Scorched Earth Evil in Two Tweets
Submitted by wendy davis on Tue, 05/26/2020 - 10:56am
This is monstrous. Beyond inhuman.
US occupation forces drop incendiary weapons on agricultural lands in #Syria, deliberately setting fire to wheat crops that Syrian farmers had spent months cultivating.
This is a war crime.
Where is the global outrage? https://t.co/SDt1TClRq2
— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) May 25, 2020
It's not all that much wheat, so is it just for the sadistic fun of it?
The crop burning comes along side a bill to increase US sanctions on #Syria. Starving people into submission. https://t.co/5erx3eaziK
— Syrian Girl (@Partisangirl) May 26, 2020
'Caesar Civilian Protection Act' (H.R. 31), WaPo, Dec. 11, 2019
The text of H.R. 31. (57 cosponsors) placed on Senate Legislative Calendar No. 107
Comments
Trump Sure Is A Busy Evil Doer
Let me start by saying that I have detested Donald Trump as a public personality for decades. Although I think that most of his supporters and opponents share a warped sense of what this asshole is all about, he is an embarrassment on every conceivable level.
His shitty personality and non-existent political philosophy provide massive cover for all the rest of the slime balls running our lives. Instead of both parties in Congress voting over and over again to make war, to expand surveillance and to give trillions of dollars of fiat money to the already too rich -- it is all Trump's doing.
It is debatable how much, if any, influence Donnie Shrimpfingers has over public policy in this country. My own view is that he has virtually no functional authority other than over his own Twitter Account. Whatever.
What is not debatable is that the news articles in this OP put Trump's name in the headlines as the moving party, as though he was poring over the satellite pics of Syria and "ordered" a particular wheat field to be burned out. As so often happens these days, the text of the story contradicts the headline and says that Trump approved the operation.
That could mean a lot of different things, and Trump deserves condemnation for NOT ending all this bullshit in Syria. He is guilty of war crimes in many different capacities and conceivably he really just has a hard-on for Syrian Wheat Farmers.
I find that very hard to believe. Instead, I think this loudmouthed jackass in the White House does not even bother to see how almost a trillion bucks a year on "defense" is spent.
The OP correctly links this "operation" to an Act of Congress from late last year:
In short, Trump is the worst President we have ever had, along with the Congress being the worst we have ever had -- as well as the permanent government for the most part. All the worst ever. Trump remains a major part of our problem -- but only a part.
Yes, burning up a wheat field is a war crime. If it is being done in a systematic way to starve out the people of Syria, it is genocide. If that happens, and it will not surprise me if that effort is made, it would be a real good reason to impeach Trump and remove him from office.
Anybody really think that this Congress would take action against the President for using food depravation as a geopolitical tactic?
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Does Trump control war or foreign policy
It seems that the Oval Office lost war policy under Obama when the military leadership bombed a Syrian position after Obama and Putin arranged for a cease fire. Trump ordered troops out of Syria and was give the finger by the deep state.
But for four years as pundits have said, liberals and the media have "valorized" the deep state.
as to 'deep' state,
i've long theorized that there may be several versions: some in harmony, some in opposition.
You have it right.
There was a book awhile ago that wrote about the seven interest groups controlling America. And yes, there will be times when they fight with each other. An example of that is Walmart vs. the banks. Walmart wanted the banks to lower their service fees which were paid by their customers. They almost won as many lawmakers were on their side. I think it was an Obama fiat ruling that gave the day to the banksters.
i'd never heard of
such a book, but i'd sure stick the CIA as one of them, as well as NGOs such as the atlantic council, thus NATO/africom. dunno if the book had pinged those; do you remember any other for instances? and i loved your use of 'valorized'; another word i'd forgotten. the image it conveys, oh my.
(i'd got caught in a trap after having seen a Tweet about leonard peltier's having been convicted on false testimony, false documents, and so on. but i did finally found it, checked every single link, and really it's about #FreeingHimNow, after 44 years, because the prison he's in is full of coronavirus.) his defense committee had nothing new besides that, either. he's been so very ill, as has julian assange; both political prisoners, of course...)
DO TELL!
Title? Author? Jacket artist? Papermill of origin? This sounds good!
