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Terrorized, Traumatized and Killed: The Police State’s Deadly Toll on America’s Children

By John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute | October 15, 2019

Children learn what they live.

As family counselor Dorothy Law Nolte wisely observed, “If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.”

And if children live with terror, trauma and violence—forced to watch helplessly as their loved ones are executed by police officers who shoot first and ask questions later—will they in turn learn to terrorize, traumatize and inflict violence on the world around them?

I’m not willing to risk it. Are you?

It’s difficult enough raising a child in a world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and hate, but when you add the toxic stress of the police state into the mix, it becomes near impossible to protect children from the growing unease that some of the monsters of our age come dressed in government uniforms.

Case in point: in Hugo, Oklahoma, plain clothes police officers opened fire on a pickup truck parked in front of a food bank, heedless of the damage such a hail of bullets—26 shots were fired—could have on those in the vicinity. Three of the four children inside the parked vehicle were shot: a 4-year-old girl was shot in the head and ended up with a bullet in the brain; a 5-year-old boy received a skull fracture; and a 1-year-old girl had deep cuts on her face from gunfire or shattered window glass. Only the 2-year-old was spared any physical harm, although the terror will likely linger for a long time. “They are terrified to go anywhere or hear anything,” the family attorney said. “The two-year-old keeps asking about ‘Am I going to get shot again.’”

The reason for the use of such excessive force?

Police were searching for a suspect in a weeks-old robbery of a pizza parlor that netted $400.

This may be the worst use of excessive force on innocent children to date. Unfortunately, it is one of many in a steady stream of cases that speak to the need for police to de-escalate their tactics and stop resorting to excessive force when less lethal means are available to them.

For instance, in Cleveland, police shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice who was seen playing on a playground with a pellet gun. Surveillance footage shows police shooting the boy two seconds after getting out of a moving patrol car.

In Detroit, 7-year-old Aiyana Jones was killed after a Detroit SWAT team launched a flash-bang grenade into her family’s apartment, broke through the door and opened fire, hitting the little girl who was asleep on the living room couch. The cops were in the wrong apartment.

In Georgia, Christopher Roupe, 17, was shot and killed after opening the door to a police officer. The officer, mistaking the remote control in Roupe’s hand for a gun, shot him in the chest.

These children are more than grim statistics on a police blotter. They are the heartbreaking casualties of the government’s endless, deadly wars on terror, on drugs, and on the American people themselves.

Then you have the growing number of incidents involving children who are forced to watch helplessly as trigger-happy police open fire on loved ones and community members alike.

In Texas, an 8-year-old boy watched as police—dispatched to do a welfare check on a home with its windows open—shot and killed his aunt through her bedroom window while she was playing video games with him.

In Minnesota, a 4-year-old girl watched from the backseat of a car as cops shot and killed her mother’s boyfriend, Philando Castile, a school cafeteria supervisor, during a routine traffic stop merely because Castile disclosed that he had a gun in his possession, for which he had a lawful conceal-and-carry permit. That’s all it took for police to shoot Castile four times as he was reaching for his license and registration.

A child doesn’t even have to be directly exposed to a police shooting to learn the police state’s lessons in compliance and terror, which are being meted out with every SWAT team raid, roadside strip search, and school drill.

Indeed, there can be no avoiding the hands-on lessons being taught in the schools about the role of police in our lives, ranging from active shooter drills and school-wide lockdowns to incidents in which children engaging in typically childlike behavior are suspended (for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate), handcuffed (for being disruptive at school), arrested (for throwing water balloons as part of a school prank), and even tasered (for not obeying instructions).

What is particularly chilling is how effective these lessons in compliance are in indoctrinating young people to accept their role in the police state, either as criminals or prison guards.

If these exercises are intended to instill fear, paranoia and compliance into young people, clearly, our children are getting the message, but it’s not the message that was intended by those who fomented a revolution and wrote our founding documents. Their philosophy was that the police work for us, and “we the people” are the masters, and they are to be our servants.

Now that philosophy has been turned on its head.

