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The Myth Of The “Clean War”

via The Myth Of The “Clean War”

The Myth Of The “Clean War”

By Paul Rogers

Trump’s worldview promises low-cost military success. The blasting apart of civilian lives in Iraq says otherwise.

November 26, 2017 “Information Clearing House” – Many previous columns in this series focus on the transition in the western way of war since 9/11 from tens of thousands of “boots on the ground” to “remote warfare”. This has mainly involved a much more intensive use of air-power, including armed-drones; the utilisation of long-range artillery and ground-launched ballistic-missiles; and the much wider use of special forces and privatised military corporations.

The change has been consistently analysed by a few non-government organisations, most notably the Remote Control project and Drone Wars UK, whose specific concern is armed drones.

The states pursuing this kind of offensive war see three advantages, two military and one political:

* Their own forces take minimal casualties, meaning fewer bodybags and funeral corteges

* They believe that the tactic works in practice

* There is very little media coverage of this type of war, and in the case of some countries, most notably Britain, there has been a long-term political convention that the role of special Forces should not be subject to public debate or even scrutiny.

The U.S. Air Force is on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan this year compared with last year.

Warfare by “remote control” also seems to be working, not least in the three-year war against Islamic State. It is now clear that Donald Trump’s policy of devolving more authority to the United States military in the wars it is fighting is having a much wider effect. For example, the Pentagon has quietly increasing its forces in Somalia by adding several hundred special-forces troops (as Politico reports) and ratcheting up airstrikes (as Military Times reports), while airstrikes against an al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen are continuing.

In Afghanistan, the build-up of forces is even more substantial. More US troops have arrived amid concern over the Taliban’s ability to extend its territorial control. But less noted is the substantial increase in the US use of air-power and armed-drones since Trump took office. A US media outlet states:

“The U.S. Air Force is on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan this year compared with last year, new figures reveal as the White House opens a new front in America’s longest war. The military dropped 3,554 weapons against the Taliban as of Oct. 31 – already nearly three times the 1,337 dropped in 2016 and nearly four times as the 947 fired in 2015.”

Operation Jagged Knife, a recent offensive by the US airforce, included B-52 strategic bombers and – for the first time in Afghanistan – the advanced F-22 stealth strike-aircraft.

Promise and reality

All this is in the context of the presumed defeat of ISIS forces in Iraq and Syria, which is seen within the Trump team as proof of victory. Since 2014, the Pentagon believes it has killed over 60,000 ISIS fighters, but acknowledges fewer than 500 civilian casualties. This is the way to fight future wars, it believes. The expanded operations in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia are further examples of the path to be taken.In this Trumpian worldview, “clean wars” will be the order of the day. But a closer look shows that things are not so simple, in two distinct aspects: the outcomes of the “war on terror“, and its more recent reality. A brief digest of principal events since 2001 illustrates the first point:

* On 29 January 2002, George W Bush’s state-of-the-union address was akin to a victory speech in the wake of the termination of the Taliban regime and the suppression and dispersal of al-Qaida after 9/11 – yet the war in Afghanistan has just entered its seventeenth year

* On 1 May 2003, the US president  gave his “mission accomplished” speech after the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq – yet that very month a nascent insurgency began to spread across the country, which would also last years

* In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected, the war in Iraq looked sufficiently under control for him to order wholesale troop withdrawals, but in 2014-17 the US has again been at war in the country

* In 2011, Nato chiefs thought that the downfall of Libya’a Muammar Gaddafi they had engineered would be followed by peace and stability, but it provoked more conflict, while the US’s SEAL-team killing of Osama bin Laden that year didn’t mark the end of al-Qaida, a scion of which the US is now bombing in Yemen.

On the ground

The dangerous myth of the “clean war” should be seen in a second aspect. The results of military action in the last three years illustrate the second point, and expose the dangerous myth of the “clean war”. Airwars, the monitoring group, finds the US-led wars in Iraq and Syria have involved over 28,000 airstrikes, split more or less evenly between the two countries, using over 103,000 bombs and missiles. Airwars has done its best to assess the likelihood of civilian casualties, and currently puts these at a minimum of around 6,000 – far larger than any Pentagon figures. Where Iraq is concerned,  Iraq Body Count says that over 179,000 civilians have died in the last fifteen years.

ISIS’s loss of most of its territory has been followed by reports of a concentrated air-war ranged against its forces, whose effects include the widespread destruction of both western Mosul and Raqqa. The extent of damage is hardly surprising. In the last part of the Raqqa campaign, Airwars says:

“Between October 1st and 17th – when the last strike was reported – the US-led alliance says it fired 2,384 munitions at Raqqa, much of it the result of US artillery strikes. Between 266 and 355 more civilians were credibly reported killed in the city as a result according to local monitors – including more than 90 women and children.”

One in five of the coalition strikes we identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition.Yet it has been hard for analysts to assess the more general claim of the “clean war” with any accuracy, in that they were dependent largely on data provided by US Central Command (USCC). The best efforts of NGOs like Airwars and Iraq Body Countnotwithstanding, their findings could be discounted or ignored.

That is at last beginning to change, as these groups’ work is supported by on-the-ground assessments from experienced journalists who have gone at great pains to travel to areas now controlled by government forces after ISIS’s retreat. Their reports confirm sceptics of the “clean war” myth. The most substantive account available so far is a long report in the New York Times (see Azmat Khan & Anand Gopal, “The Uncounted”, NYT, 16 November 2017).

Over a fourteen-month period to July 2017, they visited 150 sites of attacks across northern Iraq, and interviewed hundreds of witnesses, survivors and family members. They later compared their findings with data from USCC itself. In all, they were able to coordinate data from 103 airstrikes. Their conclusions warrant a longish extract:

“We found that one in five of the coalition strikes we identified resulted in civilian death, a rate more than 31 times that acknowledged by the coalition. It is at such a distance from official claims that, in terms of civilian deaths, this may be the least transparent war in recent American history. Our reporting, moreover, revealed a consistent failure by the coalition to investigate claims properly or to keep records that make it possible to investigate the claims at all. While some of the civilian deaths we documented were a result of proximity to a legitimate ISIS target, many others appear to be the result simply of flawed or outdated intelligence that conflated civilians with combatants. In this system, Iraqis are considered guilty until proved innocent.”

The fighting against ISIS, especially in the densely packed streets of Raqqa and western Mosul, was intense. In Mosul in particular, the Iraqi army’s special forces took very heavy losses. It was not just the utter determination of the ISIS paramilitaries to fight, but their willingness to die for their cause that proved so difficult to counter. It was in those circumstances that air-power was used relentlessly. In an objective sense it may be what you would expect, even if you may question the war as a whole.

That, though, is not the point, which is that the entire air-war has been presented as a “clean” operation – which it evidently was not. If we think that remote warfare is the way to go because it kills neither “our” people nor innocent civilians, then we are deluding ourselves. And that delusion in turn makes it even less likely that we will get the kind of scrutiny and political debate we need on the direction and long-term consequences of this new way of war.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England. He is openDemocracy’s international security adviser, and has been writing a weekly column on global security since 28 September 2001; he also writes a monthly briefing for the Oxford Research Group. His latest book is Irregular War: ISIS and the New Threat from the Margins (IB Tauris, 2016), which follows Why We’re Losing the War on Terror (Polity, 2007), and Losing Control: Global Security in the 21st Century (Pluto Press, 3rd edition, 2010). He is on Twitter at: @ProfPRogers

This article was originally published by OpenDemocracy –

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Uncategorized, War on Terror

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Why So Many Mass Killings? Look in a Mirror

NB Commentary: Think about it. Whether real or contrived, the idea that it happens should cause one to pause and think. Why does this country thrive on this type of fanfare, violence, false flags, hoaxes or whatever you wish to call them? Over and over again, we see people die, or maybe not, killed or maybe not, but whatever the case may be, DEATH is the calling card and then the other is GUN CONTROL. Ironically, the Powers that Shouldn’t Be feel that if they do this enough times they will beat the public down so far they will cry for  two things.

1. More protection from the PTB, which is ironically not being very protective
And
2. Gun Control, which these events just make the sale of guns skyrocket.


So what is the real agenda here? Do they do this to keep the stock market booming with the gun sales, the consumers fear purchases, the media hype and tons and tons of views while they parrot the same story? Somebody is getting over like a fat rat and these events are milking the public of their sensibilities and wreaking havoc on the mental, emotional and physical health of the populace.
Please read this article, it says it all. Whether these events are true or false, the fact that they even happen says a lot about the American Psyche.

Why So Many Mass Killings? Look in a Mirror

By Joe Clifford
June 27, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – We will never understand the mass killings in Orlando, Aurora, Newtown, or any of the many others, until we take a long hard look at ourselves in a mirror. Why does this happen so frequently, and why is it such a rare occurrence in other industrialized nations?  We cannot comprehend this because we fail to come to grips with certain very hard realities about who we are as a nation and a people.
There are cries for gun control every time a massacre occurs, and never once has anyone pointed out the hypocrisy of trying to stop the flow of guns to the US public, while the US government floods the entire world with weapons.  We are the undisputed leader in selling killing weapons around the world, and no ever questions the hypocrisy of a government trying to take guns from its people, while our government and military industrial complex inundates the world with weapons. Government always sets the model for the people, and here we have a great example. 
Mass murderers have absolutely no regard or respect for law, and once again it is the US government who sets the example for its people, by defying international law and invading and bombing anyone in callous contempt of the law.  Government officials huddle secretly once a week to decide what individuals must be “taken out,” paying no attention to the legality of murder without charges, evidence, or a trial. Currently, Secretary of State John Kerry, the nations’ chief diplomat, is calling for regime change in Syria.  What gives the US the legal right to decide who will rule Syria? Nothing; there is no legal right that gives the US the power to determine leadership of another nation.  The US has sponsored untold numbers of illegal coups of democratically elected leaders, but again, so much for the law.  If the US government is so callous about law, and constantly sends the message that we don’t care about law, why would it be a surprise when citizens do the same? The government sets the example and the people follow.
The hardest thing for citizens to reconcile, is just how violent a nation we are. Our government is a mass killer.  The first people to get in our way were exterminated. We ethnically cleansed the American Indian from his own land. We then enslaved a race of people.  More recently, we killed 3 million people in southeast Asia.  Can you explain why?  We have killed about one million over the past 20 years in Iraq.  Do you know why?  We invaded Iraq based on a series of lies claiming they had WMD; a hoax that led to a needless slaughter. Iraq was a war of choice, which is illegal, but who cares about law?
Do you know how many nations the US is currently bombing? We have killed untold innocents in Afghanistan over the last 20 years. Can you explain why?  Do you know why we bombed Libya for 7 months, turning it into a completely failed terrorist state? Media, pundits, and presidential candidates, condemn Muslims, but the US government has bombed 14 Muslim nations, and perhaps has killed as many as 4 million Muslims in our never ending wars.  War has become the American pastime.  We are always looking for new enemies, and when none are around our government creates them up by demonizing leaders who might challenge our authority such as North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and China. We are dangerously provoking both Russia and China almost daily. The State Department has been taken over by war crazy neocons who are risking a nuclear holocaust.  It is no wonder that in a poll of 68 nations, the US was named the biggest threat to world peace.
Weapons of war are the leading export.  The military consumes the lion’s share of the US budget, and everything else is sacrificed to pay for the largest military in the history of the planet.  We spend more on security, war, and defense, than the rest of the world put together.  There is no money left for anything else, so kids go to college and acquire a mortgage, while college is free in most industrialized nations.  We have the worst health care in the industrialized world, paying huge sums for poor health care compared to the rest of the world.  Health care is a right in most civilized nations, but they don’t have the enormous cost of never ending wars that we do. They have luxuries such as free college, excellent government health care, high speed trains, great airports, and infrastructure. Other nations, because they have better health care, treat mental illness. We cannot afford it, as all money goes to support the military. Just about all of the mass murderers have been emotionally troubled, but because we do not treat mental illness, they take up arms and kill. We give lip service to our veterans, but let them live under bridges as homeless troubled people. Other nations, offer treatment to troubled individuals.
The murder rate in this country is light years ahead of other nations. We have an industrialized prison system with more people incarcerated than any other country in the world. War is glorified and neither the military nor the police can do anything wrong.  An entire new generation has known only war in their lifetime. African Americans are shot down in cold blood by police, with more than 1000 killed last year, with 50% being unarmed, and none of their killers are held responsible.  Without cell phone videos, those deaths would be swept under the proverbial rug.
So take a long thoughtful look in a mirror.  Government sets the example and we follow.  Our government’s prime concern is making war on others and killing those who get in the way.  We are a cold blooded violent nation led by a cold blooded government, so when all too frequently the blood of our citizens flows in the streets, why are we shocked?

Category:

9/11, Afghanistan, Boston Bombing, gun control, Iraq, mass killings, military industrial complex, mind control, Orlando, sandy hook, terrorism, war, War on Terror

‘ISIS managed to sell oil to Turkey on black market at less than 50% of global prices’ – Iraqi MP

‘ISIS managed to sell oil to Turkey on black market at less than 50% of global prices’ – Iraqi MP

NB Commentary:
A member of the Iraqi Parliament, Dr Mowaffak al Rubaie, tells RT how ISIS manages to earn millions of dollars selling oil on the black market in Turkey and reveals that wounded terrorists are being treated in Turkish hospitals.
Dr. Mowaffak al Rubaie appears to be exposing Turkish complicity but falls very short of exposing them completely.  It has been reported fairly widely that they are also giving military support as well.
This is turning out to be rather stinky. Folks are telling in each other.  The rats are being flooded out of their hiding places by the very ones who hid them. If only it could now be over. But, alas, human beings have war cells for brains so they will simply find something else to drop bombs on each other for.

Category:

accusations, black market, hospitals, hypocrisy, Iraq MP, ISIS, militants, military operatives, Mowaffak al Rubaie, oil, RT, terrorists, Turkey, War on Terror

Turkey Downs Russian Fighter to Draw NATO and US Deeper into Syrian Quagmire by MIKE WHITNEY

    NOVEMBER 24, 2015
  1. Email
    2. On Tuesday, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane that was carrying out military operations against jihadi groups in Northern Syria. The downing of the Su-24 fighter jet is part of a broader plan by the administration of Turkish President Tayyip Recep Erdogan to topple the secular government of Syrian President Bashar al Assad and to establish “safe zones” on the Syrian side of the Turkish-Syrian border. Erdogan needs the safe zones to provide a sanctuary for the militant extremists who are the footsoldiers in his war against Syria. The downing of the Russian fighter is a desperate attempt by Erdogan to incite a reaction from Russia that will draw either NATO or the United States deeper into a conflict which has dragged on for 4 and a half years and killed 250,000 people.
    Unlike the Obama administration, that has been willing to arm and train jihadi groups to conduct its proxy-war against Assad in Syria, Erdogan is a true believer, a committed Islamist who has done everything in his power to roll back democracy in Turkey, to establish one-man rule, to destroy the independent judiciary, to silence the free press, and to establish a conservative and intolerant Islamic state. Erdogan is what many would call a “Koolaid drinker”, a man who believes that his support for disparate and vicious terrorist groups that have decimated Syria, laid its civilian infrastructure to waste, and displaced more than half the population is “God’s work”. Make no mistake, the Turkish government is the modern-day Caliphate. The fact that its government officials dress in nicely-tailored suits rather than black pajamas, is merely a way to divert attention from their extreme fanaticism and their covert support for liver-eating fundamentalist savages.
    In the seven weeks since Russia began military operations in Syria, nearly all of the gains of the US-Turkey-Saudi-Qatar jihadi coalition have been wiped out. The decisive battle took place more than a week ago at Kuweris airbase east of Aleppo. This was the tipping point for the war although the imminent fall of Aleppo is bound to attract more notoriety. It’s clear now that the Russian-led coalition is winning the war, has foiled US attempt to remove Assad, and that the bulk of the foreign mercenaries will either be killed or captured. The Obama administration realizes that the current phase of the war is hopeless and has started to implement a fallback plan to control territory in E Syria that is critical for future pipeline corridors. In contrast, the Turkish government is completely unwilling to accept the fact that its plan has failed which is why it has embarked on this risky strategy to draw either NATO or Washington deeper into the fray. Check this out from a Tuesday battlefield report from South Front:
    “The Syrian forces backed up by the Russian warplanes, pushed back the militant groups from nearly 200 kilometers of land in the coastal province of Lattakia, military sources said Monday. On Sunday, the Syrian army and popular forces purged the terrorists and advanced to areas near the Turkish borders. The ground reports argue that the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) took control of Zahia heights, 2km from the joint borders with Turkey.”
    Can you see what’s going on? The Russian-led coalition is closing in on the Syria-Turkish border which will put an end to Erdogan’s dream of toppling Assad or continuing to fuel the war with terrorists that are provided a safe haven on Syrian soil. This is why the Su-24 fighter was shot down on Tuesday. It is a desperate attempt to salvage the failed strategy of toppling a secular government and replacing it with friendly Islamic extremists who hew to Erdogan’s twisted worldview.
    By the way, readers should take a minute and review the video of the “moderate” headchoppers that the US supports in Syria paying special attention to their moderate treatment of prisoners. The Russian pilot was captured by these “freedom fighters”, shot twice in the chest and then his clothes were ripped off so he could be moderately photographed. These are the fine fellows that Uncle Sam would like to see in Damascus heading the government because, as we all know, “Assad has lost legitimacy.” (See here.)
    For the last three days, I have been following a fast-evolving plan by the Turkish Terrorist Government (TTG) to create a false flag operation that would draw either the US or NATO deeper into the war in Syria reversing Obama’s recent commitment NOT to deploy ground troops to the warzone. On Saturday, Turkish newspapers reported that 1,500 Syrian Turkmen had fled to the Turkish border for safety. The reasons that were given were that the Russian warplanes were bombing areas where ISIS was not located. True, ISIS is not located in these Turkmen villages by the border; rather the barbarians that you see in the video are located there. These men belong to the jihadi groups that that have been funded, armed and trained by Turkey and the US and who are fighting to topple Assad. Reasonable people who would like to see an end to terrorism, should feel supportive of Putin’s efforts to annihilate these monsters. Instead, the Turkish government has been trying to make the case that Russia is bombing innocent civilians. Now check out this story (from Monday) in Turkey’s leading newspaper Hurriyet:
    “Turkey has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss attacks on Turkmens in neighboring Syria, according to Prime Ministry sources, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu saying his government will “not hesitate” to take the required measures on Syrian soil to protect the Turkmen people…
    Turkey is in discussions with the United States and Russia over the bombing of the villages and has sent a letter to Britain, the current holder of the U.N. Security Council’s presidency, asking for the subject to be taken up, sources from Davutoğlu’s office told Reuters on Nov. 23…
    Speaking to reporters late on Nov. 22, Davutoğlu recalled that he was engaged in constant contact with both Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar and National Intelligence Organization (MİT) Chief Hakan Fidan over the weekend concerning alleged Russian air raids on Turkmen villages near the Syrian-Turkish border. Sources, meanwhile, told Reuters that Davutoğlu had consulted on the intelligence dimension of the issue with Akar and Fidan.
    “Our security forces have been instructed to retaliate against any development that would threaten Turkey’s border security,” the prime minister said. “If there is an attack that would lead to an intense influx of refugees to Turkey, required measures would be taken both inside Syria and Turkey,” he added.
    “Looking at background of these attacks, in a region where very clearly there is no element of Deash (ISIS), where there is no terrorist element, first Russian airplanes come and then with support from foreign fighters.
    “We will also take the required measures diplomatically for the protection of our brothers and sisters in the place where they are located and for the protection of their human rights in the face of any threat,” he also stated.” (Turkey urges UN to act to protect Turkmens in Syria, Hurriyet)
    So is the Turkish PM correct in saying the Russians are bombing the Turkmen civilians forcing them to flee from their homes. Not according to Turkmen leader Ali Türkmani. Here’s what he said:
    “There is a perception operation that is being waged over the Turkmens. The regime will of course attempt to maintain its territorial integrity. As such, threats from al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army are being targeted [by Russian air strikes]. It’s not correct to say the Turkmens are being targeted.”
    So civilians are not being targeted, but the Turkish government is supplying weapons and ammo to the terrorists as this article in the Turkish Daily Zaman proves:
    “Several trucks bound for Syria were stopped at the beginning of last year by Turkish gendarmerie forces upon instructions by a prosecutor. It turned out they contained weapons.
    The AK Party government claimed for months that the trucks only included humanitarian aid, but a report published by the Cumhuriyet daily in May last year revealed that the trucks contained weapons.
    According to the daily’s report, a truck, which is thought to be one of many, contained 1,000 artillery shells, 50,000 machine gun rounds, 30,000 heavy machine gun rounds and 1,000 mortar shells.
    The government was accused of sending the weapons to radical Islamist groups in Syria, but Davutoğlu swore in June that the trucks were bound for Turkmens. In contrast, Turkmens had earlier denied receiving any weapons from Turkey.” (Turkey calls on UN Security Council to convene for Turkmens in Syria, Today’s Zaman)
    So what is the game-plan here? What is Turkey really up to?
    Well, first of all, they are trying to set up a safe zone on sovereign Syrian territory so they can continue to spread terror across Syria. Check out this clip from the Daily Sabah and you’ll see how these Turkmen radicals who are allies of Ankara are seizing villages to create the safe zone:
    “Syrian opposition groups supported by Turkish and US warplanes took control of two Turkmen towns in Northern Syria early Saturday, Anadolu Agency reported….The operation was supported by six Turkish F-16s, four US F-15s and an AC-130 joined the offensive along with three drones.
    Security sources added that this success in the fight against DAESH that can be defined as the first step for the creation of a DAESH-free zone in Northern Syria….
    Speaking about Turkey’s stance on the recent developments in Northern Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in a live broadcast on Wednesday that declaring no-fly and safe zones is crucial to resolve the Syrian Crisis….Erdoğan further stated that Turkey will continue to carry out anti-terror operations until concrete results are achieved and peace is restored.” (First step for the safe zone in N. Syria: opposition groups take two Turkmen towns from DAESH, Daily Sabah)
    Whether you call it an ISIS-free zone or not is irrelevant. The fact is, the Turkish government (with US air support) is trying to annex Syrian territory for its own nefarious purposes. That much is clear.
    The downing of the Russian Su-24 fighter fits perfectly with the way in which the Turkish government has been ratcheting up tensions on the border, using its jihadi allies to seize Syrian territory, and trying to incite a violent reaction that will force greater NATO or US involvement. I seriously doubt that Putin is gullible enough to take the bait and overreact to this obvious and pathetic provocation in Ankara. He will exact his pound of flesh at some other time, a time of his own choosing.
    MIKE WHITNEY lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
    More articles by:MIKE WHITNEY
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Category:

Aleppo, counterpunch, Daesh, Erdogan, fighters, ISIL, NATO, Obama, Putin, Russia, Syria, terrorists, Turkey, UN Security Council, USA, War on Terror, WWIII

A Game Worth the Candle: Terror and the Agenda of our Elites | Articles

A Game Worth the Candle: Terror and the Agenda of our Elites

Chris Floyd

Published: 14 November 2015 
People see the carnage in Paris, and cry, “When will this end?” The hard answer is that it is not going to end, not any time soon. We are living through the horrific consequences of decisions and actions taken long ago, as well as those of being taken right now. The currents and movements set in motion by these actions cannot be quelled in an instant — not by wishing, not by hashtags of solidarity or light shows on iconic buildings … and certainly not by more bombing, destruction, repression and lies, which are the main drivers of our present-day hell.

There will be no end to rampant terrorism soon because our leaders are not really interested in quelling terrorism. This is simply not a priority for them. For example, in the past 12 years they have utterly destroyed three largely secular governments (Iraq, Libya and Syria) and turned them into vast spawning grounds for violent sectarianism. They did this despite reports from their own intelligence services and military analysts telling them that the spread of violent extremism would almost certainly be the outcome of their interventions. But for our leaders — both the elected ones and the elites they serve — their geopolitical and macroeconomic agendas outweighed any concerns over these consequences. Put simply, to them, the game was worth the candle. They would press ahead with their agenda, knowing that it would exacerbate extremism and terrorism, but doubtless hoping that these consequences could be contained — or better yet, confined to nations seen as rivals to that agenda, or to remote places and peoples of no worth to our great and good.
Our leaders are not opposed to terrorism, neither as a concept nor as a practical tool. Over the past several decades, our leaders and their allies and puppets around the world have at times openly supported terrorist violence when it suited their aims. The prime example is in Afghanistan, where Jimmy Carter and his Saudi allies began arming and funding violent jihadis BEFORE the Soviet incursion there. In fact, as Carter’s own foreign policy guru, Zbigniew Brzezinski, has openly stated, the United States began supporting Islamist terrorism in Afghanistan precisely in order to draw the Soviet Union into the country. Despite fierce internal opposition in the Kremlin, the Soviets finally took the bait, and sent in troops to save the secular government it was backing from the fundamentalist rebellion.
Ronald Reagan continued and expanded this policy. The same type of men now in charge of ISIS and al Qaeda were welcomed to the Oval Office and praised by Reagan as “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” They were given arms, money and training in terrorist tactics by our military and intelligence services. They were given textbooks — prepared, financed and distributed by the US government — to indoctrinate schoolchildren in violent jihad. The creation of this worldwide network of Islamic extremists was aimed at weakening the Soviet Union. This was the overriding geopolitical concern of the time. Any other consequences that might flow from this policy — creating a global infrastructure of sectarian extremism, seeding a radical minority with arms, funds and innumerable contacts and connections with state were considered unimportant. But we are now living with those consequences.
These are not the only examples of course. For instance, the United States supported — and went to war for — the KLA in Kosovo, a group that it had earlier condemned as terrorists for years. The cultish terror group MEK —which not only carried out deadly terrorist attacks in Iran but also murdered American government officials — is now honored and supported by top politicians from both parties in Washington. The United States now calls al Qaeda associates in Syria “moderate rebels” and provides arms to their allies. The United States is deeply involved in Saudi Arabia’s horrific attack on Yemen against the Houthis, who had been bottling up al Qaeda in the country. Now, thanks to US bombs and guidance — and participation in a blockade of Yemen that is driving the country to starvation — al Qaeda is thriving there again. The violent extremists that the West knowingly and openly helped in NATO’s destruction of Libya are now exporting weapons and terrorists throughout Africa and the Middle East.
Again, in almost all of these cases, Western leaders were specifically warned by their own experts that their actions would exacerbate extremism and violence. And again, with this knowledge, they decided that their geopolitical agendas were more important than these consequences. This agenda — maintaining and expanding their political and economic dominance, and preserving the power and privileges that a militarist empire gives to those at the top — was more important than the security and welfare of their own people.
In this, they are as one with the leaders of ISIS and al Qaeda. They too know that the chief victims of their actions will not be the elites of the West but the ordinary Muslims going about their lives in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India and elsewhere. But their own similar agenda — power, privilege, domination — outweighs any concerns for innocent human lives.

This is the abysmal, despairing tragedy of our times. Our lives, and the lives of our children and descendants, do not really matter to our leaders; certainly not more than the agendas they pursue. And so despite the horrors we’ve seen in the past few weeks — and yes, the bombing of the Russian airliner, the mass murders in Beirut and Baghdad are every bit as horrific and grievous as the attack on Paris — nothing is likely to change. Our leaders are not even beginning to take the steps necessary to even begin addressing the consequences of their morally demented agenda and at last begin the long process of reversing the current of violence and extremism that assails us. Instead, at every turn, they are adding to the flow of death and madness, despite the stark, undeniable evidence of the consequences of their actions.
They say they are at war with terrorism. It’s a lie. They use terrorism and terrorists when it suits their agenda. They say they are “at war” with ISIS, an enemy which they tell us represents an existential threat to human civilization, and whose destruction is now our “highest priority.”  It’s a lie. In a real war against such a threat, you would make common cause against the common enemy, even if you find your allies distasteful. Thus the mutually loathing capitalists of the West and communists of the Soviet Union (and elsewhere) made common cause against Nazi Germany.
If we were really “at war” with ISIS, if its military defeat really was an overriding concern, then the West would form a military coalition with Iran, Russia, Turkey, the Syrian government and others to carry out this goal. It is obvious that for the West, the overthrow of the Assad government is far more important than defeating ISIS or bringing the conflict in Syria to an end by diplomatic means.

Instead, our leaders give every indication that they will continue the policies that have brought us to this dark and evil place. With the near-total ignorance and amnesia of our media class, there is little hope that public opinion can be mobilized to insist on a new course. And so, at some point soon, we will see more iconic buildings bathed in the colors of a Western nation (but never one from the Middle East, whose peoples suffer more, by several orders of magnitude, from the decades of extremism fostered by the West). And this will go on, year after year, until we decide that human life, human dignity, human freedom are more important than our leaders’ agendas of greed and domination.

Category:

Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, boko haram, business, CIA, elites, Iraq, ISIL, Kosovo, Libya, middle east, mudrasas, Russia, sectarianism, terror, Ukraine. Mossad, War on Terror

US Media Shows Footage of Russian Airstrikes Passed Off as American

US Media Shows Footage of Russian Airstrikes Passed Off as American

Nana’s Commentary:
It appears that everyone is rejoicing in Russia’s efforts to cause the downfall of “ISIS” which is ironically being call DAESH for some reason and it’s notable that the “ISIS” people hate that name and would rather be called “IS” but that is not really the crux of this commentary.

Yes, Russia has entered with flying colors, the so-called “War On Terror” and supposedly that is a good thing but for some reason it does not feel good at all. In fact, it is reminiscent of what happens when you exterminate roaches. You may definitely get them out of your house or apartment, but they migrate, pardon the pun, to the house next door, or the apartment above or below, only to wait out their time for when they can return. We have seen this throughout history over and over and over again. Where do these dissidents actually go in the long run? Without justice there’s no peace but is justice merely the bombing of the militants? Can you actually “kill” them all? Why do Militants exist in the first place? Drugged up, gunned up and escaping poverty, these Mercenaries are of a certain ilk that cannot be destroyed by bombing their predecessors. In fact, those they kill will become heroes to their progeny.
We are we so short sighted when it comes to resolving our differences that we impose death and destruction instead of mediation and resolve? Why haven’t those countries that support the militants after seeing the damage come to an agreement to cease and desist in propping them up? Do they have two faces? One that appears to be against them militants and one that is hidden that supports them because they help their imperial plans?

I do think they have gotten in a little over their heads this time. This is not 50 years ago, 100 years ago. Technology has advance so much in the past 20 years that for sure these folks can communicate quickly and with ease across wide swaths of the planet and mobilize within days. Guerrilla warfare is second nature to them. Boots on the ground is their clarion call. They are not flying through the air with bombs and missiles and yet they are hard to exterminate. Why is this? What do they want, and why do they fight so hard for it?
Am I being too sensitive to think that these folks have families and loved ones? Am I being to naive to think of the karmic and spiritual impact of killing thousands more, destroying more territory and infrastructure and as one journalist mentioned, hiking the price of oil? Is this what this is really all about or has this “War On Terror” become a flashpoint for the whole world to get a piece of the action, either for or against the terrorists.
Our world and its global politics is in a shambles. It’s a marriage made in hell, where nobody really wins but that doesn’t stop the fighting. And of course, it’s Russia’s turn to avenge its demise in Afghanistan via the help, support and assistance of the Mujahideen funded by the US. Shortly after which, Russia’s control over a large area and several countries came to a screeching halt. Countries left the USSR and Russia was left weak and ineffectual in a region in which it had reigned supreme for decades, posing as a Global power and threat to the tiny US military might. Russia has done what the 33rd Hexagram in the I Ching Oracle talks about. It retreated and gained in strength so that it could come back even more powerful on the international scene and take back control or at least gain some Western Allies.
How ironic is that? Now the West is supporting Russia and while the US propaganda machine and talking heads attempted to vilify Russia at every opportunity, the fact that Russia has taken out more IS militants in a few months than the US and its allies have done in 4 years is notable. It reminds me of how I would tell my children (sons) to go clean up their room and hours later it looked like nothing had been done, and yet I could go in there and within 30 minutes get the job done.
In essence, Russia has made the US and NATO look like chumps in this “War On Terror.” But is that a good thing?
I feel very uneasy about this. Part of it has to do with the whole barbarism of war and bombing and blowing shit up. But the other part has to do with the reign of destruction and its impact on the ethereal level. That level that we cannot see with our naked eye but that part of reality that tells us that we are all connected. So every death and destruction and destitution and abandonment that hits those folks hits us too even if we don’t see it or experience it personally. So I am wondering if drawing Russia into this, well I guess they didn’t exactly draw them in, Russia has had enough of the BS playing around and supporting the militants and in fact, it is getting quite close to home and affecting Russia’s sovereignty and while other countries look the other way as this occurs, Russia saw the shenanigans that the US and its allies pulled with the Ukraine and that was a bit too much and taking things a bit too far.
As one journalist mentioned, the US is not even part of that part of the world, so why are they even meddling in the business of those people? The US considers itself apart of the West but in actuality it is not. This explains the adage the US and it’s Western allies because quite frankly, the US is in North America and pretty darned far from the European Nations. It cannot be part of the EU and frankly Russia has more right to be.
Russia is flexing its muscles, it is pulling away from the USD, it is forming a strong alliance with Brazil and China, it supporting Syria and standing with it against a  gas pipeline going through its country to the West. It is making a comeback!
Yet, it feels ominous to me. I am not sure if Putin is NOT part of the NWO (which I call the Old World Order with a New Face). I am not sure if this new presence of Russia on the scene is going to bring these terroristic threats and creations of terroristic threats to a close or if, like roaches, they will simply escape to a quiet arena and begin strategizing for their next assault. Will the US and the 40 other nations that have been funding IS and other groups simply stop and give up their plan for world hegemony or will they devise another plan, create an alternative, design another scare to strike fear into the heart of the masses. Is it now time for the so-called “Last Card” the “Alien Threat?”
Although Putin is doing the “Job” in Syria, I am reticent to applaud it. Personally, I cannot imagine living somewhere that has been bombed tens of thousands of times!!! Maybe if Putin works with his allies to help rebuild Syria so that the Syrian people can come back home, I may feel a little better about this, but I am having a hard time adjusting to this level of violence and seeing it as a good thing.

© PHOTO: YOUTUBE/PBS NEWSHOUR
© Ministry of defence of the Russian Federation
21:18 21.11.2015(updated 03:54 22.11.2015) Get short URL
Topic:
PBS NewsHour, a daily US television news program shown on the US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), used footage of Russian airstrikes against ISIL targets, claiming that they were US airstrikes, an Information Clearing House article revealed.
Earlier this week, the US government said it would intensify anti-ISIL airstrikes and bomb the terrorist organization’s oil infrastructure, which is ISIL’s primary source of income.
After that, on November 16, the US military said it destroyed 116 trucks carrying illegal oil in ISIL-controlled territories.
“On Monday, 295 trucks were in the area, and more than a third of them were destroyed, United States officials said. The A-10s dropped two dozen 500-pound bombs and conducted strafing runs with 30-millimeter Gatling guns. The AC-130s attacked with 30-millimeter Gatling guns and 105-millimeter cannons,” the New York Times colorfully described the US military operation that allegedly took place on November 16.
Well, it sure sounded like a major anti-ISIL operation in the wake of the Paris attacks. But so far, these are just claims, not backed by any evidence.
Two days later, on November 18, the Russian Air Force destroyed 500 oil trucks that had been illegally transporting oil from ISIS-controlled territories.
Unlike the US Air Force, which didn’t provide any video evidence from their alleged operation, the Russian Defense Ministry promptly released videos of what exactly happened to terrorists and how the operation unfolded.
On November 19, PBS NewsHour ran a program on ISIL and “showed” how their oil trucks were destroyed by US airstrikes.
It’s all fine and dandy, but the US public broadcaster used the footage of Russian airstrikes, passing them off as US airstrikes, without revealing the true source.
“For the first time the US is attacking oil delivery trucks,” the voice-over said between 2:30 — 2:35, while showing a clip of exactly the same video published by the Russian Defense Ministry the day before.
The PBS shows footage of Russian airstrikes against ISIL targets, passing them off as US airstrikes. The PBS program neither mentioned the Russian military operation nor revealed the source of the footage.
What the US channel did was just outright lying, because millions of viewers would certainly think the video footage showing the explosions of oil trucks was from US airstrikes about which the New York Times ran an article on Monday.    

About 500 terrorists’ fuel trucks that had been illegally transporting oil from Syria to Iraq were destroyed by Russian aviation in a few days, Col. Gen. Andrei Kartapolov, Chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said.
“Just in the first few days, [Russian] aviation destroyed about 500 fuel tankers. This greatly hampered the militants’ possibility to illegally export energy resources and, accordingly, their income from oil smuggling.”
“Just in the first few days, [Russian] aviation destroyed about 500 fuel tankers. This greatly hampered the militants’ possibility to illegally export energy resources and, accordingly, their income from oil smuggling.”

Read more: 

http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151118/1030342846/su-34-oil-isil-infrastructure.html

Category:

airstrikes, aviation, bombers, Defense ministry, fuel tankers, infrastructure, ISIL, ISIS, militants, NATO, NWO, PBS, public media, Russia, Su-34 bombers, Syria, War on Terror

6 Painful Truths About the War on Terrorism

6 Painful Truths About the War on Terrorism

Dylan Charles, Editor

If you were 4 years old when 9/11 occurred in 2001, then you’re now old enough to enlist and fight in the war on terror. Recent geo-political events suggest that this conflict may endure for some generations to come, so, regretfully, your children may also get to participate. The war on terrorism is apparently part of our culture and part of our lives now.

“The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for peace in our time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are at war now — with somebody — and we will stay at war with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.” – Hunter S. Thompson

By no means a prophet, Hunter S. Thompson was just an eccentric observer with a knack for connecting the dots between political events and the ongoing mainstream media narrative that supports and manufactures consent for the oligarchy. When taken at face value, the terror script is indeed a rather convincing and motivating story, but when you dismantle the official fiction and bring the hidden pieces into the picture, the truth about the war on terror is just too heavy for conscious people to ignore any longer.
As it persists, international terrorism is guaranteed to increase, and as time goes by, we learn more and more about the real reasons why we’ve been forced into this apocalyptic conflict. After nearly 15 years of kicking down doors, drone bombing villagers, shattering societies, and mourning our own senselessly dead, here are 6 things we now know for sure about the war on terrorism.

“The first casualty when war comes is truth.”  – Hiram W. Johnson

1.) The war on terror was never about ensuring the security of Americans at home or abroad, nor was the current situation the result of foreign policy blunders.
The conflict was engineered from the onset to break up, destroy and destabilize most of the oil-producing countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa. The war on terrorism is about control of oil, about conquering national economies and turning them over to ‘foreign investors,’ about demonizing Muslim nations, about creating a lawless territory in which to develop Western controlled mercenary armies like ISIS, about protecting Israel’s interests in the region, aboutdestabilizing Europe, about opening access to the poppy fields of Afghanistan, and about punishing those nations which dared to defy the international banking cartel by moving to avert the petro-dollar.
The war on terrorism is also about radically altering the legal framework of Western governments to allow for greater surveillance, control and the militarization of once free societies. The aim is to continually broaden the definition of terrorism so that any act of defiance against the state or the corporate oligarchy, whether advocating for human rights, the environment, or any other issue of popular concern, can be persecuted without due process. The war on terror will be used to target American citizens who support the idea of limited government and strive to maintain the protections afforded by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America.
Additionally, the war on terror is about creating new markets for the security industry and opening steady income streams for war profiteers and arms manufacturers, so that a relative minority can profit heavily from the continuance of the war and the waste, swindling and destruction involved.

2.) The war on terror doesn’t stop terror, because it is terror.
The Western nations most heavily invested in the war on terror are also the nations most heavily involved in global arms trading, which gives advanced weaponry to any despotic tin pot dictator with an oilfield. And France just happens to be the world’s number one exporter of arms per capita.The Western ‘coalition’ regularly kills civilians in other nations directly and indirectly, which is in and of itself a very real type of terrorism.

“You cannot have freedom or peace in a country whose government is engaged in the global wholesale of advanced military arms and weaponry to national governments.”–Stefan Molyneux

Regional arms sales by the UK.
3.) Our worst terrorist enemies are the products of government, the military industrial complex and Western intelligence agencies.
The Mujahideen was originally organized, funded, trained and supplied by the CIA to oppose the Soviet Union. The Mujahideen became Al Qaeda with the assistance of Saudi Arabia and American training, arms and financial aid. Al Qaeda has morphed into, or been replaced with ISIS, who is the creation of the military industrial complex, the US, Israel, the UK and France, and is supported by some 40 other nations who knowingly trade and deal with ISIS.

“They tax you in order to create weapons to sell to foreigners to attack you.” –Stefan Molyneux

ISIS, the new Islamic Caliphate as they call it, is the most barbaric, cruel and inhumane social movement to come about in some number of centuries, perhaps even a millenia or more. ISIS was given birth and nurtured into being by the West, and now, primarily Muslim people are suffering horribly in their own homelands while the war intensifies and extends into Europe in acts of urban terrorism.



Video from November 2015 of an ISIS fighter in Syria using an American TOW missile to waste an American Humvee.


4.) The mainstream media plays a crucial in perpetuating the war on terrorism.
The primary role of the corporate-owned and government-controlled mainstream media is to transform selected acts of terror into enduring symbols that can be used again and again to reinforce the war on terror narrative. Their secondary role is to keep the level of tension and stress as high as possible by ceaselessly over-reacting to non-events and over-reporting on non-issues, thereby keeping the public captivated and hypnotized by an ongoing drama so that when a major event does occur it has the greatest possible psychological impact.
Reporting on global terrorism is duplicitous and hypocritical because certain events have more franchise than others in influencing public support for government policy changes and military actions. In the practical world of marketing, French flags pictured draped over national monuments at night-time will go much further in promoting the war on terror than Kenyan flags draped over African monuments.
The media uses shock and awe in a war of psychological attrition against the public. The objective is to incapacitate and sideline people from participating in dissent, while scaring people into acquiescence to any imposed government authority or security measures.

5.) State-sponsored False flag attacks still work to achieve political objectives.
There is a tremendous continual international effort underway to expose the true facts behind each new terror attack, terror plot, and major government lie. The alternative media is growing in reach and effectiveness, however, the reality is that the Hegelian dialectic of problem, reaction, solution still works on a shell-shocked public.

6.) Suicide is more deadly to our soldiers than any terrorist organization.
The war on terrorism represents the first time in US history that suicide has been the leading cause of death of US soldiers. The psychological impact of this type of conflict is unique and the suicide rate of returning soldiers may be our best evidence that the war is unwinnable.

Final Thoughts
The goal of the war on terror is transform people into willing participants in chaos, mayhem and murder, or to turn them into collateral damage. Nobody is born a terrorist, and we are all being set up as dispensable pawns in an orchestrated clash of civilizations.
The truth is out there. When you cut through the propaganda, emotional triggers, and the divisive nature of discourse today, what’s left is the truth that the war on terror is something that we must end. The rise in global consciousness and our willingness to speak out may be our only hope.

Read more articles from Dylan Charles.
About the Author
Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com, the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com, a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at wakingtimes@gmail.com.
This article (6 Painful Truths About the War on Terrorism) was originally created and published byWaking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this copyright statement.
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Category:

9/11, alternative media, CIA, drugs. munitions, false flags, fear, militarization, MOSSAD, oil, Russia, Saudi Arabia, US aggression, US intervention, Waking Times, War on Terror

Russian Air Forces destroy 500 terrorist oil trucks in Syria; disrupt oil sales channel

Russian Air Forces destroy 500 terrorist oil trucks in Syria; disrupt oil sales channel

Around 500 fuel tanker vehicles transporting illegal oil from Syria to Iraq for processing have been destroyed by Russia’s Air Forces, the General Staff said. “In recent years, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and other extremist groups have organized the operations of the so-called ‘pipeline on wheels’ on the territories they control,” Russian General Staff spokesman Colonel General Andrey Kartapolov said. 

Hundreds of thousands of tons of fuel have been delivered to Iraq for processing by trucks and the revenue generated from these illegal exports is the one of the terrorists’ main sources of funding, he said. The spokesman displayed images showing convoys comprised of hundreds of vehicles transporting oil to back up his assertion. 


“In just the first few days, our aviation has destroyed 500 fuel tanker trucks, which greatly reduced illegal oil export capabilities of the militants and, accordingly, their income from oil smuggling,” Kartapolov stressed. The spokesman also said that the Russian military has begun developing proposals for joint military action with the French Navy against the terrorists in accordance with an order by President Vladimir Putin. “This joint work will begin after the arrival of aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to the Syrian shores,” Kartapolov explained. 

Russia has been bombing Islamic State and other terror groups in Syria since September 30 at the official request of country’s president, Bashar Assad. On Tuesday, Russia’s fleet of 25 long-range bombers joined Su-34, Su-25, and Su-24M warplanes conducting operations in Syria to double the number of airstrikes against the militants. Russian Air Forces destroy 500 terrorist oil trucks in Syria; disrupt oil sales channel — Puppet Masters — Sott.net: http://www.sott.net/article/306705-Russian-Air-Forces-destroy-500-terrorist-oil-trucks-in-Syria-disrupt-oil-sales-channel


How does ISIS earn $3 million a day? NATO helps them smuggle oil

Sputnik News
Sat, 15 Aug 2015 14:11 UTC

The terrorist network Islamic State (ISIL) is financed through illegal oil sales and makes a profit of about three million dollars a day. NATO members, including Turkey, the US and the United Kingdom tolerate the terrorists’ oil smuggling activities, DWN reported. 

Close allies of the United States and the UK secretly finance the terrorist group Islamic State (ISIL). The Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq and the Turkish military intelligence have supported ISIL’s oil smuggling activities and supplied the terrorist group with weapons and equipment, DWN reported. 

Oil smuggling is one of the main financial resources for ISIL. The terrorist group controls about 60 percent of Syria’s oil production and seven major oil fields in Iraq. 

ISIL managed to increase its production to 45,000 barrels of oil per day, supported by a network of corrupt officials in the Kurdish government and Turkey. With their help, the terrorist organization makes an average profit of about 3 million dollars a day, the newspaper wrote. 

However, both the Turkish and the Kurdish government officially deny any connection to ISIL’s oil smuggling activities.Both governments are said to have taken corresponding measures to stop oil smuggling, supported by the US and British governments. 

However, widespread corruption in political circles practically brought these efforts to a naught, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed reported to MiddleEastEye. 

Ahmed refers to statements of Turkish, Kurdish and Iraqi officials. An anonymous source in the ruling party of Iraq, the Islamic Dawa party, confirmed to him that “members of the Kurdistan Regional Government have tolerated ISIL’s oil sales on the black market.” 

According to the official, Turkey tolerates ISIL’s oil black market as well, with the US silently watching these activities. 

“The Americans know what’s going on. But Erdogan and Obama have a good relationship with each other. Erdogan makes basically what he wants and the United States has to agree with it,” the official said. 

Even British corporations are reported to be involved in the business of the Islamists. The Anglo-Turkish oil company Genel Energy closely linked to a group of British parliamentarians has reportedly received an order to supply the refineries for the Kurdish energy company Group Nokan. The latter is suspected of supporting ISIL’s illegal oil sales to Turkey, DWN reported.

Category:

$3million, bombers, chaos, destruction, illegal smuggling, ISIL, NATO, oil trucks, Russia, Turkey, US, War on Terror

NB Commentary: Paris attacks shaping the G20 Summit meeting

Paris attacks shaping the G20 Summit meeting

Okay, so now it’s Daesh?? why? Because ISIS really stands for Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. So it got downgraded to IS, and now Daesh. I keep telling them, they don’t need to re-invent the wheel. And they keep trying to convince us that this thing, this quagmire can be won. and now they trying to get everybody scared, looking under their beds for terrorists.

What does Daesh mean? ISIS ‘threatens to cut out the tongues’ of anyone using this word

Excerpt: “In January this year, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announced that he would begin referring to the Islamic State group by this name, saying: “Daesh hates being referred to by this term, and what they don’t like has an instinctive appeal to me.”It seems that other world leaders have now followed suit, with French president Francois Hollande and the USA’s secretary of state John Kerry both using the term.According to NBC, ISIS has reportedly threatened to ‘cut out the tongues’ of anyone it hears using the term.Evan Kohlmann, a national security analyst, told NBC: “It’s a derogatory term and not something people should use even if you dislike them.”

Cognitive dissonance at the helm of this campaign or have the Psychopaths of the world been unleashed?

How is it that the dots are not being connected? When you bomb somebody’s home, town, city, country, infrastructure, where are they supposed to go? What are they supposed to do. Stay there and risk loosing their lives?

The War on Terror is waged on all people civilians and militants alike. No longer is it an army against another army or a country against another country, we are looking at what I would call, tribal wars, where people are fighting people simply because they have decided that the “PEOPLE” are the enemy.

And to legitimize this operation they arm the rebels so they rebels can have something to fight back with? It is pure insanity and beyond comprehension that any of this could make any sense to anyone except another Psychopath!

And while we are at it, let’s create an even worse crisis for the refugees fleeing Syria as Turkey outright bombs with western and US back ammo. Turkey, under the bidding of the US has further destabilized its own sovereignty wanting so desperately to be an EU member while endangering the very lives of its own citizens. So as a show of force and strength it will send 10 thousand troops to the border to keep the very people they disenfranchised out of Turkey. Can we scream TOTAL FAIL??

I would like to know who their military strategist is who comes up with these plans, do they have any clue about the “blowback” this can create? Had they even thought about the already looming refugee crisis happening as a result of the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, where did they think the people of Syria who want to live their lives in peace where going to go when their lives and livelihoods have been totally usurped from them? Did they think they could kill off all the civilians and just have the issue of mass graves instead of mass tent cities lining their Turkish borders.

Turkey has geo-politically placed itself inside a cesspool with a bunch of folks who could care less about Turkish interests and are more concerned with their own hegemony in the so-called Middle East.

Category:

ammunition, Assad, Daesh, France, G20, geopolitics, Hollande, ISIS, Obama, Psychopaths, Putin, refugees, Turkey, War on Terror, weapons

America: Your Solidarity with Paris is Embarrassingly Misguided

America: Your Solidarity with Paris is Embarrassingly Misguided



Op-Ed by Claire Bernish
November 14, 2015
(ANTIMEDIA) The World, at Large — We are in mourning. Again. Indeed, Paris is in mourning, again.
For the second time in less than a year, we are all de facto Parisians — with Facebook profiles, casinos, and whole buildings draped in the blue, white, and red of the French flag. Solidarity as sympathy, bien sûr — a most poignant message that humanity stands with Paris — and will act decisively to avenge the “carnage” unexpectedly wrought by those whose motives most will never fall victim to, much less comprehend.
Most?
Evidently, despite the accumulated knowledge of the entire planet at our disposal through the computer screen, solidarity has escaped some of us.
And I am weary.
Without question, I mourn for Paris’ recent victims and their families — and I would never claim knowledgeable firsthand experience of the same. But I refuse — despite my partial French heritage — to cloak myself in nationalism of any stripe or star, particularly not now. Because, besides victims in Paris, an incomprehensibly astronomic number of people have been grieving loss of the highest order for some time — in places whose names roll off our tongues as if it’s accepted that violence simply happens there — and a majority likely couldn’t guess the colors on these victims’ flags.
You see, I also mourn for those killed mere hours before Paris crumbled into chaos, in strikingly similar attacks in Beirut.
I mourn the hundreds of thousands displaced or killed in Syria, no matter their pledged allegiance. No matter their professed religion. No matter.
I mourn for the millions killed in ongoing and renewed, illegal United States’ aggression in Iraq — and those facing a torturous demise from exposure to depleted uranium employed in violation of international and humanitarian law — for reasons far closer to ‘American’ and corporate hegemony than compassionate principle.
I mourn the untold number killed in the United States’ insidious — and seemingly permanent — war in Afghanistan. And the countless children there who know nothing of peace, much less the feeling of safety it brings. And patients and staff recently targeted, bombed, and then shot while fleeing the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz — and the irony of that humanitarian organization’s French roots.
I mourn those forced into human slavery or sex trafficking in Malaysia; and curse the scant hope they escape, now that the massive TPP has garnered U.S. government’s tacit approval of the abhorrence that is human trade.
I mourn for Palestinians, whose land was usurped — and whose lives and infrastructure and families and sense of security and HOMES are under siege and occupation by an illegal and actively terrorist State.
I mourn the patients and staff at the over 100 healthcare facilities in Yemen that have been BOMBED since March. And the apparently soulless who found an acceptable target in hospitals.
I mourn for Yemen.
I mourn for the victims of complicit government violence in Mexico, and 43 students and their families who lack answers.
I mourn for Chinese men, women, and children working, quite literally, as slaves, so the West can be rude at dinner and take endless pictures — of its narcissistically apathetic self.
I mourn rampant genocide — past and present — for the sake of manifest destiny. And empire. And imperialism. And inexplicable and unstated reasons.
In fact, I mourn for all victims of terror, whether State or group sponsored, without conditions attached to my grief — no matter location, nor loyalty, nor arbitrary geopolitical happenstance of location of a victim’s birth. And I’m already grieving those soon to be terror’s next victims; since, as French President François Hollande jarringly warned, avenging Paris’ victims just birthed (yet another) “PITILESS” war.
As if gentle were somehow a method to employ in waging war.
Yes, I mourn for Paris. But I do so while weeping in shame at the deplorable supercilious judgment ensconced in Western reaction to it; for countless pitiable xenophobes and their endless vapid justifications; for arrogant commentary from politicians and their media mouthpieces with their embarrassing post-tragedy clamoring to exploit ignorant heartstrings for the appropriate victims; for the endless War of Terror — and the service members who somehow haven’t yet deduced that this would ALL END if they simply refused to fucking fight.
The fact is, grief on this scale is exhausting. And I’m very nearly out of tears.
So keep these victims around the globe in mind — every, single man, woman and child who has, who is, and who will suffer the maiming, horror, torture, and death that’s as necessary to war as those who take up arms — when you next excuse a politician’s stance on war, because the rest of his or her platform seems really promising.
Or, at least, seems the lesser of two evils.
And shake that flag from your social media profile; and your home; and your thoughts. Because as long as you wear just one flag, your attempt to stand with victims of terror is a most embarrassingly hollow solidarity, indeed.

Category:

arms, Beirut, false flags, hypocrisy, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, palestine, Paris, politicians, solidarity, state terrorism, Syria, war, War on Terror

Warhawks: U.S. Officially in "Proxy War" with Russia, Putin Is the New Hitler

Warhawks: U.S. Officially in “Proxy War” with Russia, Putin Is the New Hitler

The irony of this whole thing is that Putin has more reason to defend Syria against ISIS than any other Western nation because Russia’s borders and Russia’s interests are closer to the mark. Anglo-American interests merely lie on dollars and cents, but Russia due to its close proximity has a stronger case in  its right to wipe out ISIS.
Alternatively, the US launched this so-called war on Terror. In doing so, it opened the door for any Nation who feels threatened to launch such a war, not only within its borders but outside of its borders as well. The US and it’s allies in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar and Egypt have all done the bidding of the West in adding their resources in this so-called War on Terror. But now that Russia wants to get into the act, they flip the switch and throw blame at Russia for doing exactly what the US and its allies have felt was their right and that is bomb foreign people in foreign countries half way around the world.

To me, the reality is, them fat folks who don’t fight on the front lines, want to instigate another confrontation to CYA, a lose, lose strategy of suicide. To hell with the soldiers, their families and loved ones, to hell with the infrastructure of Syria, to hell with the immigrant crisis, to hell with the US deficit and its inability to channel these billions into the American economy, tell hell with it all! The US can not stand to be upstaged by somebody ELSE trying to be the world’s next super power.

Reminds me of the old “QuickDraw McGraw” cartoon and what he would say whenever Baba Louie had an idea. He would retort, “Baba Louie, I’ll do the thinnin around here and doooonnnnn’t you for get IT!!”

@ 3:12 “I’ll do the thinning around here, and doooon’t you forget it!”

Quickdraw McGraw – 6 Gun Spook

Baba Looey to the Rescue
Quick Draw McGraw was a cartoon horse with a red cowboy hat and a blue scarf. He played a sheriff in the wild, wild, West. The character was voiced by the inimitable Daws Butler.
His sidekick and deputy, Baba Looey, was a donkey whose accent reminded one of Ricky Ricardo of I Love Lucy fame. His name was spun off Ricardo’s famous song, Baba Lu.
As sheriff, Quick Draw made the decisions. Baba Looey, though often more reasoned, would be told when trying to interject a cogent idea, “I’ll do the thinning around here, and doooon’t you forget it!” Of course, Baba Looey was always right, and Quick Draw saved the day, in spite of himself.
Walking on two feet, like a human, Quick Draw had hoof-like hands, modified with fingers so he could hold his gun. He was so human-like, he even rode his own horse. Viewers were treated to the unlikely spectacle of a horse on a horse.
In another “persona,” Quick Draw could don a mask and become El-Kabong, a Zorro parody. As El-Kabong, he would subdue bandits by bashing them over the head with his guitar while simultaneously yelling,”KABONG!!!! His instrument never survived.
Toonopedia has a website with more information on Hanna-Barbera’s Quick Draw McGraw.

    Before Putin Showed Up, 11 Other Countries Were Already Bombing Syria

    OCTOBER 12, 2015
    Russia has struck over 110 ISIS targets in Syria in just two weeks. Over 40% of the Islamic State’s infrastructure has reportedly been destroyed already.
    We lost track somewhere (sadly), but it was recently noted by Putin that, by the time Russia showed up and started systematically destroying ISIS in short order, there were already 11 other countries bombing Syria.
    Eleven other countries…
    In fact, it has been over a year since America started an airstrike campaign over there.
    What does that tell you?
    It hardly needs to be pointed out how blatantly obvious it is that, regardless of how many billions the American people were told just had to be spent “fighting the terrorists” over there, this was never for one hot second about the West actually stopping ISIS.
    The only way that lie works is if the Western coalition is the most inept terror rescue team ever invented in the history of time.
    Further, instead of applauding Putin’s timely and efficient intervention in Syria, the West is protesting Russia’s involvement and bombing of terrorists.
    It’s as if they want the terrorists to win, isn’t it? If Assad gets deposed, then what? The terrorists take over? Yeah, that worked really well in Libya, Iraq, Egypt…
    Meanwhile, NATO has dusted off and thoroughly updated its Cold War plans like giddy children at Christmas. Sure took them long enough to get their pretext to drag Russia into war, didn’t it?
    Melissa Dykes (formerly Melton) is a co-founder of TruthstreamMedia.com. She is an experienced researcher, graphic artist and investigative journalist with a passion for liberty and a dedication to truth. Her aim is to expose the New World Order for what it is — a prison for the human soul from which we must break free.

Category:

airstrikes, Al Qaeda, bombing, CIA, Egypt, ISIL, ISIS, middle east, PNAC, Qatar, Quickdraw McGraw, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, War on Terror, war-machine, Warhawks, WWIII

Nana’s Commentary – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Migrants and Refugees

The Neocon Cabal had the idea of destabilizing the so called Middle East, guess they didn’t pencil in the immigrant issue and the tent cities this destabilization would create. Seems even the UN was a little behind the ball in allowing these “wars on Terror” to continue unabated. Maybe they couldn’t think clearly cause they missed their morning coffee. But it seems to me, since they are working with a so-called Global Agenda, they would have thought of this especially considering the number of refugees that left Afghanistan and Iraq. Now we got, Syria, Libya, and Yemen to add to the mix. 

It amazes me that the US and UK sought out Allies for their Global War on Terror, Allies who are all in Europe and the Middle East who would be the most impacted by the Exodus of people from war torn countries. This Exodus is taking place thousands of miles from America’s shores. Let their friends in Europe take the hit. That’s what friends are for? I guess they too will think twice before going along with the US and UK hidden agenda when it comes to the next “War On Terror”

Even if they return, which most of them want to do, what will they return to? An infrastructure completely destroyed, farmland destroyed, institutions of learning and religion destroy, livestock destroyed, and ins some cases the fall out from depleted uranium, etc. And the biggest purveyor of the “Lie” that hurled the world into war is least likely to take these immigrants in. Do I need to name names here?? I think not.

Millions of migrants seeking asylum in Europe face hostility, racism, and red tape. John Oliver does one admittedly tiny thing for one of them.

The notion that Europe’s population is decreasing in size was not a projection for Semitic people to come in and fill in the blanks. They want Europeans to increase their birth rate, they are afraid of annihilation or extinction of the European stock. That is the fundamental root cause of the hysteria. It’s racist and xenophobic. They do not wish to mix their seed with the seed of those coming from the Middle East no matter how much they profess to be Christians. To them these folks are Semitic and this is a form of antisemitism, quiet as it’s kept. They are also considered “brown” people and some of them are very dark “brown” especially coming from Yemen and Libya.

Extinction of European Population
 

The Global Elite could care less about the inconvenience. They could care less about making sure these folks are carefully assimilated into these cultures. And for sure, their cultures are drastically different even in the case of those who are receiving them with open arms. The Cultural and language differences are going to be staggering. The immigrants may be able to adopt the language but they will have a difficult time with the food and customs. They need support from folks who speak their language, understand their customs and eat their food. Without that type of intervention and engineering, we will be looking at tent cities for some time. In fact, mass migrations have often lead to just that as can be seen in situations of natural disasters, #Katrina, #Haiti and on and on.

We live in a world lead by greedy psychopaths who could care less about the consequences of their actions and the impact it has on others. As long as their bellies are full, their homes in good repair, their water running and electricity working, their fine cars and clothes, they could care less about what happens to the other 99%.

This is a major crisis and cannot be taken care of with a bandade or two. It should be taken care of by the very ones who orchestrated this hegemony in the first place. They have billions for bombs and tearing up shit, but they don’t have money to save lives or to enhance the “others” way of life. No time, no policy, no desire, unless of course it is going to somehow enrich them in some way.

It is a totally sad state of affairs. Where’s FEMA with their trailers when you need them. (Snark!!)

Category:

Afghanistan, crisis, Europe, FEMA, immigration, Iraq, Islam, John Oliver, Libya, middle east, Muslims, Population, refugees, Somalia, Syria, UN, War on Terror, Yemen