*imagines a Deep State reality TV show..."ACTUAL Big Brother!"*....
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
i'm going to guess
mike lofgren (and the shadow government rings a bell) here's a page of images, although there are a few novels among them.
Sydney Powell exposes Obomba and Her Heinous
She actually makes Trump look good in comparison while talking about how corrupt the US "Deep State" became under Hillary and Obama's watch. The woman has guts and smarts. She will give you a whole new point of view.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTV1Y_QuZOM]
i'll have to take your word for it,
esp. as it sounds like the author mr. webster may have been pinging. but i'd watch two 17-min videos earlier today (in snatches) and got the same barfy-thingy goin' on in my belly. yeah, i'm a video wimp.
thanks for bringing it, though, CB; most C99% denizens love videos. i just can't do them, even were i to have the time. and i'm meetin' myself comin' and goin' this evening, and more RL chores to come.
yes, i loved the text.
after all, 'assad gassed his own people', everyone knows that./s (never mind 4 OCPW whistleblowers having shown that the white helmets, stars of stage and screen had managed to plant those false flag events.
as to this (and i may get seriously in the weeds as i try to respond):
what the ib times had said was:
...
then linked to veterans today, author Stephen Sahionie.
now i'd found coverage earlier at theduran.com:
The US is using wheat as a weapon of war in Syria; Since the beginning of the US-NATO attack on Syria in 2011, wheat production has fallen from an average of 4.1 million tons per year to just 2.2 million tons in 2019’, Stephen Sahionie, May 20, 2020
same fellow, IOW. i can't say that all of what he'd written was the same at both sites, including, but not limited to this, as i've read too much by now:
and maybe this? i'd copied it with an eye toward checking:
nor am i positive that the hyperinks are were useful but i had checked a few of the duran's coverage, one claiming that the reason there was so little wheat, is that assad had 'liberalized' the economy in favor of other products than agriculture. but that link and a couple others had gone to Syria Direct, so i'd wikied that organization and found:
so, i'd also gone to southfront to familiarize myself with a map of syria, as well as the military sit rep, and it does show some wheat fields burned (likely by) Isil in 2019, on the euphrates river on the border of the autonomous zone. click for larger, and there are magnifiers as well.
gotta scoot for now. hope i haven't muddied the waters even further.
on later edit: the southfront syria map hadn't worked as i'd expected: here's the address.
on even later edit: i've corrected some of my typos. some of my keys are sticky, many blank because the print's worn off, and i really don't know how to type in any event.
no, and that was scorched earth evil
in the second tweet.
on later edit: i'd been saying no to this:
the D team has actually increased the military budget over what Boss Tweet had requested, haven't they? and cool screen name, by the way. ; )
Trump's military must have caused him and mafia don pompeo to 'blink' over nor (so far) permitting the 5 iranian gasoline tankers to travel to VZ, although only 2 are in port, 3 others seem to be 'days away', according to a former editor of telesur english via RT.com today.
now whether or not that 'blink' was due to the fact that the US may have been seen as more of a Pariah Nation than ever, or that if any vessels were stopped, blown up...surely china and russia (all great allies of VZ, as is cuba) would have gotten involved. The RT author claims their are 'top level anonymous insider' rumors that the white house is mulling over possible responses. but for now? Woooot!
98% of the time
it's the military that draws up the plans of operation, and the CnC approves/disapproves them. In the end, it's on the president, and paragraphs of prose trying to pass the buck and excuse him for responsibility as just a doofus weakling in the face of the mighty power of the MIC is not going to suffice.
And as Donald has shown, he is not averse to firing generals under his command. If this was something the JCS tried to sneak by and muscle over him, he can send them packing.
As an historical note, it does happen that a plan originates with the president or he is otherwise intimately involved in drawing up battle plans. As with, e.g., LBJ's tendency to want to play general and identify bombing targets on the map of Vietnam which the generals would duly note and then, presumably, bomb.
And sometimes a president will tell the JCS that he wants X done, now go and figure out how to do it and get back to me. In the Trump Syria case, we just don't know. But if it happens by his people on his watch, it's on him.