Certainly, it’s getting harder by the day to insist that we live in a nation that values freedom and which is governed by the rule of law.

Yet unless something changes and soon, there will soon be nothing left to teach young people about freedom as we have known it beyond remembered stories of the “good old days.”

For starters, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s time to take a hard look at the greatest perpetrators of violence in our culture—the U.S. government and its agents—and do something about it: de-militarize the police, prohibit the Pentagon from distributing military weapons to domestic police agencies, train the police in de-escalation techniques, stop insulating police officers from charges of misconduct and wrongdoing, and require police to take precautionary steps before engaging in violence in the presence of young people.

We must stop the carnage.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Timeless or most popular | , | 1 Comment

Russia, Damascus Ensure Safe Pullout of Foreign Troops From Syria’s North-East

Sputnik -October 15, 2019

The Russian military and the Syrian authorities have taken the necessary measures to ensure the safe withdrawal of foreign troops from northeastern Syria as the evacuation of US servicemen continues, the Russian centre for Syrian reconciliation said Tuesday.

“The evacuation of US forces from the northeastern parts of the Syrian Arab Republic is continuing. US troops have left bases in Dadat and Umm-Mial locations in the Manbij district of Aleppo province and have departed towards the Syrian-Iraqi border,” Maj. Gen. Alexey Bakin, the head of the centre, said at a daily briefing.

“The Syrian authorities  and the Russian command are taking all necessary measures to ensure the safe withdrawal of foreign military personnel,” the general stressed.

Earlier, a senior US state department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that US troops had completely pulled out from the northern Syrian city of Manbij. However, he added that the US still retains control over the airspace in north-eastern Syria.

On October 9, Turkey launched an offensive in northern Syria in a bid to create a safe zone along the border that would be free of Kurdish militias. Soon after US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from their bases in Syria.

Turkey considers the Kurdish forces to be an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which it has classified as a terrorist organization.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | 2 Comments

It’s curtains for US in Syria. Russia, Iran owe big thanks to Erdogan

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 15, 2019

The scenario agreed on behind the curtains through months of confidential exchanges, often one-on-one, between the Russian and Turkish leaders regarding north-eastern Syria is entering a critical phase with the agreement between the Kurds and the Assad regime.

We have a complex scenario where on the one hand the Turkish army and the Syrian opposition units loyal to Ankara are relentlessly continuing their southward offensive expanding control over Syria’s border regions populated by the Kurds. According to Turkish President Recep Erdogan 1000 sq.kms. of territory previously under Kurdish control have been “liberated”.

On the other hand, following up on the agreement with the Kurds, the first columns of Syrian government forces have moved into the north of the country toward the Turkish border.

Prima facie, Damascus is challenging the Turkish offensive — as it should — and, in principle, a confrontation can ensue. But things are never really quite what they appear on the surface in Syria.

A clash between the Turkish and Syrian forces is simply out of the question. That is not how the game is being played. A Turkish Defence Ministry statement on Monday disclosed that the military chief Gen. Yasar Guler and his Russian counterpart Gen. Valery Gerasimov were in contact on the phone and discussed the “security situation in Syria and recent developments.”

No further details have been divulged but the picture that emerges is that Russia proposed and Turkey agreed that Russian units will be patrolling between Turkish and Syrian forces in northern Syria after the withdrawal of the US troops from the area.

Accordingly, Moscow’s Defense Ministry has revealed that its military police in the Kurdish town of Manbij have begun patrolling along the Syria-Turkey border and interacting with Turkish authorities. Russian troops entered Manbij town with the Syrian government forces on Monday.

More importantly, through Russian mediation, Ankara and Damascus will prefer to agree on dividing the zones of control in northern Syria. That is to say, things are broadly moving in the direction of what the Adana Agreement of 1998 (over the Kurdish question) between Turkey and Syria had envisaged, namely, that the security of the Syrian-Turkish border will be a bilateral affair between Ankara and Damascus.

In the given situation, Turkey’s imperative need is to prevent a contiguous “Kurdistan” emerging on its borders. The so-called “safe zone” aimed at frustrating the US plans to create a Kurdistan in Syria akin to what it succeeded in Iraq in the Saddam Hussein era.

Arguably, there could be a congruence of interests between Ankara and Damascus on this score. (Tehran too has common interests with its two neighbours in this regard.)

Indeed, for Damascus all this is a bonanza insofar as the “deliberate withdrawal” (as Pentagon put it) or the eviction of the US troops in the northern regions of Syria, triggered by the Turkish incursion, enables it to reoccupy parts of the northeast regions, especially those parts that are well-endowed with water resources and hydrocarbon reserves, which the American military had designated as its exclusive zone.

For President Bashar al-Assad, this is a great leap forward in the fulfilment of his pledge to reclaim control of entire Syria. (See the Euronews commentary Damascus is looking stronger than ever’: What next for Syria as Kurds join forces with Assad?)

As for the Kurds, they have nowhere to go but to settle with Damascus. They are simply no match for the highly professional Turkish army.

Clearly, the Turkish incursion and impending offensive against Kurds has made continued American military presence in northern Syria untenable and Russia has leveraged the situation to bring about the agreement between Kurds and Damascus.

Having succeeded in this endeavour, Russians have taken Turks into confidence. Unsurprisingly, President Recep Erdogan is nonchalant about the agreement between the Kurds and Damascus and has shrugged off the Syrian troop movements close to Turkey’s borders. He evasively referred to Vladimir Putin’s assurances.

In the final analysis, the Americans are paying a heavy price for being clever by half — stringing Turkey along in the recent years while methodically consolidating the ground for the creation of an autonomous Kurdistan on its borders, apart from arming and training the Kurdish militia to shape up a regular army.

Erdogan gave a long rope to the Americans to hang themselves literally. When he struck, the contradictions in the US policy got exposed overnight — the game plan to balkanise Syria and overthrow Assad; the Faustian deal with a terrorist group that has been bleeding a NATO ally; and the geopolitical agenda to sever Iran’s axis with Syria and the Levant.

Suffice to say, the eviction of the US forces from northern Syria, the Turks have achieved something that Russia and Iran (and Damascus) all along wished for but couldn’t realise. From this point, Russia and Iran will prevail upon Ankara to reconcile with Damascus.

The West has belatedly understood that Turkey has summarily terminated its 8-year old intervention in Syria to overthrow the Assad regime. The vitriolic reaction by Trump and US defence Secretary Mark Esper (here and here) is self-evident.

But the threat of US sanctions will not deter Erdogan, as the spectre of Kurdistan on its borders threatened Turkey’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and there is no scope for compromise when national security is under threat. By the way, the domestic opinion is overwhelmingly supportive of Erdogan.

Turkey was uncharacteristically patient with the US, hoping that the latter would give up the nexus with YPG (Kurdish militia) now that the fight against ISIS is over. It is not Trump so much as the Pentagon who is responsible for the breakdown in trust between Turkey and the US. Like on most foreign policy issues, Washington had two policies on Syria — Trump’s and the US security and defence establishment’s.

The US has no locus standii under international law to keep a permanent military presence in Syria and when Trump first announced the troop withdrawal, it should have been implemented. But, instead, the Pentagon undercut Trump’s decision, whittled it down and finally ignored it altogether.    

Erdogan knows that the US will huff and puff but will get used to the “new normal” in Syria. The West won’t have an alibi, either, as Russians will never allow the ISIS to surge in Syria. Trump is reportedly deputing V-P Mike Pence to travel to Turkey seeking a “negotiated settlement” — whatever that may mean in tackling the fait accompli that Erdogan has created.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , , | 1 Comment

EVEN CNN hosts gasp at guest’s claim that Tulsi Gabbard is ‘a Russian puppet’

RT | October 15, 2019

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is no stranger to mainstream media smears, but even a panel of CNN hosts and analysts audibly gasped when one guest outright accused the Hawaii congresswoman of working for Russia.

What started off as a standard panel discussion on Tuesday’s upcoming Democratic debate quickly took a dark turn, as CNN political analyst Bakari Sellers accused Gabbard of foreign allegiances. As soon as Gabbard’s name was mentioned, Sellers took the opportunity to claim that there “is a chance that Tulsi’s not just working for the United States of America.”

The dramatic accusation prompted uncomfortable shuffling from the rest of the panel, with CNN contributor April Ryan asking “ohh, wait a minute, what?” Sitting opposite Sellers, commentator Angela Rye jumped in to stress that any accusations of Gabbard working for a foreign power are just “an allegation.”

Sellers was not content to quit, however, adding that it was “not just an allegation” — despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Gabbard is compromised by any foreign country.

Then Sellers got into the specifics.

“There’s no question, there is no question that Tulsi Gabbard, of all the 12 [debate participants], is a puppet for the Russian government.”

“How is there no question?” host Alisyn Camerota asked, seemingly taken aback by the seriousness of the claim. Sellers instantly cited Gabbard’s position on the war in Syria as proof.

Indeed, the unapologetically anti-war candidate has faced similar smears of being an “Assad apologist” and a “Putin puppet” multiple times due to her criticisms of US foreign policy in Syria, where she believes Washington should never have backed and funded jihadist rebels fighting President Bashar Assad.

As for Sellers himself, he has endorsed California Senator Kamala Harris for president, so his distaste for Gabbard is not entirely surprising. Gabbard won broad praise for expertly taking Harris to task on her record as a prosecutor during an earlier debate — so much so that the hashtag #KamalaHarrisDestroyed even trended on Twitter (but that was apparently Russia’s fault, too).

While Sellers did face some mild pushback from the CNN panel, none of the participants rushed to wholeheartedly defend Gabbard, either. The analyst did experience the wrath of Twitter, however.

Journalist Max Blumenthal tweeted that Sellers comment was somewhat ironic since he is “an actual puppet for corporate America and AIPAC.” Sellers is an activist for the pro-Israel AIPAC lobbying organization, which is accused of waging outsized influence in US domestic politics and foreign policy.

Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald called Sellers’ comments “repugnant, McCarthyite accusations of treason” and noted that the CNN panel moved quickly on and would surely allow him back to repeat the same smears on another occasion.

“If there were a shred of proof that she is working for the Russian government she would be in a whole world of trouble,” another user wrote, noting that Gabbard is a major in the National Guard and a member of congress with top secret security clearance.

The anti-Gabbard smears have been bubbling in mainstream media since before she even announced her candidacy, but they went into overdrive after she entered the race for president.

NBC has accused her of being supported by Russian trolls on Twitter, while the New York Times recently published a hit piece in the ‘news’ section, headlined: “What, Exactly, Is Tulsi Gabbard Up To?” The piece speculated that Gabbard’s anti-interventionist stances might somehow make her a Russian stooge, even citing coverage of her campaign by RT of all news organizations as some kind of proof.

Gabbard also won no friends within the Democratic Party in 2016 after she stepped down as DNC vice chair, endorsed Bernie Sanders and accused the party of bias in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Gabbard has continued her criticism of her party during this election cycle, too — so it’s no wonder that the mainstream media and Democratic establishment haven’t exactly warmed to her candidacy.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Kentucky is in Syria (and other anomalies of MSM geography) – #PropagandaWatch

Corbett • 10/15/2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Watch this video on BitChute / DTube / Minds.com / YouTube

Did you know that Kentucky is in Syria? Or that Tripoli is in India? Or that Caracas is in Singapore? No? Then you must not be paying enough attention in MSM Geography 101, class. Better hit the books!

SHOW NOTES

ABC Admits To Using Fake Footage Of Kurdish ‘Slaughter’

Stupid Media Lie by BBC – Showing Tripoli’s Green Square with People waving Indian Flag (August 24)

Tibet monks protest againist Chinise rulers

Constructing the Deception of the Anti-Government “Protests” in Venezuela: A Photo Gallery

The Routine Use of Fake Images and Video Footage by the Western Media

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Another Interventionist “Success” Story

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | October 15, 2019

Not surprisingly, the interventionists are blaming their latest interventionist fiasco, this one in Syria, on President Trump. No, they say, the responsibility doesn’t fall on them and their morally bankrupt philosophy. The fault for their interventionist fiascos always lies with others.

If only President Trump hadn’t betrayed the Kurds. If only he had kept those 50 U.S. troops who were serving as a sacrificial tripwire to prevent war between Turkey and the Kurds there for the next 30 years. If only he had sent tens of thousands of more U.S. troops into Syria for a regime-change operation.

If only, if only, if only, the interventionists could finally have had a foreign intervention success story.

But now that Trump has acted “precipitously” by moving those 50 troops and announcing a withdrawal of the 1,000 U.S. troops in the country, he has eliminated any chance of an interventionist success story. It’s all his fault for the latest failure and fiasco.

Of course, we heard this interventionist tripe after the fiasco in Vietnam. If only those antiwar protestors hadn’t been having those massive demonstrations. If only the military wasn’t required to fight with one hand tied behind its back. If only the civilian sector hadn’t interfered with the war effort. If only we had nuked Hanoi and the rest of North Vietnam.

If only, if only, if only, U.S. troops could still be fighting, killing, dying, and destroying in Vietnam today.

Make no mistake about it. Despite their latest fiasco in Syria, the interventionists are not about to give up. Their first interventionist success story is always just around the corner. Iran. Venezuela. Korea. Maybe even possibly back to Vietnam. Hope springs eternal for interventionists. They simply will not give up their dream of their first interventionist success story and are willing to wreak and incur any amount of death, suffering, destruction, spending, debt, and loss of liberty in the attempt to achieve it.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

The New York Times’ Preemptive Reporting on James Comey

By Ray McGovern • Consortium News • October 13, 2019

James Comey Would Like to Help: The former F.B.I. director wants an end to the Trump presidency. And yes, he knows you might think he caused it” is the headline atop an instructive article on Sunday by Matt Flegenheimer of The New York Times. His article makes clear the Times remains determined to support former FBI Director James Comey and sustain the discredited Russiagate narrative they share to the point of helping Comey and his partners avoid possible time in prison.

In late August, the Department of Justice decided to let Comey off with a slap on the wrist for leaking to the Times, through an intermediary, highly sensitive information from his talks with President Donald Trump. At that juncture, it was already a no-brainer to warn that the victory lap Comey chose to run was clearly premature.

Consequential leaks to the media by a former FBI director are serious enough. Now, however, we are talking about possible felonies. Comey is standing in such deep kimchi that he may drown — despite how tall he is, and despite preemptive puff pieces protesting a purity of the caliber of Caesar’s wife. This time, even with the Establishment media and Comey’s accomplices offering fulsome praise for him, there’s serious doubt whether he can wangle a Stay-Out-Of-Jail Card.

Why do they appear to be running so scared?

In Horror of Horowitz

Over the last year and a half, Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz has been investigating how Comey, his deputy Andrew McCabe, and three deputy attorneys general (Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, and Dana Boente) thought they could get away with signing applications for surveillance of former Trump associate Carter Page without disclosing that, as McCabe later testified, the application was based largely on the shabby, unverified “Steele dossier” paid for by the Democrats.

Providing incomplete, misleading information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is a felony.

No problem, these top law enforcement officials probably thought at the time. Who would find out about their misconduct after Hillary Clinton — the odds-on favorite — became president? There would be encomia and promotions for help rendered, not indictments.

But now all of the above are squirming, and there is a paper trail. Only one of the FISA application signers is still in a key position to help from the inside — Boente. He was not demoted to working in the file room. He is the FBI general counsel, that is, its top attorney.

Is it About to Hit the Fan?

According Horowitz, Attorney General William Barr has had his draft IG report for over a month. Horowitz has said that his team “reviewed over one million records and conducted over 100 interviews, including several of witnesses who only recently agreed to be interviewed.” The team is “finalizing” the report prior to releasing it publicly.

Some pundits are now suggesting that the DOJ IG report may be published as early as this Friday.

Hold onto your hats.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Trump imposes sanctions on Turkey in response to Ankara’s “Operation Peace Spring” in Syria

By Sarah Abed | October 15, 2019

On Monday, after a weekend of bloody chaos in northeastern Syrian brought on by Turkey’s cross border military incursion “Operation Peace Spring” which included airstrikes, ISIS prison breaks, and a continuation of the exodus we’ve seen over the past few days of over a hundred thousand civilians fleeing their homes, President Trump signed an Executive Order authorizing sanctions against current and former Turkish government officials and anyone who is contributing to Turkey’s actions in destabilizing northeast Syria.

In a formal statement, published by the White House, President Trump went on to say that steel tariffs will be increased back to 50%, which is the level they were at prior to a reduction in May of this year. President Trump also said negotiations led by the Department of Commerce which include a $100 billion trade deal with Turkey, would cease immediately.

The Order goes beyond sanctions and would also authorize consequences including blocking of property and barring entry into the United States on anyone Washington deems to be involved in serious human rights abuses including obstructing ceasefires, preventing displaced people from returning to their homes, and forcing the repatriation of refugees etc.

President Trump mentioned a few times during the past few days that the United States and their partners are the ones that brought Daesh to their knees and are responsible for eliminating 100% of their territorial caliphate.

Each time I hear this claim, I justify its inaccuracy by saying even though this is categorically false, and the United States has protected and helped Daesh on more than one occasion and the previous administration supported extremist groups which bore Daesh, that if taking credit and feeding his enormous ego means that US troops will withdraw from Syria, then by all means give President Trump all the credit, perhaps even an award, or a trophy, heck add on a Nobel Peace Prize, just as long as he withdraws US troops, which will help end this monstrous western-manufactured war.

President Trump also cautioned Turkey against indiscriminate targeting of civilians, destruction of civilian infrastructure and targeting ethnic or religious minorities. He also mentioned that refugees must be returned in a safe, voluntary and dignified manner. President Trump announced again that he would be withdrawing remaining US service members from northeast Syria and that they will be redeployed while remaining in the region to monitor the situation to prevent a resurgence. Trump stated that a small number of troops will remain in southern Syria at Al Tanf Garrrison to disrupt remnants of ISIS.

Repeating his threat to destroy Turkey’s economy if they continue down this “dangerous and destructive path” could just be more posturing by President Trump and distancing Washington from Ankara’s war crimes.

Vice President Mike Pence on Monday announced he would be leading a delegation to Ankara where they will be discussing with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the US’s demands which include an immediate ceasefire and negotiating with the Kurds in Syria.

Just the notion of asking President Erdogan to negotiate with Kurdish militias is preposterous considering their history. Turkey will most likely say that they do not negotiate with terrorists, considering they see the Kurdish militias in Syria as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey who they have been at war with for over three decades.

Secondly, the Kurdish militias are now in talks with the Syrian government. It’s a little too late for the US to try to win them back. I would hope that after seeing how many times the United States has left them out in the cold that the YPG/SDF/PYD would know by now not to put their trust in them again.

It’s worth mentioning that corporate media and war hungry politicians have intentionally focused on the “plight of the Kurds” and highlighted their cause above and beyond any other ethnicity in Syria. This begs the question, why is 7-10% of the population given an unequal amount of attention when “the Kurds” are not even a homogenous group of people.

There’s no mention of how Kurds migrated to Syria in waves and sought refuge and stayed for decades. Rather than telling you how they bought property, studied in Syrian schools, received benefits that are awarded to all Syrian citizens regardless of ethnicity and religion, propagandists will try to convince you that they were systematically oppressed.

There’s also little to no mention of the war crimes committed by the Kurdish YPG and the SDF in Syria against the indigenous populations including closing the vast majority of schools, enforcing a non-authorized Kurdish curriculum, forced conscription, theft of property and businesses, kidnapping of children to turn them into soldiers, etc, much like the PKK in Turkey.

Reporting has been very one-sided and has portrayed them as the leading fighters against terrorist groups in Syria and although they did play a part the Syrian Arab Army and their allies are the ones that did the heavy lifting and made the most progress, but they get trashed in the media.

And, many are surprised to learn that there are Syrian Kurds that are in the Syrian Army that categorically reject the notion of establishing a US/Israeli sponsored Kurdistan on sovereign Syrian land. They oppose the wrongdoing of the Kurdish militias and stand with the Syrian government and army.

Celebrations erupted once news was received that the SAA was on their way to northern towns. Even tribal leaders came out in support of the SAA, saying the SAA were the only true protectors of the land.

On Monday the SAA entered Manbij, Tal Tamr and towns in Raqqa’s countryside. Videos showed US armored vehicles exiting the area while Syrian troops were entering, in a peaceful almost poetic re-alignment of power. The American-Israeli backed “Kurdistan” dream was destined for failure from the beginning.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

US Working With Russia to Handover Patrols Between Turkish and Syrian Armies in Manbij

By Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | October 15, 2019

This morning, Russian military officials announced they are now patrolling the region surrounding Syria’s northern town of Manbij, specifically in the areas which separate Turkish troops and the Syrian Arab Army soldiers.

According to a Russian Defense Ministry statement issued Tuesday, Russian military police are being positioned as a ‘buffer’ around the area northwest of Manbij, “along the line of contact between the Syrian Arab Republic and Turkey.” Officials also indicated that they are in communication with the Turkish military leadership to ensure that patrols are observing necessary deconfliction protocols.

More interestingly, US reports suggest that the Pentagon has been working together with Moscow in order engineer a seamless handover to Russian military police of positions previously held by US forces.

According to one senior Pentagon official who spoke to Newsweek, some US personnel have stayed to behind to assist Russian forces, noting that US special forces “having been in the area for longer, has been assisting the Russian forces to navigate through previously unsafe areas quickly.”

“It is essentially a handover,” said the official. “However, it’s a quick out, not something that will include walk-throughs, etc., everything is about making out with as much as possible of our things while destroying any sensitive equipment that cannot be moved.”

This latest move by Moscow to install a security buffer should allay any international concerns that Trump’s sudden withdrawal of US forces would create a power vacuum that might lead to some sort of Turkish ‘massacre’ of ethnic Kurds in northern Syria. The sheer volume of alarmist western propaganda promoting that scenario has been incessant over the last week. The UK’s Guardian newspaper even went so far as to promote the idea that a US withdrawal would result in “genocide” of Syrian Kurds.

Also helping to promulgate the idea of an impending Turkish-led massacre was America’s ABC News, who used old footage from a Kentucky gun range – claiming it was Turkey firing on the Kurdish population in Syria.

This latest news comes immediately on the heels of a new deal struck yesterday between Kurdish officials in northeastern Syria and the government in Damascus allowing the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) to takeover key strategic positions along Syria’s northern border with Turkey. The new security agreement also includes disbanding and abolishing the previously US-backed SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), and with remaining militias to be incorporated into the Syrian Republic’s Armed Forces including “all the current Kurdish forces and military groups joining the 5th Corps (Assault Legion) under Russian control.”

As a newly unified SAA and Russian military police establish positions around Manbij, the threat still remains of advancing platoons of Turkish-backed former FSA (Free Syrian Army) ‘opposition’ fighters who are now rebranded as ‘Syrian National Army.’  These opposition militants could still cause problems in maintaining peace and stability along proscribed battle lines.

***

Author Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting in the Middle East including work in Syria and Iraq.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Forget privacy abuses, liberals call to DeleteFacebook after learning Zuckerberg met with conservatives

By Helen Buyniski | RT | October 15, 2019

Facebook’s history of abusing users’ trust by sharing their private data with corporate partners and government spooks pales in comparison to its CEO’s decision to sit down with prominent conservatives, for some.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been meeting with conservative commentators, journalists, and politicians in “small, off-the-record dinners” and “informal talks,” Politico revealed on Monday, sending shockwaves through the internet. He reportedly discussed “free expression, unfair treatment of conservatives, fact checking, partnerships, and privacy” with prominent right-wing critics of Facebook, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Washington Examiner correspondent Byron York, and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.

This, the mainstream media and many liberals on social media have declared, is an outrage. The hashtag #DeleteFacebook was trending for most of Monday as Woke Twitter finally realized the fourth-richest man in the US, who infamously called Facebook users “dumb f***s,” was an unworthy trustee of their digital lives. Just kidding – they were upset that the platform had become yet another tool of white supremacy.

“The fear is that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the Trump administration by not cracking down on right-wing propaganda,” an anonymous “cybersecurity researcher and former government official based in Silicon Valley” told Politico, giving voice to the fears of many in the Democratic Party. Last week, the platform refused 2020 presidential frontrunner Joe Biden’s campaign’s request to remove a Trump campaign ad accusing Biden of promising Ukraine $1 billion to fire a prosecutor investigating the gas company that had hired his son. While Facebook promised that any “viral hoax” shared by a politician would be “demoted” and displayed alongside a fact-check, it pointed to a recently-revised policy against fact-checking “political speech” as the reason its hands were tied, leaving the Biden campaign – and the #Resistance – fuming.

Wounded liberals took to Twitter to voice their displeasure with Zuckerberg’s secret meetings, accusing Facebook of “poisoning our democracy” even as they made excuses for why they couldn’t delete Instagram or WhatsApp, both of which are owned by Facebook.

Zuckerberg sitting down with conservatives is an odd straw to have break the camel’s back, to be sure. Facebook users sat quietly by when it emerged that the platform had shared their private data, including messages sent to other users, with over 150 corporate “partners” without their knowledge or consent. There was no user uprising when the platform was discovered to be collaborating with phone companies to rate customers’ “creditworthiness” based on their profiles. #DeleteFacebook didn’t trend when the platform quietly suspended tens of thousands of apps for violating users’ privacy and admitted it would be unable to catch all of the other perpetrators, or when a Facebook lawyer made the jaw-dropping claim that users have no expectation of privacy at all.

Facebook notoriously collaborates with the US government to remove accounts both domestically and abroad, and works with the Israeli government to stifle the free speech of Palestinians, many of whom get their news exclusively through Facebook. A recent EU court ruling paved the way for Facebook to be weaponized by European countries to remove so-called “hate speech” by users halfway around the world. And Facebook has even struggled to play down complaints that it exploits children by luring them into spending wads of their parents’ cash on online games.

None of these offenses rankled #Resistance Twitter as much as a friendly (off-the-record) dinner with Tucker Carlson. Users attacked the “hateful, dangerous platform” as “irresponsible” and slammed it for “undermining democracy.” But even liberals have admitted, when polled about other issues, that Facebook content favors the Democratic Party, and formeremployees have admitted to suppressing conservative posts. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the company that has abused its users in every way imaginable was finally kicked to the curb for listening to their complaints and trying to change?

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | Leave a comment

UK under fire for compiling secret database on Britons

By Bianca Rahimi | Press TV | October 15, 2019

London – Human rights groups describe it as “utterly chilling” experts as a “trawling exercise”. The UK government is under fire for a secret database supposedly used to prevent radicalization and terrorism.

The personal details of thousands of people are recorded and can be accessed by any bobby on the beat. Rights groups say it’s purpose is not keeping Britain safe though.

If you live in the UK your most personal information, from what you do and who you associate with, to what you drew as a toddler in nursery, might be on a secret government database. One compiled by counter-terrorism police and fed into by the controversial anti-radicalization program called Prevent.

The police say recording referrals ensures accountability and allows forces to understand when vulnerabilities are increasing; but human rights campaigners say it is nothing more than a trawling exercise.

Schools now have a legal duty to act but experts warn that educators are poorly trained. Teachers are scrutinizing pupils as young as 4 for signs of radicalization but according to their unions, teachers feel burdened by this responsibility and may refer too often and arbitrarily to cover their backs.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment