The war in Syria has now become a serious regional conflict. The US/Saudi/Qatari/Turkish backed FSA has begun a campaign against Hezbollah. This is a terrifying escalation of an already highly escalated conflict. The situation is further compounded by the fact that Hezbollah is a partner in the current coalition government in Lebanon. The FSA has in essence declared war on Lebanon. No doubt this will only add to more bloodshed and further destabilization of the region as a whole. The logic of the FSA seems rather misplaced. Hezbollah is a very sophisticated resistance group; not like the disorganized FSA which has had to rely on foreign jihadist fighters to do most of the frontline fighting. The FSA may be hedging it’s bet that soon the EU will declare the Shiite group a “terrorist” organization as per the request of America and Israel, thus making intervention seem more palatable for western citizens.
Yes that’s right only 1% of Americans are actually intelligent. According to a recently released Gallup poll a whopping 99% of Americans believe that Iran’s civilian nuclear program is in fact a threat “to the vital interests of the United States.” It doesn’t seem to matter that the 16 alphabet soup intelligence agencies all believe that Iran is NOT building a nuclear weapon, Joe Schmo is still convinced that those evil Ayatollahs are intent on wiping us all out. Even I was startled by such a large number of Americans convinced that Iran was building a nuke. Is it really possible that only 3,153,709 out of 315,370,999 Americans are not complete morons?
More proof that the M23 rebel movment is a corrupt puppet army was provided yesterday by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Referring to a three month report conduced by MONUSCO peacekeepers, Ban stated that the M23 movment had “external support” when they seized Goma in November of 2012. While this is a welcomed announcement, it is disappointing that Ban did not state who this external actor was. Especially since the UN has already stated the Rwanda and Uganda are the benefactors of the M23 movement; funding, controlling and providing the actual rebels themselves. We can most likely assume this is yet more arm twisting by the imperial US government and by the reprehensible warmonger Susan Rice.
The protest movement in western Iraq is intensifying by the day. The residents of the predominantly Sunni area of Iraq have been protesting now for months against the Shia government which they say is targeting them. It’s no surprise that the American media establishment has hardly reported on this; after all Maliki is our man in our great success story that is the “liberation” of Iraq. The American and western media is eager to portray the conquest of Iraq as a success story. Painting Maliki as an authoritarian criminal, in much he same vain as the man we ousted and executed, would hurt the image of “humanitarian intervention.” But I assure you the protest movement in Anbar Province is real and will continue to be a threat to Maliki’s dictatorial rule of Iraq.
When Washington and Colorado defied our oppressive Federal government and nullified the national drugs laws prohibiting the recreational use of marijuana many including myself rejoiced at this magnificent event. Perhaps this would act as a wakeup call to other states that they don’t have to roll over and accept whatever unjust law the Federal government implements. There was even the added bonus that President Obama said in an ABC interview that
We’ve got bigger fish to fry. It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal.”
Well it is safe to say that Obama really choose his words carefully; recreational users won’t be pursued. It turns out that Obama’s fascist drug czar will in fact be arresting people for marijuana. They instead will just target “distributors and large scale growers.” I guess it really shouldn’t surprise us that a former member of the Choom Gang would be so two faced about the war on drugs. This is the same great leader who promised to stop the crack down on medical marijuana dispensaries only to turn around and have the DEA raid dispensaries four times as much as President Bush. Obama has also accelerated the militarization of the conflict in Central America in yet another futile attempt by a president to rid the world of the evils of drugs. Yet we should not acquiesce. Nullification represents the most significant and powerful tool that we as a society posses in stopping the tyrannical forces of the state. Be it drugs laws, NDAA, drones, and yes even Obamacare, we do have a method with which to combat the rise of the police state.
There is a tremendous amount of disinformation that is circulated in the mainstream/corporate media with regards to the current situation in Mali. The best example of this would be a recent interview that Brian Lehr did with Morehouse college professor Laura Seay discussing her recent article in Foreign Policy titled, “Mali is not a Stan.” Like everyone else in the mainstream/corporate Seay doesn’t think that France has any interest in the massive gold and uranium reserves, she in fact lies and says the reserves are small, and omits any discussion of AFRICOM, which with the help of Lehr leaves the citizen brainwashed into thinking that intervention and the West are forces for good in Africa. It’s alright to send in foreign troops to bomb and murder Malians because as Morehouse professor Laura Seay says in her article the government of Mali, headed by a military junta commanded by the American trained Capt. Amadou Sanogo, asked the French to come in and help. Why how else are we going to stop those Islamist terrorists from taking over? Unfortunately a lot of people will absorb this sort of drivel and really believe it. Don’t bother reading the article or listening to the interview unless you want to be propagandized to by a bunch of hacks.
For a brief but much more nuanced explanation for the current situation in Mali check out this segment from RT with F. William Engdahl, research associate at Global Research.
AFRICOM and President Obama’s horrifying vision for a militarized Africa is disturbing to say the least. AFRICOM is perhaps the most despicable Bush era foreign policy that Obama has embraced so enthusiastically. If you really are interested into exploring how far down the rabbit hole the situation in Mali goes I suggest the following article’s:
The imperialist warmonger William Hague is yet again warning about the threat of Islamic terror in Syria. The British Foreign Secretary has named Syria the “number one” destination for jihadist’s. Hague even goes so far as to say that current situation increases the threat of chemical weapons. Thus according to Hague its time for Russia and China to join the West in helping to bring about regime change, also known as military intervention. It is amazing how Hague is able to say such things with a straight face. He bemoans the terrorist threat while at the same time advocating the overthrow of the last secular leader in the Middle East and continuing to fund and arm Islamist’s. The idea that by going in and implementing a regime change would somehow stop the Islamic terrorists is beyond idiotic. Of course Hague and the other imperialists like Obama in fact want the Islamist fighters to succeed so as justify to the sheeple in America that we need to spend countless amounts of money securing and dominating the Syrian people. As with all other imperialists Hague is more concerned with fomenting destabilization through out Syria and the greater Middle East.
McClatchy has been awarded the George Polk Award for war reporting in Syria. When it come to the mainstream press there is no one better than McClatchy. They are the only mainstream press organization that questions the official Washington talking points and actually does real reporting. This is undoubtedly why they won the award. There Syria coverage from both David Enders and Austin Tice has proved invaluable. What really separates their coverage from most others is that they actually report from inside Syria rather than talking to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Skyping with Syrians from the safety of Beirut. Unfortunately Austin Tice will not be able to accept his award as he is still missing in Syria. He disappeared August 13th and according to the US government is being held by the Syrian military. Although these individuals don’t exactly look like your average Syrian soldiers.
The Electronic Intifada recently exposed yet another instance of Israeli dehumanization of the Palestinian people. I refer to a series of Instagram photos they published on their website three days ago. Several of them include the Israeli solider, Mor Ostrovski, posing with his various weapons but it is the below photo which has sparked the most controversy. Yes that is a Palestinian youth that is in the cross hairs of his sniper rifle. As expected the IDF offered lip service saying that “this is a severe incident which doesn’t accord with the IDF’s spirit and values. The issue was brought to the attention of the soldiers commanding officers, will be examined and properly handled.” This is of course the same institution that has not indicted a single solider or individual for any of the 240 cases of military abuse perpetrated against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank by the IDF in 2012.
What this latest episode exposes is the persistent dehumanization of the Palestinian people. This dehumanization is rampant through out Israeli society. The dehumanization campaign is integral to maintaining the occupation. If the average Israeli were to view the average Palestinian as say a human being with natural rights such as the right to live it would be extremely difficult to maintain this massive occupation and colonization of another people. But when viewed as a nuisance at best and a “terrorist threat” at worse it becomes easier and easier to justify acts of extreme aggression toward individuals who are less than human.
Porkins Policy Review 