Thanks for the lesson in military chain of command
I have no idea why you say that "paragraphs of prose trying to pass the buck and excuse him of responsibility . . . is not going to suffice."
In case I did not express myself clearly, I do not want to excuse him of anything. I want honesty in journalism. Yup, most of the time, the military draws up plans and then submits them for approval by the President. I was not aware that the figure was 98%. Your authoritative tone clearly proves that this may have been in the 2% or the 98% category. Thanks for explaining that. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that my bitching about the article has a 98% chance of being accurate. Not bad odds, really.
So, if he really did dream up that campaign to starve the Syrians into submission, he is guilty of yet another war crime, and the article correctly specified it as HIS work. On the other hand, if the entire military and political power structure created a Mission of Regime Change in Syria and uniformed personnel came up with this particular war crime and Trump only approved it, he is guilty of yet another war crime and the article was misleading about it being ONLY on Trump.
I have no patience with letting the entire government pass the buck for its responsibility to follow international law and not commit war crimes. In case you have any doubt about my opinion, let me assure you that Trump deserves to be incarcerated for his part in war crimes.
But he don't do this shit by himself.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
I think people have
generally forgotten, we have absolutely ZERO legal authority to be militarily involved in Syria, for any reason what so ever.
Not to be all sadistic, but how does burning a wheat field compare to the destruction of say Libya, in terms of war crimes, genocide and or crimes against humanity? Or making any "stimulus" for "the people" in the US, having to be means tested to get help, from not dying of starvation?
How does it compare to crime against humanity committed right here in our own country, of Flint Michigan, where tens of thousands were poisoned, but no terrorist was required, and no one has been held accountable?
Gee, over 100,000 US citizens are DEAD because of his, and this governments completely and utterly criminal negligence to this pandemic.
Trump should not be impeached. He should be arrested and fucking perp walked to jail post haste!
[video:https://youtu.be/z3QpZGL0vOQ]
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
i reckon i'm so distant
from this #ShitHole (including Imperialism and capitalism) i never say 'We', but 'the US'. but russia has been invited to syria, which makes it another proxy war, as does Pipelineistan (h/t pepe escobar). hasn't syria been at the epicenter of that? pepe believes so.
i won't even offer any measurements as to how this compares, but i really don't believe boss tweet is 'the worst' (and most loud-mouthed & crass), just one of many war criminal presidents who should have been permanently consigned to the prion at the hague...even though they'd smiled purdy for the cameras.
Trump is not worse than Andrew "Trail of Tears" Jackson
and Jackson's little lapdog Van Buren, who let the atrocities continue. And he's got a ways to go to catch up with James Buchanan....
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
It's not a crime if the president does it
...said Nixon.
Similarly it's not a war crime if the united states does it. The Hague exists to try/punish opponents of the U.S.
The a-bomb, instead of ushering in a time of peace, has given us a world where the biggest bully is free to do as it wants because the other countries know the real consequences.
yes, and which nation
was the only one to launch a-bombs? and yet, trump was stopped from dropping a low-yield nuclear bomb on one iranian nuclear site...by his generals? who pulled out of the JCPOA but pretends the US is still a signatory, and demands that iran 'renegotiate it'? but now it's the US and the START treaty (china mut alo join!), the list just goes on and on, doesn't it, Sharyar?
how many 'undeclared nukes' does israel own? few even care, as the US behaves like a vassal state to Israel.
You can’t say that! It’s antisemitic™ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ !!1!
ack! i'm sorry!
i'd send you 3 amerikan dollars if you swear not to tell Bibi, amiga. okay, i might stretch to 4...
wonder how bibi's corruption trial's going, by the by. sounded like kinda weak tea, though.
meanwhile, and ya gotta love the AP's spin:
hope all is well with you and yours, miz lizard.
kinda makes one un-proud to be
an american backing up a killer regime
least wise with those emitting a conscience
plug the pentagon
stop the violence
question everything
yep. i've seen polls
that clearly demonstrate that a vast preponderance of nations globally see the US as the largest exporter of violence and terrorism on the planet.
Spelling mistake
s/b FREEDUMB.
They use that shit every generation and the plebs fall for it every fucking time.
lol; note at the bottom:
"i did a bad job with the letters".
amerikkka only exports Democracy©! (by pith helmet)
to say the truth, i'd seen that graphic at the tag end of Marvel Comics 'Captain America', but i couldn't find a stand-alone one. that worked for both VZ and pepelineistan syria.
Yeah, okay
Forget my earlier considerations of actually voting for Fat Bastard this time. He can line up right behind Tsarbomba, Hitlerry, George Damn-You Bush, and rest of the Usual Gang of Idiots at the oil-blackened gallows with the ropes woven from teddy bear cholla and gympie-gympie and staffed by literal clones of Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy.
If all else fails, I can always vote for https://verminsupreme2020.com/.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
grin. and did you buy
some of the stuff with his face on it? maybe...a T-shirt', so you can later say: 'I campaigned for Vermin Supreme and all i got was this lousy T-shirt for my efforts'?
of course, i'm assuming he may not win whatever office he's running for... : )
Hate our Syrian Policy
I have not been a fan since day one. Back in the DailyKos days I wrote against it. Then a bunch of Clinton State Dept goons that didn't know Syria for their behind started bombarding the internet with posts of nonsense. Wonderful freedom loving Syrians against an evil leader...meanwhile ignoring the throat slitters.
That should be, and probably is, illegal. But no one gives a damn. Just like Ceasar. No one actually wants to do documentation on his photos. He is just to be accepted as true. Not unlike the 'fact' that DNC files were stolen by Russia. No need for documented evidence. This feels like it is true, so therefore everyone will report it as true.
Anyway, I bring this up because I doubt the stories we did this. Another fire broke out near Palmyra. It has been hot as bejeezus in Syria lately. Way above normal.
When I lived in Greece every time a fire started in late summer they blamed it on Turkey. The fact that everyone smoked and everyone threw their cigs out the window never entered the discussion.
I would love a focus on just what Hillary did to support the initial uprising. She is evil.
well, i'm not sure how
to respond. a rare commenter at the café stopped by ad said it amounted to a kitchen fire. i'd directed him here for updates (as i'd forgotten to add 'cross-posed from', cross-posted at'), but i won't argue that you're wrong, because as the stories said: the crops caught fire in other locales because 'hot dry winds'.
you've obviously lived with wildland fires blowing up via wind sparks as we have here in SW colorado, so i'll honor your comment. the end.
on edit: see the second tweet as part II of the 'scorched earth evil'.
US policy is to starve
it's enemies, both here and in yemen lately, but it's a long list. the large fire on the border was assumed to have been isis/isil, but who knows? and this is a bit too convenient:
and the AA refuses to sell wheat to the assad government. Kissinger Doctrine: 'He who controls the world's food...controls the world', or close to that. soon it will be fresh water, though, i think.
but Slow Draw McGraw here re: this:
where? how? i suppose you're free to do that here, and might be prompted by CB's sidney powell video, no?
i'm out for the night, gonna watch a bit
of 'Arthur' w/ clive owen. Saxons: talk about scorched earth! whooosh!; )
a closing song? guess playing for change's cover of Gimme Shelter sounds about right just now:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJtq6OmD-_Y]
hello: even Washboard Chaz!
about 30 years ago
I placed my bet that the Elites practice, literally, Black Magic as the driving force of US/European actions. Looking at the history of the aristocratic involvement in secret societies and their rituals and stated purposes, going back centuries, plus the fact that their actions result in massive terror, misery, and death I could only conclude that in the Elites' mind they saw all they've wrought as food. Sounds crazy, and I don't want to start a thread on conspiracy theories, but damn...
This story supports my conclusion. There's no real world advantage to this: it's purely for fear and torture, nothing else.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
it's a fascinting theory,
causing me to try to time-travel back centuries to even remember extant secret societies, but the few i recalled were masons, skull and bones, and secret societies within the catholic church, especially.
this is fear, torture, and the biggie (imo): Control. it's one of the ways that western policy works: throw a populace into dire precarity, throw in a few CIA provocateurs to agitate for the overthrow of a duly elected government in favor of a US/Western puppet, and ya got ballgame.
remember Pompeo's Tweets to the iranians? "send us your photos and stories of iranian oppression and citizen torment"?
gawd's blood, what a Thug: