"al-CIA-duh" in Syria to facilitate Joo Bernard Lewis's Clash of Civilisation

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Surreal: Clinton Pledges $45 Million in Aid to Al Qaeda in Syria

By Tony Cartalucci at Infowars.com

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US would be providing an additional $45 million in “non-lethal aid” to the “opposition” in Syria, reported the Associated Press. 

The Western press chose their words carefully, ensuring that the term “civilian opposition” was repeatedly used to describe the armed terrorist forces attempting to violently overthrow the Syrian government.

Image: Libyan Mahdi al-Harati of the US State Department, United Nations, and the UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf)-listed terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), addressing fellow terrorists in Syria. Harati is now commanding a Libyan brigade operating inside of Syria attempting to destroy the Syrian government and subjugate the Syrian population. Traditionally, this is known as “foreign invasion.” US aid is going to foreign terrorists, not a “civilian opposition.”

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In reality, the “opposition” in Syria constitutes foreign terrorist legions flowing across Syria’s borders, and in particular, staging and crossing over from NATO-member Turkey. 

In fact, it was recently admitted by the terrorist legions themselves that their headquarters has been located within Turkish territory for the duration of the conflict. In a recent France 24 article titled, “Free Syrian Army move HQ from Turkey to Syria,” armed militants claimed they had only just recently “moved from Turkey to within Syria.”

Clinton’s Aid is Going to Al Qaeda, Not a “Civilian Opposition.”

While the Western media attempts to portray heavily armed foreign terrorists as “Syria’s civilian opposition,” it has been revealed that entire brigades are led by Libyan terrorists drawn from the ranks of the US State Department (#29), UK Home Office (page 5, .pdf), and UN-listed terror organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The presence of LIFG in Syria was first announced by the Western press in November of 2011 when the Telegraph in their article, “Leading Libyan Islamist met Free Syrian Army opposition group,” would report:

Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, “met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey,” said a military official working with Mr Belhadj. “Mustafa Abdul Jalil (the interim Libyan president) sent him there.”

Photo: The face of Libya’s “revolution” was literally Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda’s LIFG commander, Abdul Hakim Belhadj, was NATO’s point man in Libya and has now redirected his terrorist forces against Syria. LIFG commanders are now literally running entire brigades in Syria with Western diplomatic, logistic, and military support.

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Another Telegraph article, “Libya’s new rulers offer weapons to Syrian rebels,” would admit

Syrian rebels held secret talks with Libya’s new authorities on Friday, aiming to secure weapons and money for their insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

At the meeting, which was held in Istanbul and included Turkish officials, the Syrians requested “assistance” from the Libyan representatives and were offered arms, and potentially volunteers.

“There is something being planned to send weapons and even Libyan fighters to Syria,” said a Libyan source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “There is a military intervention on the way. Within a few weeks you will see.”

Later that month, some 600 Libyan terrorists would be reported to have entered Syria to begin combat operations and more recently, CNN, whose Ivan Watson accompanied terrorists over the Turkish-Syrian border and into Aleppo, revealed that indeed foreign fighters were amongst the militants, particularly Libyans. It was admitted that:

Meanwhile, residents of the village where the Syrian Falcons were headquartered said there were fighters of several North African nationalities also serving with the brigade’s ranks.

A volunteer Libyan fighter has also told CNN he intends to travel from Turkey to Syria within days to add a “platoon” of Libyan fighters to armed movement.

CNN also added:

On Wednesday, CNN’s crew met a Libyan fighter who had crossed into Syria from Turkey with four other Libyans. The fighter wore full camouflage and was carrying a Kalashnikov rifle. He said more Libyan fighters were on the way.

The foreign fighters, some of them are clearly drawn because they see this as … a jihad. So this is a magnet for jihadists who see this as a fight for Sunni Muslims.

CNN’s reports provide bookends to 2011′s admissions that large numbers of Libyan terrorists flush with NATO cash and weapons had headed to Syria, with notorious terrorist LIFG commandersmaking the arrangements.

LIFG officially merged with Al Qaeda in 2007, but has fought along Al Qaeda since its inception by the US and Saudis in the mountains of Afghanistan in the 1980′s. This includes fighting alongside Al Qaeda most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq against US troops while sowing sectarian violence, as covered by the US Army’s West Point Combating Terrorism Center in a 2007 report.

The report titled, “Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq” stated specifically:

The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to Iraq may be linked the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group’s (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al‐Qa’ida, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al‐Qa’ida on November 3, 2007.

The vast majority (84.2%) of Libyans that recorded  their route to Iraq arrived via the same pathway running through Egypt and then by air to Syria. This recruiting and logistics network is likely tied to LIFG, which  has long ties (not all positive) with Egyptian and Algerian Islamist groups.

The announcement that LIFG had officially sworn allegiance to al‐Qa’ida was long‐expected by observers of the group. Both the ideologue Abu Yahya al‐Libi and the military leader Abu Layth al‐Libi have long histories with the LIFG, and  are increasingly prominent figures along the Afghanistan‐Pakistan border and in  al‐Qa’ida’s propaganda. Abu Layth is now an operational commander in  Afghanistan; and in 2007, Abu Yahya is second only to Ayman al‐Zawahiri as the most visible figure in al‐Qa’ida’s propaganda. The increasing prominence of  LIFG figures in al‐Qa’ida’s high command may be a function of the group’s logistics capacity, including its now demonstrated ability to move people  effectively around the Middle East, including to Iraq. (begins on page 9, .pdf)

It would now appear that LIFG’s logistics capacity aimed at Iraq which was previously routed through Syria and Egypt in cooperation with sectarian extremists, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood based in both nations, is now being directed exclusively at Syria. LIFG is doing this with Qatari, Saudi, US, French, British, and NATO support (predominantly Turkey) after receiving similar support in overthrowing the Libyan government in 2011.

US Support of Al Qaeda Announced on Heels of US Ambassador’s Death.

Ironically, the recent infusion of cash and support for Al Qaeda terrorists by the US comes on the heels of assaults staged by the group against US diplomatic missions across the region. One in particular, emanating within LIFG’s own terror emirate in Benghazi, Libya, would claim the life of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens. While Stevens’ death was most likely accidental, (he succumbed to smoke inhalation, and was not killed directly by militants), it was most certainly the LIFG militias who dominate Benghazi that staged the attacks.

The purpose of the attacks was to reestablish an adversarial narrative between the US and regional sectarian extremists after a surge in public awareness that the two have been working in tandem against the enemies of the West for years. The US itself would implicate “Al Qaeda” as being behind the regional attacks for this very purpose, before continuing their support of the terror organization in its efforts to overrun Syria.

Image: Bi-partisan treason. Senator John McCain pictured alongside the now deceased Ambassador Stevens (right, wearing a blue tie--Democratic Party of the USA; In the UK blue means conservative) had been in Benghazi, Libya supporting Al Qaeda militants since 2011 and highlight that the US’ current support of global terrorism is bi-partisan in nature. It does not stem from a “secret plot” hatched by current US President Barack Obama, but is merely the latest leg of a singular agenda dictated by corporate-financier interests that transcend presidencies. The violent destabilization of Syria in fact began in 2007 under US President George Bush. 

(Well Tony shall we start with the UK, and the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the1920's....or the UK 's support for the House of Saud, and Wahabism......from the 18th century to weaken the Ottoman empire, or Rothschild minion and super agent Bernard Lewis sent to the USA to indoctrinate the USA, about political Islam, and its usefulness in destabilizing whole societies) 

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West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center 2007 report specifically mentions the city of Benghazi and nearby Darnah as the LIFG terror epicenter, stating specifically:

Both Darnah and Benghazi have long been associated with Islamic militancy in  Libya, in particular for an uprising by Islamist organizations in the mid‐1990s.  The Libyan government blamed the uprising on “infiltrators from the Sudan and  Egypt” and one group—the Libyan Fighting Group (jamaʹah al‐libiyah al‐ muqatilah)—claimed to have Afghan veterans in its ranks. The Libyan uprisings became extraordinarily violent.  Qadhafi used helicopter gunships in  Benghazi, cut telephone, electricity, and water supplies to Darnah and famously claimed that the militants “deserve to die without trial, like dogs.”

Abu Layth al‐Libi, LIFG’s Emir, reinforced Benghazi and Darnah’s importance to Libyan jihadis in his announcement that LIFG had joined al‐Qa’ida, saying:

“It is with the grace of God that we were hoisting the banner of jihad against this apostate regime under the leadership of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which sacrificed the elite of its sons and commanders in combating this regime whose blood was spilled on  the mountains of Darnah, the streets of Benghazi, the outskirts of Tripoli, the desert of  Sabha, and the sands of the beach.” (begins on page 12, .pdf)

It is quite clear then, that the NATO-backed 2011 “revolution” in Libya was merely the continuation of Al Qaeda’s campaign against Qaddafi, this time assisted by US, French, and British jets and special forces, with an infusion of Western, Qatari and Saudi cash, “non-lethal” aid, and weapons. 

The West, with a sound understanding of LIFG long predating their support for Al Qaeda in Libya in 2011, knowingly aided and abetted terrorists with Western blood on their hands who were long-listed on various Western foreign terrorist organization lists.

Deceitfully, European foreign ministries and the US State Department had portrayed these terrorists as “Libya’s civilian opposition,” in order to justify military intervention and regime change just as they are portraying these very same terrorists as “Syria’s civilian opposition.”

Hillary Clinton is handing millions in cash to known Al Qaeda terrorists, on the heels of these terrorists claiming one of her own ambassadors in the middle of LIFG’s terror emirate – this while the West berates Iran for supporting the government of Syria as it attempts to defend itself against what is clearly a foreign invasion, not a popular uprising.

While it may seem an act of unhinged insanity – it is not. It only seems “insane” if one believes the narratives spun by Western politicians who are attempting to sell their agenda from various, not always mutually conducive angles. 

If one however understands that the corporate-financier interests of Wall Street and London are pursuing global hegemony at any cost, the use of Al Qaeda terrorists who have just led mobs attacking Western consulates across the region that claimed the life of one of America’s own ambassadors makes perfect sense.

Destabilization through propaganda is better than an outright attack to remove the puppet mullah regime.

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Women think differently to men.....their perception of how to solve problems. Obama is gender neutral.

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Attacking Iran Would Be a Gift to the Ayatollahs

John Glaser at antiwar.com

 

Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, according to a piece by Nazila Fathi at Foreign Policy, has been perpetually harassed by the Iranian regime, which hates her political activism and dissent. She now lives a life in exile, still fighting to expose Tehran’s human rights abuses. But now she says a more troubling problem has arisen:

War with Israel, she says, may rescue the Iranian regime at a time when it is extremely unpopular at home and is clinging to power with an iron fist. “It is the only thing that can save the regime,” she said. “A war will stir nationalistic feelings and rally the people behind the government to defend the country. It will be catastrophic for the [Iranian] people, the country, and the region, but it will save Iran’s rulers.”

Official sources in Washington have repeatedly cited this as just one reason, among many, to refrain from bombing Iran for a nuclear weapons program it doesn’t have. Demonstrated in part by what went on during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, US officials (most of them, believe it or not, oppose military attack on Iran) note that however unhappy the Iranian populace is with the regime in Tehran, an attack from the outside would rally Iranian behind their government. Like the lies we heard about being greeted as liberators in Iraq, Iranians would not lie back and capitulate. They would retaliate.

A recent report by former government officials, national security experts and retired military officers released earlier this month found that “US and/or Israeli strikes are more likely to unify the population behind the government than to generate resistance, 

” as the neoconservatives believe they can generate. The assessment also found that to achieve anything more than a temporary setback in Iran’s nuclear program would require a full scale military invasion, occupation, and regime change. And “given Iran’s large size and population, and the strength of Iranian nationalism, we estimate that the occupation of Iran would require a commitment of resources and personnel greater than what the US has expended over the last 10 years in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined.”

The report’s warnings didn’t end there. A US and/or Israeli strike – which the Obama administration as virtually ruled out but which could very well occur in a Romney administration – would also trigger an uncontrollable region wide war fought with both conventional means and unconventional, guerrilla warfare retaliation throughout the region, prompting huge increases in the recruitment capabilities of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. (This is what Israel wants for the USA to do for them, regardless of consequences for the USA. As to "al-CIA-duh" it doesn't exist, but the reporter has maintained his credibility with the powers that be in the USA)  

Finally, such an attack would incentivize Iran to kick out international inspectors and to reconstitute their defunct nuclear weapons program.

Wacko Netanyahoo performing and lecturing all at the UN

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Bibi’s Crazy UN Speech

Medievalist poses as champion of “modernity”

By Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com and Information Clearinghouse.
 

It’s no wonder the Israeli Foreign Ministry initially held back from releasing a transcript of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the UN General Assembly: 

Bibi’s wackiness doesn’t bear close scrutiny. 

Perhaps “wacky” isn’t quite the right word for his 40-minute peroration, during which he pulled out a bomb “diagram” and a red marker to illustrate where he would draw a “red line” defining the outer limits of Iran’s nuclear program. Cartoonish is more like it. The cartoonish quality of the bomb drawing underscored the content and tone of the speech, which was the jeremiad of a radical ideologue rather than anything one would expect from a statesman:

“Today a great battle is being waged between the modern and the medieval. Israel stands proudly with the forces of modernity. We protect the right of all our citizens, men and women, Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, all are equal before the law.”

Israel, which privileges its priestly caste, has a state religion, and bases its national mythology on a “promise” from G-d, is as medieval as any of its neighbors. Aside from being a lie, however, this statement is interesting because it evokes the very same supremacist spirit that animates the controversial pro-Israel public relations campaign launched by the Jewish state’s extremist American supporters. Posters in the public transport system, from New York to San Francisco, proclaim:

“In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

No wonder the Israeli consulates in New York and San Francisco won’t disavow those vile subway posters: Pamela Geller is the new public face of Israel.

Yes, Israel protects the rights of all citizens – unless they’re Palestinians who happen to own property coveted by the “settlers,” in which case it doesn’t. And the key word here is citizens: of course, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are not citizens, but helots, with no rights, and no protection from fanatical Jewish fundamentalists who have launched hundreds of attacks on their homes, and sought to displace them at every opportunity, with the active complicity of the Israeli government.

This idea that Israel represents “modernity” is rich, considering that every day Israeli society is sinking lower into the morass of religious and cultural fundamentalism, a regression that has not gone unnoticed in the West. Bibi opened his speech with biblical references, describing Jersusalem as the “eternal capital” of Israel and declaring that “the Jewish state will live forever.” Yet as we secularists know, nothing lives “forever,” and the idea of a city being the “eternal” capital of anything is a metaphor, at best, at worst a dangerous delusion. If this is the “modern” then one wonders how much it differs from the “medieval.” But let’s not linger too long over the obvious. Bibi rants on:

“Militant Islam has many branches, from the rulers of Iran with their revolutionary guards to al-Qaeda… but they’re all rooted in the same soil. It’s not whether this fanaticism will be defeated, but how many lives will be lost before it’s defeated. Nothing could emperil my country more than arming Iran with nuclear weapons. To imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear Iran, imagine what the world would be like with a nuclear al-Qaeda. There’s no difference.”

The Israeli Prime Minister may have been addressing the UN General Assembly, but he was really talking to the Americans, whose fear and loathing of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks can always be counted on to raise them to new levels of hysteria. Outside that context, however, equating the Iranians with Al Qaeda makes about as much sense as likening the late unlamented Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden – and, hey wait, didn’t we hear that equation made endlessly in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq? Yet this was not a time for subtlety from the Israeli Prime Minister – the cartoon “bomb” ended all hope of that – but for the crudest sort of propaganda, which is, of course, war propaganda.

Imagine if Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who addressed the UN that day minutes before Netanyahu took the stage, had said: “Militant Judaism has many branches, from the Washington offices of AIPAC to the center of Jewish power in Tel Aviv – but they’re all rooted in the same soil” of intolerance? Picture him conjuring images of violent Jewish “fanaticism” – not a hard task, given what is happening in Israel today. If he had done so, Abbas would have been denounced in every Western capital as the 21st century incarnation of Hitler.

Netanyahu went on to cite the nonexistent “record of Iranian aggression without nuclear weapons” – an odd claim, since Iran hasn’t attacked a single one of its neighbors since the Battle of Thermopylae. The country did fight one war in modern times, when it was attacked by Iraq, which was being backed by the United States. However, it’s necessary to remember that war propaganda has no need of facts: only emotionally-charged evocations of rage – and fear:

“Given this record of Iranian aggression without nuclear weapons, just imagine an Iran with nuclear weapons. Who among you would feel safe in the Middle East? Who’d be safe in Europe? Who’d be safe in America? Who’d be safe anywhere?”

That this alleged champion of “modernity” should base his case on fearmongering should come as no surprise: hasn’t fear been the leitmotif of all the “modern” ideologies of aggressive nationalism? Fear of the Other, of the barbarian at the gates – the “savage” who, at the first opportunity, will tear your throat out with his bare teeth – is what keeps ideologues like Netanyahu and his American co-thinkers in business.

Those Eye-ranians, says Bibi, aren’t like the rest of us, which is why deterrence won’t work. “Iran’s apocalyptic leaders” are awaiting the return of the Mahdi, a holy man, whose reappearance is supposed to occur after a devastating war:

“Militant jihadists are not secular Marxists. Militant jihadists behave very differently. There were no Soviet suicide bombers.”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t the Israelis also awaiting the return of Someone Special, a Messiah who will lead them out of the wilderness and establish the Kingdom of Jerusalem as His earthly domain? Militant jihadists may not be secular Marxists – but then again, militant Zionists aren’t, either. I would no more trust nuclear bombs in Bibi’s hands than I would in Ahmahdinejad’s – the difference being that the former is actually in possession of such weapons.

Which brings us to the absurdity of this lecture by the leader of the only nuclear-armed country in the region: here is a nation which refuses to even admit it acquired nukes long ago, and which disdains the Nonproliferation Treaty, making the case for war against a neighbor that has indeed signed the NPT and is abiding by its requirements.

That treaty gives Tehran the right to develop nuclear power. Furthermore, there is zero evidence Iran is embarked on a nuclear weapons program: our own intelligence community tells us they gave that up in 2003 and show no signs of resuming it. Their own religious and political leaders have denounced the possession of nuclear weapons as sinful: the Israelis, on the other hand, haven’t bothered reassuring us they would never use the nuke they won’t admit they have.

In a rational world, Israel would be in the dock, answering for its unwillingness to come out of the nuclear closet and admit what the whole world knows by now. Indeed, Bibi could give us some insight into exactly how Israel stole acquired the materials to build its formidable nuclear arsenal – since, according to recently declassified documents, he was directly involved.

In the world in which we are living, however, in which the innocent are put on trial and the guilty sit in judgement, the situation is quite different. In that world, the leader of a tiny nation entirely dependent on US largesse takes to the UN podium to issue his marching orders to Washington. Here is my “red line,” says Bibi – daring not only the Iranians but also the Americans to cross it.

Think of Netanyahu’s UN oration as just another Romney campaign speech, in which the GOP presidential candidate says Tehran must not be allowed to get “one turn of the screwdriver away” from joining the nuclear club. According to Netanyahu, Iran is nearly at that point today, and will have a nuclear weapon in less than a year if the US fails to act.

This is technical nonsense, but then again the truth has nothing to do with war propaganda: to the average American, the mere possession of weapons-grade uranium means all the Iranians have to do is plug it in and hurl it, slingshot style, in the general direction of Israel. This is an impression Israeli propagandists would dearly love to inculcate in the American public, and they have the great advantage of relying on general ignorance of the technical details. Good luck explaining to Mr. Average American why it would take a good four years after they’ve weaponized their nuclear material for the Iranians to create a useable nuke.

The ticking-bomb theme, which has been used to justify everything from torture to the invasion of Iraq, permeates Israeli propaganda in the US and was a cental theme of Bibi’s speech. His message was clear: “the hour is getting late.” We must act without giving too much thought to the possible consequences. Don’t delay, don’t think, act now – before the fraud is exposed, and we discover that – as in the case of the Iraqis – those “weapons of mass destruction” were just a figment of our easily manipulated collective imagination.

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Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].

Bug splatting the dune coons, sand niggers and towel heads

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America's Drone Attacks Are 'Killing 49 People for Every Known Terrorist in Pakistan'

 Study found war against Islamists has become increasingly deadly.
 Researchers blame common tactic now being used – the 'double-tap' strike
 Drone strikes condemned for their ineffectiveness in targeting militants

By Leon Watson at the "Daily Mail" -- and Information Clearing House.

Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists – while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today.

The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorised by the operations ’24 hours-a-day’.

And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the ‘double-tap’ strike where a drone fires one missile – and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.
 

The tactic has cast such a shadow of fear over strike zones that people often wait for hours before daring to visit the scene of an attack. Investigators also discovered that communities living in fear of the drones were suffering severe stress and related illnesses. Many parents had taken their children out of school because they were so afraid of a missile-strike.

Bombardment: More than 345 strikes have hit Pakistan's tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years

Today campaigners savaged the use of drones, claiming that they were destroying a way of life.
 

Clive Stafford Smith, director of the charity Reprieve which helped interview people for the report, said: ‘This shows that drone strikes go much further than simply killing innocent civilians. An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies. ‘

There have been at least 345 strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan in the past eight years.

'These strikes are becoming much more common,' Mirza Shahzad Akbar, a Pakistani lawyer who represents victims of drone strikes, told The Independent.

'In the past it used to be a one-off, every now and then. Now almost every other attack is a double tap. There is no justification for it.'

The study is the product of nine months' research and more than 130 interviews, it is one of the most exhaustive attempts by academics to understand – and evaluate – Washington's drone wars.

The site of a missile attack in Tappi, a village 12 miles east of Miranshah, near the Afghan border after a U.S. missile attack by a pilotless drone aircraft in 2008. At least six people were killed

Tribesmen gather near a damaged car outside a house after a missile struck in Dandi Darpakheil village on the outskirts of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region

Despite assurances the attacks are 'surgical', researchers found barely two per cent of their victims are known militants and that the idea that the strikes make the world a safer place for the U.S. is 'ambiguous at best'.

Researchers added that traumatic effects of the strikes go far beyond fatalities, psychologically battering a population which lives under the daily threat of annihilation from the air, and ruining the local economy.

They conclude by calling on Washington completely to reassess its drone-strike programme or risk alienating the very people they hope to win over.

They also observe that the strikes set worrying precedents for extra-judicial killings at a time when many nations are building up their unmanned weapon arsenals.

The Obama administration is unlikely to heed their demands given the zeal with which America has expanded its drone programme over the past two years.

Washington says the drone program is vital to combating militants that threaten the U.S. and who use Pakistan's tribal regions as a safe haven.
 

The number of attacks have fallen since a Nato strike in 2011 killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and strained U.S.-Pakistan relations.

Pakistan wants the drone strikes stopped - or it wants to control the drones directly - something the U.S. refuses.
 

