The Evening Blues - 9-8-15

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas country blues guitarist, cousin of Lightnin' Hopkins, Frankie Lee Sims. Enjoy!

Frankie Lee Sims - She Likes To Boogie Real Low

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-- Emma Lazarus


News and Opinion

Who says we don't make anything in America anymore?

Mass-Producing Huddled Masses

Inscribed on a plaque inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty is a poem by Emma Lazarus titled “New Colossus.” The sonnet waxes lyrical about how different its subject is from ancient colossal statues, and how that symbolizes the contrast between American ideals and those of empires since antiquity. ... The new country would not bestride the world like a colossus, but would, like its great statue, stand straight and stable, holding aloft a torch as a welcoming beacon of hope and freedom. ...

But by the late 19th-century, the Colossus had its fill of local lands and craved more exotic fare. And so, beginning with Spanish-American War, Manifest Destiny set out to sea, and the American overseas empire was born. ... And for the past 14 years, the American Colossus has been on a Godzilla-like rampage, trampling over the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia: squashing people, flattening homes, and demolishing communities.

Now its specialty is not offering refuge, but making refugees. Not welcoming huddled masses, but mass-producing them. The Iraq War displaced millions. The chaos it engendered, including the rise of ISIS (which didn’t even exist before the war) displaced millions more.

Due predominantly to this rampage, the number of “internally displaced persons” surged to 38 million in 2014 (4.7 million higher than in 2013) . And the total number of refugees in that year swelled to 60 million, the highest number ever recorded.

Tens of millions consigned to utter desperation: severed from their homes, communities, and livelihoods; hunted by armies and militias toting American weapons; striving against all odds to save the lives of their children. And now Europe, whose governments have extensively helped America sow the winds of war, is reaping a whirlwind of refugees.

How Neocons Destabilized Europe

The refugee chaos that is now pushing deep into Europe – dramatized by gut-wrenching photos of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey – started with the cavalier ambitions of American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East and other parts of the world through “regime change.”

Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy promotion” and “human rights,” what these “anti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, destruction and destabilization across the Middle East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon forces still control the Official Narrative, their explanations get top billing – such as that there hasn’t been enough “regime change.”

For instance, The Washington Post’s neocon editorial page editor Fred Hiatt on Monday blamed “realists” for the cascading catastrophes. Hiatt castigated them and President Barack Obama for not intervening more aggressively in Syria to depose President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime neocon target for “regime change.”

But the truth is that this accelerating spread of human suffering can be traced back directly to the unchecked influence of the neocons and their liberal fellow-travelers who have resisted political compromise and, in the case of Syria, blocked any realistic efforts to work out a power-sharing agreement between Assad and his political opponents, those who are not terrorists.

In early 2014, the neocons and liberal hawks sabotaged Syrian peace talks in Geneva by blocking Iran’s participation and turning the peace conference into a one-sided shouting match where U.S.-funded opposition leaders yelled at Assad’s representatives who then went home. All the while, the Post’s editors and their friends kept egging Obama to start bombing Assad’s forces. ...

It should have been clear by mid-2014 that if the neocons had gotten their way and Obama had conducted a massive U.S. bombing campaign to devastate Assad’s military, the black flag of Sunni terrorism might well be flying above the Syrian capital of Damascus while its streets would run red with blood.

But now a year later, the likes of Hiatt still have not absorbed that lesson — and the spreading chaos from neocon strategies is destabilizing Europe.

Looks like David Cameron wants to be just like Obama - judge, jury and executioner.

UK Won't Hesitate Over More Deadly Drone Strikes on Islamic State, Despite Criticism

Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament on Monday that he had approved an air strike against a vehicle carrying a British jihadist in Syria who he said was plotting attacks against Britain. ...

Human rights groups and some lawyers criticized the decision to authorize the strike, which was carried out in August, saying the government needed to give details about what evidence it had that attacks were planned and to disclose the legal basis for the attack.

They said the action mimicked controversial US drone strike policy and blurred the lines on what Britain was prepared to used such tactics for.

"The fact that David Cameron has bypassed parliament to commit these covert strikes is deeply worrying — as is his refusal to share what legal advice he was given," said Kat Craig, a legal director at rights group Reprieve.

British PM Faces Questions After Ordering Drone Assassination of British Citizens

The concept of an always-on international assassination campaign run by drones was initially a US-exclusive thing, but as other nations obtain the capabilities, they are launching them as well, with Britain the latest to follow in America’s footsteps by extra-judicially assassinating their own citizens. ...

British media are largely following the US media’s example too, in buying the excuses, with the Daily Telegraph taking a claim that one of the men was planning to attack an event that the Queen was going to attend as a “plot to kill the Queen.”

The assassination was carried out in a drone strike against the Syrian city of Raqqa, which makes it doubly difficult for Cameron to justify, since the parliament explicitly voted against granting him the authority to carry out attacks inside Syria, and similarly never empowered him to assassinate citizens.

Cameron is following Obama’s example, shrugging off the criticism and bragging about how great the planning was behind the attack and how there was “no other way.”

Turkey Sends Ground Forces into Iraq Against PKK, Amid More Police Deaths

The Associated Press is reporting that Turkish ground forces today crossed the border into Iraq for a "short-term" offensive against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants.

