US-Turkey Lurch to World War in Syria

Click here to access article by Finian Cunningham from Strategic Culture Foundation.

It appears the regimes of US and Turkey are two Machiavellian peas in NATO's pod. Each have somewhat different agendas, but their agendas are complementary regarding Syria. Both are up to their necks in lies about what they are doing in Syria, but both want to crush the Syrian government.

Cunningham's assessment about their collusion seems correct.

Given the grim prognosis for the regime-change conspirators, Turkey and the US appear prepared now to ratchet up direct military intervention. In short, they are moving to fully-fledged war on Syria.

Erdogan seems to be using the failed coup in his country in mid-July as added leverage on Washington. Reeling from Turkish accusations that the US was somehow complicit in aiding the coup attempt (probably overblown), Washington seems keener to accommodate Erdogan’s demands over Syria.

Syria: White Helmets Staged ‘Russian Bombing’ Scene Near Aleppo, Lapped-up By Mainstream Media

Click here to access article from 21st Century Wire.

This study of the White Helmets in Syria is an excellent example of investigative journalism. The While Helmets have been frequently used by Empire propagandists to shore up their fabricated reports about what the US is doing in Syria. This is an investigation of another NGO that is being used by the Empire to support their war against Syria. Read it to see how the author(s) build a case to justify this disturbing concluding statement.

The ground conflict in Syria is being perpetuated by western terrorist brigades under a variety of names, but perhaps the greatest damage to Syria and the Syrian people has been inflicted upon them by the propaganda merchants, the western media, the humanitarian NGOs, the US/NATO think-tanks and all manner of NATO biased, Leftist peace activists or anti-war protesters calling for a war to end a war that was started by their governments who will escalate the war against Syria to effect their “regime change” targets.

This incident once more demonstrates the size and power of the apparatus driving this propaganda with a full compliment of ancillary crisis actors and extras.

From the reactions of Kerry and the West, it is hard not to conclude that we are being propelled closer to the abyss of a dangerous geopolitical standoff, or a World War.

How US Propaganda Plays in Syrian War

Click here to access article by Rick Sterling from Consortium News. 

Manipulation of public perception has risen to a new level with the emergence of powerful social media. Multibillion-dollar corporate giants, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google, influence public perceptions, often via payments for “boosting” Facebook posts, paid promotion of Tweets, and biased results from search engines.

Marketing and advertising companies use social media to promote their clients, but so do U.S. foreign policy managers who hire or enlist these companies to influence public perceptions to support U.S. foreign policy goals.

Another Known Wolf? NYC Bombing Suspect Probed by FBI, Leading to Bigger Questions

Click here to access article by Shawn Helton from 21st Century Wire. 

Another very suspicious "terrorist" incident! The author explores the circumstances related to these latest related incidents in the NY City area and finds once again that it looks like a staged false flag terrorist event.

All activists and the general public need to be aware that the games of deception practiced in so many places where the US Empire is involved also happen here at home. We live in a truly globalized world. The trans-national capitalist class that directs the Empire has no more regard for working people in the US than they do for working people throughout the world. They use corporate media, fake terrorist events, and their secretly funded real terrorist armies to spread their lies everywhere.

You have to wonder, were the events in New York and New Jersey also a weapon of mass distraction, following a major international embarrassment for the United States both at home and abroad – the brutal airstrike campaign in Syria that killed over 70 Syrian troops? This unlikely bombing incident just happened to also coincide with the UN General Assembly in NYC, where President Obama was delivering among other speeches, his “War on Terror” addresses to the international community. No surprise then, with the city suddenly on ‘high terror alert’ – that Obama quickly and confidently and comfortably used his center stage spotlight at the UN, shifting into ‘national security’ mode – boasting how quickly his police forces solved the case. It was almost if we was ready for events that weekend.

The Empire directors also use a major divide and conquer strategy here in the US in their attempt to split the working class between African-Americans and European-Americans. This is an old strategy resurrected in a desperate attempt to foster domestic conflict and also to create distractions from their imperial wars abroad.

Media Manipulation and Syria’s “White Helmets”, Deceive ‘Right Livelihood’ and CodePink [a must read]

Click here to access article by Rick Sterling from Global Research. 

This article opened up a kind of Pandora's Box for me after more than an hour of studying it, doing a little research, and jogging my memory about the Purpose organization. First of all, it should be noted that Sterling's article misidentifies it as "Purpose Foundation" which appears to me unconnected to Purpose whose legal name is "Purpose Campaigns LLC", registered in the state of Delaware. There is very little information about the organization on their website other than a self-identification as a "public benefit corporation". Mostly their website is devoted to presenting themselves in a variety of ways as doing good. 

During the course of my research I did a Google search on "Purpose" which led me to an intermediate page which posted "Black Lives Matter In Solidarity" with links to "Color of Change" and "Campaign Zero". I found a Forbes article on them from 2011 which revealed other connections. Then I remember posting information about them some time ago. 

I did a search of my own website and found a lot more information about Purpose and their connections to other questionable organizations in an article I posted in 2014. All the information I turned up suggests that there is a major propaganda source behind all these connected organizations that are designed not only to promote pro-government propaganda but to influence activist organizations within the US so that they don't threaten the status quo. In other words, these are subversive organizations funded mostly by the ruling capitalist class and probably directed by some agency of the deep state to insure their continued rule.

Genuine progressive and revolutionary organizations need to be aware of their activities, and to the best of my knowledge most of them are not. They must be exposed and every genuine activist organization must be alerted and warned about them. If the genuine alternative media organizations in the US are worth anything, they must get on this as soon as possible.

It must be understood that when an activist organization receives money from dubious sources, even if they are engaged in genuine progressive activities, they are often being used by the funders for other purposes (usually for nefarious purposes). When activist organizations no longer serve their ruling class sponsors, they are dropped. 

What also must be understood is that we live in a globalized world. For example, what the agents of the Empire do in such places as Syria regarding the While Helmets (read this), they also do here in the US to defend and promote the interests of the ruling capitalist class of the Empire.

Global warming will accelerate as oceans reach limits of remediation

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder.

A major problem is that global warming, as with the associated environmental problems, can’t be solved within the capitalism that has caused, and is accelerating, the problem. All incentives under capitalism are for more growth and thus more greenhouse-gas emissions, and there is no provision to provide new jobs for the many people who would be displaced should the heavily polluting industries in which they work were to be shut down in the interest of the environment. The private capital that profits from environmental devastation is allowed to externalize the costs onto society, an inequality built into the system. The concept of “green capitalism” is a dangerous chimera.

International Day of Peace Impeded by US War Plans

Click here to access article by Sara Flounders from TeleSur. 

The theme of today's U.N. International Day of Peace is sustainable development to eliminate poverty. It is an attractive goal. The problem is that the U.N.'s plans to diminish poverty leave capitalism in place and the plans to achieve peace ignore the United States as the dominant military power.

Franklin Roosevelt was the main influential driver behind the establishment of the United Nations. I have read many books about him, and have learned much.

He was a protégé of President Wilson who like Wilson saw it as a forum where disputes among the nations of the world could be settled through negotiations rather than war. FDR's was brought up in a very comfortable setting that was based on the wealth that some of his ancestors obtained through imposed and exploitative trading activities in 19th century China. 

I'm sure that he was never conscious of this and was quite tolerant of his capitalist contemporaries who aggressively exploited workers and resources to obtain similar wealth. He had faith that such activities could be controlled by government. FDR took the system of capitalism for granted and/or assumed that it was the best system possible. He regarded the many losers in this system with a sympathetic form of noblesse oblige which was reflected in many of his New Deal policies. Unlike the imperialist Churchill of Britain he was not so ideologically driven that he couldn't relate honestly with leaders of opposing systems like Joseph Stalin or promote state sponsorship of industries that benefited the nation like the TVA. 

Because of his policies he was hated by many of his class who were driven by the capitalist ethos of profits and aggressive use of power. His naive beliefs about the UN as a force for peace was soon undermined by the emergence after WWII of a powerful capitalist-based Anglo-American Empire that took control of this institution so that it could never interfere with capitalist exploitative designs on the world nor their wars.

The biggest banks, transnational companies and financial institutions, like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, structure the U.N. projects while ignoring the massive destruction and dislocation of the wars. The objectives of the U.N. policy makers are to expand capitalist markets, maximize profits and restructure the developing countries more tightly into their economic web—not to redistribute the world’s wealth. 

US Aid to Israel Aids Who and Toward What End?

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.

Cartalucci exams some of the details of the latest $38 billion aid package to Israel and others like it, for example to Saudi Arabia, which are a boon to the US "defense" industry as well as serving to promote the US Empire's domination of the oil-rich Middle East. Read the article to see how he develops an argument that supports these rather unusual conclusions:

...the Israeli people, as well as their neighbors are denied any opportunity to live in peace and move forward in progress for another decade to come.

Rather than underwriting Israel’s security for the next decade, the US is ensuring Israel struggles under another 10 years of uncertainty, perpetually impending war, all while its regime continues to partner with neighboring regimes – including Saudi Arabia and Turkey – to undermine regional stability and further threaten the future of the Israeli people and the survival of the Israeli nation.