Reapers and Predators are now active over the skies of Somalia and Yemen as well as Pakistan and - less covertly - Afghanistan.

But campaigners like Mr Akbar hope the Stanford/New York University research may start to make an impact on the American public.

'It's an important piece of work,' he told The Independent. 'No one in the U.S. wants to listen to a Pakistani lawyer saying these strikes are wrong. But they might listen to American academics.'

Today, Pakistani intelligence officials revealed a pair of missiles fired from an unmanned American spy aircraft slammed into a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan last night.
 

The two officials said missiles from the drone aircraft hit the village of Dawar Musaki in the North Waziristan region, which borders Afghanistan to the west.
 

Some of the dead were believed to be foreign fighters but the officials did not know how many or where they were from.

The Monday strike was the second in three days. On Saturday a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in northwest Pakistan, killing four suspected militants.
 

That attack took place in the village of Mohammed Khel, also in North Waziristan.
 

North Waziristan is the last tribal region in which the Pakistan military has not launched an operation against militants, although the U.S. has been continually pushing for such a move.

The Pakistanis contend that their military is already overstretched fighting operations in other areas but many in the U.S. believe they are reluctant to carry out an operation because of their longstanding ties to some of the militants operating there such as the Haqqani network.

VOICES FROM THE DRONE ZONE
 

Sadaullah Khan, a 15-year-old who lost both legs in a drone strike, says that before his injury, 'I used to go to school…I thought I would become a doctor. After the drone strikes, I stopped going to school.'

Noor Behram, a journalist: 'Once there has been a drone strike, people have gone in for rescue missions, and five or ten minutes after the drone attack, they attack the rescuers who are there.'
 
Taxi driver: 'Whether we are driving a car, or we are working on a farm, or we are sitting at home playing cards – no matter what we are doing we are always thinking the drone will strike us. So we are scared to do anything, no matter what.'
 
Safdar Dawar, President of the Tribal Union of Journalists: 'If I am walking in the market, I have this fear that maybe the person walking next to me is going to be a target of the drone. If I’m shopping, I’m really careful and scared. If I’m standing on the road and there is a car parked next to me, I never know if that is going to be the target. Maybe they will target the car in front of me or behind me. Even in mosques, if we’re praying, we’re worried that maybe one person who is standing with us praying is wanted. So, wherever we are, we have this fear of drones.'
 

Resident from the Manzar Khel area: 'Now (they have) even targeted funerals…they have targeted people sitting together, so people are scared of everything'

Paul Craig Roberts and Reaganism

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USA to Continue Wars As Long As Dollar Remains Reserve Currency

Interview With Paul Craig Roberts

By Pravda.Ru and via "Information Clearing House" -  

Pravda.Ru interviewed Paul Craig Roberts, an American economist, who served as an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration and became a co-founder of Reaganomics - the economic policies promoted by the U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. We asked Mr. Roberts to share his views about the current state of affairs inside and outside the United States. 

Pravda.Ru: Mr. Roberts, you are known in Russia as the creator of Reaganomics, which helped the country overcome stagflation. What were the key aspects of that policy and how would you estimate its results today? Do you think your faith in free market has shattered?

Paul Craig Roberts: Free market means the freedom of price to adjust to supply and demand. It does not mean the absence of regulation of human behavior. 

Reaganomics was a political word for supply-side economics, a new development in economic theory. In the post World War 2 western world, governments used Keynesian demand management economic policy to control inflation and to boost employment. John Maynard Keynes was the British economist who explained the Great Depression in the West as a consequence of insufficient aggregate demand to maintain full employment and stable prices.

Keynesian demand management relied on government budget deficits and easy monetary policy (money creation) to stimulate demand for goods and services.  To control inflation from too much demand for goods and services, high tax rates were used to reduce disposable income. 

The problem that developed is that the high tax rates on income made leisure inexpensive in terms of lost current earnings from not working, and made current consumption inexpensive in terms of lost future income from not saving and investing.  In other words, high tax rates on income made leisure and current consumption cheap in terms of foregone present and future income. Thus, high tax rates on income depressed the supply of labor and capital.

Using the UK's 98% tax rate on investment income (pre-Thatcher), the Nobel economist Milton Friedman illustrated the problem with this example. You are an Englishman with $100,000. Shall you invest it for future income, or shall you purchase a Rolls Royce and enjoy life?  The true price of the Rolls Royce (or Bentley, or Ferrari or Maserati) is not the purchase price.  The price of the exotic car is the foregone future income from not investing the $100,000. 

Suppose you could earn 10% on the $100,000.  That would be $10,000 per year as the cost of purchasing the luxury car. But after tax (98%) the car would only cost $200 per year, a very cheap price.

The same example works for labor and salary income. Because of the high marginal tax rates, many professionals such as medical doctors closed their practices on Fridays and went to the golf course.

By changing the policy mix, that is by tightening monetary policy and reducing marginal tax rates (the tax rate on increases in income), the supply-side economic policy of the Reagan administration caused aggregate supply to increase. Thus output expanded relative to demand, and inflation declined.

This supply-side policy was instrumental as Reagan's first step toward ending the cold war with the Soviet Union. As long as the US economy was afflicted with stagflation--the simultaneous rise in both inflation and unemployment, the Soviet government saw capitalism failing along with communism. But when Reagan corrected the economic problem, it made the Soviet government unsure that it could withstand an arms race.

Reagan's next step was to bring the Soviet government to the negotiating table to end the cold war. The cold war was an economic drain on both societies and always had the risk of a miscalculation that would result in nuclear war, wiping out life on earth. Gorbachev, an intelligent person aware of the risk, came to agreement with Reagan.

This was a great accomplishment for the Americans and for the Russians.  Friendship and cooperation was now possible. 

But it was not to last. Reagan's successors took advantage of the good will between the countries that Reagan and Gorbachev had created to achieve American hegemony over the world. 

 
Q: During the 80s, relying on the revived economic power of the United States, Ronald Reagan managed to convince the Soviet government to end the Cold War. All those agreements, as you believe, were destroyed by Reagan's successors. Russia shares a completely different opinion about Reagan. The Russians think of him as the man, who resumed the arms race, designed the space shield and "cut out the cancer of communism" having won (or maybe bribed) Gorbachev over to his side for cooperation. Maybe one shouldn't strike him out of the list of the authors of today's American "idiotism?"

 

A: Reagan was not a member of the Republican Establishment. He defeated the Establishment's candidate, George H. W. Bush (father of George W. Bush) for the Republican presidential nomination.  By appealing to Democratic as well as Republican voters, Reagan had a great electoral victory. Reagan had two goals: one was to end stagflation, the other was to end the cold war. Hewas not much interested in anything else. The "arms race" and the "anti-ballistic missile defense--star wars" were never real. They were threats used to bring Gorbachev to negotiate the end of the cold war. Unlike the present Republican Party, Reagan wanted peace, not war.

I know this because when I succeeded in establishing the new economic policy that cured stagflation, President Reagan appointed me to a super-secret presidential committee that had subpoena power over the CIA. 

The CIA opposed Reagan's effort to end the cold war, as did the powerful military-security complex, about which President Dwight Eisenhower warned the American people in his last address to the American nation. The end of the cold war threatened the profits of the powerful military industries and the power of the CIA.

The CIA said that the Soviet Union would win an arms race, because the Soviet Union could control investment, unlike the US, and could allocate the entire Gross Domestic Product of the Soviet Empire to the military. Reagan's secret committee over-ruled the CIA.

(False comical assessment ..........that bears no connection to reality, BUT justifies the "importance" of the CIA to the USA within the fake unnecessary Cold War confrontation 1948--1989...Soviet Union was/is run by Jews at that time {within the KGB a super secret Jewish committee which made all the important decisions...The Cuban missile crisis was a giant Jewish psy-ops} and the USA which has been dominated by Jews especially from the 1990's onwards. 

No state can sustain total expenditure on war. UK and Japan achieved this only for a few years during WWII....80% of GDP, and in  the case of the UK with considerable help from the USA lend lease system. North Korea spends 26% of GDP on defense, but we know the costs to the state of this.

"The interesting question here is that in theory some analysis divisions are supposed to deliver all the perspectives and facts they can on dilemmas that the U.S. will confront in dealing with issues related to foreign policies They are not supposed to conform to any preconceived policy that has already been determined.

 

This section is in a limbo because it is supposed to produce estimates or intelligence accurately, and although the American ethos and high culture nominally favors looking at all news objectively—whether its bad or good—it in fact rarely does so—which is why the U.S. so often gets into trouble. There is a positivist tradition in American culture. Its universities prove that, especially in science.  There are also yahoos and boobs — H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis deal with these people, and most Republican presidential candidates today and the Tea Party personify them.  Intellectually, the U. S. is functionally schizophrenic and it always has been. The CIA’s ambiguous role reflects this dualism, but it also creates troubles for those in power, who generally prefer living with it rather than denying one of the positive or rational assumptions of the American heritage." The CIA's Cassandra's by Gabriel Kolko at COUNTERPUNCH.

Well professor Kolko, an organization that traffics drugs, destabilizes peaceful states, counterfeits currency, peddles pedophilia, supplies little children to the elite, runs financial scams, over estimates and fabricates enemies, tortures and kills people, conducts terrorism......should we expect anything stellar from it?

In history do we have a state which was saved by the Intelligence community?

Or do we have a list of states, now defunct  because the Intelligence community came to dominate the state)

 

I had been a member of the US-USSR student exchange program to the Soviet Union in 1961 and had observed the situation. My first book (1971) said that the Soviet economy had failed.  When decades later I addressed the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1989 and 1990, members of the Economic Institute brought me copies of my book to be autographed. And I had thought that censorship existed in the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union collapsed three years after Reagan left office. It came as a surprise to those of us who had helped Reagan to end the cold war and dispose of the nuclear war threat.

Myself and many other Reagan supporters opposed the extension of NATO to Russia's reduced borders. What the world seems to be unaware of is that the Soviet collapse unleashed a new, highly dangerous ideology in the US known as neoconservatism.

 
Q: You wrote that the insane and criminal government in Washington, no matter Democratic of Republicans, no matter the outcome of the next elections, is the biggest threat to life on Earth ever. How would you describe this threat, what is it made of and who represents it in the US?

 

A: The threat is the neoconservative ideology, unleashed by the Soviet collapse. It is a form of Marxism in which American "democratic capitalism" instead of the proletariat has won history's verdict--"the end of history."  Americans are the "indispensable people," and the US is the "indispensable nation" with the right and responsibility to establish its hegemony over the world.  Adolf Hitler called the same thing "Aryan Superiority." Now Washington asserts the superiority. The neoconservative ideology threatens the world with nuclear war.

 
Q: What would you say about the Russian law, according to which political parties funded from abroad should be registered as foreign agents?

 

A:  The US has laws that require foreign interests to register as foreign agents. This law does not always apply to all Israeli lobby groups, such as AIPAC.

There are no political parties in the US that are funded by foreign interests. No such thing would be permitted. It would be regarded as high treason.  What is surprising is that the Russian government permitted for 20 years its political opposition to be funded by Washington and still permits that today as long as the opposition registers as an American agent. The ability of Washington to fund the Russian government's political opposition and also protest groups, perhaps including Pussy Riot, allows Washington free access to destabilize Russia.

 
Q: What role do so-called non-governmental organizations play in the US? The National Endowment for Democracy, for example?

 

A: NGOs play no role inside the US.  NGOs are Washington's means of interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, such as funding and organizing "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine. The National Endowment for Democracy is a principle funder of political opposition and protest groups in countries with governments to which Washington is opposed. Despite its original purpose, the National Endowment for Democracy has been converted into an agent for US hegemony.

