’s aspirations are raised and a more productive and balanced society emerges. Such a society abhors violence as a means for change or as an expression of discontent. With this, the ground for terrorism is eliminated. What is more fascinating, this change takes place within a few days or weeks after IDT is introduced. The changes are measurable from such statistics as crime rates, accidents, hospital admissions, infant mortality, etc.

Rapid Transformation Through IDT

The daily routine for the IDT military personnel includes the nonreligious practice of the Transcendental Meditation® program along with its advanced form, the TM-Sidhi program. As a societal coherence-creating military unit, they practice these programs twice a day, seven days a week, preferably in a secure location near the targeted population.

Such coherence-creating groups have achieved positive benefits in society, shown statistically, in a short time. Modern statistical methods used in this research show a low probability of any explanation other than a causal influence of the technology. The IDT approach has been used during wartime resulting in the reduction of fighting, a decreased number of deaths and casualties, and an improvement in progress toward resolving the conflict peacefully. The war in Lebanon in 1983 was dramatically impacted in a peaceful way by an IDT Intervention Group. A thoroughly documented study of this phenomenon was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and summaries of follow-up studies were published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personalityand the Journal of Scientific Exploration.

Summary

IDT works by utilizing our natural human brain mechanics, the most powerful natural resource possessed by every nation on earth. The beneficial transformational effects of IDT have been statistically proven numerous times to decrease and prevent violence and terrorism, and boost the economy.

IDT defense technology supersedes all other known defense technologies (which are based on electronic, chemical, and/or nuclear forces). These old, fear-based modalities are ultimately self-destructive for any nation, and for the human race as a whole, and must be replaced with IDT. So far, IDT is the only known, proven constructive approach.

The military that deploys this powerful, human-resource-based technology disallows negative trends and prevents enemies from arising, and as a result, it has no enemies. No enemies means no war, terrorism and no insurgency.

The Time for Action is Now

IDT is the twenty-first century’s leading-edge defense system. If Nigeria establishes IDT Prevention Wings of the Military, they will ease high tensions, reverse mistrust, crush hatred, create stability and permanently prevent war and terrorism. Extensive scientific research objectively says, “Yes, the system works.” Why not use it in Nigeria? Time is running out. The best time to act is now, before Nigeria’s perilous situation worsens.

References

1. Dr. David R. Leffler (Fall 2009). A New Role for the Military: Preventing Enemies from Arising-Reviving an Ancient Approach to Peace. Journal of Management & Social Science (JMSS), Vol. 5, No. 2., pp. 153-162. This peer-reviewed journal is published by the Institute of Business & Technology BIZTEK in Pakistan. The abstract was published in Session 6, p. 44 of the proceeding of the “International Sociological Association Research Committee 01 Seoul National University & Korea Military Academy International Conference on Armed Forces & Conflict Resolution in a Globalized World.” July 14 – 17, 2008, Seoul, Korea. The paper was also presented at KIDA, the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses.

2. Col. (Retd) S. P. Bakshi, Gerald Geer, and Dr. David Leffler (Special Issue May, 2013). Defense Personnel Worldwide Find Transcendental Meditation To be an Effective Tool in Combating Stress. Defence and Security Alert. Vol. 4, Issue No. 8, pages 34-39. PDF available online at: http://davidleffler.com/2013/defence-security-alert-magazine

3. Dr. David R. Leffler (2008, February). An Overlooked, Proven Solution to Terrorism. In “55 Trends Now Shaping the Future of Terrorism.” Edited by Dr. Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies: The Proteus Trends Series, Volume 1, Issue 2 (pp. 18, 79, 176, C-13 through C-16). Dr. Leffler served as an Associate of the Proteus Management Group at the Center for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College where he was published in this US government-sponsored report aimed at governmental and military leaders. Excerpts about Invincible Defense Technology taken from the 254 page report are available online at: http://www.DavidLeffler.com/terrorism-trends.html Note: The entire paper version of the report is available online at:

4. Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Kulwant Singh and Dr. David Leffler (July 2014). Preventing Future Boko Haram Attacks. CBRNE-Terrorism Newsletter (CBRNE is an acronym that stands for “Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosive”). PDF available online at:
http://www.cbrne-terrorism-newsletter.com/resources/JULY_2014_Part_C.pdf

5. Lieutenant General Jose Villamil (Ret.) with Dr. David Leffler (2003, January 29). Project: Coherence. India Defence Consultants. Available online at:http://www.indiadefence.com/proj_cohere.htm

Love It or Leave It

A half century ago the infamous and timeworn trope coming from the supporters of the Viet Nam War was all over the airwaves. “Love It or Leave It” was the standard retort from the gung-ho believers to the anti-war activists, who filled the streets with civil disobedience. An entire era of youth came under suspicion, from fathers of that “Greatest Generation” for questioning the purpose and wisdom of American leaders and the military policy that drafted dissenting objectors into coercive service.

Now with the undying “War on Terror” as the trumped up cornerstone of government survival, the same old party line of jingoism rises again to smear any opposition of the all mighty war machine.

The following is written by a student, Alex Bertsch, not back in the 1960’s but in this year.

“I can’t question the actions of the military without being anti-American. I can’t question events like the My Lai Massacre, in which U.S. Army soldiers killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in Vietnam, with virtually no punishment. I am barely allowed to question the Haditha Killings, in which U.S. Marines killed 24 civilians in 2006. Questioning these atrocities would be “un-American.”

As the public is being conditioned for the next round of conflicts, the mere idea of conducting an open and frank debate is too dangerous to allow. So when the hullabaloo over the Chris Kyle movie, “American Sniper” exploded, the NeoCons rushed in to prance out their ultranationalism for the NWO age. Just what kind of world has these super patriots of the internationalist imperium bestowed on humanity?

Start with a review of the violent history of our species and especially the involvements from our own country in its short existence.

In the lifetime of the eldest living Americans, the Major Military Operations Since World War II, gives a summary of the largest involvements.

For a more comprehensive analysis of American conflicts, “We’re at War!” — And We Have Been Since 1776: 214 Years of American War-Making, provides an exhausted list.

• Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.
• No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president.  Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”
• The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.
• The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.

If the goal is to build a global empire, all these campaigns fit a pattern of design and intention. But is this the true purpose of our founding as a nation?

When John Milton Hay Secretary of State coined the phrase, “A Splendid Little War” – Whose War Is It?, he must have known that expansion to form an intercontinental realm was put irrepressibly in motion.

“This NeoConservative philosophy is pure Internationalism in its most raw form. It is the antithesis of traditional American policy, and attempts to foster a new imperialism that is totally out of step and discredited by civilized societies. The portrait of the ‘Ugly American’ is one that needs to be relegated to the scrap heap of embarrassed memories.”

Regretfully, the entire last hundred years, billed as the American century, just continued an imperialism that kicked off with the Spanish American War. This foreign policy never made the world safe for some mythical “Democracy”, but actually set forth a domination culture of rhetoric and force that fostered the economic corporatist interests, protected by garrison outposts scattered around the world.

So what slight of hand or mental hypnoses keeps the gullible public from facing up to the indisputable facts that all these oversea adventures actually destroy our country’s real security?

Libertarian Jacob G. Hornberger makes a striking argument in THE TROOPS ARE DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY that help answers this question. This viewpoint goes directly to de-constructing the silly blind faith that the pudden-head flag waivers keep following with every additional failed overseas venture.

“The mindset that is common to U.S. troops serving overseas is that they are all doing it for America, for us, for our rights and  freedoms, for our safety and security. They’ll all tell you that they are doing it because they love their country.

There’s one big problem with that mindset, however. The truth is that the troops, through what they’re doing over there, are indirectly destroying our country, our rights and freedoms, our safety and security, and our economic well-being.

Once again, the justification is to “keep us safe.” Safe from what? From the people over there who are angry over what the troops are doing over there. The more people the troops kill and maim, the angrier people get, the greater the threat of terrorist retaliation, the greater the need to keep us safe, and the greater the infringements on our freedom and well-being.

The troops have convinced themselves that they’re over there killing the people who would otherwise be coming over here to kill us. That’s ridiculous. If people wanted to come over here to kill us, they could easily circumvent the troops and come over here and kill us.”

With the open border approach in effect, the long forgotten Monroe Doctrine exempts the refugees from our hemisphere from colonizing our own land. Such acts of aggression go unpunished, while deploying foreign legions around the rest of the globe is defended as necessary.

Wake up America! Where is the common sense to ignore the pontifications of government authorities and trained seal newspeak propagandists?

Celebrating the gallantry of a Navy Seal psychopath assassin like Chris Kyle defies the most rudimentary sense of moral scrutiny, even if one wants to argue the “just war” theorem. However, if you candidly research the covert connections in the creation, funding and training of the mythical terrorism threats, the conclusion will adopt the undeniable linkage to Western government’s hidden hand behind the scenes.

Ken O’Keefe, a former US Marine discusses Washington’s major role in either generating or aggravating most of the current crises across the world and allowing groups like the ISIL Takfiri terrorists to foster and grow in the video US can no longer deny its support for ISIL.

Much has been written about how the world has changed after 9-11. The three videos on 911 a saga of deceit and lies goes unanswered because the facts presented has no legitimate counter by the establishment warmongers.

Chicken hawks, like Senator Lindsay Graham that routinely spread their dribble on Faux News are reprehensible. When his patron oracle Senator John McCain spills his vile indignation, the pompous faithful of the permanent warfare society rally round his banner.

The Zero Hedge article asks important questions, 59% Of Americans Support Post-9/11 Torture – Propaganda, Cultural Sickness, Or Both? The way you answer directly reflects your attitude about the supposed “War on Terror”. Whatever it takes to keep the homeland safe never includes questioning the factual circumstances that reveal the false flag nature, used for the phony justification to build a domestic police state.

There is no place for the “Truth Movement” in the realm of the NeoCon right-thinking camp. One such Kool-Aid dispenser in the deadly disease of disinformation is Cliff Kincaid. His article, Lies of the 9/11 “Truth” Movement, published in Accuracy in Media is a classic in denial.

“The “inside job” theory of 9/11 is appealing to those holding a Marxist or anti-Semitic view that American foreign policy is secretly manipulated by “imperialist” or “Zionist” agents. On other occasions, the puppet-masters are “global elites” or members of secret clubs. These theories preclude serious thinking about why America is under attack and by whom. Facts and evidence don’t matter when a theory about sinister secret agents with no names makes more sense.”

Paleo-conservatives are the genuine voice of authentic conservatism. The Love It or Leave It crowds of paper mache sword waving jingoists, who purport to be patriots are committed internationalists in the advancement of an American Empire. Their bellicose and warmongering mindset is no formula for genuine patriotism.

More Liberty Now concludes and asks a question that few dare to confront.

“Love it or leave it” admits that the government is a monopoly that claims ownership of us all. This ultimatum is not compatible with free market beliefs. It advocates settling for mediocrity and a monopoly. Worst of all, it’s a false choice since the very government we are urged to love will not allow anyone to leave its jurisdiction. That doesn’t fit within any definition of ‘patriotic’ I’m aware of. Does it fit yours?”

People are so dumb down about true national security since 911 and gleefully boast and demonstrate their pride in stupidity. Hypocrites who refuse to face reality about their government and foreign policy wickedness, while pretending to be champions of American principles are mentally ill betrayers.

Amerika is in a death spiral because denial is the new national anthem, sung to the tune of , for an American nation that no longer exists.

Trolling Russia

The edifice of world post-1991 order is collapsing right now before our eyes. President Putin’s decision to give a miss to the Auschwitz pilgrimage, right after his absence in Paris at the Charlie festival, gave it the last shove. It was good clean fun to troll Russia, as long as it stayed the course. Not anymore. Russia broke the rules.

Until now, Russia, like a country bumpkin in Eton, tried to belong. It attended the gathering of the grandees where it was shunned, paid its dues to European bodies that condemned it, patiently suffered ceaseless hectoring of the great powers and irritating baiting of East European small-timers alike. But something broke down. The lad does not want to belong anymore; he picked up his stuff and went home – just when they needed him to knee in Auschwitz.

Auschwitz gathering is an annual Canossa of Western leaders where they bewail their historic failure to protect the Jews and swear their perennial obedience to them. This is a more important religious rite of our times, the One Ring to rule them all, established in 2001, when the Judeo-American empire had reached the pinnacle of its power. The Russian leader had duly attended the events. This year, they will have to do without him. Israeli ministers already have expressed their deep dissatisfaction for this was Russia’s Red Army that saved the Jews in Auschwitz, after all. Russia’s absence will turn the Holocaust memorial day into a parochial, West-only, event. Worse, Russia’s place will be taken by Ukraine, ruled by unrepentant heirs to Hitler’s Bandera.

This comes after the French ‘Charlie’ demo, also spurned by Russia. The West hinted that Russia’s sins would be forgiven, up to a point, if she joined, first the demo, and later, the planned anti-terrorist coalition, but Russia did not take the bait. This was a visible change, for previously, Russian leaders eagerly participated in joint events and voted for West-sponsored resolutions. In 2001, Putin fully supported George Bush’s War on Terrorism in the UN and on the ground. As recently as 2011, Russia agreed with sanctions against North Korea and Iran. As for coming for a demonstration, the Russians could always be relied upon. This time, the Russians did not come, except for the token presence of the foreign minister Mr. Lavrov. This indomitable successor of Mr. Nyet left the event almost immediately and went – to pray in the Russian church, in a counter-demonstration, of sorts, against Charlie. By going to the church, he declared that he is not Charlie.

For the Charlie Hebdo magazine was (and probably is) explicitly anti-Christian as well as anti-Muslim. One finds on its pages some very obnoxious cartoons offending the Virgin and Christ, as well as the pope and the Church. (They never offend Jews, somehow).

A Russian blogger who’s been exposed to this magazine for the first time, wrote on his page: I am ashamed that the bastards were dealt with by Muslims, not by Christians. This was quite a common feeling in Moscow these days. The Russians could not believe that such smut could be published and defended as a right of free speech. People planned a demo against the Charlie, but City Hall forbade it.

Remember, a few years ago, the Pussy Riot have profaned the St Saviour of Moscow like Femen did in some great European cathedrals, from Notre Dame de Paris to Strasbourg. The Russian government did not wait for vigilante justice to be meted upon the viragos, but sent them for up to two years of prison. At the same time, the Russian criminal law has been changed to include ‘sacrilege’ among ordinary crimes, by general consent. The Russians do feel about their faith more strongly than the EC rulers prescribe.

In Charlie’s France, Hollande’s regime frogmarched the unwilling people into a quite unnecessary gay marriage law, notwithstanding one-million-strong protest demonstrations by Catholics. Femen despoiling the churches were never punished; but a church warden who tried to prevent that, was heavily fined. France has a long anti-Christian tradition, usually described as “laic”, and its grand anti-Church coalition of Atheists, Huguenots and Jews coalesced in Dreyfus Affair days. Thus Lavrov’s escape to the church was a counter-demonstration, saying: Russia is for Christ, and Russia is not against Muslims.

While the present western regime is anti-Christian and anti-Muslim, it is pro-Jewish to an extent that defies a rational explanation. France had sent thousands of soldiers and policemen to defend Jewish institutions, though this defence antagonises their neighbours. While Charlie are glorified for insulting Christians and Muslims, Dieudonné has been sent to jail (just for a day, but with great fanfare) for annoying Jews. Actually, Charlie Hebdo dismissed a journalist for one sentence allegedly disrespectful for Jews. This unfairness is a source of aggravation: Muslims were laughed out of court when they complained against particularly vile Charlie’s cartoons, but Jews almost always win when they go to the court against their denigrators. (Full disclosure: I was also sued by LICRA, the French Jewish body, while my French publisher was devastated by their legal attacks).

The Russians don’t comprehend the Western infatuation with Jews, for Russian Jews have been well assimilated and integrated in general society. The narrative of Holocaust is not popular in Russia for one simple reason: so many Russians from every ethnic background lost their lives in the war, that there is no reason to single out Jews as supreme victims. Millions died at the siege of Leningrad; Belarus lost a quarter of its population. More importantly, Russians feel no guilt regarding Jews: they treated them fairly and saved them from the Nazis. For them, the Holocaust is a Western narrative, as foreign as JeSuisCharlie. With drifting of Russia out of Western consensus, there is no reason to maintain it.

This does not mean the Jews are discriminated against. The Jews of Russia are doing very well, thank you, without Holocaust worship: they occupy the highest positions in the Forbes list of Russia’s rich, with a combined capital of $122 billion, while all rich ethnic Russians own only $165 billion, according to the Jewish-owned source. Jews run the most celebrated media shows in prime time on the state TV; they publish newspapers; they have full and unlimited access to Putin and his ministers; they usually have their way when they want to get a plot of land for their communal purposes. And anti-Semitic propaganda is punishable by law – like anti-Christian or anti-Muslim abuse, but even more severely. Still, it is impossible to imagine a Russian journalist getting sack like CNN anchor Jim Clancy or BBC’s Tim Willcox for upsetting a Jew or speaking against Israel.

Russia preserves its plurality, diversity and freedom of opinion. The pro-Western Russian media –Novaya Gazeta of oligarch Lebedev, the owner of the British newspaper Independent – carries the JeSuis slogan and speaks of the Holocaust, as well as demands to restore Crimea to the Ukraine. But the vast majority of Russians do support their President, and his civilizational choice. He expressed it when he went to midnight Christmas mass in a small village church in far-away province, together with orphans and refugees from the Ukraine. And he expressed it by refusing to go to Auschwitz.

Neither willingly nor easily did Russia break ranks. Putin tried to take Western baiting in his stride: be it Olympic games, Syria confrontation, gender politics, Georgian border, even Crimea-related sanctions. The open economic warfare was a game-changer. Russia felt attacked by falling oil prices, by rouble trouble, by credit downgrading. These developments are considered an act of hostility, rather than the result of “the hidden hand of the market”.

Russians love conspiracia, as James Bond used to say. They do not believe in chance, coincidence nor natural occurrences, and are likely to consider a falling meteorite or an earthquake – a result of hostile American action, let alone a fall in the rouble/dollar exchange rate. They could be right, too, though it is hard to prove.

Regarding oil price fall, the jury is out. Some say this action by Saudis is aimed at American fracking companies, or alternatively it’s a Saudi-American plot against Russia. However, the price of oil is not formed by supply-demand, but by financial instruments, futures and derivatives. This virtual demand-and-supply is much bigger than the real one. When hedge funds stopped to buy oil futures, price downturn became unavoidable, but were the funds directed by politicians, or did they act so as Quantitative Easing ended?

The steep fall of the rouble could be connected to oil price downturn, but not necessarily so. The rouble is not involved in oil price forming. It could be an action by a very big financial institution. Soros broke the back of British pound in 1991; Korean won, Thai bath and Malaysian ringgit suffered similar fate in 1998. In each case, the attacked country lost about 40% of its GDP. It is possible that Russia was attacked by financial weapons directed from New York.

The European punitive sanctions forbade long-term cheap credit to Russian companies. The Russian state does not need loans, but Russian companies do. Combination of these factors put a squeeze on Russian pockets. The rating agencies kept downgrading Russian rating to almost junk level, for political reasons, I was told. As they were deprived of credit, state companies began to hoard dollars to pay later their debts, and they refrained from converting their huge profits to roubles, as they did until now. The rouble fell drastically, probably much lower than it had to.

This is not pinpoint sanctions aimed at Putin’s friends. This is a full-blown war. If the initiators expected Russians to be mad at Putin, they miscalculated. The Russian public is angry with the American organisers of the economical warfare, not with its own government. The pro-Western opposition tried to demonstrate against Putin, but very few people joined them.

Ordinary Russians kept a stiff upper lip. They did not notice the sanctions until the rouble staggered, and even then they shopped like mad rather than protested. In the face of shrinking money, they did not buy salt and sugar, as their grandparents would have. Their battle cry against hogging was “Do not take more than two Lexus cars per family, leave something for others!”

Perhaps, the invisible financiers went too far. Instead of being cowed, the Russians are preparing for a real long war, as they and their ancestors have historically fought – and won. It is not like they have a choice: though Americans insist Russia should join their War-on-Terrorism-II, they do not intend to relinquish sanctions.

The Russians do not know how to deal with a financial attack. Without capital restrictions, Russia will be cleaned out. Russian Central bank and Treasury people are strict monetarists, capital restrictions are anathema for them. Putin, being a liberal himself, apparently trusts them. Capital flight has taken huge proportions. Unless Russia uses the measures successfully tried by Mohammad Mahathir of Malaysia, it will continue. At present, however, we do not see sign of change.

This could be the incentive for Putin to advance in Ukraine. If the Russians do not know how to shuffle futures and derivatives, they are expert in armour movements and tank battles. Kiev regime is also spoiling for a fight, apparently pushed by the American neocons. It is possible that the US will get more than what it bargained for in the Ukraine.

One can be certain that Russians will not support the Middle Eastern crusade of NATO, as this military action was prepared at the Charlie demo in Paris. It is far from clear who killed the cartoonists, but Paris and Washington intend to use it for reigniting war in the Middle East. This time, Russia will be in opposition, and probably will use it as an opportunity to change the uncomfortable standoff in the Ukraine. Thus supporters of peace in the Middle East have a good reason to back Russia.

Murdering Journalists … Them and Us

After Paris, condemnation of religious fanaticism is at its height. I’d guess that even many progressives fantasize about wringing the necks of jihadists, bashing into their heads some thoughts about the intellect, about satire, humor, freedom of speech. We’re talking here, after all, about young men raised in France, not Saudi Arabia.

Where has all this Islamic fundamentalism come from in this modern age? Most of it comes – trained, armed, financed, indoctrinated – from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. During various periods from the 1970s to the present, these four countries had been the most secular, modern, educated, welfare states in the Middle East region. And what had happened to these secular, modern, educated, welfare states?

In the 1980s, the United States overthrew the Afghan government that was progressive, with full rights for women, believe it or not , leading to the creation of the Taliban and their taking power.

In the 2000s, the United States overthrew the Iraqi government, destroying not only the secular state, but the civilized state as well, leaving a failed state.

In 2011, the United States and its NATO military machine overthrew the secular Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi, leaving behind a lawless state and unleashing many hundreds of jihadists and tons of weaponry across the Middle East.

And for the past few years the United States has been engaged in overthrowing the secular Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad. This, along with the US occupation of Iraq having triggered widespread Sunni-Shia warfare, led to the creation of The Islamic State with all its beheadings and other charming practices.

However, despite it all, the world was made safe for capitalism, imperialism, anti-communism, oil, Israel, and jihadists. God is Great!

Starting with the Cold War, and with the above interventions building upon that, we have 70 years of American foreign policy, without which – as Russian/American writer Andre Vltchek has observed – “almost all Muslim countries, including Iran, Egypt and Indonesia, would now most likely be socialist, under a group of very moderate and mostly secular leaders”. Even the ultra-oppressive Saudi Arabia – without Washington’s protection – would probably be a very different place.

On January 11, Paris was the site of a March of National Unity in honor of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, whose journalists had been assassinated by terrorists. The march was rather touching, but it was also an orgy of Western hypocrisy, with the French TV broadcasters and the assembled crowd extolling without end the NATO world’s reverence for journalists and freedom of speech; an ocean of signs declaring Je suis Charlie … Nous Sommes Tous Charlie; and flaunting giant pencils, as if pencils – not bombs, invasions, overthrows, torture, and drone attacks – have been the West’s weapons of choice in the Middle East during the past century.

No reference was made to the fact that the American military, in the course of its wars in recent decades in the Middle East and elsewhere, had been responsible for the deliberate deaths of dozens of journalists. In Iraq, among other incidents, see Wikileaks’ 2007 video of the cold-blooded murder of two Reuters journalists; the 2003 US air-to-surface missile attack on the offices of Al Jazeera in Baghdad that left three journalists dead and four wounded; and the American firing on Baghdad’s Hotel Palestine the same year that killed two foreign cameramen.

Moreover, on October 8, 2001, the second day of the US bombing of Afghanistan, the transmitters for the Taliban government’s Radio Shari were bombed and shortly after this the US bombed some 20 regional radio sites. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the targeting of these facilities, saying: “Naturally, they cannot be considered to be free media outlets. They are mouthpieces of the Taliban and those harboring terrorists.”

And in Yugoslavia, in 1999, during the infamous 78-day bombing of a country which posed no threat at all to the United States or any other country, state-owned Radio Television Serbia (RTS) was targeted because it was broadcasting things which the United States and NATO did not like (like how much horror the bombing was causing). The bombs took the lives of many of the station’s staff, and both legs of one of the survivors, which had to be amputated to free him from the wreckage.

I present here some views on Charlie Hebdo sent to me by a friend in Paris who has long had a close familiarity with the publication and its staff:

“On international politics Charlie Hebdo was neoconservative. It supported every single NATO intervention from Yugoslavia to the present. They were anti-Muslim, anti-Hamas (or any Palestinian organization), anti-Russian, anti-Cuban (with the exception of one cartoonist), anti-Hugo Chávez, anti-Iran, anti-Syria, pro-Pussy Riot, pro-Kiev … Do I need to continue?

“Strangely enough, the magazine was considered to be ‘leftist’. It’s difficult for me to criticize them now because they weren’t ‘bad people’, just a bunch of funny cartoonists, yes, but intellectual freewheelers without any particular agenda and who actually didn’t give a fuck about any form of ‘correctness’ – political, religious, or whatever; just having fun and trying to sell a ‘subversive’ magazine (with the notable exception of the former editor, Philippe Val, who is, I think, a true-blooded neocon).”

Dumb and Dumber

Remember Arseniy Yatsenuk? The Ukrainian whom US State Department officials adopted as one of their own in early 2014 and guided into the position of Prime Minister so he could lead the Ukrainian Forces of Good against Russia in the new Cold War?

In an interview on German television on January 7, 2015 Yatsenuk allowed the following words to cross his lips: “We all remember well the Soviet invasion of Ukraine and Germany. We will not allow that, and nobody has the right to rewrite the results of World War Two”.

The Ukrainian Forces of Good, it should be kept in mind, also include several neo-Nazis in high government positions and many more partaking in the fight against Ukrainian pro-Russians in the south-east of the country. Last June, Yatsenuk referred to these pro-Russians as “sub-humans” , directly equivalent to the Nazi term “untermenschen”.

So the next time you shake your head at some stupid remark made by a member of the US government, try to find some consolation in the thought that high American officials are not necessarily the dumbest, except of course in their choice of who is worthy of being one of the empire’s partners.

The type of rally held in Paris this month to condemn an act of terror by jihadists could as well have been held for the victims of Odessa in Ukraine last May. The same neo-Nazi types referred to above took time off from parading around with their swastika-like symbols and calling for the death of Russians, Communists and Jews, and burned down a trade-union building in Odessa, killing scores of people and sending hundreds to hospital; many of the victims were beaten or shot when they tried to flee the flames and smoke; ambulances were blocked from reaching the wounded … Try and find a single American mainstream media entity that has made even a slightly serious attempt to capture the horror. You would have to go to the Russian station in Washington, DC, RT.com, search “Odessa fire” for many stories, images and videos. Also see the Wikipedia entry on the 2 May 2014 Odessa clashes.

If the American people were forced to watch, listen, and read all the stories of neo-Nazi behavior in Ukraine the past few years, I think they – yes, even the American people and their less-than-intellectual Congressional representatives – would start to wonder why their government was so closely allied with such people. The United States may even go to war with Russia on the side of such people.

L’Occident n’est pas Charlie pour Odessa. Il n’y a pas de défilé à Paris pour Odessa.

Some thoughts about this thing called ideology

Norman Finkelstein, the fiery American critic of Israel, was interviewed recently by Paul Jay on The Real News Network. Finkelstein related how he had been a Maoist in his youth and had been devastated by the exposure and downfall of the Gang of Four in 1976 in China. “It came out there was just an awful lot of corruption. The people who we thought were absolutely selfless were very self-absorbed. And it was clear. The overthrow of the Gang of Four had huge popular support.”

Many other Maoists were torn apart by the event. “Everything was overthrown overnight, the whole Maoist system, which we thought [were] new socialist men, they all believed in putting self second, fighting self. And then overnight the whole thing was reversed.”

“You know, many people think it was McCarthy that destroyed the Communist Party,” Finkelstein continued. “That’s absolutely not true. You know, when you were a communist back then, you had the inner strength to withstand McCarthyism, because it was the cause. What destroyed the Communist Party was Khrushchev’s speech,” a reference to Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 exposure of the crimes of Joseph Stalin and his dictatorial rule.

Although I was old enough, and interested enough, to be influenced by the Chinese and Russian revolutions, I was not. I remained an admirer of capitalism and a good loyal anti-communist. It was the war in Vietnam that was my Gang of Four and my Nikita Khrushchev. Day after day during 1964 and early 1965 I followed the news carefully, catching up on the day’s statistics of American firepower, bombing sorties, and body counts. I was filled with patriotic pride at our massive power to shape history. Words like those of Winston Churchill, upon America’s entry into the Second World War, came easily to mind again – “England would live; Britain would live; the Commonwealth of Nations would live.” Then, one day – a day like any other day – it suddenly and inexplicably hit me. In those villages with the strange names there were people under those falling bombs, people running in total desperation from that god-awful machine-gun strafing.

This pattern took hold. The news reports would stir in me a self-righteous satisfaction that we were teaching those damn commies that they couldn’t get away with whatever it was they were trying to get away with. The very next moment I would be struck by a wave of repulsion at the horror of it all. Eventually, the repulsion won out over the patriotic pride, never to go back to where I had been; but dooming me to experience the despair of American foreign policy again and again, decade after decade.

The human brain is an amazing organ. It keeps working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 52 weeks a year, from before you leave the womb, right up until the day you find nationalism. And that day can come very early. Here’s a recent headline from the Washington Post: “In the United States the brainwashing starts in kindergarten.”

Oh, my mistake. It actually said “In N. Korea the brainwashing starts in kindergarten.”

Let Cuba Live! The Devil’s List of what the United States has done to Cuba

On May 31, 1999, a lawsuit for $181 billion in wrongful death, personal injury, and economic damages was filed in a Havana court against the government of the United States. It was subsequently filed with the United Nations. Since that time its fate is somewhat of a mystery.

The lawsuit covered the 40 years since the country’s 1959 revolution and described, in considerable detail taken from personal testimony of victims, US acts of aggression against Cuba; specifying, often by name, date, and particular circumstances, each person known to have been killed or seriously wounded. In all, 3,478 people were killed and an additional 2,099 seriously injured. (These figures do not include the many indirect victims of Washington’s economic pressures and blockade, which caused difficulties in obtaining medicine and food, in addition to creating other hardships.)

The case was, in legal terms, very narrowly drawn. It was for the wrongful death of individuals, on behalf of their survivors, and for personal injuries to those who survived serious wounds, on their own behalf. No unsuccessful American attacks were deemed relevant, and consequently there was no testimony regarding the many hundreds of unsuccessful assassination attempts against Cuban President Fidel Castro and other high officials, or even of bombings in which no one was killed or injured. Damages to crops, livestock, or the Cuban economy in general were also excluded, so there was no testimony about the introduction into the island of swine fever or tobacco mold.

However, those aspects of Washington’s chemical and biological warfare waged against Cuba that involved human victims were described in detail, most significantly the creation of an epidemic of hemorrhagic dengue fever in 1981, during which some 340,000 people were infected and 116,000 hospitalized; this in a country which had never before experienced a single case of the disease. In the end, 158 people, including 101 children, died. That only 158 people died, out of some 116,000 who were hospitalized, was an eloquent testimony to the remarkable Cuban public health sector.

The complaint describes the campaign of air and naval attacks against Cuba that commenced in October 1959, when US president Dwight Eisenhower approved a program that included bombings of sugar mills, the burning of sugar fields, machine-gun attacks on Havana, even on passenger trains.

Another section of the complaint described the armed terrorist groups, los banditos, who ravaged the island for five years, from 1960 to 1965, when the last group was located and defeated. These bands terrorized small farmers, torturing and killing those considered (often erroneously) active supporters of the Revolution; men, women, and children. Several young volunteer literacy-campaign teachers were among the victims of the bandits.

There was also of course the notorious Bay of Pigs invasion, in April 1961. Although the entire incident lasted less than 72 hours, 176 Cubans were killed and 300 more wounded, 50 of them permanently disabled.

The complaint also described the unending campaign of major acts of sabotage and terrorism that included the bombing of ships and planes as well as stores and offices. The most horrific example of sabotage was of course the 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner off Barbados in which all 73 people on board were killed. There were as well as the murder of Cuban diplomats and officials around the world, including one such murder on the streets of New York City in 1980. This campaign continued to the 1990s, with the murders of Cuban policemen, soldiers, and sailors in 1992 and 1994, and the 1997 hotel bombing campaign, which took the life of a foreigner; the bombing campaign was aimed at discouraging tourism and led to the sending of Cuban intelligence officers to the US in an attempt to put an end to the bombings; from their ranks rose the Cuban Five.

To the above can be added the many acts of financial extortion, violence and sabotage carried out by the United States and its agents in the 16 years since the lawsuit was filed. In sum total, the deep-seated injury and trauma inflicted upon on the Cuban people can be regarded as the island’s own 9-11.

Notes

1. US Department of the Army, Afghanistan, A Country Study (1986), pp.121, 128, 130, 223, 232
2. Counterpunch, January 10, 2015
3. , the UK’s leading organization promoting freedom of expression, October 18, 2001
4. The Independent (London), April 24, 1999
5. “Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk talking to Pinar Atalay”, Tagesschau (Germany), January 7, 2015 (in Ukrainian with German voice-over)
6. CNN, June 15, 2014
7. See William Blum, West-Bloc Dissident: A Cold War Memoir, chapter 3
8. Washington Post, January 17, 2015, page A6
9. William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, chapter 30, for a capsule summary of Washington’s chemical and biological warfare against Havana.
10. For further information, see William Schaap, Covert Action Quarterly magazine (Washington, DC), Fall/Winter 1999, pp.26-29

Condemn Islamic Terror and Shield Zionist Atrocities

Surviving in a world of offensive double standards comes easy for people who lost their moral compass. Most culturally deficient pawns have such limited intellectual capacities and ethical fortitude to apply the same critical standards to zealots, who practice and defend barbarism no matter where it is committed. The narration that masquerades as objective news reporting out of the mass media, acts as a gatekeeper to provide political cover for Zionist protection. If the eternal struggle between Muslims and Jews was the supreme existential conflict, why would Christians take sides, when the purported feud between cousins, drips blood no matter whose hand holds the sword?

Oh how dare equivocate between both pseudo religious cultures, when both are engulfed in political warfare as their primary tenant. If moral principle was the essence of either society, this obscene charade of state sponsored terrorism would be exposed for what it really represents. Now before the do-gooder Christians bask in their own moral superiority, your own secular humanism surrender does not bode well for your final judgment.

The point is that unholy religious and politically inspired violence against a perceived enemy to achieve an atmosphere of panic is simply wrong. When government special operations, globalist intelligence interests and elite NWO sociopaths plan, fund, recruit, direct and cover-up false flag attacks, designed to complete a global despotism; all citizens of exploited countries lose their rights and become duped into thinking insecurity stems from radical psychopaths. The collective mental health of most societies is in a crisis of terminal proportions.

Ponder the linkage of France’s lower house of parliament votes 339 to 151 in favor of symbolic motion to recognize statehood of Palestine and Netanyahu’s Chilling Threat To France Prior To The Charlie Hebdo Tragedy. Surely, a coincidence in what is widely seen as consistent with a pattern of a sponsored Mossad scenario, the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris has the world primed for even more draconian measures that in fact, extinguishes genuine security.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest ruse to advance the victimhood claim is transparent.

The real reason Bibi wants French Jews to move to Israel reports “By calling on France’s Jews to move to Israel, Netanyahu is promoting a worldview in which there is no national conflict, no occupation and no Palestinian people. There are only Jews and radical Muslims.”

“The leader of a country that is constantly in a state of war, and that every few years actually goes to war, is imploring France’s Jews to leave their country in the wake of two terrorist attacks (one of which was not directed at a Jewish target), and move to Israel. Even if we ignore the downright chutzpah of his demand vis-a-vis the French government (try imagining a leader of a Western state calling on Israelis to immigrate to his country because of the security situation in Israel), no one doubts that French Jewish immigrants will be in much greater danger living in Israel. Perhaps our foreign minister would do well to update Netanyahu on the travel warnings issued fairly often for our country?”

The insecurity hysteria that infects Western countries from the Zionist bias media about a terrorist under every bed refuses to speak the truth. Honest reporting would require coverage of the following. The same old story, Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, but where in the controlled propaganda and fantasy viewpoint of corporatist political correctness, will such factual Zionist atrocities be reported and condemned?

Once upon a time fair play was a well established standard in international affairs. Even if it was often ignored in practice, the objective was seen as a condition that established moral authority. The reality is that governance of Israel maintains a hostility that sabotages any attempts for coexistence. EXAMPLES OF HATE SPEECH BY ISRAEL AGAINST PALESTINE illustrates the savage attitude that earns world enmity for the Zionist apartheid state. Watch the chilling documentary video,  which supports righteous outrage.

The boycott Israel movement may not have taken off to a level that its proponents hoped. Yet, such non violent opposition goes unnoticed with all the hype about terrorism. The Boycott Israel Campaign provides a list of companies and answered frequently asked questions about their efforts. If this cause gained traction, the screams would be deafening from media sentinels.

In order to maintain the storyline of extreme Islamophobia terrorism, it is necessary to eliminate any debate that analyzes the established policies that foster “Greater Israel” dominance in the Middle East. Just examine the Saudi Israeli alliance forged in blood.

“The attack on Gaza comes by Saudi Royal Appointment. This royal warrant is nothing less than an open secret in Israel, and both former and serving defense officials are relaxed when they talk about it.  Former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz surprised the presenter on Channel 10 by saying Israel had to specify a role for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the demilitarization of Hamas. Asked what he meant by that, he added that Saudi and Emirati funds should be used to rebuild Gaza after Hamas had been defanged.”

Reports: Saudis Looking for Alliance With Israel presents a chilling prospect for the beleaguered Palestinians.

“Given the successes of the radical Sunni Islamic State (formerly ISIS), the lingering threat of the Muslim Brotherhood (which birthed Hamas), and the rising Shiite power in Iran, Riyadh is seen as more keen than ever to complete that process so it can formerly align with Israel, and thereby gain the advantage of its military and economic might.

The only problem is that the Saudis want to solve that “minor conflict” by asking Israel to take severe security risks by surrendering strategic positions to a Palestinian populace that has sadly proved its unwillingness to eradicate the violent anti-Israel elements within.”

Well, there you have it. Those radical Palestinian elements are dedicated terrorists, while the Saudi’s benefactor funds their barbaric wahhabi client fanatics, who miraculously never have a map to locate Israel.

If you are not allowed to discuss who really is behind the ISIS band of cutthroats, fall back on a proven tactic of diversion. in a U.S. courtroom. “The victims allege that the Palestinian groups violated the US Anti-Terrorism Act by giving money and weapons — and employment — to terrorists in the attacks that occurred between 2001 and 2004.”

Do not hold your breath waiting for a similar suit against Saudi financiers must less about U.S. covert agencies supplying arms and coordination to their new best friend, ISIS hit squads.

In this obscene world of select memory, a terrorist is your friend if they are killing an enemy of Israel, especially if a high profile attack can garnish mass public opinion support to keep the phony “War of Terror” rolling along.

When it comes to actual non state sponsored terrorism, the number of definite instances can be disputed. The GTD Global Terrorism Database lists information on over 125,000 terrorist attacks. A search of Jewish Terrorists provides results of well over 100 instances. The JDL, Jewish Defense League is a leading “Perpetrator” with a long list of crimes within the United States. The savage legacy of Rabbi Meir Kahane has a long record of terrorism to use as inspiration.

Past Zionist-Jewish Terrorism – Some Historical Facts provides both Israeli Defense Force missions and the tactics used during the formatting years of the Zionist State. Such examples seldom get a whisper of notice much less coverage in the Newspeak media. The Jewish ownership and financial control of the establishment media allows for a self prophecy of inevitability if one believes the distortions, omissions and outright lies.

Imbalance in culpability that condemns terrorist with the same intensity and blame, no matter who is responsible for the violence, will never allow for a peaceful resolution to the mutual hate that propels the globe towards oblivion.

Pat Buchanan makes a profound point in the essay, To Die for Charlie Hebdo?

“As for the “glorification of terrorist acts,” Israel’s Menachem Begin, the ANC’s Nelson Mandela, and the PLO’s Yasser Arafat were all credibly charged with acts of terrorism in their liberation struggles.

And all three won the Nobel Prize for Peace.”

His observation is not that terrorists are rewarded by the World Community, but that the hypocrisy of the establishment fabrication that makes heroes out of thugs with blood stained hands goes with the political objectives to demonize your enemy,   while crowning the butchers.

Islamic bombers who eagerly evaporate themselves as long as they can kill others, is a sickness that no authentic religion could justify.  Governments that employ aerial bombing to obliterate entire neighborhoods, and have an official policy, that kills children; practices true terrorism.

If the Christian West is ever to regain its moral foundation, their governments must no long encourage continued terrorism because of their insane foreign policies. Abandoning the teaching of Jesus Christ, a Jew, and Son of God has allowed the apocalyptic demons to run wild. Looking for a rapprochement between Muslim and Jew will never be realized until the final carnage and tribulation is stopped with His Second Coming at the end of this satanic age.

Who Benefits From Being Charlie: “I Am NOT Bibi Netanyahu!”

Clearly this subject has already been covered in the media news cycle ad nauseam but I still can’t stop thinking about the “I am Charlie” concept.  Was the idea behind all those people who held up “I am Charlie” posters supposed to be about protecting free speech?  Really?  Then why isn’t everyone carrying “I am Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden” posters too?   Or demanding that the police stop arresting guys who falsely yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater or deliberately start barroom brawls?

Or if those “I am Charlie” posters are in protest of armed thugs in Paris gunning down civilians in cold blood, then why isn’t everyone in Paris also carrying posters proclaiming “I am Iraq” or “I am Syria” or “I am Palestine” or “I am Ukraine” or Libya or Mali or….  You get the picture.

All those people holding up signs protesting the slaughter on Rue Nicolas-Appert might actually think that they too are “Charlie” — and that’s fine.  Terrible things happened to the employees of Charlie Hebdo.  No one should ever have to suffer the fate of being shot down in cold blood, and thus the victims deserve to be mourned.  However I myself chose NOT to be Charlie Hebdo, a vicious slimy obscene rag clearly designed to stir up religious tensions in France.

And I also choose not to be any other bigots or terrorist troublemakers who clearly delight in trying to stir up religious tensions in France, crassly using others’ religious differences to pave their own way to riches and power — and yet who have the ultimate and offensive hypocrisy and nerve to show up for the French “I am Charlie” marches with innocent smiles on their faces.  “Who us?” they innocently proclaim — after doing everything they possibly can to stir up bigotry against Muslims.

I am NOT Avigdor Liberman

I am NOT Naftali Bennet

And I am definitely NOT Bibi Netanyahu.

These three guys and their cohorts seem to be always at the center of any religious tension or terrorist attack almost anywhere in the world — starting in 1948 when the Stern Gang blew up the King David Hotel and Moshe Dayan’s “army” slaughtered Christian and Muslim Palestinians left and right in order to steal their land.  “Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can’t help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East,” a Jesuit priest stated back then.  And that’s still true today.

Israel’s sleazy military-industrial complex then went on to be an uber-cheerleader for America when our own sleazy military-industrial complex bombed Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and I forget what all else.  And Israeli neo-cons themselves have bombed Palestine, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and I forget what all else too — not to mention their documented ongoing support for ISIS and Al Qaeda.

If bombs, missiles, white phosphorus, tanks, false-flag operations, F-16s, tear gas or even bottle-rockets are involved, Bibi and these guys are so there!

Millions dead in the Middle East?  I call that terrorism.  And yet Bibi and his minions actually had the chutzpah to march in Paris “against terrorism,” according to Paris Match.  Yeah, right.

Yet who benefited from the Charlie Hebdo incident?  Let’s see.  According to Paul Craig Roberts, it’s the American military-industrial complex that benefited.  “Not France, not Muslims, but US world hegemony.  US hegemony over the world is what the CIA supports.  US world hegemony is the neoconservative-imposed foreign policy of the US.”

But as they say in poker, “I’ll see Roberts and raise him.”  Netanyahu benefited.  Apparently, right before the Charlie Dodo incident was staged, France had just announced that it might be backing off supporting sanctions on Russia.  What?  No immediate prospect of World War III?  No big Israeli weapons sales?  Bibi must have been tres disappointed!

France had also just announced that it was gonna recognize the Palestinian state.   OMG!  That must have totally pissed Netanyahu off.

Also, our Bibi is having trouble finding settlers to occupy his many illegal condos in Palestine’s West Bank.  But he just loves French Jews — and hopes to scare them enough to force them to flee to Israel and live rent-free on Palestinian land.  Heck, I like Israel well enough.  Wouldn’t mind living there myself.  It’s a nice place.  Heck, even the Palestinians used to like living there too.  But it’s the Israeli neo-cons’ blood-thirsty hypocritical scheming military-industrial-complex-flaunting neo-con national-socialist leaders that I do not respect or cannot like.

And I’m not being anti-Semitic here.  Let’s leave all that religious bigotry to Charlie Hebdo.  I am only being a student of American-Israeli neo-con “Realpolitik” (Rāˈälpōliˌtēk/:  A system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations).  And Realpolitik has nothing to do with religion.

Good grief, I’m so glad that I’m NOT Netanyahu.

And I also feel nothing but compassion for all the billions of Muslims, Christians and Jews who are being subjected to his vile manipulations.  I also feel nothing but compassion for the hostages in the kosher supermarket who were also victims of Bibi’s lust for money and power and to create chaos throughout the world.  Even if it means putting all the world’s Jews in danger again.

PS:  What is going to happen next in France?  Or in Israel and the United States too, for that matter.  As my friend RJ suggests, let’s follow Norway’s heroic example after the dreadful 2011 massacre there and stop spending our patrimony on guns, bombs, war and alienation and start spending that money on integrating our nations’ diversity into our national bank of excellent human resources instead.

We’ve already wasted a hundred trillion dollars on “war” so far, only to discover again and again that violence doesn’t ever work.  Not in the Middle East, not in Ukraine, not in Paris, not at the World Trade Center and not in Ferguson either.  Just imagine if we had spent all that money on education, jobs, and integrating our society into a smooth-running democratic machine instead.

To paraphrase Thomas Piketty, “You can’t have a political democracy unless you have an economic democracy too.”  And “war” has ruined — absolutely ruined — the economic democracy of both Israel and the USA.  And probably France too.

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?

Amidst A Religious War In Europe Or Is It Just Another False Flag Operation?

The massacre in France was a devastating crime against freedom and the right to laugh.

But was it really executed by a bunch of lunatic irrational Muslims who to decided to kill mercilessly because their prophet was mocked?

French people should be asking what led members of their society to commit such cold blood murders against their fellow citizens.

France should ask itself why it has been dropping bombs on Muslims. Who enthusiastically advocated these ‘interventionist’ wars? What was the role of Bernard-Henri Lévy, the prime advocate of the war against Libya for instance?

What was all this French fuss about the burka? Who led this war on Muslims at the heart of Europe? Was it really in the name of tolerance?

Freedom and laughter are precious indeed, but isn’t it the French ‘socialist’ government that has been harassing and banning the best and most successful comedian in France, Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, because he satirized the Holocaust religion? Who pushed the French government to take such harsh actions against an artist; wasn’t it the Jewish lobby group CRIF?

If Europe wants to live in peace, it might consider letting other nations live in peace. By following the whims of The Lobby we have destined Paris to the fate of Aleppo, God forbidden.

But there is an alternative narrative that turns our perception of this disastrous Paris massacre on its head.

This morning 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, suspected to be one of the three terrorists involved in yesterday’s attack, handed himself in to the police in Charleville-Mezieres. He reportedly surrendered peacefully after hearing his name on the news. And he claims that he had nothing to do with yesterday’s event. Bizarre isn’t it? Not really.

While every anti terror expert has agreed that the attack on Charlie Hebdo yesterday was a professional job, it seems pretty amateurish for a ‘highly trained terrorist’ to leave his ID behind. And since when does a terrorist take his ID on an operation?  One possible explanation is that the so-called terrorists needed a few extra hours to leave France or disappear. They had to fool the French police and intelligence into searching the wrong places and the wrong people. Is it possible that they simply planted a stolen or forged ID card in the car they left behind?

If this was the scenario, it is possible that the attack yesterday had nothing to do with ‘Jihadi terrorism.’ It is quite probable that this was another false flag operation. Who could be behind it?  Use your imagination…

As Aleppo Goes, So Goes Syria?

Were a visitor to arrive at the embattled city of Aleppo these frigid and bleak days from the western government controlled side of the 7000 year old city, even if blindfolded and wearing tight earplugs the sightless and deaf traveler would likely sense something very different from what he experiences in Damascus and other cities in Syria.

Somehow, a visitor just feels it in the ambient atmosphere. Something–expectations, pressure, anticipation, dread, anguish, excitement is rapidly building and seemingly is about to impact profoundly events in this war that has killed nearly a quarter million people, wounded more than one million and forced more than 3 million to flee Syria while displacing half of the remaining population that once numbered 23 million. With no end even faintly in sight.

Aleppo has been and remains, along with Damascus, the strategic area which is critical to both sides of the chaotically stalemated conflict. The victor in Aleppo will achieve momentum which some military experts claim will lead them to control much of Syria and certainly nearly all of the major population centers. Aleppo is crucial for both sides as pressure builds daily and as many Aleppines are expressing a sense that some powerful dynamic in about to occur leading toward a resolution of the four year civil war or perhaps leading to even more abject horror.

None of us knows of course but this observer wondered the other day if this is what his host, the commander of government forces in the old city souk in Aleppo had in mind when he looked up toward the nearby ancient Citidel where his troops are finally stationed after two years of fighting opposition forces. But what did he mean when he cryptically said, “In three days my friend you will see something happen here that will have major consequences, enshallah (god willing) for the good of the Syrian people and my country.”

Well, in the following three days nothing particularly major seemed to happen in the neighborhood where this observer has been staying the western section of Aleppo. The usual thuds of mortars and artillery and aircraft screaming across the sky followed by bomb blasts and passersby often squinting skyward and shrugging at visitors as they hurry on their way.

On the third day in Idlib, rebels and Nusra Front militants did seize at least three government checkpoints near two military bases, Wadi Deif and Hamidiyeh which straddle an important supply route in Idlib Province to the southwest. This achievement suggests al Nusra achieves occasional dominance over the Syrian army. Yet almost immediately government combat aircraft bombed the Bab town area of Aleppo, an area controlled by Da’ish (IS) which are increasingly collaborating with Nusra in some areas. Rebels hav also been active recently to the southwest adding more pressure on government forces that are currently scattered over a large area vaguely surrounding Allepo and fighting to capture it from rebels still building up their forces in the east, north and northwest of the city.

Or did the commander mean the reportedly rapid in-gathering of Hezbollah and Iranian fighters who many believe are preparing a Qalamoun type offensive from the west aimed at cutting supplies lines to rebels forces? Its hard to know, but when we last visited his compound on the fifth day, for sure it had changed, presumably in anticipation of something significant about to be unleashed. The hallways of his three level HQ were now neatly stacked to the ceilings with rockets and ammunition of various kinds. One of his aides joked that he hoped Da’ish or Nusra was not digging another tunnel in the area. With a grimace, his commander explained that his men have only a little outdated Soviet era tunnel detection equipment that does not work well so they rely on literally keeping their ears to the ground to detect deadly tunneling sounds. Rebel tunneling that led to the nearby 150 year old Carlton Citadel Hotel being completely demolished on 8 May 2014. The blast from a tunnel underneath killed between 14 and 50 people depending of which source one credits. Da’ish claims it was being used as an army barracks. As this observer stumbled alongside army guys whispering into their radios as we climbed through the Carlton Hotel rubble in pitch blackness toward the Citadel, he was advised that some bodies under the rubble had still not been recovered seven months later and he sensed fear in his guides about tunnels being dug below. A well-grounded nervousness because on 12/30/14 a powerful blast from explosives planted in a tunnel near the HQ this observer visited reportedly, by a new rebel coalition in Aleppo called Jabha Shamiyeh, killed or wounded more than 30 soldiers.

Both sides and their allies are getting exhausted with reported increased desertions from both sides and intensifying complaints from the population. Syria’s allies are growing weary of a conflict that could last decades without clear benefits to any side. Russia is tired with major economic problems looming. The recent collapse in oil prices and Western sanctions have battered the Russian economy which has fallen into decline for the first time in five years, according to official figures. This forced drastic interventions from the Russian Central Bank and appears to be creating the biggest crisis in Vladimir Putin’s leadership of the country. Russia’s economy ministry said GDP had fallen by 0.5pc in the year to November, the latest sign that the country is heading for recession.

With respect to Iran, despite repeated assurances from its leaders that the US led sanctions have been defeated, it still faces severe economic problems as well as the growing loss of al Quds commanders in Syria and Iraq leading to increasing criticism of the regimes involvement in both countries and even Lebanon from the Iranian people.

Iran’s worst nightmare in Iraq and Syria and perhaps soon in Lebanon is Da’ish (IS) and Nusra black flags fluttering on the horizon Both have left little doubt that they view Shia as a cult of apostates who tried to hijack Islam in the 7th Century and need to be eradicated or at a minimum converted and watched closely. On 12/19/14 a suicide bomber, presumably from Da’ish (IS) or Nusra attacked Shiite pilgrims on their way to a shrine at Samarra in the Taji area north of Baghdad again, this time killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 35. This as they have recently launched a campaign to liberate Syria and Iraq from what they claim now nearly total Iranian occupation. Da’ish has launched a social media campaign among Sunni tribes to eliminate once and for all Shia and return Islam to the Caliphate of and by Mohammad the Prophet. One Da’ish adviser discussed with this observer how Iran’s regime has become vulnerable and ripe for removal by the people of Iran due to the same forces plaguing Hezbollah. That is trying to justify to their supporters why they are in Iraq and Syria killing Sunni and Shia alike instead of getting serious about dialogue and salvaging these countries. Time is claimed to be on the side of Da’ish by its spokesmen given the perceived depth of corruption and illegitimacy of rulers in the region and increasingly restive populations.

One student I met at the restaurant in Aleppo explained as only an inspired student seems to be able and willing to do these days: “Change is coming. Deep change. The corrupt incompetents and religious fanatics on all both sides will be swept away. What you are seeing these days in our region are only mild soft tremors presaging the next phase. Frankly, I put religions at the top of my personal Terrorism List.”

Hezbollah is under increasing pressure, even within the Shia community, to leave Syria and Iraq partly because their supporters have tired of seeing posters of their dead sons plastered around the Bekaa, South Beirut, and South Lebanon. Hezbollah leaders have never really convinced many people of its necessity to fight in Syria and Iraq to keep the “terrorist and takfiris” out of Lebanon. According to virtually every poll taken, a majority of Lebanese believe the opposite- believing that IS and Al Nusra are coming here because Hezbollah went there and created a magnate for jihadists to fight them and target their strongholds. Meanwhile some right-wing Israeli politicians, if not the Northern Command, reportedly claim Hezbollah is over stretched and they fantasize about ‘ turf furloughing’ in Lebanon’ and carpet bombing Hezbollah much more severely than during its most recent genocidal ‘lawn-mowing’ in Gaza.

Against this backdrop, maybe the subject most frequently discussed these days with foreign visitors to Aleppo is the urgent need for a ceasefire leading to a negotiated settlement. So the time may be ripe for a ceasefire in Aleppo. One idea is to establish a ‘stand down models’ or ‘freeze zones” to be put into place across Syria in order to stop the seemingly interminable slaughter. UN envoys UN Envoy Staffan De Mistura’s proposal for a ‘freeze’ and the fast approaching Jan. 26-29 Moscow talks could be what the army commander had in mind. Part of De Mistura’s goal is to secure a ceasefire that would allow humanitarian aid to reach those in dire need. He has warned the fall of Aleppo would likely create an additional 400,000 refugees.

The ‘freeze’ proposal was within three days of the commanders prediction and if adopted by the parties could spread to other areas and conceivable lead to a ceasefire and then to peace talks as being promoted by Russia and being studied by the Assad government. The Foreign Ministry told the media this week that “Syria is ready to participate in preliminary consultations in Moscow in order to meet the aspirations of Syrians to find a way out of crisis.”

One example of ‘freezing the conflict in Aleppo” movement, as a step toward a broader settlement along the lines proposed by is the 12/29/14 action by Syrian army allowing more than 30 besieged families and some armed men who surrendered, “safe passage” out of from Douma and Zibdin in Eastern Ghouta adjoining Damascus. There are also rumors that male evacuees might be recruited into a pro-regime militia. The evacuation was the second since December 9, when 76 families were allowed out of Douma.

According to Freeze proponents, this plan to freeze the fighting in Aleppo is the only hopeful one available. De Mistura has said he sees no hope for another plan and it is the only plan capable of freezing the fighting, securing people’s needs and returning the displaced people who are burdening neighboring areas and states. It will also allow for the eventual process of reconstruction he and many others insist. Regime supporters argue that Syrian President Assad is showing readiness to ensure the success of the international plan in Aleppo, and that he convinced Russian President Vladimir Putin of the plan while convincing his Iranian allies as well.

The White House, despite reservations, appears more flexible this week, linking their approval with that of some of their regional allies, meaning Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Persian Gulf countries. Two rounds of Geneva talks early in 2014 failed to halt the conflict and some claimed actually inflamed it.

A Syrian gentleman who speaks regularly to security officials and leaders from Mr. Assad’s minority Alawite sect, an important component of his base, said recently that a growing numbers across the political spectrum now are insisting on a political settlement despite others still insisting on a fight to the death. One angry gentleman, exhibiting a ‘no turning back’ mentality and who lost his home, family and all hope for recovery, emphasized to this observer, that, “What happens to us during this period is not important. What matters is how history will judge us 1000 years from now.”

And so the Syrian civil war goes on. As Red Cross Dr David Nott who returned to Aleppo recently to help treat victims presented a gloomy assessment while describing the nearly complete breakdown of medical treatment in the city. He explained that more than 80% of patients requiring urgent treatment now die as a result of their injuries or lack of basic care, medicine and equipment. A plunge in vaccination rates from 90 percent before the war to 52 percent this year and contaminated water is allowing typhoid and hepatitis to spread and over half of public hospitals are closed resulting in treatments for diseases and injuries being erratic. More than 6,500 cases of typhoid and 4,200 cases of measles, the deadliest disease for Syrian children, being reported in 2014 across Syria.

One can only wish Envoy De Mistura and like-minded proponents of the immediate establishment of a “freeze zone” in Aleppo, to be replicated across Syria as strongly favored by army commanders with whom this observer recently discussed the subject, the very best of luck in the New Year.

Freezing hostilities in Aleppo could possibly achieve the same for Syria. It’s worth a try.

Where Will 2015 Take Us?

Every year about this time, we are inundated with self-proclaimed prognosticators telling us (with great certainty) what the New Year will bring. The vast majority of the time they are wrong; but, somehow, that doesn’t keep people from listening to these pseudo-prophets or from buying their publications and videos. So, let me say upfront: I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. I have no crystal ball; and the Almighty has not privileged me with special revelation regarding future events. However, I can predict with confidence that most of the predictions WON’T come to pass–especially the ones that deal with eschatology.

However, what I can report is the things that are ALREADY happening and the momentum that is driving them. It is an immutable law that, absent a significant force to the contrary, things in motion tend to stay in motion. Therefore, here are a few things that are already in motion as we go into 2015.

*Amnesty For Illegals And Obamacare

Let’s take Obamacare first: It is here to stay. Both major parties in Washington, D.C., overwhelmingly support national health insurance. Had Mitt Romney been elected in 2012, we would be calling it Romneycare instead of Obamacare. In fact, Mitt Romney’s state health insurance plan was the model for what we now call Obamacare. So, if any of you are still harboring any hope that somehow the new GOP Congress will pull a rabbit out of the hat and reverse Obamacare, it’s time to admit reality. Obamacare isn’t going anywhere. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who was selected by President G.W. Bush, forever sealed Obamacare into the legal and political bone marrow of America.

And, like Obamacare, both major parties in Washington, D.C., support amnesty for illegals. Oh, I know that the vast majority of grassroots Republicans oppose amnesty, but since when has that mattered to a tinker’s dam to the GOP ruling class? John Boehner and Company has already orchestrated the funding for amnesty with the $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” bill that recently passed. Another vote that could potentially defund amnesty is expected in Congress by February. But already the GOP leadership is positioning the new Republican majority to provide amnesty with permanent status. The fact that it was mostly anti-amnesty anger that swept Republicans into the majority in both houses of Congress means nothing to the GOP leadership. NOTHING!

Here is the most concise summary I’ve seen to date on what GOP leaders are doing regarding solidifying Obama’s (unconstitutional) amnesty order:

“The plan by GOP leaders to sell out and back up Obama’s executive amnesty is already coming together.

“‘Here’s the architecture of the coming sellout: there will be a show vote on defunding exec amnesty–either as a stand alone or part of the DHS bill,’ a congressional GOP aide told Breitbart News:

“‘But once they’ve let members vote on it, it will fall away. Instead, they’ll attach the McCaul “border securit” bill–what we’ll call free rides for illegal aliens to a city near you. The McCaul bill will follow the Pete Sessions’ rule: no illegal aliens will be deported. No e-verify, no welfare stoppage, a free pass for the 12 million here to stay here. It will just be more money for King Obama to use to help illegals enter the country and get a free education. The White House will play along, pretend it’s a tough bill, and then eagerly sign it–locking in the amnesty and taking real enforcement off the table (they’ll say it’s all done now). Then will come the gifts for the corporate sponsors.’”

The report also quotes George Rasley, the executive editor of Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ, as correctly saying, “Looking at what the Republican Party’s Capitol Hill leaders did in the CRomnibus it’s hard for conservatives to figure out who’s worse: Obama or the GOP leaders who apparently plan to overturn the results of the 2014 midterms by allowing the president’s unconstitutional amnesty to stand and, adding insult to injury, passing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wishlist of more spending and more visas to displace American workers.”

See the report at:

Folks, please understand that GOP leaders in Congress are not GOING to solidify Obama’s amnesty deal, they are ALREADY solidifying it. Therefore, this is not a prediction; it is simply an accurate reporting of what is already taking place. Republican leaders in Washington, D.C., are going to do what they always do: give grassroots conservative Republicans the royal shaft. But since conservatives seem to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome every election year, it is doubtful that much of anything will change in 2016 either.

*TPP

The newest NAFTA-style trade agreement, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), has been in the works for some time. However, with the Democrats in charge of the Senate, President Obama was not able to push the jobs-killing agreement through Congress. But with the GOP now in charge of both houses of Congress, passage of TPP will be a breeze.

As Rasley observed, Republican congressional leaders are mostly in the pocket of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the TPP trade agreement is perhaps priority number one for the Chamber–and they are already pushing hard for its passage.

The Washington Post noted that “President Obama is preparing a major push on a vast free-trade zone that seeks to enlist Republicans as partners.”

See the report here:

With the GOP controlling Congress, globalist-minded Barack Obama is now able to bypass his own party and partner with internationalist-business-friendly Republicans to pass TPP. Like amnesty, the TPP trade agreement is ALREADY being positioned for passage within the GOP Congress.

The Chamber of Commerce spent millions in this last election helping to elect pro-Big Business Republicans to office. They expect payback.

A Breitbart.com report begins, “Not only does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce think it is the only reason the GOP won in November, it is now threatening Republicans with opposition next go round if they don’t lay down and give the Chamber precisely what it wants, including on immigration, increased spending on transportation, and economic deals that sweeten the pot for big business.”

See the report here:

*The American Police State

The American Police State saw a banner year in 2014. The militarization of local and State police, along with the instances of police-bullying, grew to record heights last year–and there is absolutely no sign of a let-up.

Excerpts from Joel Skousen’s December 26, 2014 World Affairs Brief (WAB) are relevant:

“This year we saw government further arrogate to itself broad new power through executive action that went unchecked thanks to a Congress coopted by globalist republican leaders and a neutered Supreme Court, which refuses to declare any of the president’s unilateral actions unconstitutional.”

Skousen continues, “We now live in a surveillance state and its purpose has nothing to do with terrorism: Domestic dissidents are the target; terrorism is just the excuse. The NSA records every type of electronic communication. Despite the initial public outrage over Edward Snowden’s revelation, government hasn’t stopped anything. They’ve made deceptive legislative proposals that claim to limit government’s ability to see content, but those claims are as much a sham and a lie as the government insistence that they only collect metadata. The content comes right along with the metadata, so there’s no way to collect only the metadata.”

Pertaining specifically to domestic police abuse, Skousen notes, “Police aggressiveness and brutality . . . is a precursor to a Police state. It reached a head this year with the Ferguson riots, but sadly the issue was falsely framed as one of racial prejudice and profiling, rather than the danger to all of us from thuggish police behavior. There is a steady increase in the percentage of macho, pushy law enforcement personnel, many of which have a military background. They bring with them their foul-mouthed habits and thuggish behavior. Coupled with police training that talks incessantly about ‘getting killed if you don’t react fast enough’ police are developing a shoot-first-and-ask-question-later mentality.

“Just as bad is their attitude that ‘you need to do what I say, no questions asked.’ This is not right. Police are not allowed by law to demand the public follow their every order. It has to be a lawful order. Sadly, neither the police chiefs nor the courts are willing to sanction police with strong penalties when they abuse this power.”

To subscribe (paid only) to Skousen’s excellent WAB, go here:

Unfortunately, there are only a precious few who seem to understand this burgeoning Police State and who actively oppose it. A majority of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, unbelievers and Christians, all seem to, not only tolerate the police-state mentality, but enthusiastically support it. And there is no momentum whatsoever to stopping it. It will only get worse in 2015.

*Christ And Caesar

True Christianity has never been associated with, supported by, or underneath Caesar’s (civil government’s) auspices or benevolence. For most of the 2,000+ years of Church history, true believers met in non-state-sanctioned or even underground churches and fellowships. In fact, the Early Church was birthed in a baptism of persecution from both the civil government (Rome) and established religion (Judaism) at the time. Not until the unholy union of the Church and State under Theodosius I (almost 400 years after Christ) did Christians accept official sanction from government. And for many centuries to follow, the official merger of Church and state led to the persecutions and deaths of untold thousands of believers deemed heretics and outlaws because their religious beliefs contradicted those of the official state-sanctioned church.

Even in early America, state-approved denominations and churches were guilty of horrific persecutions against independent-minded Christians who refused to submit to the doctrines and liturgies of state-sanctioned churches. These state-church persecutions ultimately led Roger Williams to found the colony of Rhode Island and John Leland to convince James Madison that religious liberty must be the first in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

After the acceptance of our Bill of Rights, America’s churches enjoyed complete independent status, being answerable only to their Creator and their own conscience. All of that changed in 1954 when then-Senator Lyndon Johnson (D-Texas) successfully introduced the Johnson Amendment to the code of the Internal Revenue Service: the now-infamous 501c3 nonprofit organization status for churches. This designation made churches a creature of the state–answerable to the direct dictates of government–even regarding speech and activity.

By accepting 501c3 status, America’s churches have effectively become state-licensed or state-sanctioned organizations. In much the same way that churches in Communist China risk vindictive state sanctions for not complying to state control, so, too, churches in the United States risk vindictive IRS sanctions for not complying to state control.

What is more than interesting is the comparison between the churches in China and the churches in America. In China, Christianity is growing exponentially. In fact, there are now more Christians in China than there are communists. Please carefully read this report:

“Though the Chinese Communist Party is the largest explicitly atheist organization in the world, with 85 million official members, it is now overshadowed by an estimated 100 million Christians in China. It is no wonder Beijing is nervous and authorities are cracking down on Christian groups.

“Christianity is growing so fast in China that some predict that it will be the most Christian nation in the world in only another 15 years. By far, the greatest growth is coming outside the official state-sanctioned churches, which are rightly considered subservient to the Communist Party. Numbers are increasing, rather, in unofficial Protestant ‘house churches’ and in the underground Catholic church.”

See the report here:

Did you get that? Let me repeat it: “By far, the greatest growth is coming OUTSIDE [emphasis added] the official state-sanctioned churches, which are rightly considered subservient to the Communist Party [state]. Numbers are increasing, rather, in UNOFFICIAL [emphasis added] Protestant ‘house churches’ and in the UNDERGROUND [emphasis added] Catholic church.”

But what do we see happening in the United States? Christianity is waning BIG TIME. On the whole, churches are in steep decline. For the most part, only the entertainment-oriented, circus variety churches are growing. The numbers of Americans professing Christianity in general and expressing loyalty to a specific church or denomination are at historic lows. And the trend for 2015 and beyond is more of the same.

So, what is the difference? Why is Christianity proliferating in China and declining in America? China has an openly atheistic government. For all intents and purposes, the government in Washington, D.C., is equally atheistic. The federal government in D.C. is responsible for virtually every single attack against the expression of the Christian faith at every level of society. It is the federal government that attacks Christian expression in our local public schools. It is the federal government that attacks Christian expression in local governing bodies. It is the federal government that has all but permanently dismantled the expression of Christianity throughout our country’s public institutions. But so does the government in Beijing. Yet, in China, the Church is mushrooming, while in America, the Church is dying. What’s the difference?

The difference is, in China, Christians understand that to be loyal to Christ, they MUST NOT SUBMIT to state-sanction or license. And they are willing to defy Beijing authorities in order to be faithful to that conviction. However, in America, pastors and churches insist that they MUST SUBMIT to state control–even using Romans 13 to justify this preposterous position. Bottom line: state-sanctioned churches in America are withering, while non-state-sanctioned churches in China are mushrooming. There is no doubt that the trend in both countries will continue into and beyond 2015.

Until America’s pastors and churches “see the light” and consciously withdraw themselves from Caesar’s grasp (at whatever cost), Christianity in this country will continue to evaporate.

Toward the end of 2014, I launched the Liberty Church Project, in which I am traveling the country helping pastors and churches withdraw from the tentacles of 501c3 government sanction and/or helping people start brand new non-501c3 churches and fellowships. So far, we are batting a perfect five-for-five. And I believe that the momentum of establishing “unofficial” or “underground” churches in this country has only begun.

I am absolutely convinced that very soon every pastor and Christian in America will have to make the conscious decision to either deny Christ and remain part of the apostate government-church or be faithful to Christ and become part of the “unofficial” or “underground” church–just as Christians have had to do in China. One will not be able to do both.

I also believe that what we are seeing happening via the Liberty Church Project is just the beginning raindrops of what will one day be a deluge. I am quite confident that I will be very busy in 2015 as we continue to help believers establish non-501c3 churches and fellowships. To learn more about the Liberty Church Project, go here:

Let me say it plainly: the ONLY way America’s Christians and churches are going to experience a true spiritual renewal is to withdraw themselves from state sanction. For all intents and purposes, the establishment Church in America is DEAD. It has forgotten the lessons of history. It would rather please Caesar; it relishes the endorsement of Caesar. By action, our church leaders are saying the same thing Jewish leaders said at the time of Christ: “We have no king but Caesar.”

So, while I am not a prognosticator or a prophet, I can easily see the trends listed above. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that these trends will continue into 2015 and beyond.

American Exceptionalism and American Torture

In 1964, the Brazilian military, in a US-designed coup, overthrew a liberal (not more to the left than that) government and proceeded to rule with an iron fist for the next 21 years. In 1979 the military regime passed an amnesty law blocking the prosecution of its members for torture and other crimes. The amnesty still holds.

That’s how they handle such matters in what used to be called The Third World. In the First World, however, they have no need for such legal niceties. In the United States, military torturers and their political godfathers are granted amnesty automatically, simply for being American, solely for belonging to the “Good Guys Club”.

So now, with the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, we have further depressing revelations about US foreign policy. But do Americans and the world need yet another reminder that the United States is a leading practitioner of torture? Yes. The message can not be broadcast too often because the indoctrination of the American people and Americophiles all around the world is so deeply embedded that it takes repeated shocks to the system to dislodge it. No one does brainwashing like the good ol’ Yankee inventors of advertising and public relations. And there is always a new generation just coming of age with stars (and stripes) in their eyes.

The public also has to be reminded yet again that – contrary to what most of the media and Mr. Obama would have us all believe – the president has never actually banned torture per se, despite saying recently that he had “unequivocally banned torture” after taking office.

Shortly after Obama’s first inauguration, both he and Leon Panetta, the new Director of the CIA, explicitly stated that “rendition” was not being ended. As the Los Angeles Times reported at the time: “Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.”

The English translation of “cooperate” is “torture”. Rendition is simply outsourcing torture. There was no other reason to take prisoners to Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia, Kosovo, or the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, amongst other torture centers employed by the United States. Kosovo and Diego Garcia – both of which house large and very secretive American military bases – if not some of the other locations, may well still be open for torture business, as is the Guantánamo Base in Cuba.

Moreover, the key Executive Order referred to, number 13491, issued January 22, 2009, “Ensuring Lawful Interrogations”, leaves a major loophole. It states repeatedly that humane treatment, including the absence of torture, is applicable only to prisoners detained in an “armed conflict”. Thus, torture by Americans outside an environment of “armed conflict” is not explicitly prohibited. But what about torture within an environment of “counter-terrorism”?

The Executive Order required the CIA to use only the interrogation methods outlined in a revised Army Field Manual. However, using the Army Field Manual as a guide to prisoner treatment and interrogation still allows solitary confinement, perceptual or sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep deprivation, the induction of fear and hopelessness, mind-altering drugs, environmental manipulation such as temperature and noise, and stress positions, amongst other charming examples of American Exceptionalism.

After Panetta was questioned by a Senate panel, the New York Times wrote that he had “left open the possibility that the agency could seek permission to use interrogation methods more aggressive than the limited menu that President Obama authorized under new rules … Mr. Panetta also said the agency would continue the Bush administration practice of ‘rendition’ … But he said the agency would refuse to deliver a suspect into the hands of a country known for torture or other actions ‘that violate our human values’.”

The last sentence is of course childishly absurd. The countries chosen to receive rendition prisoners were chosen precisely and solely because they were willing and able to torture them.

Four months after Obama and Panetta took office, the New York Times could report that renditions had reached new heights.

The present news reports indicate that Washington’s obsession with torture stems from 9/11, to prevent a repetition. The president speaks of “the fearful excesses of the post-9/11 era”. There’s something to that idea, but not a great deal. Torture in America is actually as old as the country. What government has been intimately involved with that horror more than the United States? Teaching it, supplying the manuals, supplying the equipment, creation of international torture centers, kidnaping people to these places, solitary confinement, forced feeding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Chicago … Lord forgive us!

In 2011, Brazil instituted a National Truth Commission to officially investigate the crimes of the military government, which came to an end in 1985. But Mr. Obama has in fact rejected calls for a truth commission concerning CIA torture. On June 17 of this year, however, when Vice President Joseph Biden was in Brazil, he gave the Truth Commission 43 State Department cables and reports concerning the Brazilian military regime, including one entitled “Widespread Arrests and Psychophysical Interrogation of Suspected Subversives.”

Thus it is that once again the United States of America will not be subjected to any accountability for having broken US laws, international laws, and the fundamental laws of human decency. Obama can expect the same kindness from his successor as he has extended to George W.

“One of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better.” – Barack Obama, written statement issued moments after the Senate report was made public.

And if that pile of hypocrisy is not big enough or smelly enough, try adding to it Bidens’ remark re his visit to Brazil: “I hope that in taking steps to come to grips with our past we can find a way to focus on the immense promise of the future.”

If the torturers of the Bush and Obama administrations are not held accountable in the United States they must be pursued internationally under the principles of universal jurisdiction.

In 1984, an historic step was taken by the United Nations with the drafting of the “Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment” (came into force in 1987, ratified by the United States in 1994). Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

Such marvelously clear, unequivocal, and principled language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly difficult for one to feel proud of humanity. We cannot slide back. If today it’s deemed acceptable to torture the person who supposedly has the vital “ticking-bomb” information needed to save lives, tomorrow it will be acceptable to torture him to learn the identities of his alleged co-conspirators. Would we allow slavery to resume for just a short while to serve some “national emergency” or some other “higher purpose”?

If you open the window of torture, even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the whole room.

Cuba … at long, long last … maybe …

Hopefully, it’s what it appears to be. Cuba will now be treated by the United States as a country worthy of at least as much respect as Washington offers to its highly oppressive, murdering, torturing allies in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Honduras, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

It’s a tough decision to normalize relations with a country whose police force murders its own innocent civilians on almost a daily basis, and even more abroad, but Cuba needs to do it. Maybe the Cubans can civilize the Americans a bit.

Let’s hope that America’s terrible economic embargo against the island will go the way of the dinosaurs, and Cuba will be able to demonstrate more than ever what a rational, democratic, socialist society can create. But they must not open the economy for the Yankee blood-suckers to play with as they have all over the world.

And I’ll be able to go to Cuba not as a thief in the night covering my tracks and risking a huge fine.

But with the Republicans taking over Congress next month, all of this may be just a pipe dream.

Barack Obama could have done this six years ago when he took office; or five years ago when American Alan Gross was first arrested and imprisoned in Cuba. It would have been even easier back then, with Obama’s popularity at its height and Congress not as captured by the Know-Nothings as now.

So, Cuba outlasted all the punishment, all the lies, all the insults, all the deprivations, all the murderous sabotage, all the assassination attempts against Fidel, all the policies to isolate the country. But for many years now, it’s the United States that has been isolated in the Western Hemisphere.

Reason Number 13,336 why capitalism will be the death of us.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria – the “superbugs” – if left unchecked, could result in 10 million deaths a year by 2050. New drugs to fight the superbugs are desperately needed. But a panel advising President Obama warned in September that “there isn’t a sufficiently robust pipeline of new drugs to replace the ones rendered ineffective by antibiotic resistance.”

The problem, it appears, is that “Antibiotics generally provide low returns on investment, so they are not a highly attractive area for research and development.”

Aha! “Low returns on investment”! What could be simpler to understand? Is it not a concept worth killing and dying for? Just as millions of Americans died in the 20th century so corporations could optimize profits by not protecting the public from tobacco, lead, and asbestos.

Corporations are programmed to optimize profits without regard for the society in which they operate, in much the same way that cancer cells are programmed to proliferate without regard for the health of their host.

Happy New Year. Here’s what you have to look forward to in 2015.

• January 25: 467 people reported missing from a university in Mexico. US State Department blames Russia.
• February 1: Military junta overthrows President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Washington decries the loss of democracy.
• February 2: US recognizes the new Venezuelan military junta, offers it 50 jet fighters and tanks.
• February 3: Revolution breaks out in Venezuela endangering the military junta; 40,000 American marines land in Caracas to quell the uprising.
• February 16: White police officer in Chicago fatally shoots a 6-year old black boy holding a toy gun.
• March 6: Congress passes a new law which states that to become president of the United States a person must have the surname Bush or Clinton.
• April 30: The Department of Homeland Security announces plan to record the DNA at birth of every child born in the United States.
• May 19: The Supreme Court rules that police may search anyone if they have reasonable grounds for believing that the person has pockets.
• May 27: The Transportation Security Administration declares that all airline passengers must strip completely nude at check-in and remain thus until arriving at their destination.
• June 6: White police officer in Oklahoma City tasers a 7-month-old black child, claiming the child was holding a gun; the gun turns out to be a rattle.
• July 19: Two subway trains collide in Manhattan. The United States demands that Moscow explain why there was a Russian citizen in each of the trains.
• September 5: The Democratic Party changes its name to the Republican Lite Party, and announces the opening of a joint bank account with the Republican Party so that corporate lobbyists need make out only one check.
• September 12: White police officer in Alabama shoots black newborn, confusing the umbilical cord for a noose.
• November 16: President Obama announces that Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, North Korea, Sudan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba all possess weapons of mass destruction; have close ties to the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and the Taliban; are aiding pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine; were involved in 9-11; played a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the attack on Pearl Harbor; are an imminent threat to the United States and all that is decent and holy; and are all “really bad guys”, who even (choke, gasp) use torture!
• November 21: The United States invades Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, North Korea, Sudan, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba.
• December 10: Barack Obama is awarded his second Nobel Peace Prize
• December 11: To celebrate his new peace prize, Obama sends out drones to assassinate wrong-thinking individuals in Somalia, Afghanistan and Yemen.
• December 13: Members of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi parties, which hold several high positions in the US-supported government, goose-step through the center of Kiev in full German Storm Trooper uniforms, carrying giant swastika flags, shouting “Heil Hitler”, and singing the Horst Wessel song. Not a word of this appears in any American mainstream media.
• December 15: US Secretary of State warns Russia to stop meddling in Ukraine, accusing Moscow of wanting to re-create the Soviet Union.
• December 16: White police officer shoots a black 98-year-old man sitting in a wheel chair, claiming the man pointed a rifle at him. The rifle turns out to be a cane.
• December 28: The Washington Redskins football team finish their season in last place. The White House blames Vladimir Putin.

Notes

1. Associated Press, December 11, 2014
2. New York Times, December 11, 2014
3. Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2009
4. New York Times, February 6, 2009
5. New York Times, May 24, 2009
6. Washington Post, December 11, 2014
7. National Security Archive’s Brazil Documentation Project
8. Washington Post, December 10, 2014
9. See note 7
10. Washington Post, December 13, 2014

The Oil Coup

US-Saudi Subterfuge Send Stocks and Credit Reeling…

U.S. powerbrokers have put the country at risk of another financial crisis to intensify their economic war on Moscow and to move ahead with their plan to “pivot to Asia”.

Here’s what’s happening: Washington has persuaded the Saudis to flood the market with oil to push down prices, decimate Russia’s economy, and reduce Moscow’s resistance to further NATO encirclement and the spreading of US military bases across Central Asia. The US-Saudi scheme has slashed oil prices by nearly a half since they hit their peak in June. The sharp decline in prices has burst the bubble in high-yield debt which has increased the turbulence in the credit markets while pushing global equities into a tailspin. Even so, the roiled markets and spreading contagion have not deterred Washington from pursuing its reckless plan, a plan which uses Riyadh’s stooge-regime to prosecute Washington’s global resource war. Here’s a brief summary from an article by F. William Engdahl titled “The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria”:

“The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King…

..the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC… The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely…

According to Rashid Abanmy, President of the Riyadh-based Saudi Arabia Oil Policies and Strategic Expectations Center, the dramatic price collapse is being deliberately caused by the Saudis, OPEC’s largest producer. The public reason claimed is to gain new markets in a global market of weakening oil demand. The real reason, according to Abanmy, is to put pressure on Iran on her nuclear program, and on Russia to end her support for Bashar al-Assad in Syria….More than 50% of Russian state revenue comes from its export sales of oil and gas. The US-Saudi oil price manipulation is aimed at destabilizing several strong opponents of US globalist policies. Targets include Iran and Syria, both allies of Russia in opposing a US sole Superpower. The principal target, however, is Putin’s Russia, the single greatest threat today to that Superpower hegemony. (The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria, F. William Engdahl, BFP)

The US must achieve its objectives in Central Asia or forfeit its top-spot as the world’s only superpower. This is why US policymakers have embarked on such a risky venture. There’s simply no other way to sustain the status quo which allows the US to impose its own coercive dollar system on the world, a system in which the US exchanges paper currency produced-at-will by the Central Bank for valuable raw materials, manufactured products and hard labor. Washington is prepared to defend this extortionist petrodollar recycling system to the end, even if it means nuclear war.

How Flooding the Market Adds to Instability

The destructive and destabilizing knock-on effects of this lunatic plan are visible everywhere. Plummeting oil prices are making it harder for energy companies to get the funding they need to roll over their debt or maintain current operations. Companies borrow based on the size of their reserves, but when prices tumble by nearly 50 percent–as they have in the last six months– the value of those reserves falls sharply which cuts off access to the market leaving CEO’s with the dismal prospect of either selling assets at firesale prices or facing default. If the problem could be contained within the sector, there’d be no reason for concern. But what worries Wall Street is that a surge in energy company failures could ripple through the financial system and wallop the banks. Despite six years of zero rates and monetary easing, the nation’s biggest banks are still perilously undercapitalized, which means that a wave of unexpected bankruptcies could be all it takes to collapse the weaker institutions and tip the system back into crisis. Here’s an excerpt from a post at Automatic Earth titled “Will Oil Kill the Zombies?”:

“If prices fall any further, it would seem that most of the entire shale edifice must of necessity crumble to the ground. And that will cause an absolute earthquake in the financial world, because someone supplied the loans the whole thing leans on. An enormous amount of investors have been chasing high yield, including many institutional investors, and they’re about to get burned something bad….. if oil keeps going the way it has lately, the Fed may instead have to think about bailing out the big Wall Street banks once again.” (Will Oil Kill the Zombies?, Raúl Ilargi Meijer, Automatic Earth)

The problem with falling oil prices is not just mounting deflation or droopy profits; it’s the fact that every part of the industry–exploration, development and production — is propped atop a mountain of red ink (junk bonds). When that debt can no longer be serviced or increased, then the primary lenders (counterparties and financial institutions) sustain heavy losses which domino through the entire system. Take a look at this from Marketwatch:

“There’s ‘no question’ that for energy companies with a riskier debt profile the high-yield debt market “is essentially shut down at this stage,” and there are signs that further pain could hit the sector, ” senior fixed-income strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management, Dan Heckman told Marketwatch. “We are getting to the point that it is becoming very concerning.” (Marketwatch)

When energy companies lose access to the market and are unable to borrow at low rates, it’s only a matter of time before they trundle off to extinction.

On Friday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) renewed pressure on prices by lowering its estimate for global demand for oil in 2015. The announcement immediately sent stocks into a nosedive. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lost 315 points by the end of the day, while, according to Bloomberg, more than “$1 trillion was erased from the value of global equities in the week”.

The world is awash in cheap petroleum which is wreaking havoc on domestic shale producers that need prices of roughly $70 per barrel to break-even. With West Texas Intermediate (WTI) presently headed south of 60 bucks–and no bottom in sight–these smaller producers are sure to get clobbered. Pension funds, private equity, banks, and other investors who gambled on these dodgy energy-related junk bonds are going to get their heads handed to them in the months ahead.

The troubles in the oil patch are mainly attributable to the Fed’s easy money policies. By dropping rates to zero and flooding the markets with liquidity, the Fed made it possible for every Tom, Dick and Harry to borrow in the bond market regardless of the quality of the debt. No one figured that the bottom would drop out leaving an entire sector high and dry. Everyone thought the all-powerful Fed could print its way out of any mess. After last week’s bloodbath, however, they’re not nearly as confident. Here’s how Bloomberg sums it up:

“The danger of stimulus-induced bubbles is starting to play out in the market for energy-company debt….Since early 2010, energy producers have raised $550 billion of new bonds and loans as the Federal Reserve held borrowing costs near zero, according to Deutsche Bank AG. With oil prices plunging, investors are questioning the ability of some issuers to meet their debt obligations…

The Fed’s decision to keep benchmark interest rates at record lows for six years has encouraged investors to funnel cash into speculative-grade securities to generate returns, raising concern that risks were being overlooked. A report from Moody’s Investors Service this week found that investor protections in corporate debt are at an all-time low, while average yields on junk bonds were recently lower than what investment-grade companies were paying before the credit crisis.” (Fed Bubble Bursts in $550 Billion of Energy Debt: Credit Markets, Bloomberg)

The Fed’s role in this debacle couldn’t be clearer. Investors piled into these dodgy debt-instruments because they thought Bernanke had their back and would intervene at the first sign of trouble. Now that the bubble has burst and the losses are piling up, the Fed is nowhere to be seen.

In the last week, falling oil prices have started to impact the credit markets where investors are ditching debt on anything that looks at all shaky. The signs of contagion are already apparent and likely to get worse. Investors fear that if they don’t hit the “sell” button now, they won’t be able to find a buyer later. In other words, liquidity is drying up fast which is accelerating the rate of decline. Naturally, this has affected US Treasuries which are still seen as “risk free”. As investors increasingly load up on USTs, long-term yields have been pounded into the ground like a tentpeg. As of Friday, the benchmark 10-year Treasury checked in at a miniscule 2.08 percent, the kind of reading one would expect in the middle of a Depression.

The Saudi-led insurgency has reversed the direction of the market, put global stocks into a nosedive and triggered a panic in the credit markets. And while the financial system edges closer to a full-blown crisis every day, policymakers in Washington have remained resolutely silent on the issue, never uttering as much as a peep of protest for a Saudi policy that can only be described as a deliberate act of financial terrorism.

Why is that? Why have Obama and Co. kept their mouths shut while oil prices have plunged, domestic industries have been demolished, and stocks have gone off a cliff? Could it be that they’re actually in cahoots with the Saudis and that it’s all a big game designed to annihilate enemies of the glorious New World Order?

It certainly looks that way.

Talking Turkey

Putin Gobsmacks Obama and Euro-Leaders with Surprise Gas Deal…

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin clinched a groundbreaking deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that will strengthen economic ties between the two nations and make Turkey the major hub for Russian gas in the region. Under the terms of the agreement, Russia will pump additional natural gas to locations in central Turkey and to a “hub at the Turkish-Greek border” which will eventually provide Putin with backdoor access to the lucrative EU market, although Turkey will serve as the critical intermediary. The move creates a de facto Russo-Turkey alliance that could shift the regional balance of power decisively in Moscow’s favor, thus creating another formidable hurtle for Washington’s “pivot to Asia” strategy.  While the media is characterizing the change in plans (Putin has abandoned the South Stream pipeline project that would have transported gas to southern Europe) as a “diplomatic defeat” for Russia, the opposite appears to be the case.  Putin has once again outmaneuvered the US on both the energy and geopolitical fronts adding to his long list of policy triumphs. Here’s a brief summary from Andrew Korybko at Sputnik News:

“Russia has abandoned the troubled South Stream project and will now be building its replacement with Turkey. This monumental decision signals that Ankara has made its choice to reject Euro-Atlanticsm and embrace Eurasian integration.

In what may possibly be the biggest move towards multipolarity thus far,..Turkey, has done away with its former Euro-Atlantic ambitions. A year ago, none of this would have been foreseeable, but the absolute failure of the US’ Mideast policy and the EU’s energy one made this stunning reversal possible in under a year. Turkey is still anticipated to have some privileged relations with the West, but the entire nature of the relationship has forever changed as the country officially engages in pragmatic multipolarity.

Turkey’s leadership made a major move by sealing such a colossal deal with Russia in such a sensitive political environment, and the old friendship can never be restored…The reverberations are truly global.”  (“Cold Turkey: Ankara Buckles Against Western Pressure, Turns to Russia”, Sputnik News)

Korybko seems to be alone in grasping the magnitude of what happened in Ankara on Monday, although –judging by the Obama administration’s silence on the topic–the gravity of the transaction is beginning to sink in.  Grandmaster Vlad’s latest move has caught US powerbrokers flat-footed and left them speechless. This is a scenario that no one had anticipated and, if it’s not handled correctly, could turn out to be a real nightmare. Here’s more on Monday’s press conference from Russia Today:

“Putin said that Russia is ready to build a new pipeline to meet Turkey’s growing gas demand, which may include a special hub on the Turkish-Greek border for customers in southern Europe.

For now, the supply of Russian gas to Turkey will be raised by 3 billion cubic meters via the already operating Blue Stream pipeline…Moscow will also reduce the gas price for Turkish customers by 6 percent from January 1, 2015, Putin said.

“We are ready to further reduce gas prices along with the implementation of our joint large-scale projects,” he added.”  (“Putin: Russia forced to withdraw from S. Stream project due to EU stance”, RT)

How can this happen? How can Putin waltz into Ankara, scribble his name on a few sheets of paper, and abscond with a key US ally right under Washington’s nose?  Isn’t there anyone at the White House who’s smart enough to anticipate a scenario like this or have they all been replaced with warmongering ding-dongs like Susan Rice and Samantha Powers?

The Obama administration has been doing everything in its power to control the flow of gas from east to west and to undermine Russian-EU economic integration. Now it looks like the nimble Putin has found a way to avoid the economic sanctions, (Turkey rejected sanctions on Russia)  avoid US coercion and blackmail (which was used on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Serbia), and avoid Washington’s endless belligerence and hostility, and achieve his objectives at the same time.   But– then again– isn’t that what you’d expect from a level-headed martial arts pro like Putin?

“I won’t beat you,” says Bad Vlad.  “I’ll let you to beat yourself.”

And, so he has. Just ask the befuddled Obama who has yet to prevail in any of his encounters with Putin.

But why the silence? Why hasn’t the White House issued a statement about the big Russian-Turkey gas deal that everyone’s talking about?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because they don’t know what the hell just hit them, that’s why. They were completely blindsided by the announcement and can’t quite figure out what it means for the issues that are on the very top of their foreign policy agenda, like the pivot to Asia, or the wars in Syria and Ukraine, or the much-ballyhooed gas pipeline from Qatar to the EU, that was supposed to transit– you guessed it– Turkey.  Is that plan still in the works or has the Putin-Erdogan alliance put the kibosh on that gem too?   Let’s face it, Putin has really knocked it out of the park this time. Team Obama is clearly out of its league and has no idea of what’s going on. If Turkey turns eastward and joins the growing Russian bloc, US policymakers are going to have to scrap the better part of their strategic plans for the coming century and go back to Square 1. What a headache.

There’s a good article in Wednesday’s New York Times that summarizes Washington’s ambivalence towards South Stream perfectly. Here’s an excerpt:

“Moscow has long presented the project, proposed in 2007, as making good business sense because it would provide a new route for Russian gas to reach Europe. Washington and Brussels have opposed the project on the grounds that it was a vehicle for cementing Russian influence over southern Europe and for bypassing Ukraine, whose price disputes with Gazprom twice interrupted supplies to Europe in recent years.”

Putin’s Surprise Call to Scrap South Stream Gas Pipeline Leaves Europe Reeling”, New York Times)

This has been the argument from the get-go, that selling gas to people in the EU somehow strengthens Putin’s maniacal grip on the continent. What a joke. Would you, dear reader, be willing turn off the heat, tear up your energy bill, and freeze to death in the dark to prove to your gas company that you’re not willing to capitulate to their tyrannical rule?

Of course not, because the idea is ridiculous. Just like blocking South Stream is ridiculous. Putin is selling gas, not tyranny.  He doesn’t want people clicking their heels and goosestepping to work. That’s just propaganda from the people in the oil industry who lost the competition for supplying fuel to the EU. Call it sour grapes if you want, because that’s what it is. Their pipeline failed, (Nabucco) and Putin’s won. End of story. It’s called capitalism. Deal with it.

And here’s another thing: The countries that South Stream would have served, do not have a back-up supplier to meet their growing gas needs. So by following Washington’s lead, they’ve basically shot themselves in the foot. Analysts figure that any replacement for Russian gas will probably be 30 percent more expensive then they would have paid Gazprom.

Hurrah for the US! Hurrah for stupidity!

The US has been determined to sabotage South Stream from the very beginning, mainly because Washington wants its corporations and banks to control the flow of gas to the EU market through privately-owned pipelines in Ukraine. That way they can rake in bigger profits for their moneybags shareholders. Without going into too much detail about the various methods the US has used to torpedo the project, there’s one story that’s worth a look. This is from Zero Hedge:

“…two months before the Ukraine government was overthrown the prime  minister of Bulgaria, Plamen Oresharski,  ordered a halt to work on the South Stream on the recommendation of the EU. The decision was announced after his talks with US senators.

“At this time there is a request from the European Commission, after which we’ve suspended the current works, I ordered it,” Oresharski told journalists after meeting with John McCain, Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson during their visit to Bulgaria on Sunday. “Further proceedings will be decided after additional consultations with Brussels.”

At the time McCain, commenting on the situation, said that “Bulgaria should solve the South Stream problems in collaboration with European colleagues,” adding that in the current situation they would want “less Russian involvement” in the project.

“America has decided that it wants to put itself in a position where it excludes anybody it doesn’t like from countries where it thinks it might have an interest, and there is no economic rationality in this at all,” (said)Ben Aris, editor of Business New Europe told RT.”  (“Europe Gives Bulgaria A Bank System Lifeline As Battle Over “South Stream” Pipeline Heats Up”, Zero Hedge)

Let me get this straight: Madman McCain strolls into town and immediately starts ordering people around telling them he wants  “less Russian involvement”, and that’s enough to bring South Stream to a screeching halt? Is that what you’re telling me?

Yep. Sure sounds like it.

Does that help you see what’s really going here? This isn’t about Putin. It’s about gas, and who’s going to profit from that gas, and in whose currency that gas will be denominated. That’s what it’s about. The rest of the nonsense about “Russian involvement” or terrorism or human rights or national sovereignty is just gibberish. The people who run this country (like McCain), don’t care about that kind of stuff.  What they care about is money; money and power. That’s it.

So what are they going to do now?  How are the big powerboys in Washington going to express their rage over this new threat created by Putin and Erdogan?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out, after all, we’ve seen it a million times before.

They’re going to go after Erdogan hammer and tongs. That’s what they always do, isn’t it?

The only reason they haven’t started in already is because they’re getting their propaganda ducks in a row, which usually takes a day or two. But as soon as that’s taken care of, they’ll start dismantling old Recep one excruciating headline at a time. Erdogan is going to be the new Hitler and the greatest threat to humanity the world has ever seen.  You can bet on it.

Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds thinks that Washington has had-it-in for Erdogan a long time now, dating back to a  dust up he had with the CIA a few years back. In any event, she gives a pretty good account of what we can expect now that Erdogan is on Washington’s enemies list.  Here’s a clip from her post at Boiling Frogs:

“We all know what happens to those puppets when they end up in a rift with the CIA. Don’t we? The rift always brings expiration. Once a puppet is considered expired, then lo and behold, all of a sudden, the reversal branding and marketing begins: All old skeletons are dug out of the deep closets and leaked to the media. His previously overlooked human rights violations are looked at and scrutinized under a microscope. The terrorist card is brought into the equation. And the list goes on…

… All Empire-installed puppets and regimes must commit to the Empire’s commandments….Thou shall not violate the Imperial commandments. Because if you do, thou shall be disgraced, exposed, uninstalled, and may even be given death. All you have to do is look at the past century’s history. See what happens when an installed puppet gets too confident and inflicted with hubris, and ignores one or more commandments. This is when they are reborn as dictators, despots, torturers, and yes, terrorists. This is when their backyards get dug up to find a few grams of weapons of mass destruction.”…

No matter how we look at it Erdogan’s days are numbered … Anyone who ever dares to be this reckless will be punished and made an example for all other installed-puppets…”  (“Turkish PM Erdogan: The Speedy Transformation of an Imperial Puppet”, BFP)

So there it is. That’s what you can expect by the end of the week when the media starts their full-throttle demonizing of Erdogan, the man who dared to act independently and put the interests of his own people above those of the Washington mob bosses.  As anyone who’s followed US foreign policy for the last 60 years will tell you; that’s a big no-no.

Defending Dollar Imperialism

Ukraine War Driven by Gas-Dollar Link…

“The Fed’s ‘need’ to take on an even more active role as foreigners further slow the purchases of our paper is to put the pedal to the metal on the currency debasement race now being run in the developed world — a race which is speeding us all toward the end of the present currency regime.” Stephanie Pomboy, MacroMavens

“No matter what our Western counterparts tell us, we can see what’s going on. NATO is blatantly building up its forces in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas. Its operational and combat training activities are gaining in scale.” Russian President Vladimir Putin

If there was a way the United States could achieve its long-term strategic objectives and, at the same time, avoid a war with Russia, it would do so. Unfortunately, that is not an option, which is why there’s going to be a clash between the two nuclear-armed adversaries sometime in the near future.

Let me explain: The Obama administration is trying to rebalance US policy in a way that shifts the focus of attention from the Middle East to Asia, which is expected to be the fastest growing region in the coming century. This policy-change is called the “pivot” to Asia. In order to benefit from Asia’s surge of growth, the US plans to beef up its presence on the continent, expand its military bases, strengthen bilateral alliances and trade agreements, and assume the role of regional security kingpin. The not-so-secret purpose of the policy is China “containment”, that is, Washington wants to preserve its position as the world’s only superpower by controlling China’s explosive growth. (The US wants a weak, divided China that will do what it’s told.)

In order to achieve its goals in Asia, the US needs to push NATO further eastward, tighten its encirclement of Russia, and control the flow of oil and gas from east to west. These are the necessary preconditions for establishing US hegemonic rule over the continent. And this is why the Obama administration is so invested in Kiev’s blundering junta-government; it’s because Washington needs Poroshenko’s neo Nazi shock troops to draw Russia into a conflagration in Ukraine that will drain its resources, discredit Putin in the eyes of his EU trading partners, and create the pretext for deploying NATO to Russia’s western border.

The idea that Obama’s proxy army in Ukraine is defending the country’s sovereignty is pure bunkum. What’s going on below the surface is the US is trying to stave off irreversible economic decline and an ever-shrinking share of global GDP through military force. What we’re seeing in Ukraine today, is a 21st century version of the Great Game implemented by political fantasists and Koolaid drinkers who think they can turn the clock back to the post WW2 heyday of the US Empire when the world was America’s oyster. Thankfully, that period is over.

Keep in mind, the glorious US military has spent the last 13 years fighting sheep herders in flip-flops in Afghanistan in a conflict that, at best, could be characterized as a stalemate. And now the White House wants to take on Russia?

Can you appreciate the insanity of the policy?

This is why Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was sacked last week, because he wasn’t sufficiently eager to pursue this madcap policy of escalating the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Everyone knows it’s true, the administration hasn’t even tried to deny it. They’d rather stick with foam-at-the-mouth buffoons, like Susan Rice and Samantha Powers, then a decorated veteran who has more credibility and intelligence in his little finger than Obama’s whole National Security team put together.

So now Obama is completely surrounded by rabid warmongering imbeciles, all of whom ascribe to the same fairytale that the US is going to dust-off Russia, remove Assad, redraw the map of the Middle East, control the flow of gas and oil from the ME to markets in the EU, and establish myriad beachheads across Asia where they can keep a tight grip on China’s growth.

Tell me, dear reader, doesn’t that strike you as a bit improbable?

But, of course, the Obama claque think it’s all within their grasp, because, well, because that’s what they’ve been told to think, and because that’s what the US has to do if it wants to maintain its exalted position as the world’s lone superpower when its economic significance in the world is steadily declining. You see, here’s the thing: The exceptional nation is becoming more unexceptional all the time, and that’s what has the political class worried, because they see the handwriting on the wall, and the writing says, “Enjoy it while it lasts, buddy, cuz you ain’t gonna be numero uno much longer.”

And the US has allies in this wacky crusade too, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been particularly helpful lately by flooding the market with oil to push down prices and crush the Russian economy. (On Friday, Benchmark crude oil prices plummeted to a four-year low, with Brent crude sinking to $69.11 a barrel.) The Obama administration is using the classic one-two punch of economic sanctions and plunging oil revenues to bully Moscow into withdrawing from Crimea so Washington can move its nuclear arsenal to within spitting distance of Moscow. Here’s a bit of background from the Guardian:

“Think about how the Obama administration sees the state of the world. It wants Tehran to come to heel over its nuclear programme. It wants Vladimir Putin to back off in eastern Ukraine. But after recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, the White House has no desire to put American boots on the ground. Instead, 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.” (Stakes are high as US plays the oil card against Iran and Russia, Larry Eliot, Guardian)

And here’s more from Salon’s Patrick L. Smith at Salon:

“Less than a week after the Minsk Protocol was signed, Kerry made a little-noted trip to Jeddah to see King Abdullah at his summer residence. When it was reported at all, this was put across as part of Kerry’s campaign to secure Arab support in the fight against the Islamic State.

Stop right there. That is not all there was to the visit, my trustworthy sources tell me. The other half of the visit had to do with Washington’s unabated desire to ruin the Russian economy. To do this, Kerry told the Saudis 1) to raise production and 2) to cut its crude price. Keep in mind these pertinent numbers: The Saudis produce a barrel of oil for less than $30 as break-even in the national budget; the Russians need $105.

Shortly after Kerry’s visit, the Saudis began increasing production, sure enough — by more than 100,000 barrels daily during the rest of September, more apparently to come…

Think about this. Winter is coming, there are serious production outages now in Iraq, Nigeria, Venezuela and Libya, other OPEC members are screaming for relief, and the Saudis make back-to-back moves certain to push falling prices still lower? You do the math, with Kerry’s unreported itinerary in mind, and to help you along I offer this from an extremely well-positioned source in the commodities markets: “There are very big hands pushing oil into global supply now,” this source wrote in an e-mail note the other day.” (What Really Happened in Beijing: Putin, Obama, Xi And The Back Story The Media Won’t Tell You, Patrick L. Smith, Salon)

The Obama team managed to persuade our good buddies the Saudis to flood the market with oil, drive down prices, and put the Russian economy into a nosedive. At the same time, the US has intensified its economic sanctions, done everything in its power to sabotage Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline (that would bypass Ukraine and deliver natural gas to Europe via a southern route), and cajole the Ukrainian parliament into auctioning off 49 percent of the leasing rights and underground storage facilities to privately-owned foreign corporations.

How do you like that? So the US has launched a full-blown economic war against Russia that’s been completely omitted in the western media. Are you surprised?

Washington is determined to block further Russo-EU economic integration in order to collapse the Russian economy and put foreign capital in control of regional energy distribution. It’s all about the pivot. The big money guys figure the US has to pivot to Asia to be a player in the next century. All of these unprovoked attacks on Moscow are based on that one lunatic strategy.

But aren’t people in the EU going to be angry when they can’t get the energy they need (at the prices they want) to run their businesses and heat their homes?

Washington doesn’t think so. Washington thinks its allies in the Middle East can meet the EU’s energy needs without any difficulty. Check out this clip from an article by analyst F. William Engdahl:

“…details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. ….

On September 11, US Secretary of State Kerry met Saudi King Abdullah at his palace on the Red Sea. The King invited former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar to attend. There a deal was hammered out which saw Saudi support for the Syrian airstrikes against ISIS on condition Washington backed the Saudis in toppling Assad, a firm ally of Russia and de facto of Iran and an obstacle to Saudi and UAE plans to control the emerging EU natural gas market and destroy Russia’s lucrative EU trade. A report in the Wall Street Journal noted there had been “months of behind-the-scenes work by the US and Arab leaders, who agreed on the need to cooperate against Islamic State, but not how or when.

The process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh US commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority.”
(The Secret Stupid Saudi-US Deal on Syria, F. William Engdahl, BFP)

So the wars in Ukraine and Syria are not really separate conflicts at all. They’re both part of the same global resource war the US has been prosecuting for the last decade and a half. The US plans to cut off the flow of Russian gas and replace it with gas from Qatar which will flow through Syria and onto the EU market after Assad is toppled.

Here’s what’s going on: Syria’s troubles began shortly after it announced that it was going to be part of an “Islamic pipeline” that would transfer natural gas from the South Pars gas field off the coast of Iran across Iraq and Syria, eventually connecting to Greece and the lucrative EU market. According to author Dmitri Minin:

“A gas pipeline from Iran would be highly profitable for Syria. Europe would gain from it as well, but clearly someone in the West didn’t like it. The West’s gas-supplying allies in the Persian Gulf weren’t happy with it either, nor was would-be no. 1 gas transporter Turkey, as it would then be out of the game.” (The Geopolitics of Gas and the Syrian Crisis: Syrian “Opposition” Armed to Thwart Construction of Iran-Iraq-Syria Gas Pipeline, Dmitri Minin, Global Research)

Two months after Assad signed the deal with Iraq and Iran, the rebellion broke out in Syria. That’s quite a coincidence, don’t you think? Funny how frequently those kinds of things happen when foreign leaders don’t march to Washington’s tune.

Here’s more from Minin:

“Qatar is doing all it can to thwart the construction of the pipeline, including arming the opposition fighters in Syria, many of whom come from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Libya…

The Arabic newspaper Al-Akhbar cites information according to which there is a plan approved by the U.S. government to create a new pipeline for transporting gas from Qatar to Europe involving Turkey and Israel…

This new pipeline is to begin in Qatar, cross Saudi territory and then the territory of Jordan, thus bypassing Shiite Iraq, and reach Syria. Near Homs the pipeline is to branch in three directions: to Latakia, Tripoli in northern Lebanon, and Turkey. Homs, where there are also hydrocarbon reserves, is the project’s main crossroads, and it is not surprising… that the fiercest fighting is taking place. Here the fate of Syria is being decided. The parts of Syrian territory where detachments of rebels are operating with the support of the U.S., Qatar and Turkey, that is, the north, Homs and the environs of Damascus, coincide with the route that the pipeline is to follow to Turkey and Tripoli, Lebanon. A comparison of a map of armed hostilities and a map of the Qatar pipeline route indicates a link between armed activities and the desire to control these Syrian territories. Qatar’s allies are trying to accomplish three goals: to break Russia’s gas monopoly in Europe; to free Turkey from its dependence on Iranian gas; and to give Israel the chance to export its gas to Europe by land at less cost.”

How do you like that; another coincidence: “The fiercest fighting (in Syria) is taking place” where there’s massive “hydrocarbon reserves” and along the planned pipeline route.

So the conflict in Syria isn’t really about terrorism at all. It’s about natural gas, competing pipelines and access to markets in the EU. It’s about money and power. The whole ISIS-thing is a big hoax to conceal what’s really going on, which is a global war for resources, more blood for oil.

But how does the US benefit from all of this, after all, won’t the gas revenues go to Qatar and the transit countries rather than the US?

Yep, they sure will. But the gas will also be denominated in dollars which will shore up demand for USDs thus perpetuating the petrodollar recycling system which creates a vast market for US debt and which helps to keep US stocks and bonds in the nosebleed section. And that’s what this is all about, preserving dollar supremacy by forcing nations to hold excessive amounts of USDs to use in their energy transactions and to service their dollar-denominated debts.

As long as Washington can control the world’s energy supplies and force the world to trade in dollars, it can spend well in excess of what it produces and not be held to account. It’s like having a credit card you never have to pay off.

That’s a racket Uncle Sam is prepared to defend with everything he’s got, even nukes.

Russia Invades Ukraine. Again. And Again. And Yet Again… Using Saddam’s WMD

“Russia reinforced what Western and Ukrainian officials described as a stealth invasion on Wednesday [August 27], sending armored troops across the border as it expanded the conflict to a new section of Ukrainian territory. The latest incursion, which Ukraine’s military said included five armored personnel carriers, was at least the third movement of troops and weapons from Russia across the southeast part of the border this week.”

None of the photos accompanying this New York Times story online showed any of these Russian troops or armored vehicles.

“The Obama administration,” the story continued, “has asserted over the past week that the Russians had moved artillery, air-defense systems and armor to help the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. ‘These incursions indicate a Russian-directed counteroffensive is likely underway’, Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said. At the department’s daily briefing in Washington, Ms. Psaki also criticized what she called the Russian government’s ‘unwillingness to tell the truth’ that its military had sent soldiers as deep as 30 miles inside Ukraine territory.”

Thirty miles inside Ukraine territory and not a single satellite photo, not a camera anywhere around, not even a one-minute video to show for it. “Ms. Psaki apparently [sic] was referring to videos of captured Russian soldiers, distributed by the Ukrainian government.” The Times apparently forgot to inform its readers where they could see these videos.

“The Russian aim, one Western official said, may possibly be to seize an outlet to the sea in the event that Russia tries to establish a separatist enclave in eastern Ukraine.”

This of course hasn’t taken place. So what happened to all these Russian soldiers 30 miles inside Ukraine? What happened to all the armored vehicles, weapons, and equipment?

“The United States has photographs that show the Russian artillery moved into Ukraine, American officials say. One photo dated last Thursday, shown to a New York Times reporter, shows Russian military units moving self-propelled artillery into Ukraine. Another photo, dated Saturday, shows the artillery in firing positions in Ukraine.”

Where are these photographs? And how will we know that these are Russian soldiers? And how will we know that the photos were taken in Ukraine? But most importantly, where are the fucking photographs?

Why am I so cynical? Because the Ukrainian and US governments have been feeding us these scare stories for eight months now, without clear visual or other evidence, often without even common sense. Here are a few of the many other examples, before and after the one above:

• The Wall Street Journal (March 28) reported: “Russian troops massing near Ukraine are actively concealing their positions and establishing supply lines that could be used in a prolonged deployment, ratcheting up concerns that Moscow is preparing for another [sic] major incursion and not conducting exercises as it claims, US officials said.”
• “The Ukrainian government charged that the Russian military was not only approaching but had actually crossed the border into rebel-held regions.” (Washington Post, November 7)
• “U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip M. Breedlove told reporters in Bulgaria that NATO had observed Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops enter Ukraine across a completely wide-open border with Russia in the previous two days.” (Washington Post, November 13)
• “Ukraine accuses Russia of sending more soldiers and weapons to help rebels prepare for a new offensive. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied aiding the separatists.” (Reuters, November 16)

Since the February US-backed coup in Ukraine, the State Department has made one accusation after another about Russian military actions in Eastern Ukraine without presenting any kind of satellite imagery or other visual or documentary evidence; or they present something that’s very unclear and wholly inconclusive, such as unmarked vehicles, or unsourced reports, or citing “social media”; what we’re left with is often no more than just an accusation. The Ukrainian government has matched them.

On top of all this we should keep in mind that if Moscow decided to invade Ukraine they’d certainly provide air cover for their ground forces. There has been no mention of air cover.

This is all reminiscent of the numerous stories in the past three years of “Syrian planes bombing defenseless citizens”. Have you ever seen a photo or video of a Syrian government plane dropping bombs? Or of the bombs exploding? When the source of the story is mentioned, it’s almost invariably the rebels who are fighting against the Syrian government. Then there’s the “chemical weapon” attacks by the same evil Assad government. When a photo or video has accompanied the story I’ve never once seen grieving loved ones or media present; not one person can be seen wearing a gas mask. Is it only children killed or suffering? No rebels?

And then there’s the July 17 shootdown of Malaysia Flight MH17, over eastern Ukraine, taking 298 lives, which Washington would love to pin on Russia or the pro-Russian rebels. The US government – and therefore the US media, the EU, and NATO – want us all to believe it was the rebels and/or Russia behind it. The world is still waiting for any evidence. Or even a motivation. Anything at all. President Obama is not waiting. In a talk on November 15 in Australia, he spoke of “opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine – which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17”. Based on my reading, I’d guess that it was the Ukranian government behind the shootdown, mistaking it for Putin’s plane that reportedly was in the area.

Can it be said with certainty that all the above accusations were lies? No, but the burden of proof is on the accusers, and the world is still waiting. The accusers would like to create the impression that there are two sides to each question without actually having to supply one of them.

The United States punishing Cuba

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):

 
This year Washington’s policy may be subject to even more criticism than usual due to the widespread recognition of Cuba’s response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.

Speaking before the General Assembly before last year’s vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.

However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said:

The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.

So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest in 2011-12 ; that many of them were physically abused by the police; and that their encampments were violently destroyed.

Does Mr. Godard have access to any news media? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person.

As to “independent journalism” – What would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?

The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba has not changed since the revolution in 1959 – The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as many Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.

How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted its suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.

The United States judging and punishing the rest of the world

In addition to Cuba, Washington currently is imposing economic and other sanctions against Burma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, China, North Korea, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, South Sudan, Sudan, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, India, and Zimbabwe. These are sanctions mainly against governments, but also against some private enterprises; there are also many other sanctions against individuals not included here.

Imbued with a sense of America’s moral superiority and “exceptionalism”, each year the State Department judges the world, issuing reports evaluating the behavior of all other nations, often accompanied by sanctions of one kind or another. There are different reports rating how each lesser nation has performed in the previous year in areas such as religious freedom, human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons, and sponsors of terrorism. The criteria used in these reports are often political. Cuba, for example, is always listed as a sponsor of terrorism whereas anti-Castro exile groups in Florida, which have committed literally hundreds of terrorist acts over the years, are not listed as terrorist groups or supporters of such.

Cuba, which has been on the sponsor-of-terrorism list longer (since 1982) than any other country, is one of the most glaring anomalies. The most recent State Department report on this matter, in 2012, states that there is “no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups.” There are, however, some retirees of Spain’s Basque terrorist group ETA (which appears on the verge of disbanding) in Cuba, but the report notes that the Cuban government evidently is trying to distance itself from them by denying them services such as travel documents. Some members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been allowed into Cuba, but that was because Cuba was hosting peace talks between the FARC and the Colombian government, which the report notes.

The US sanctions mechanism is so effective and formidable that it strikes fear (of huge fines) into the hearts of banks and other private-sector organizations that might otherwise consider dealing with a listed state.

Some selected thoughts on American elections and democracy

In politics, as on the sickbed, people toss from one side to the other, thinking they will be more comfortable.
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

• 2012 presidential election:
  223,389,800 eligible to vote
  128,449,140 actually voted
  Obama got 65,443,674 votes
  Obama was thus supported by 29.3% of eligible voters
• There are 100 million adults in the United States who do not vote. This is a very large base from which an independent party can draw millions of new votes.
• If God had wanted more of us to vote in elections, he would give us better candidates.
• “The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything. At least they vote that way on election day.” – Eugene Debs, American socialist leader (1855-1926)
• “If persons over 60 are the only American age group voting at rates that begin to approximate European voting, it’s because they’re the only Americans who live in a welfare state – Medicare, Social Security, and earlier, GI loans, FHA loans.” – John Powers
• “The American political system is essentially a contract between the Republican and Democratic parties, enforced by federal and state two-party laws, all designed to guarantee the survival of both no matter how many people despise or ignore them.” – Richard Reeves (1936- )
• The American electoral system, once the object of much national and international pride, has slid inexorably from “one person, one vote”, to “one dollar, one vote”.
• Noam Chomsky: “It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars. Their professional concern in their regular vocation is not to provide information. Their goal, rather, is deceit.”
• If the Electoral College is such a good system, why don’t we have it for local and state elections?
• “All the props of a democracy remain intact – elections, legislatures, media – but they predominantly function at the service of the oligarchy.” – Richard Wolff
• The RepDem Party holds elections as if they were auctions; indeed, an outright auction for the presidency would be more efficient. To make the auction more interesting we need a second party, which must at a minimum be granted two privileges: getting on the ballot in all 50 states and taking part in television debates.
• The US does in fact have two parties: the Ins and the Outs … the evil of two lessers.
• Alexander Cockburn: “There was a time once when ‘lesser of two evils’ actually meant something momentous, like the choice between starving to death on a lifeboat, or eating the first mate.”
• Cornel West has suggested that it’s become difficult to even imagine what a free and democratic society, without great concentrations of corporate power, would look like, or how it would operate.
• The United States now resembles a police state punctuated by elections.
• How many voters does it take to change a light bulb? None. Because voters can’t change anything.
• H.L. Mencken (1880-1956): “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
• “All elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections.” – Joel Hirschhorn
• In 1941, one of the country’s more acerbic editors, a priest named Edward Dowling, commented: “The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”
• “Elections are a necessary, but certainly not a sufficient, condition for democracy. Political participation is not just a casting of votes. It is a way of life.” – UN Human Development Report, 1993
• “If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!” I reply, “You have it backwards. If you DO vote, you can’t complain. You asked for it, and they’re going to give it to you, good and hard.”
• “How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It’s the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It’s been 200 years at it. It’s superb.” – Gore Vidal
• We can’t use our democracy/our vote to change the way the economy functions. This is very anti-democratic.
• What does a majority vote mean other than that the sales campaign was successful?
• Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius: “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
• We do have representative government. The question is: Who does our government represent?
• “On the day after the 2002 election I watched a crawl on the bottom of the CNN news screen. It said, ‘Proprietary software may make inspection of electronic voting systems impossible.’ It was the final and absolute coronation of corporate rights over democracy; of money over truth.” – Mike Ruppert, RIP
• “It’s not that voting is useless or stupid; rather, it’s the exaggeration of the power of voting that has drained the meaning from American politics.” – Michael Ventura
• After going through the recent national, state and local elections, I am now convinced that taxation without representation would have been a much better system.
• “Ever since the Constitution was illegally foisted on the American people we have lived in a blatant plutocracy. The Constitution was drafted in secret by a self-appointed elite committee, and it was designed to bring three kinds of power under control: Royalty, the Church, and the People. All were to be subjugated to the interests of a wealthy elite. That’s what republics were all about. And that’s how they have functioned ever since.” – Richard K. Moore
• “As demonstrated in Russia and numerous other countries, when faced with a choice between democracy without capitalism or capitalism without democracy, Western elites unhesitatingly embrace the latter.” – Michael Parenti
• “The fact that a supposedly sophisticated electorate had been stampeded by the cynical propaganda of the day threw serious doubt on the validity of the assumptions underlying parliamentary democracy as a whole.” – British Superspy for the Soviets Kim Philby (1912-1988), explaining his reasons for becoming a Communist instead of turning to the Labour Party
• US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941): “We may have democracy in this country, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
• “We don’t need to run America like a business or like the military. We need to run America like a democracy.” – Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate 2012

Notes

1. Democracy Now!, October 30, 2013
2. Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012
3. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba(1991), p.885 (online here)
4. For the complete detailed list, see U.S. Department of State, Nonproliferation Sanctions
5. U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports on Terrorism 2012, Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism,” May 20, 2013

A New Push For Peace In Syria?

Why are there no serious peace talks to end the war in Syria? After robbing over 130,000 people of their lives, and evicting over 9 million refugees from their homes, the Syrian war has infected nearly every region of the Middle East. Yet among the U.S. and its regional allies there are no public discussions about a viable peace plan, only war talk.

It’s hard to talk peace when the United States is still maneuvering for war, having recently given $500 million to arm and train Syrian rebels, while also brokering a deal with Saudi Arabia to open a new Syrian rebel training camp, in addition to the one already functioning in Jordan. Instead of using Obama’s vast Middle East influence for peace he has used it to push war.

The brilliant failure of the U.S.-led Geneva peace talks on Syria was done without the seriousness demanded by the wholesale destruction of a nation. Obama used the talks to pursue “U.S. interests,” having purposely excluded Iran from the talks while trying to leverage disproportionate power for Obama’s “Free Syrian Army” rebels, who enjoy minuscule power on the ground as they used peace talks to make unrealistic demands.

Obama played a passive role in the peace talks, allowing them to flounder instead of publicly putting forth serious proposals that reflected the situation on the ground. There have been no talks since January and Geneva III is yet unscheduled, as Obama seems committed only to giving the rebels more bargaining power via more war, the logic being that if the rebels are armed and trained appropriately, they’ll eventually be able to win back enough land to force the Assad government to bargain on equal terms.

The giant void in the market for peace has opened up opportunities for Russia and Egypt, who reportedly are attempting to insert themselves as leaders in Middle East diplomacy, in part to expand their influence, in part to protect themselves from the conflagration of Islamic extremism the conflict is producing.

Mint Press reports on the still-developing story:

“Moscow and Cairo are preparing for a conference between the Syrian regime and the opposition in the hope of bringing them together in a transitional government that ‘fights terrorism’…the agenda of the conference to be held between the two sides includes establishing a transitional Syrian government with extensive powers while maintaining Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s authority over the army and security institutions.”

If such a proposal comes to fruition its merits must be seriously debated on the world stage, where Obama would very likely do his best to sabotage the peace. This is because Obama’s rebels on the ground in Syria — loosely organized under the “Free Syrian Army” banner — are powerless, and a Russia-led peace process would reveal this fact and apply it to a peace treaty, leaving little influence for the Obama administration in the new government. This is a peace deal Obama would rather kill.

Obama’s rebels are weak while the Syrian Government has made substantial military gains. Most notably a recent peace deal was won in Syria’s largest city Aleppo, modeled after the peace deal in Homs that allowed rebels to leave unarmed while giving de-facto control of the city to the government.

Interestingly, veteran Middle East journalist Robert Fisk recently questioned not only the relevance of Obama’s Free Syrian Army, but it’s very existence. Fisk explains:

“The Free Syrian Army I think drinks a lot of coffee in Istanbul. I have never come across it – except in the first months of the fighting, I’ve never come across even prisoners from the Free Syrian Army…You know, the FSA, in the eyes of the Syrians, doesn’t really exist. They’ve got al-Qaeda, Nusrah, various other Islamist groups, and now of course ISIS…But I don’t think they care very much about the Free Syrian Army. One officer told me that some have been accepted back into the Syrian Army, so they could go home. Others had been allowed to go home and they were not permitted to serve in the Syrian Army anymore. I think that the Free Syrian Army is a complete myth and I don’t believe it really exists and nor do the Syrians…”

Fisk’s analysis of the FSA punctuates the perspective of many who have long questioned whether the FSA had been totally absorbed by the Islamic extremist militias. At most the FSA exists in tiny irrelevant pockets, though Fisk thinks the FSA might be an Obama administration fantasy used to justify the ongoing Syrian war.

Aside from Obama’s weakness on the ground, there are broader geo-political reasons Obama would reject a Russia/Egypt-led peace. For one, the Obama Administration only recently made a long term investment in war, by giving the $500 billion to the Syrian rebels and training thousands more in Saudi Arabia, actions that effectively dismissed any meaningful reconciliation with Iran.

Obama chose instead to reinforce the close alliances with pariah states Saudi Arabia and Israel, and both are demanding that Syria be destroyed. By re-committing himself to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel, Obama has essentially abandoned peace with Syria and Iran, since Obama’s allies want Syria and Iran destroyed.

If Obama followed the lead of Russia and Egypt in the peace process, his allies would abandon him, since they’ve invested huge sums of money, arms, and their political livelihoods on making sure their governments and domestic companies profit off of the demise of the Syrian government.

This is the basis for the complete geo-political stalemate in the Middle East. Of course the giant U.S. corporations that benefit from Middle East dominance are applying maximum pressure to continue war. The stalemate has become so obvious and destructive in Syria that Russia and Egypt haveinserted themselves as power brokers, which would act to bolster their political-economic leverage while pushing the U.S. out.

Regional power scrambling aside, if a rational peace deal were put forth —whether it’s brokered by Russia, Egypt, or whomever — the world must demand that peace be pursued, lest the Syrian catastrophe continue.

Obama and his regional allies have proven totally incapable of producing any realistic peace proposal — they’ve been too consumed with war. Obama has yet another chance to recognize the results of this failed proxy war and accept a peace that is a 100,000 lives overdue, or it can forge ahead to expand the killing. Stopping the war is as easy as acknowledging the reality, and to forge a treaty that reflects it.

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