The Israeli regime’s signing of yet another compromising, dependency-inducing aid package with the United States is proof once again that Israel’s own government constitutes the Israeli nation’s worst enemy. 

Bizarre happenings during this election year

by Tom Tomorrow.

Transformation

Click here to access article by Gaither Stewart from The Greanville Post. 

There is much food for revolutionary thought in this article. It especially differentiates revolution from reform which liberals want. I only disagree with the following statement that Stewart makes:

Today, America aspires to domination of the entire world; according to the Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev and its greatest writer, Fedor Dostoevsky, Russia’s mission and destiny is to save the world.

Capitalist development of societies has resulted in a globalized, interconnected world (especially via the internet), not because capitalists sought to bring people together for their advancement, rather to access poor, desperate workers and exploit more of their nations' resources so that they could reap bigger profits and power for themselves. It is not Russia's mission to save humanity, it is for the world's humans everywhere to save themselves.

...mankind (we now total seven billions on planet Earth) must search for a new and more just way of life, where ... an inextinguishable moral light burns brightly, and that means no less than radical transformation of the present social order called Capitalism.

A shift in social standing is part of the dangerous game of life but a radically changed situation like a conversion to another faith—or a loss of faith all together—create the risk of no longer understanding who, where and what you are. Yet a rapid break-through into a radically changed social style can perhaps still save the world of mankind. 

America’s Worldwide Impunity

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from Consortium News.

After several years of arming and supporting Syrian rebel groups that often collaborated with Al Qaeda’s Nusra terror affiliate, the United States launched an illegal invasion of Syria two years ago with airstrikes supposedly aimed at Al Qaeda’s Islamic State spin-off, but on Saturday that air war killed scores of Syrian soldiers and aided an Islamic State victory. [Deir al-Zour aka Deir Ezzor, Deir Al-Zor, Deir-al-Zour, Dayr Al-Zawr, Der Ezzor and other variants: located in eastern Syria]

Yet, the major American news outlets treat this extraordinary set of circumstances as barely newsworthy, operating with an imperial hubris that holds any U.S. invasion or subversion of another country as simply, ho-hum, the way things are supposed to work.

But the fact that the U.S. and several allies have been routinely violating Syrian sovereign airspace to carry out attacks was not even an issue, nor is it a scandal that the U.S. military and CIA have been arming and training Syrian rebels. In the world of Official Washington, the United States has the right to intervene anywhere, anytime, for whatever reason it chooses.

See also this article from Moon of Alabama entitled [US] "Deir Ezzor Attack Enables The 'Salafist Principality'...."

On Saturday U.S. airplanes attacked the most important Syrian government position in Deir Ezzor. Nearly a hundred Syrian soldiers were killed and most of the heavy equipment the Deir Ezzor garrison had left was destroyed. Immediately after the attack fighters of the Islamic State occupied the bombed out government positions. These Islamic States fighters now own the heights above the Deir Ezzor airport. A day later the Islamic State shot down a Syrian government plane near Deir Ezzor. 

Well, I disagree with Parry. After all, the United States of America is an exceptional nation, at least, that is what our fuehrer (oops) leader says, and so this latest bombing of the Syrian army that was engaged with ISIS affiliated terrorist groups (who were likely responsible for the attacks on UN and Syrian Arab Red Crescent aid convoys) was for the good of Syria. I never question what our leaders tell us because we choose them in our democratic elections. Besides, the TV says mostly same things. (tongue in cheek)

Justice In Focus: Opening Remarks by Mark Crispin Miller

Click here to access an 11:34m video of Miller's opening remarks to the Justice In Focus symposium via Facebook. (I believe that this is accessible by all those (like myself) who are not registered with Facebook.)

On the weekend of 9/10 and 9/11/2016 reports were delivered by many experts associated with Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth who question the veracity of the government's tale about what happened on 9/11/2001. This is the opening address to that gathering in NY City. Peruse also this website for more information from other highly qualified people who question what happened on 9/11.

Washington’s Hawks Push New Cold War

Click here to access article by Alastair Crooke from ConsortiumNews. 

I've run out of time this morning, and because of this I've only scanned most sections of this article. Because I normally only post articles that I've read entirely, I am departing from this practice because of my deep respect for Crooke's analytical abilities.

From a cursory reading of the article, it looks to me that the Empire's regime is in total disarray as to what policies to pursue in its failed quest to destroy Syria as they've done to Iraq and Libya. In their frustration the Empire's ruling class policy masters seem hell-bent on going after Russia as enemy number one. Let us "pray" that they will eventually come to their senses.