 
Q: You wrote a lot about the fate of Pussy Riot. As you said, "they were brutally deceived and used by the Washington-financed NGOs that have infiltrated Russia." What is the goal of such stunts?

 

A: It might be the case that Pussy Riot's assaults on Russian probity are independent protests. On the other hand, the offending stunts could be provoked and funded by NGOs that are funded from Washington. Regardless, it is the result that is important. The result is that the controversy over Pussy Riot has shifted criticism from Washington's destruction of Syria to Putin, "the suppressor of free speech."  It is folly for Russians to ally with Washington's propaganda against their own government. If this folly continues, Russia will end up as another American puppet state.

 
Q: If an act like that of Pussy Riot took place in America, in a location of national significance, how would the general public and the government react? What do common people say about the Pussy Riot scandal in Russia?

 

A: Ordinary Americans know nothing about Pussy Riot. Despite the propaganda from Washington, most Americans have never heard of the incident. The importance of Washington's propaganda about Pussy Riot is to send the signal to Washington's European puppet states that Russia is to be demonized for opposing Washington's destruction of Syria and Iran. It was the Russian and Chinese governments that blocked Washington's UN resolution that would have allowed an opening for NATO to bomb Syria as it did Libya. Instead of being praised for its concern with life, human rights, and international law, Russia has been damned.

The consequence in the US of an act like those performed by Pussy Riot would vary depending on state and local laws. Also, depending on where the act takes place--a Jewish synagog for instance--the US Department of Justice could declare the act a hate crime or a form of discrimination against a "preferred minority" and bring a federal case.

 
Q: You wrote that the US government was full of determination to have the war on three fronts: Syria, Lebanon and Iran - in the Middle East, China - in the Far East and Russia - in Europe. Does the country have financial possibilities for that?

 

A: The US is bankrupt. However, the US dollar remains the world reserve currency. This means that the US can print money to pay its bills. As long as the world accepts the dollar as world reserve currency, the US will be able to continue its wars.

 

Q: Being in the insular situation, the USA experiments on other countries hoping that war will never come to the US territory. The US spends a lot more on defense of its forward-based forces in Europe and in the Middle East than it does on defense of its own borders. Maybe Russia should be more active and put the threat closer to the US borders by deploying a sea-based missile defense system near the shores of a friendly Latin American country?

 

A: Like President Reagan, I am in favor of peace.  I believe that Americans, Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and everyone else should spend their resources in getting along with one another, not in trying to dominate one another. I believe that Washington is forcing Russia and China to spend resources on military preparedness that the countries could better use in economic development and in protecting the environment. It is my belief that Washington's drive for world hegemony is driving the world toward nuclear war. I have no way of knowing how the Russian and Chinese governments might respond to Washington's drive for hegemony.

 
Q: What stops Russia and China from uniting to oppose the USA?

 

A: This question is outside my knowledge. Perhaps suspicion of one another, like the suspicion between Sunni and Shia that allows the US to dominate the Middle East.

 
Q: You said that the US is a police state, which was set up in the name of mystification of the "war on terror." Can you give a clear explanation as to what the American Big Brother is doing?

 

A: The Bush/Cheney regime rammed through the PATRIOT Act, which assaulted the US Constitution and took away US civil liberties. The Bush regime established that the president did not have to obey either statutory US law, such as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which requires a court warrant for spying on US citizens. President Bush violated the law, a felony, and was not held accountable.

Bush asserted and established by assertion, the power to negate Constitutional protections, such as habeas corpus, and confined US citizens to indefinite detainment (life in prison) without any evidence or court proceedings. Nothing was done about this violation of constitutional order. President Obama has declared that he has the power to execute US citizens on suspicion alone without evidence or due process of law. These are the most extreme police state measures of modern times.

The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it has shifted its focus from Muslim terrorism to "domestic extremists," an undefined term. Recently the Department of Homeland Security has purchased more than one billion rounds of deadly ammunition, such as hollow point bullets, enough to shoot the entire US population several times. There are also reports that detainment camps have been constructed, allegedly for such events as hurricane evacuation. Congress and the media are not asking questions about these developments.

 
Q:  President Barack Obama said that one of the principles to resume peace talks between Israel and Palestine was about the retrieval of 1967 borders. How could the Jewish lobby let him say that?

 

A: President Obama has been declared by Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby to be a lackluster friend of Israel, because Obama has not yet launched a military attack on Iran. Obama, perhaps believing himself to be the president of the world's only superpower, and not a puppet of the Israeli prime minister, has taken offense at the public bullying to which he has been subjected by the far right-wing Israeli government. Obama's statement referring to the 1967 borders was Obama's way of letting the Israeli government know that it was going too far and pushing too hard.

 

Q: You see the basic problems of the US economy in moving production to China. If you were invited to serve as an advisor to the president, what would be your plan for taking America out of the crisis?

 

A: I will never again be permitted to serve as an advisor to the president of the US. Since the Clinton presidency, the only permitted advisors are those who lie for the government.  I will not do that. 

I am unsure that America can be taken out of economic crisis. Much of the most productive part of the US economy has been moved offshore in order to increase corporate profits, the performance-based bonuses for executive compensation and capital gains to equity owners. The US has lost critical supply chains, industrial infrastructure, and the knowledge of skilled workers. 

Theoretically, the US could bring its corporations back to America by taxing their profits according to the geographical location in which value is added to their product. If value is added abroad, in China or India, for example, the tax rate would be high. If value was added domestically in the US, the tax rate would be low. 

The US could also resort to the protective tariffs that were responsible for its rise as an economic power.

These changes would be difficult to enact as the changes are contrary to the material interests of the one percent. 

The US today is ruled by an oligarchy of private interests. The US government is not very independent of the powerful interest groups that fund political campaigns. The US ceased being a democracy during the Clinton administration.

This article was originally posted at Pravda

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Syrian State, and the USA proxy crony Jooo power

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It is common for the accuser to turn their REAL crime and throw it back against an innocent accused, the REAL victim.

This is the tactic of the criminal mafia and the pathological criminal.

In 1994, an Asian student was beaten up in a toilet by a gang of far right students in Birmingham. The Asian student was in the wrong place at the wrong time perhaps, with the wrong ethnic background, trying to make his way in the world. The University security then turned the incident around, and spread a vicious rumor that a certain Asian student was seen hovering near female toilets at the university, thus putting many Asian students under suspicion, and deflecting the REAL crime and its investigation (the presence of extremist far right groups at university/their misdeeds against innocent ethnic people/their links to MI-5).  The local thoroughly discredited and criminalized police in Perry Barr then staged a bizarre stunt to reinforce this false flag rumor at the university.

Terrorism around the world is largely the work of Israel working with the Intelligence agencies of Western countries, and their Third World crony proxy's (Punjab Pakistan military/Indonesian military/RAW/Saudi Intelligence)...........the REAL victims in the millions, are then innocent everyday Third World people.

This is how it works with Hilary's bizarre nonsensical accusation against puppet mullah Iran and its relationship with Syria, the Tehran regime itself was after all brought into power by the good grace of Western Intelligence in 1979, and which has been in power unmolested for 33 good years.

In fact the so called 'crony proxy' regime in Damascus was in power 10 years earlier than the puppet mullahs. In the language of crony proxy definition, the crony proxy cannot be in power any time longer than its master of whom they are allegedly crony proxies.

But in the lazy hazy days of American hubris and slow decline, fact checking and talking diplomatically is no longer necessary. Force, militarism, war, war crimes, genocide, terrorism, rendition, gulag-ism, aggression and double speak plays a more important role than simple persuasion based on actual facts.

Who are the Alawites in Syria? 

They constitute about 13% of the population. It is a branch of Shia Islam. Thus they have strong linkage with the Shia's of Iran, Lebanon and the 20 million Alevis of Turkey. They are the dominating group in Syria.

It is alleged that the Alawites were promoted by the colonial French into a dominating position, just after WWI, when France controlled Syria 1919--1943:

"The colonial rulers instrumentalized existing tribal-ethnic and religious division in society through a policy of divide et impera. French colonists played the minorities---........the Alawites.......against the majority (Sunni) to help establish their rule." Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East
 edited by Philip S. Khoury, Joseph Kostiner University of California Press.

This is the same as the British colonials who promoted the Sikhs in India, or Hindu Zamindars in East Bengal. But what we also find is that such colonial powers, could also ditch their former protege, just as quickly...as with the Sikhs in the Punjab who lost the best agricultural land to the newly created Pakistan, or the Hindu Zamindars in East Bengal, many of whom were reduced to destitution in the streets of Calcutta after Partition.

What is Obama if not a minority representative, against the majority WASP population who have traditionally run the USA? Capable WASP candidates for the presidency run in the millions, but the Zionist power configuration chooses an obscure individual with a very colorful past...and whose mother worked for the CIA.

The above information tells us why the Alawites are in power, as a minority, and why they should be friendly with Persian Iran, as an Arab state.

Indeed, despite the deep objections of their Soviet overlords 1979--1991 (who supported and armed CIA Saddam Iraq....up to 80% of his weapons inventory), Syria is one of the most durable friends of mullah Iran.

Syria is neither a crony power or a proxy power brought and managed henceforth by mullah Iran......but have chosen to be an ally of mullah Iran, despite being officially a Secular Socialist one party state. This friendship is paradoxical, but based on religion rather than ethnic ties......which is how sometimes the politics of the Middle East works.

The real crony proxy powers are Deonme Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar....and so forth. These states do things for the USA throughout the Middle East which ARE CLEARLY illegal, criminal and against the fundamental interests of their own countries. Modern Turkey will lose if "al-CIA-duh" ascends the throne in Damascus, as will Saudi Arabia.........something about opening a Pandora's box.....of young foolish extremist armed men largely run by faggotty Western Intelligence.....who have designs and ideas for mysterious very old reclusive Jewish globalist financiers, detached in their own world, surrounded by their sycophants who please and Quija Boards.

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Clinton Slams Iran For Aiding ‘Its Proxy and Crony in Damascus’

Clinton criticized Iran, despite the fact that the US is supporting criminal rebels in Syria and propping up dictatorships elsewhere

by John Glaserat antiwar.com

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Iran for supporting the Syrian regime, even as she announced $45 million more in aid for the rebel militias, many of whom have links to al-Qaeda.

“There is no longer any doubt that Tehran will do whatever it takes to protect its proxy and crony in Damascus,” Clinton said.

Clinton made the comment, as usual, without any embarrassment that Iran’s support of Syria mirrors US support of its own “crony” dictatorships holding violently onto power throughout the Middle East.

Clinton, at the same meeting and without any irony, announced $45 million in additional “non-lethal” aid like intelligence, training, and communications support. This, despite the fact that the United Nations has repeatedly called out the Syrian rebels for having committed war crimes and that Washington’s own intelligence has concluded that much of the rebel militias are foreign fighters battling under the banner of al-Qaeda.

“Let’s be very frank here – the regime’s most important lifeline is Iran,” Clinton then claimed. But that is far from clear. Syria’s more important allies appear to be Russia, and perhaps China. The former continues to support Damascus and both countries have vowed to veto any UN Security Council resolution that may invite US or NATO military intervention, a fact that has been crucial to the Assad regime’s survival given the Obama administration’s reluctance to intervene absent such a resolution.

Instead, Washington seems to be hyping Iran’s alleged support for Syria in an attempt to single out and demonize the Islamic Republic, at a time when concerns of a preventive Israeli strike are high.