A government official told the AP that the troops moved into Iraq in "hot pursuit" of PKK fighters accused of involvement in a bomb attack that killed 16 Turkish soldiers on Sunday. The anonymous official added that "this is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists' escape." ...

Also on Tuesday, four Turkish police officers were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade strike by PKK fighters in the southeastern town of Cizre on Tuesday, a security source told Reuters. ... Earlier in the day, a bomb attack on a minibus killed 13 police officers in a Turkish province bordering Armenia and Iran, a government official said, the edge of a region beset by fighting between Kurdish militants and the Turkish state.

Turkey vows to 'wipe out' PKK rebels after bomb attack

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has pledged to "wipe out" Kurdish PKK rebels in their strongholds after a deadly bomb attack on the Turkish army.

"The mountains of this country, the plains, highlands, cities will be not abandoned to terrorists," he said.

At least 16 Turkish soldiers died in Sunday's attack in the south-eastern Hakkari province, the army said.

In retaliation, Turkey carried out several air strikes on PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) targets on Monday.

Speaking at a news conference on Monday, Mr Davutoglu said: "You cannot discourage us from our war on terror. Those mountains will be cleared of these terrorists. Whatever it takes, they will be cleared."

Germany faces massive anti-migrant vs pro-migrant standoff

US Urges Greece to Block Russian Aid Flights to Syria

Greek officials are confirming today that they have received requests from the US government asking them to block Russian aid flights into Syria from using their airspace. The Greek government has not yet responded but says they are “considering” the matter.

US officials are said to be mad about recent Russian shipments of military aid to Syria, and believe that the move risks making the situation in the country even worse, though they also say Russia’s aid is entirely centered on helping Syria’s government fight against ISIS, who the US is also fighting.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry appeared perplexed about the sudden US anger at the shipments, noting that they have been sending similar shipments to Syria throughout the civil war, adding “we are supporting them, we were supporting them, and we will be supporting them” against ISIS.

Germany says it could take 500,000 refugees a year

Germany could take 500,000 refugees each year for “several years”, the country’s vice-chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has said, as fresh clashes broke out overnight between police and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos and thousands of people gathered amid chaotic scenes on the Greek border with Macedonia.

“I believe we could surely deal with something in the order of half a million for several years,” he told ZDF public television. “I have no doubt about that, maybe more.” Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, four times the total for 2014.

Gabriel also stressed that other European countries must also accept their fair share as refugees flee war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa and head for the EU.

As Greece struggled to cope with an influx of refugees – many from war-ravaged Syria – Donald Tusk, the EU president, warned that the refugee “exodus” could last for years. “The wave of migration is not a one-time incident but the beginning of a real exodus, which only means that we will have to deal with this problem for many years to come,” he said.

Israel to demolish thousands of Palestinian buildings in West Bank

Afghan Officials: US Airstrike Killed 13 Police in Helmand

Throughout the day, US officials have issued denials of reports that they were responsible for the latest in a long line of “friendly fire” incidents in Afghanistan, when an airstrike killed a number of Afghan narcotics police in the Helmand Province.

The reports ultimately appear to have been accurate, however, as Afghan officials confirmed the recovery of at least 13 bodies from the site, saying they were all killed in an airstrike along the border between Helmand and Kandahar Provinces.

Gulf States to Send Thousands More Troops Into Yemen

Saudi Arabia has announced plans to send “huge reinforcements” into Yemen to conquer the remaining cities under the control of the Shi’ite Houthi forces, as they and other GCC member nations plan to send thousands more ground troops into the country to escalate the ongoing war.

Qatar is the first of the GCC nations talking numbers, announcing they are sending 1,000 ground troops into the country today, along with 30 Apache attack helicopters and 200 armored vehicles. Bahrain also talked up sending more troops.

As Candidates Tied to Guatemalan Army & Oligarch Vie for Power, What’s Next for Popular Uprising?

Guantánamo security clearance denied to lawyers of cooperating witness

The military command at Guantánamo Bay has stopped honoring security clearances for attorneys representing the only detainee who has agreed to testify against the 9/11 defendants, the Guardian has learned. A doctor specializing in the treatment of torture victims has also lost her ability to visit the base.

Katya Jestin, a former federal prosecutor, is no longer able to see her client, Majid Khan, jeopardizing Khan’s own case and posing yet another challenge for the long-stalled 9/11 military commission.

Nor is Dr Sondra Crosby able to visit detainee Abdel Rahim Nashiri, whose attorney, Rick Kammen, described the situation as inexplicable.

Joint Task Force-Guantánamo (JTF-GTMO), which operates the indefinite detention center, had previously honored the two clearances. Without them, attorneys and defense-team doctors have no way of passing through the Guantánamo gates to visit their clients.

Since July, Jestin and Crosby have not been able to enter the base.

The chains of command and associated bureaucracies at Guantánamo Bay compound the lawyers’ frustrations. Military commission judges have no authority over the detention center itself, and cannot order JTF-GTMO to do anything.

Army colonel James Pohl, the judge in Khan’s case, has ordered government prosecutors and defense lawyers to come to a resolution that provides Khan’s attorneys with access. But that depends on a military command deciding to comply.

Days of Revolt: The Making of Global Capitalism

Apple's encryption means it can't comply with US court order

Apple has rebuffed a court order to hand over in real time texts sent using iMessage between two iPhones because its encryption system leaves the company unable to comply.

The order was obtained by the US Department of Justice during an investigation over the summer involving guns and drugs, according to a report in the New York Times, and represents the first known direct face-off between the government and Apple over encryption.

The two have been fighting a proxy war for almost a year now. The US government, led by the FBI, has been making increasingly strident calls for technology companies to stop providing ubiquitous encryption to customers, arguing that the tools harm the American people by making it harder to catch terrorists, paedophiles and other criminals.

Microsoft Email Case Tests Power of Search Warrants

A federal appeals court must decide whether a U.S. search warrant can reach data stored in Europe, in a case that could affect the standing of American companies abroad as they try to attract privacy-conscious foreign customers.

For two years, Microsoft Corp. has resisted a warrant requiring it to divulge customer emails located in a data center in Ireland, where, according to the company, they are protected by Irish and European privacy laws and are beyond the grip of U.S. authorities. ...

A lower court held Microsoft in contempt last year for its recalcitrance, and the company appealed to the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. The parties are scheduled to make their arguments on Wednesday, with a decision expected in coming months.



the horse race



Donald Trump Meets, Praises Indonesian Leaders Despite Ties to Mass Killings

Bernie Sanders mans picket line as Democratic contenders woo unions

Bernie Sanders kicked off Labor Day weekend in a true union style: by picking up a sign and joining a picket line outside Penford Products in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“I want you to know being out on a picket line and standing with workers is something I have been doing for my entire life,” the senator from Vermont told the crowd.

The Penford Products workers in question are on strike over a new contract which they say would cut wages and holidays such as Veterans Day.

“I did when I was mayor of the city of Burlington,” Sanders added. “I did [it] in Congress, did it in the Senate.”

He was now doing it as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, with one poll would putting him nine points up on Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

“This is what I do,” he said. “This is what I believe in.”

Hillary Clinton proposes campaign finance overhaul to limit influence of big donors

Hillary Clinton is proposing a slate of campaign finance reform measures aimed at limiting political donations by corporations and large donors while increasing transparency in election spending. ...

Among them are rules requiring greater disclosure of political spending, including by publicly traded companies and US government contractors, and a program that would provide matching funds for small donations to presidential and congressional candidates.

“We have to end the flood of secret, unaccountable money that is distorting our elections, corrupting our political system and drowning out the voices of too many everyday Americans,” Clinton said.

Clinton also plans to call for an overturning of the controversial 2010 Citizens United ruling by the supreme court. ... Overturning the ruling would require new supreme court justices as well as amending the constitution, according to Clinton’s plans, and both are fraught with uncertainty.




The Evening Greens



French Secret Service Agent Who Led Fatal 1985 Bombing of Greenpeace Ship Breaks His Silence

The Hidden Victims of California's Drought

Much of the focus of media coverage of California's drought has focused on the agriculture sector, which uses about 80 percent of the water used by humans in California. Although many farms have installed drip irrigation and improved their water-use efficiency in recent decades, nearly 50 percent of all the irrigated acreage in California still uses inefficient flood-and-furrow irrigation, in which fields are covered by standing water. And despite the drought, Wall Street investment firms and other corporations have bought up farmland and planted hundreds of thousands of acres in recent years, often planting almond orchards or other permanent crops on land that has never before been irrigated, relying ever more heavily on over-drafted groundwater supplies. ...

In places like East Porterville, Fairmead, and other rural disadvantaged communities, households have seen their drinking water wells dry up completely as farmers dramatically increase groundwater pumping and those with the money dig ever-deeper wells in a race to the bottom. ... In some cases, the groundwater being pumped has taken thousands or tens of thousands of years to accumulate.

What's more, extensive lobbying by agribusiness has led to waivers of the minimum environmental protections for fish and wildlife in California's rivers and streams, driving some salmon runs and other native fish and wildlife to the brink of extinction so that farmers and cities can divert even more water during the drought. As a result, the director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife warned that the state's commercial and recreational salmon fishery may have to be closed and a fishery disaster declared in the next few years. Despite this, agribusinesses continue to lobby Congress to overturn state and federal environmental laws so that they can divert even more water from our rivers and streams, going so far as to advocate for permanently drying up the state's second-longest river, the San Joaquin.

Climate-smart cities could save the world $22tn, say economists

Putting cities on a course of smart growth – with expanded public transit, energy-saving buildings, and better waste management - could save as much as $22tn and avoid the equivalent in carbon pollution of India’s entire annual output of greenhouse gasses, according to leading economists.

The Global Commission on Climate and Economy, an independent initiative by former finance ministers and leading research institutions from Britain and six other countries, found climate-smart cities would spur economic growth and a better quality of life – at the same time as cutting carbon pollution.

If national governments back those efforts, the savings on transport, buildings, and waste disposal could reach up to $22tn ($14tn) by 2050, the researchers found. By 2030, those efforts would avoid the equivalent of 3.7 gigatonnes a year – more than India’s current greenhouse gas emissions, the report found.

The finding upends the notion that it is too expensive to do anything about climate change – or that such efforts would make little real difference. Not true, said the researchers.

“There is now increasing evidence that emissions can decrease while economies continue to grow,” said Seth Schultz, a researcher for the C40 climate leadership group who consulted on the report.

Human activity 'driving half of world's crocodile species to extinction'

As many as half of the world’s 27 species of crocodilian face being wiped out due to human activity, although the most feared variety, the saltwater crocodile, faces a brighter future, according to a new book by a veteran crocodile researcher.

Land use changes, pollution, culling and feral animal invasions mean that many crocodile species face a “bleak future”, warned Professor Gordon Grigg of the University of Queensland.

The gharial, a distinctive long-nosed species that eats fish, is suffering from the destruction of its habitat in India. Riverside development and dredging of the Ganges is having a huge impact upon the species, as is the indiscriminate use of netting.

The Philippines crocodile and the Chinese alligator, which is almost extinct in the wild despite being intensively farmed for meat and leather, are other species at risk of disappearing over the course of this century, Grigg said.

However, the saltwater and freshwater crocodiles of northern Australia have a brighter outlook, buoyed by the banning of hunting in 1970.

Since the ban, numbers of saltwater crocodiles have significantly increased. “Salties” are the largest living crocodilian on Earth, with some animals reaching seven metres long and weighing 900kg.

“The chances for about half of the 27 species are pretty slim if the trend in human land use continues,” Grigg told Guardian Australia. “Habitat is being destroyed, crocodiles are being caught in nets, feral pigs are eating croc eggs.


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Leaked UN Email on Yemen Shows Difficulty of Negotiations

The roots of European racism lie in the slave trade, colonialism – and Edward Long

Refugee crisis: Where are all these people coming from and why?

Sovereign Debt as Weapon: Subverting Democracy in Greece

The Measure of a Revolutionary: Remembering Eugene V. Debs


A Little Night Music

Frankie Lee Sims - Hey Little Girl

Frankie Lee Sims - Well Goodbye Now Baby

Frankie Lee Sims - Jelly Roll Baker

Frankie Lee Sims - Going to the River

Frankie Lee Sims - Send My Soul to the Devil

Frankie Lee Sims - Married Woman

Frankie Lee Sims - Walking With Frankie

Frankie Lee Sims - Frankie's Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Misery Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Cross Country Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Single Man Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - My Talk Didn't Do No Good

Frankie Lee Sims - Lucy Mae Blues

Frankie Lee Sims - Lucy Mae Blues (Part 2)

Frankie Lee Sims - What Will Lucy Do

Frankie Lee Sims - Cryin' Won't Help You

Frankie Lee Sims - Yeh, Baby

Frankie Lee Sims - Wine and Gin Bounce

Frankie Lee Sims - How Long

Frankie Lee Sims - Long Gone



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Big Al's picture

Important stuff, people should know. The MSM won't tell you. Stuff that would be ignored over at Daily Kos.

"The Wikileaks Files, The World According to U.S. Empire is a newly released book, evidently the first volume of more to come, that uses experts to collate the most important cables and describe their historical importance. WikiLeaks first came to prominence in 2010 after the release of 2,325,961 top-secret State Department cables and the "Collateral Murder" video showing gunsight footage of the murder of innocent civilians in Iraq by a US Apache helicopter and it's crew. This book series, The Wikileaks Files, is a "comprehensive analysis of all of the Wikileaks diplomatic cables, assembled by a team of independent foreign policy experts—an essential reference guide to the 21st century’s most explosive diplomatic revelations."

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with a different spin

An attempted murder suspect who fired at NYPD officers was met with a barrage of 84 bullets from police – but a staggering 83 of those shots missed the man completely.

Good grief. How many bystanders were endangered by this? Any cop that can't shoot better than this shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun.

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hecate's picture

each get one bullet only. Like Barney Fife. And, as with Barney, the bullet has to be carried in a pocket. Not in a gun.

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joe shikspack's picture

as a public safety measure.

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enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

I just got done talking to the Salvation Army citadel in Fresno, California.
The lady there told me that the phones have been ringing off the hook all summer. They only have two people to answer phones, but often eight calls are coming in at a time.
The drought is so bad for the migrant farmers that they are living three families to a house and sometimes going hungry anyway.
Not only that she told me its the same all the way through the Central Valley. Modesto, Stockton, Turlock, you name it.

When I got off the phone with her I did a Google search for news about this. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not from 2015 anyway.

Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

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gulfgal98's picture

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

I plan on looking into this. It depends on what I find.
I just get the feeling that the whole story isn't being told. As usual.

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joe shikspack's picture

Stein: European refugee crisis is “inevitable consequence” of U.S. foreign policy

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s campaign said Thursday that the U.S. government “must recognize its moral obligation to make a major and immediate commitment to humanitarian relief for the refugees pouring into Europe.” The campaign said the United States “cannot walk away from this crisis, given the major and direct role of U.S. foreign policy in militarizing the Middle East and destabilizing societies there.”

Stein added, “The present crisis of refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria is the inevitable consequence of a foreign policy that puts oil profits, weapons sales, and support for totalitarian regimes above people, planet, and peace.”

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Big Al's picture

I'd like to hear her elaborate on what she means by "inevitable consequence". Sounds a little like the term "blowback"
which is used to sidestep the fact that the actions weren't "unintended" as blowback insinuates, but premeditated planned
actions that intended those results.
They knew they would create a massive refugee problem and are using that as part of their agenda.

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lotlizard's picture

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/07/how-neocons-destabilized-europe/

The refugee chaos that is now pushing deep into Europe — dramatized by gut-wrenching photos of Syrian toddler Aylan Kurdi whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey — started with the cavalier ambitions of American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks who planned to remake the Middle East and other parts of the world through “regime change.”

Instead of the promised wonders of “democracy promotion” and “human rights,” what these “anti-realists” have accomplished is to spread death, destruction and destabilization across the Middle East and parts of Africa and now into Ukraine and the heart of Europe. Yet, since these neocon forces still control the Official Narrative, their explanations get top billing — such as that there hasn’t been enough “regime change.”

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Big Al's picture

for the actions and yet Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Powers, Nuland and Rice have all facilitated the regime
change operations in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Ukraine. It's explained that neocons still "control the narrative" and that's why Obama
and his crew do what they do.
It doesn't make sense. This refugee crisis was caused as much if not moreso by the Obama admin than the Bush admin. Bush
didn't invade Syria and Libya, Obama did.
So what does that make Obama?

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gulfgal98's picture

Then they all are neocons.

yet Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Powers, Nuland and Rice have all facilitated the regime
change operations in Syria, Libya, Yemen and Ukraine.

See definition #2

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neoconservative

1: a former liberal espousing political conservatism
2: a conservative who advocates the assertive promotion of democracy and United States national interest in international affairs including through military means

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Big Al's picture

Evidently neoconservatism originated in the sixties as an intellectual jewish movement. When the neocons took over with the Bush presidency, his staff was filled with Zionists who implemented neocon/Zionist plans for the middle east. It's gets tricky when considering Obama is heavily criticized by the neocon/Zionist think tanks like Brookings, AEI, FPI, WINEP, etc. while he is also basically carrying out the same plan, plus Obama's relationship with Netanyahoo has been somewhat contentious.

"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than “conservative”) Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary, a media arm of the American Jewish Committee, which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward, the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: “If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it. It’s a thought one imagines most American Jews, overwhelmingly liberal, will find horrifying. And yet it is a fact that as a political philosophy, neoconservatism was born among the children of Jewish immigrants and is now largely the intellectual domain of those immigrants’ grandchildren”. The neoconservative apologist Murray Friedman explains that Jewish dominance within his movement by the inherent benevolence of Judaism, “the idea that Jews have been put on earth to make it a better, perhaps even a holy, place” (The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy, 2006)."

http://www.voltairenet.org/article178638.html

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mimi's picture

your first sentence gives me the willies and I would not take that to be true without having done major research on that subject.
Of course people will say that's my German predisposition that I can't handle analysis of something that is based on the fact that something is "jewish".

Needs a lot of explanation. This article. Why not write more about it?

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joe shikspack's picture

But the truth is that this accelerating spread of human suffering can be traced back directly to the unchecked influence of the neocons and their liberal fellow-travelers who have resisted political compromise and, in the case of Syria, blocked any realistic efforts to work out a power-sharing agreement between Assad and his political opponents, those who are not terrorists.

In early 2014, the neocons and liberal hawks sabotaged Syrian peace talks in Geneva by blocking Iran’s participation and turning the peace conference into a one-sided shouting match where U.S.-funded opposition leaders yelled at Assad’s representatives who then went home. All the while, the Post’s editors and their friends kept egging Obama to start bombing Assad’s forces. ...

Rather than standing up to this new foreign policy establishment, Obama bowed to it, retaining key players from President Bush’s national security team, such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus, and by hiring hawkish Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Clinton, who became Secretary of State, and Samantha Power at the National Security Council.

Thus, the cult of “regime change” did not just survive the Iraq disaster; it thrived. Whenever a difficult foreign problem emerged, the go-to solution was still “regime change,” accompanied by the usual demonizing of a targeted leader, support for the “democratic opposition” and calls for military intervention. President Obama, arguably a “closet realist,” found himself as the foot-dragger-in-chief as he reluctantly was pulled along on one “regime change” crusade after another.

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gulfgal98's picture

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

shaharazade's picture

who helped SoS HRC really do a number on Africa. I don't for one minute believe Obama was a 'closet realist' or a foot dragger he is and always has been a full blown neocon neoliberal ideologue. Listen to his Nobel peace prize speech. It's a dangerous world and I intend to make it even worse. Oh he talked about diplomacy and adversaries instead of enemies during his change you can believe in the primary campaign. I remember being horrified during the last debate with McCain where he went full bore chest thumper and out killer'ed the bomb bomb bomb Iraq war loving senile old RW, POW. WTF is a closet realist? Is that like a pragmatic wolf in change clothing? His mentor was Lieberman and he was groomed well for the great game.

The neocon Bush Doctrine is alive and well under this two fer of SoS HRC and Obama the commander in chief who joked that he was good at killing. His administration was also good at legalizing the Bushies abuses of power, pushing the executive's 'unitary power' and reinterpreting old law to make new. It's hard to decide which aspect is worse, his 'foreign policy' or what his administration has done here in der Homeland. Actually the two go hand in hand as they are two sides of the coin of this anti-democratic, by-partisan, global, mad regime. No way was he or the horse of change he rode in on was ever interested in a changing of the guard. DiFi at his inauguration said this was a peaceful transition of power. She lied. It was a set up to keep the game in play using the majority of the public's rejection of the game afoot.

Once again we're faced with the same damn assholes from both the Clinton and Bush regime. This includes the pundirts that should be gone from the public square but are still gracing the FP page of dkos and all over the TV and media. Come on people how feeble is it that after 15 years of this unbelievable story line we are still having to listen to the likes of Cheney, Bushies and Clinton's past present and future. Even Bernie is pumping the dangerous world and smart drone bombs and 'terrist's are gonna kill yer family'.

Scary to live in a world where the once unthinkable is considered the inevitable way forward. How bizarre that the people who opposed the Bush/Cheney cabal now embrace it as realist, inevitable or 'the world as we find it.' War be it economic,cultural or bloody mass killing is nothing I will ever support or vote for. A pox on both their complicit houses. Not voting for any of these global war and economic killers and con men or women.

Withdrawing consent to be governed when the world gets to this point seems like the only sane thing to do, regardless of their hostage taking, extortion and fear tactics Either way humans and the earth we live on that sustains us are screwed. Seriously who gives a rats ass which brand, D or R, of nasty psycho's gets to preside over the 'inevitable' demise of both human progress and our planets demise.

They used to call the Bushies, like the Nazis a cult of death. I see very little difference between what either party offers us. A theocratic death cult or a global greed dominion death cult. Why support or consent to this false choice? Fear? Fear of these inevitable insane rulers of the world only empowers them and keeps your worst nightmares alive and well. The reality of these psycho killers as the only 'way forward' is nothing to accept let alone support. Obama is a tool as is HRC or any pol that the rulers of the universe decides will best represent their interests. Don't buy it's pure evil.

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Big Al's picture

said it very clearly that if we don't end Empire and Imperialism, we won't end anything.
And Bernie Sanders will not touch that.

My personal observation is similar to my sig line. Most people simply don't want to confront imperialism even to
the point of saying it.

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joe shikspack's picture

i'll post an excerpt from this tomorrow.

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...gives those others due credit with this:

American neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks...

Neocons and Neolibs have become close to indistinguishable.

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We should be accepting refugees and the good "Christian" Americans should be following the Holy Father's example.

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enhydra lutris's picture

The building destruction in the west bank is simply unconscionable, well, beyond that, actually, but it is just another news item on just another day. What a world.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

yep, the news is so bad in so many places at once, it makes you wonder if it might all blow up at once in one giant global revolution.

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enhydra lutris's picture

There have been times in my life when I thought that such an event might not be such a bad thing. You know, the inherent contradictions in all of the capitalist - oligarchic - feudal - totalitarian - etc. systems would come to a head and bingo! Exploring the details of what should evolve, where, to permit life to not only continue, but progress can readily confound one. The more you learn, the less simple solving the problems seem at the detail level.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

shaharazade's picture

people globally could or would reject the world the global oligarchical collectivists and their goon squads the military killers who enforce there sick world it just might help pry the blood sucking squid off humanities face. If enough people globally said enough is enough we humans could continue to evolve or progress and reject this insane world as we find it. Solving the problems at a detail level would entail getting rid of the psycho's who 'rule the world'. Not confounding to me.Cut the fucking hydra's head off and then perhaps restore those self evident universal truths that humans have always worked for. They still exist regardless of what the by partisan rat bastards tell you Fuck the details the first order is getting this blood sucking vampire squid off our face. Humans throughout history have boiled the details down to principles and truths that are universal and essential for progress. The devil may be in the details but human progress is not really that confounding it really is self evident.

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I could write a book already!

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mimi's picture

spot on, painful and it horrifies me to go back home. I feel I wouldn't be able to integrate anymore, because these arguments you hear in the vox populi sections of the demonstration video clips just ring too many bells with me. Nothing has changed, it all comes back. Though I fear US police much more than German police, and I fear lunatic morons with guns in the US more than I fear lunatic morons without guns in Germany, it's really hard for me to witness the developments.

It's really hard to keep your spirits up and be ready for some rightful actions. The article is very good. I am so scared of prolonged chaos. What for? I would never have thought to be so disappointed about Kerry as well.

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mimi's picture

the vox populi video sections I referred to are the ones from RT.

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joe shikspack's picture

i understand, sometimes it feels like home is a place that has slipped out of history, which one can never return to.

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mimi's picture

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enhydra lutris's picture

Lessee now, fifties and sixties San Diego to sixties and seventies Berkeley with plenty of Mendocino time squoze in - It not only ain't coming back, it's hard to believe that it ever was.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

mimi's picture

is actually not strongest where it intervenes militarily, but where American capital has penetrated and economic relations become deep.(Hedge Intv. Days of Revolt)

PANITCH: Yeah, no. I think that's true. I think that the American empire is most powerful, actually, not in those regions of the world in which it has intervened militarily, at least in recent decades. It's more powerful in those regions of the world that have become, if I may use the word, Canadianized, that is, where American capital has penetrated, where economic relations are extremely deep, where American multinational corporations are a social force inside those countries. And therefore I think the strongest linkages are with the former old imperial countries of Europe.

HEDGES: Germany. You write a lot about Germany.

PANITCH: And Germany represents that. So you see the mess in Iran or Iraq, etc.--I mean Iran with the Shah back in the '70s and Iraq in the current millennium. But the strongest linkages of empire are those amongst the advanced capitalist states, which also operate under the rubric of the American Treasury, the Federal Reserve, etc. Nevertheless, even there, as you see with Germany's behavior vis-à-vis Greece, which the American administration and the Treasury wouldn't have wanted, they aren't able to give them orders. That does show you the relative autonomy that states within an informal empire have as compared to ones that are subjected militarily, as some countries are.

...

PANITCH: That's right. The difference is that even the Germans, who are so central to contemporary global capitalism, and especially to European capitalism, have never taken the responsibility upon themselves that the Americans did, trying to do with Wilson at the end of World War I, but then effectively did during the course of World War II, have never taken responsibility on themselves for managing a global capitalism and for all of the headaches that that involves in terms of the difficulties and contradictions of that. The Germans have, primarily in Europe, tried to ensure that the international institutions are replicas of the old German central bank, the Bundesbank. And they've primarily oriented the euro, let us say, to play the kind of role that the Deutsche Mark used to play. They're mainly concerned, in other words, with the competitiveness and status of the German economy.

German's empire over Europe within the US global empire and therefore over Germany , I guess. Have to continue listening.

Thanks for posting that.

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Knucklehead's picture

I`m sorry.
I`m using your comment as a test since it seems I cannot comment here.
Nice to see you again after many months of my absence in the EB.

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I`m already against the next war

great to see you around again, my friend!

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joe shikspack's picture

great to see you! what is it that's preventing your posting a comment?

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gulfgal98's picture

Methinks I see a knucklehead of some sort here. Shok

Welcome Knucklehead! Dirol

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

shaharazade's picture

maybe you just need to log in? I think your comments here are welcome and I'm sure it's some kind of techie snafu. Good to see you comment here. I miss your great comments and your beautiful photography. We have several great photographers posting here and I would surely love to see your work amongst them. I too am already against the next war and the war before that. Endless bloody global war is nothing anyone anywhere should tolerate. Hope you figure out how to comment and grace us with your presence and great art. good to read you again.

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Knucklehead's picture

Thank you so very much for your kind note.
I`m just an old dog who does`t know the new tricks.
King of Dogs DSCN8905

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I`m already against the next war

mimi's picture

nice to see you again. I guess I was already in bed when you made your entry here. Stick with us. Hope you and your wife are well and btw new tricks are always the old tricks. So... you are here and that is what counts.

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gulfgal98's picture

Me and my Willie Bear who turned 13 years young yesterday. He is the world's largest pomeranian at 24 lbs. Biggrin

willie bear2.jpg

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

shaharazade's picture

for 13 dog years old. My cats are old girls 15 and 14 years old but they seem to be going strong. What a cutie Willie Bear is.

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gulfgal98's picture

and a little bit of arthritis in one front leg, Willie Bear is doing well. He IS the leader of the his pack (two springer spaniels) and he lets them know that he is in charge. We try to get him on a 2.5 to 3 mile walk every other day so I think that helps. We just go day to day enjoying each other for as long as we can. Smile

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

I'm still in denial that the school year has started. I probably won't accept reality until Hallooween.

Did that Israeli guy in the video really accuse the government of apartheid because Israeli Jews could not steal Palestinian land!?

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joe shikspack's picture

yeah, i hate it when the school year starts and all the sudden there's a ton of traffic on the road again in the mornings. damned cheese busses. Smile

yeah, that idiot in the video thinks that it is israelis that are oppressed by apartheid. the eternal culture of victimization strikes again.

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gulfgal98's picture

Thanks for the laugh. Biggrin

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cosmic's picture

I went to a good old fashioned teach in last week about MCain's S.750 bill to throw out all State, Local and Federal laws protecting lands, including tribal lands, 100 miles North of the border here in AZ. Gives 100 % authority to the Supreme leader, Sec of Der Homeland Security to decide which laws to negate. All are up for deep sixing except the Constitution. The bill is out of committee and is being attached to the next Defense Auth bill. This is the future folks and as usual Arizona is the nation's fetid oozing petri ditch.

Here's some stuff to read if interested
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/06/3655203/border-patrol-public...

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/unnecessary-measures/Content?oid=5905178

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joe shikspack's picture

i'm surprised mccain hasn't sponsored a bill to rename arizona, "rio tinto."

good to see you!

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enhydra lutris's picture

He should jump out there right now and declare that he will veto any bill containing any such provisions, but ...

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Hey, jtc. jsp...
Please figure out why the Knuck can't get here and rectify. Puhlease!

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joe shikspack's picture

i hope that we can get this worked out pronto.

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I PMed him at DKos to see if I can shake the tree. He mentioned it at EB last week and I thought I had straightened it out. It might be caused by that hardtail he used to ride, it's just like riding on the frame with no seat.

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shaharazade's picture

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just a lame joke about riding a hardtail motorcycle.

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Skip ahead to 3 minutes.

"You want everybody educated to their potential. You want people to reach their potential. That still won't work for some people in a highly developed market system.
I mean if this were a sports-based system, you could give me a PhD in football, and I could practice eight hours a day, and I might be able to carry the water from, not onto the field, but from the locker room to the bench. There's just some people don't fit well into a highly skilled market-based economy.
They're perfectly decent citizens. We'll send them off to Afghanistan, but they are not going to command a big price."

And so the true purpose of the Forever War is revealed.

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enhydra lutris's picture

It was true, and we have slipped ahead to the warfare state, disposing of not only excess financial capital, but excess "human capital" as well.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

I posted this over at GOS and I got comments like this:

Is this snark? or satire? I really cannot tell. (1+ / 0-)
Extraordinary claims require a bit more proof I'm afraid.

by analyticFunction on Tue Sep 08, 2015 at 07:47:45 PM PDT

Buffett is saying we (the US) hires poor, (1+ / 0-)
unskilled young men to fight our ginned-up wars while the well to do have many other options.

What is the controversy here?

by shrike on Tue Sep 08, 2015 at 08:36:01 PM PDT

yeah- i'm confused my ownself (0+ / 0-)
i thought that was the point that Buffet was trying to make.

by squarewheel on Tue Sep 08, 2015 at 08:38:01 PM PDT

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Big Al's picture

enough to be a criminal hedge fund managers or a criminal psychopathic billionaires so they are doomed to serve in the
military or serve up burgers at a fast food place. That's what he's saying.
Those that responded to you are conservative assholes, especially shrike, that's one I'd like to meet in person.

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lotlizard's picture

Kids of elite families can go fight in the Israel Defense Force instead of being sent to the wilds of Afghanistan.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/09/david-brooks-son-idf-israel...

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Shahryar's picture

Yes, it's The Mojos! David Bowie did a good cover of this on Pinups. This is easily the best thing the Mojos ever put out.

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Big Al's picture

I have to admit I don't think I'd ever heard that term before you.

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joe shikspack's picture

good stuff!

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Shahryar's picture

and for letting me jump in here with these tunes

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joe shikspack's picture

i love music. i post the blues because i know it well, it has been a lifetime companion and passion for me. i listen to lots of different music, though. i grew up during the great folk music scare of the 60's and got exposed to all kinds of roots music as well as what later became popular. i dug the beatles when they came out and merseybeat is cool, i've just never explored it in depth, so i appreciate your efforts to educate me.

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burnt out's picture

Mass Producing Huddled Masses, yes we're very good at that for sure,

Tens of millions consigned to utter desperation: severed from their homes, communities, and livelihoods; hunted by armies and militias toting American weapons; striving against all odds to save the lives of their children.

but then we've had a lot of practice, starting with the Native Americans.

It's an American tradition. It's what we do. The only things that change are the names and numbers of our victims.

Never satisfied, we've obviously decided to extend the boundaries of our manifest destiny to encumpass the entire planet.

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All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon

joe shikspack's picture

yeah, it appears that nobody is ever where we think that they ought to be - and even after we remove them to somewhere else, we often find that they are on top of stuff that we've decided in retrospect should be ours exclusively. go figure.

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Big Al's picture

on this blog knew about this? I've known this for a long time because I've followed this stuff, but
this is an example of how the truth is regularly exposed in the MSM within it's propaganda.

"For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.

As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.

On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: He never existed."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/world/africa/18iht-iraq.4.6718200.html...

They resurrected Baghdadi again for ISIS. It's his brother.

He rose from "obscurity and he "shuns the spotlight". Imagine that.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3133152/Baghdadi-The-enigmatic-I...

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MarilynW's picture

create a shadowy figure, few have ever seen and no one has ever photographed and then send out reports of his death.

I thought Al Qaeda had rejected ISIS on the grounds that they were too violent even for them. At least that was the story originally put out there when ISIS first appeared on the scene.

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To thine own self be true.

Big Al's picture

I say that because that's the mentality. People will rail on the police state and complain about their liberties then turn around
and parrot the propaganda from the state and it's media. I made that exact statement (but how do we stop ISIS man) on another
truly far left blog and got double digit downrates (HR's or whatever the equivalent) because I didn't label it specifically as snark.
To clarify for some, it's snark because if someone really wants to know how to stop ISIS, they're in effect falling for the propaganda.
The people on the other blog thought I was a sheeple that truly believed the U.S. was at war with ISIS.

It's only getting worse. See what some of the governments in Europe are doing now, like Britain and France. Now they're using this
manufactured refugee "crisis" to up the ante.

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lotlizard's picture

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/05/uae-forces-retaliate-50-coa...

Via free software guru Richard Stallman's blog
https://www.stallman.org/archives/2015-jul-oct.html#07_September_2015_%2...

07 September 2015 (US-backed intervention in Yemen)

The US-backed intervention in Yemen includes lots of ground troops from the UAE and Bahrain.

Bahrain's regime crushed peaceful protests with the help of Saudi Arabia. It is thoroughly despicable.

It is strange to claim that shooting a missile at an ammunition dump is "cowardly". What could one say about bombing a city?

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