A Disastrous Error in Syria

Click here to access article by Patrick Cockburn from CounterPunch.

I am posting this article, not because of its merits, but because it is an excellent example of a liberal journalist's interpretation of a political-military disastrous event. Yes, the US attack on the Syrian army that was fighting ISIS terrorists was all a mistake! It's amazing to see all the rational contortions he goes through to explain US involvement in that conflict.

Liberals serve to celebrate the pseudo democracy that capitalists like to perform as a ruse on their populations and to hide or obscure their major crimes. They will skirt the edges of capitalist ruling class tolerance by criticizing many of their other actions, but tend to stop short of criticizing or identifying the system and by obscuring the class that so enormously benefits from the system.

(If you are confused about all these Cockburns as I was, this link and another, serves to explain all their relationships. Patrick is a brother along with Andrew (another journalist) of the late Alexander Cockburn who was a co-founder of the CounterPunch website. They all seem to have the same liberal politics.)

After reading this article, you may be interested in an article about the same subject by Finian Cunningham, a more independent journalist, entitled "Why US Had to Kill the Syrian Ceasefire". 

Or this one by independent French journalist Thierry Meyssan entitled "The pretence of peace".

And this one about confusing pictures of US soldiers in Syria by Isiah Holmes entitled "Questions Remain Over Photos Of US Troops In Syria, ...".

Saudis Dominate Among Suicide-Bombers [a "best post"]

Click here to access article by Eric Zuesse from Strategic Culture Foundation.

Zuesse cites a number of studies which point to Saudi Arabia as the source of actual terrorists and the funding of terrorists. These have been conveniently used to advance the agendas and interests of both the medieval kingdom of Saudi Arabia (and associated kingdoms) and the US Empire.

...Saudi Arabia — the font of fundamentalist Sunni belief worldwide, and biggest global funder of fundamentalist Sunni clergy and of jihadists generally — has been the biggest steady source of jihadists, ever since at least 1979, when the born Polish nobleman, the American Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan al-Saud, came up with the idea of the U.S. and Saudi governments’ sponsoring Al Qaeda and other jihadist organizations to infiltrate and take over Afghanistan and other countries that the U.S. aristocracy and the Saudi royal family, want to control. This tactic was then seen as being the cheapest means of foreign conquest, because jihadists readily become human bombs that can blow up precise targets which would otherwise be expensive to destroy by means of a traditionally armed invasion.

The problem I have with Zuesse is that he frequently uses the term "aristocracy" to refer to the ruling capitalist class in the US. This inaccurate term effectively serves to obscure the nature of this ruling class. Now I don't know if he does this to protect his job opportunities in institutions of higher learning or opportunities to get his articles posted in major websites that are usually liberal in their orientation. 

Once again this morning, I tried to get some biographical information on him, and once again failed. He is usually described as an historian or an investigative historian, but I found other descriptions such as this which didn't even mention "historian" but included a variety of other descriptions such as journalist and anthropologist. It appears that he has made strenuous efforts to protect his background for whatever reason. He is obviously highly educated (but where? and what are his credentials?) and writes scholarly articles.

Palestinians lose in US military aid deal with Israel

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook, an independent British journalist who frequently hangs out in Nazareth, Israel.

In this article Cook assesses the significance of the latest military aid package to Israel, the US Empire's aircraft carrier that guards the Empire's capitalist interests and dominance in the Middle East. Well, after all it is good for the US economy, the weapons industry, and well-paying jobs--as is the conflict in Yemen. He concludes with this observation: 

Mr Netanyahu has drawn the right lesson from the aid deal – he can act against the Palestinians with continuing US impunity.

Meanwhile back at the Israeli ranch, we see just that happening to the Palestinians as reported in a report by Cook entitled "Palestinians in Israel warn of bid to ‘criminalise’ political activity".

Life Itself Is Being Patented, Privatized and Re-engineered

Click here to access a transcript of an interview with Ashley Dawson, author of Extinction: A Radical History, posted on TruthOut.

The periodic crises of the capitalist system also drive it to seek out new and easily exploitable natural resources. Capitalism's frontier consequently expands outward incessantly. ....

Today, this expansionary dynamic of capital is playing out through the commodification of life on the genetic level. Large corporations are moving genetic material around from one organism to another and, increasingly, seeking to turn living organisms into factories to produce lucrative products. In the process, life itself is being patented, privatized and radically reengineered.

Solidarity from the Amazon to Standing Rock

Click here to access article from Amazon Watch.

Indigenous people all over the Americas are increasingly feeling the threats of capitalist development on lands which they have lived on for thousands of years. This article especially drew my attention because I grew up very near the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, but had limited contact with indigenous people. I mostly saw a few of them on local baseball teams, however one incident left a very strong impression upon me as a 11 year old child. I lost my wallet which contained five dollars (a very large sum in the late 1940s) and it was returned to me via a third party completely intact. Somehow I learned that the original finders were very poor Native Americans who I was unable to find to give them a reward.

The website contains a lot of information about similar issues that indigenous people are facing all over the Americas, especially in South America. It also contains some excellent videos to educate us about environmental destruction and the fight to save our habitat. Here are two:



And especially one that you can find at this link.

Syria: No “Dusty Boy” Outrage for 7 yr old Haider, Sniped by NATO Terrorists in Idlib Village of Foua

Click here to access article by Vanessa Beeley from 21st Century Wire.

Beeley's report about the realities of the Syria war attacks the efforts of the Empire's propaganda to portray their support of terrorist armies as supporting human rights. 

On the 15th September, 7 year old Haider Ammar Al Hamoud, was shot through the stomach by an Ahrar Al Sham sniper, the US backed terrorist group besieging the Idlib villages of Kafarya and Foua. Haider was ignored by western media.

His life-threatening injury did not merit any outcry from human rights organisations or the NATO-aligned media who ignore the deaths and injuries of tens of thousands of children in Syria because it does not serve their agenda to demonize the Syrian President, Bashar al Assad or the national armed forces.

Whose nukes are the real threat?

Click here to access article by Deirdre Griswold from Workers World.

Griswold only included the most obvious reasons why the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) insists on developing and maintaining a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Violence is the only thing that Empire leaders respect--that's why they keep lecturing us, their protesting subjects (definition #1), about the necessity of nonviolence. That is also why the US spends half of its income--roughly equal to the rest of the nations combined--buying weapons and using and selling them to their allies all over the world. That is why DPRK develops these weapons.

The Koreans have not forgotten the terrible ravages inflicted on them by the US and associated accomplices during the Korean War, but unfortunately most Americans have in this "forgotten war".  And now we know with the recently published exhaustive review of all the evidence in This Must Be the Place by Dave Chaddock that the US not only considered using atomic bombs on DPRK, but actually used bacteriological weapons on their population, a war crime--which is probably the real reason why this is a "forgotten war". (Read this, this, and this) 

Besides all this gruesome evidence, one should know how the US stepped into Korea after WWII to support that most reactionary and Japanese colonial elements of Korean society after Korea had suffered many decades of Japanese colonial oppression. You can read all about this sordid history by reading two volumes of The Origins of the Korean War by Bruce Cumings. If you don't have time to read both, be sure to read volume 1. This book, more than any other single book that I read up until 2010, was a real "eye-opener". If you still don't have time to read this single book, then I recommend reading "North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please Stand Down?" by Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers.

Ed Norton Occupies the World

Click here to access article by Philip A. Farruggio from World News Trust. 

Farruggio's reactions to seeing our dressed up combat soldiers in various parts of the world really resonated with my own feelings. Even though this writer in many ways comes from a liberal perspective, it may serve as evidence that many such people are finding US media coverage of issues as absurd. I especially like this observation:

Empires fold up when either they get overrun or their citizens have had enough. No one is preaching the "R" word here. We need to first educate our fellow citizens with nothing more than the truth.

Our mainstream media will never play a part in that. No, more and more of us must continue to seek out the alternative media to find out what is really happening and what is really true. Our military personnel, whether it be the grunts, the officers or the big shots in Washington, need to begin to "speak truth to power" and say NO to empire.

‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ event: be prepared to use all you’ve learned to assist transition to victory....

Click here to access article by Carl Herman from Washington's Blog.

This piece is loaded with inspiration; and as God or Allah knows, we need inspiration like never before.

Life is a team sport.

The time is coming for We the Informed to assist We the People to process facts we’ve been trailblazing on our journeys for truth.

Corporate Media Silent as States Declare Emergency In Aftermath Massive Pipeline Rupture

Click here to access article by Claire Bernish from The Free Thought Project. 

Instead of criticizing the methods and tactics of water protectors in North Dakota, perhaps we all should be asking why we continue to depend on an industry directly threatening our dwindling freshwater stores. Cynicism and chastisement of activists looks awfully foolish when the subject of their outrage is the very life-sustaining water we all depend on.

Suing victims of 9/11? Hmmm, maybe not

by cartoonist Khalil Bendib.