According to Reuters, about 200 Canadian commandos are actively involved in the ground operation to recapture Mosul from ISIS rule. According to Michael Rouleau, Canadian Special Forces Commander, troops are engaged in a ‘substantial’ number of clashes with terrorists which continues to rise.
Why is Canada sending troops to Iraq? What are the results desired by the Canadian government? And what is it willing to sacrifice?
First, Ottawa claims that by doing so it protects itself against terrorism. Former foreign minister Rob Nicholson stressed the need to weaken and destabilize ISIS in 2015. However neither airstrikes in Iraq and Syria nor coalition’s participation in Mosul mincing machine will lead to eradication of terrorism. The example of the Taliban in Afghanistan clearly demonstrates that large-scale fighting will be followed by long and bloody guerrilla war, in which Canada could get stuck with no end in sight.
Second, we should analyze the aftermath of ISIS defeat in Iraq and Syria. This question has no clear-cut answer. In theory the Canadian military presence in Iraq helps the Iraqi government to regain control over the country. In practice Ottawa is cooperating with the Kurds, who are planning to establish their own independent state on the territory of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. These aspirations could further destabilize the region.
Third, it is unclear whether Canada is ready to confront the Islamic State on a global scale. ISIS is conducting subversive activities in Lebanon, Afghanistan, Algeria, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Nigeria, as well as in the countries of Southeast Asia in addition to Syria and Iraq. Consequently, it will require much more effort than just sending a few hundred soldiers to take part in an operation with controversial results for the complete elimination of the Islamic State.
Fourth, the situation in Syria and Iraq resembles a scenario that has repeatedly led to disastrous consequences in the Middle East. For example, the Western overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in fact led to the creation of ISIS. NATO’s invasion in Libya has practically ruined the country, led to fierce carnage over Muammar Gaddafi and contributed to the rapid spread of terrorist groups throughout North Africa not mentioning numerous victims among the civilian population.
Fifth, judging by the events in Mosul, one could argue that the operation would require a considerable amount of money. Despite the fact that the military operation in Iraq has already hit the budget of the country, Canada is going to allocate approximately $305.9 million extra towards extension, refocusing and carrying out the mission. This includes $41.9 million to be allocated for redeployment of personnel and equipment in 2016-17.
In addition, Canadian military’s participation in missions abroad comes with casualties. According to The Department of National Defense and the Canadian Armed Forces, 162 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan with more than two thousand injured. During the ten years of military presence in Afghanistan the Government invested more than $11 billion in the operation.
It is obvious that in the absence of a clear military strategy and achievable goals the situation in Iraq can become a second Afghanistan for Ottawa. Instead of solving internal problems, by supporting the international coalition Canada dared to get involved in another endless armed conflict. The leadership of the country once again has not consulted the opinion of its citizens sending dozens of soldiers to death and destroying the state budget.
The following text is an excerpt of a forthcoming E-Book entitled Voices From Syria, by Mark Taliano.
Taliano focuses on the broad issue of Media Disinformation and America’s Wars: Liars Versus Truthers. According to the author, the “Progressive Left” has been coopted.
Voices From Syria is slated to be launched by Global Research publishers in December.
* * *
Well-documented facts pertaining to the 9/11 wars, all supported by sustainable evidence, have barely made inroads into the collective consciousness of Western media consumers.
The War on Syria is no exception. Despite the presence of five years of sustainable evidence that contradicts the Western narratives, people still believe the “official” lies.
One of the more prevalent lies about the dirty war on Syria, for example, is that there are so-called “moderate rebels”. This false cover for certain terrorists groups furnishes Western powers with pretexts for illegally arming and supporting terrorism in Syria.
Syrian resident Lilly Martin describes the crimes committed by the so-called “moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) on August 4, 2013, in Ballouta, a small village near Latakia, Syria:
The FSA went house to house killing everyone in their path. Whole families were wiped out. One pregnant woman was seized and her stomach cut open and the fetus hung in a tree. There were many survivors, despite the fact that 220 dead bodies were later counted at the hospital in Latakia. The survivors made their way to an empty school in Latakia and took shelter there until the village could be freed by the Syrian Arab Army on August 17, 2013.
During the sectarian massacre, 100 small children and a few females were kidnapped by the FSA. They were taken as captives to Selma, which was and still is occupied and held by the FSA. The children and females were tortured. They were all held underground without sunlight. One boy had his eyes gouged out, and another boy was shot through the head.
About 2 weeks later the FSA used those children to create a video. They drugged the 100 children and arraigned them in poses on the floor to appear dead. They created many videos using their captives as actors. The video was sent via cell phone to a contact person in Damascus. It was that person who later uploaded the famous Sarin Chemical attack video on YouTube.com
Martin explains further, that on May 7, 2014,
after 9 months of captivity, 44 of the original 100 kidnap victims were released from Selma to a hospital in Latakia. Their release was part of the deal which also released terrorists in the Old City section of Homs. However, the remaining kidnap victims continue to be held in Selma. On May 8th some of the captives began to give testimonies about their time in captivity in Selma with the FSA. They said most of the terrorists were Syrian but that they did occasionally hear foreign languages spoken. From other sources, we know that Selma was home to many Australian terrorists, especially from the Sydney area, which also had ties to Latakia. Those Australians would be able to speak Arabic with a Syrian accent, and also speak English very well.
The notion that these un-Islamic murderers are somehow “moderate”, is patently absurd, yet the “Big Lie” is sustained in the West by a “consensus of ignorance” which is protected by what Prof Michel Chossudovsky describes as an “American Inquisition”. Beneath the protection of this psychological operation, the engineered enemy is Islam, and the Global War On Terrorism (GWOT) has become a brand to disguise imperial wars of aggression as “humanitarian”.
Thus, huge sums of public monies are diverted from worthwhile, domestic projects such as healthcare schools and roads, to support a criminal Project for a New American Century (PNAC) that is globalizing death, poverty, and destruction as the U.S led empire tries to impose a unilateral model of control over the world.
The U.S is said to be “exceptional”, and therefore the rightful ruler. Manifest Destiny writ large.
Dissent is suppressed within the framework of corporate media monopolies. Predominant narratives are supported by corrupt “NGOs” – totally bereft of objectivity — and intelligence agency “fronts”. Real investigative journalism offering historical context and legitimate evidence are relegated to the fringes, far outside the domain of the broad-based “consensus of misunderstanding.”
The “Progressive Left” has been co-opted. So-called “progressives” (presumably unwittingly) support Canada’s close relationships with Wahabbi Saudi Arabia, Apartheid Israel, and even the foreign mercenaries currently invading Syria (ie ISIS and al Nursra Front/al Qaeda, and all the “moderates”).
The foundational sources upon which the pretexts for war are built and perpetrated are taboo topics, despite longstanding evidence that the official narratives explaining the crimes of 9/11 – and the subsequent “Gladio B” operations — are flawed. The truth is seen as “heresy”, and fact-based narratives are derided as “conspiracy theories”.
Thus, a firm foundation of lies that serves as a sanctified justification for global war and terror, remains strong.
But the stakes are high, as Western hegemony presses us closer and closer to a real prospect of widespread nuclear war. Already, the use of nuclear weapons is being “normalized” through the introduction of “mini-nukes” into the equation, and the blurring of lines between conventional and nuclear war.
“The Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations outlines the procedures governing the use of nuclear weapons and the nature of the relationship between nuclear and conventional war operations.
The DJNO states that the:
‘use of nuclear weapons within a [war] theater requires that nuclear and conventional plans be integrated to the greatest extent possible’ (DJNO, p 47, italics added, For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 )
The implications of this ‘integration’ are far-reaching because once the decision is taken by the Commander in Chief, namely the President of the United States, to launch a joint conventional-nuclear military operation, there is a risk that tactical nuclear weapons could be used without requesting subsequent presidential approval. In this regard, execution procedures under the jurisdiction of the theater commanders pertaining to nuclear weapons are described as ‘flexible and allow for changes in the situation …’ ”
The taboos need to be lifted, and all of the repeated lies need to be contradicted.
The War on Syria is not a “civil” war; the “uprising” was not “democratic”; Assad does not “starve his own people”; Assad does not “bomb his own people”, and, of course, there are no “moderate” terrorists.
The initial uprisings were marred by foreign-backed violence perpetrated against innocent people, soldiers, and police. Peaceful grassroots protests were hijacked by these murderous foreign-backed elements (as was the case in Ukraine) – all consistent with “hybrid war” as elaborated by Andrew Korybko.
The illegal sanctions imposed by the West – which benefit the terrorists and punish Syrian citizens – coupled with terrorist practices of theft and hoarding of humanitarian aid – are responsible for the starvation.
Assad is a democratically elected reformer, and hugely popular with Syrians, not a brutal dictator. Claims that he “kills his own people” were further debunked when the so-called “Caesar photos” evidence was proven to be a fraud. Many Syrians criticize Assad for not carpet bombing terrorist occupied areas (as US occupiers did in Fallujah, for example). Syrians sometimes refer to Assad as “Mr. Soft Heart”.
Unfortunately, though, the well-documented truth is not yet widely accepted. We need to shatter the “Inquisition” which serves to protect the criminal cabal perpetrating and orchestrating this global catastrophe. Truth and justice must prevail over lies and crimes. Currently, the opposite is the case.
US leaders almost always justify their foreign policy with words about “democracy” and “human rights.” Especially when talking about the Middle East, the insincerity of such words are blatantly obvious. While US leaders criticize Iran and Syria for alleged human rights violations, the entire world can see that the US allies in the region are serial human rights violators.
Israel has been widely condemned for its treatment of Palestinians. Saudi Arabia is a country where even the basic notion of human rights does not exist. The Kingdom is an absolute monarchy where people can still be executed by beheading or crucifixion in the 21st century. Crimes punishable by death under the Saudi regime include “sorcery” and “insulting the King.” Under Saudi law, the people are not citizens with rights, but rather “subjects” who are essentially the King’s property.
Qatar is yet another repressive regime. Like Saudi Arabia, it is an absolute monarchy, where a King serves as the unelected autocrat.
Bahrain is known not only for its lack of democratic structures, but for its repression of the Shia Muslim majority who frequently take to the streets, demanding their rights.
The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, and almost every other US-aligned regime in the Arab world has a primitive political system, centered on an autocratic monarchy. These regimes are known to torture, behead, flog, repress free speech, oppress religious minorities, and do all kinds of things US leaders claim to oppose.
This does not prevent the United States from selling weapons to these regimes, or from purchasing their oil. This also does not prevent the USA from establishing military bases on their soil, and otherwise coddling them.
In fact, the Financial Times describes how the United Arab Emirates is becoming a beloved “tax haven” for the rich and powerful in the western world. While western leaders love to talk about human rights, they have no problem with autocratic emirates handling their money.
The Roots of Wahabbi Terrorism
More shockingly, the involvement of these regimes in terrorism has not deterred US support. It took 15 years for the classified 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report to be released. The pages revealed that Saudi government officials had collaborated with the 9/11 hijackers. It furthermore revealed that Saudi Arabia had been uncooperative and offered minimal support to US officials with their investigations during the aftermath of the attacks.
The Saudi Royal family owes its reign to the British Empire. During the 1900s the British discovered that the House of Saud were useful allies against the Ottoman Empire, and were more than willing to sell their oil at a reasonable price. The Saudi monarchy professes a particularly conservative brand of Islam known as “Wahabbism.”
While not every Wahabbi has been involved in terrorism, Al-Queda, ISIS, Al-Nusra, Osama Bin Laden, Omar Mateen, and nearly every Middle-Eastern or Central-Asian terrorist who has menaced the world in recent years has been an adherent of Wahabbism. Wahabbism is particularly anti-Western and anti-American. Opponents of the Saudi ideology often call it “Takfirism,” a term that refers to Wahabbi’s willingness to kill other Muslims with whom they disagree.
The relationship between Wahabbi fanatics and Britain’s wealthy has not ended. A recent article in the Financial Times describes how British Houses of Finance now specialize in “Islamic Banking.” While many Islamic scholars describe the very concept as fraudulent, many financial institutions are accommodating sultans, emirates, and princes who adhere to strict Wahabbi laws. Islam forbids lending money for interest, so many financial institutions have invented loopholes with hidden fees, investment returns, and other mechanisms that can accommodate strict adherents.
During the 1980s, the CIA worked with the heir of a wealthy Saudi construction dynasty to build a Wahabbi army. Osama bin Laden was sent to Afghanistan to build an army of “Mujihadeen” to topple the People’s Democratic Party. The US worked closely with the fanatical Wahabbi terrorists to battle the Marxist government of Afghanistan and their Soviet allies.
Currently, the United States works with Saudi Arabia to fund a Wahabbi insurgency against the secular Syrian Arab Republic. ISIS and Al-Nusra are known to be terrorists inspired by the Saudi ideology. The Saudis have been caught directly helping them out. Among the US backed “moderate rebels,” many Wahabbis can also be found.
Most of the various US-aligned autocracies in the Middle East can be linked to the Wahabbi forces in Syria. Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and other regimes have made the goal of “regime change” in Syria a priority, and many ISIS fighters have emerged from their respective populations.
Is The Tide Turning?
While the past three presidencies of Bush, Obama, and Clinton have involved massive coddling of the Saudi regime, Donald Trump often spoke against Saudi Arabia during his Presidential campaign. Furthermore, in a recent move, the US Congress dramatically overrode Barack Obama’s veto, and passed the controversial JASTA bill, allowing victims of terrorism to sue the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in US courts.
While Trump often appealed to ignorant and Islamophobic sentiments among Americans, he also appealed to an isolationist desire to stop meddling around the world. Trump made fighting ISIS, the Wahabbi extremist group unleashed amid US-Saudi regime change efforts, a key plank of his campaign.
Will Trump live up to his words? Will the USA end its alliance with Pro-Wahabbi autocratic regimes that are linked to terrorism?
Though Trump spoke against the Saudis and talked of fighting ISIS, his campaign included reckless denunciations of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Trump’s speeches often seemed to lump Iran in with ISIS, ignoring the fact that Iranian Revolutionary Guards are on the battlefield each and every day, risking their lives to defeat ISIS.
Iran is greatly threatened by ISIS terrorism. ISIS and most Wahabbis consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be led by “Shia Apostates.” ISIS and other anti-government forces in Syria have recruited fighters from around the world on the basis of toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad because of his Alawi faith, which Wahabbis consider to be a variation of Shia apostasy.
Contradictory Middle East Positions
For too long, the USA has been targeting secular, nationalist governments like the Baathist regimes of Iraq and Syria, the Islamic Republic of Iran, or Gaddafi’s Libya. In doing so they have been passively helping and strengthening the bloodthirsty Wahabbi fanatics who these regimes have held back, and whose ideological foundation is promoted by Saudi Arabia.
If Trump is serious about stopping ISIS and the surrounding wave of Wahabbi terrorism, he will immediately end the US financial and military relationship with the Saudi regime, as well as the nearby, pro-Wahabbi autocracies.
Furthermore, Trump will need to end his irresponsible demonization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and join with the Iranians, the Russians, the Syrian government, and China in the fight against ISIS terrorism.
If Trump were to do this, it would be one of the most dramatic shifts ever seen in US foreign policy.
During his campaign, Trump has taken two somewhat contradictory positions in relation to the Middle East. While he has denounced Saudi Arabia and talked about how US “regime change” policies have strengthened terrorism, he has also repeated the anti-Iranian talking points of Netanyahu, and spoken with great admiration for Israel.
Israel has been the greatest direct beneficiary of the US policy in the Middle East. Each regime the US has targeted in the region–Syria, Iraq, and Iran–have been outspoken opponents of Israel who directly support Palestinian resistance. Meanwhile, the Wahabbi-linked autocrats denounce Israel in words, but do very little to threaten its existence or strength.
Israel’s primary enemies, Iran and Syria, are also the primary target of the Wahabbi fanatics and the Saudi monarchy. Israel and Saudi Arabia may denounce each other, but their foreign policies both center on hostility to what the Saudis call “the Shia crescent.”
Regarding the Middle East, the new President will be forced to decide whether he seeks to continue aligning US and Israel foreign policies, and targeting Iran and Syria, or whether he wants to end Wahabbi terrorism, and stop cooperating with the regimes actively linked to it.
Trump is often perceived as quite unpredictable. Whichever choice he makes, it is likely to surprise many people.
Caleb Maupin is a political analyst and activist based in New York. He studied political science at Baldwin-Wallace College.
President-elect Donald Trump has named retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his new national security adviser, according to a close source. The former DIA chief has been criticized in US circles for refusing to take an anti-Russian stance.
The 57-year-old three-star general, who once ran the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), is considered a controversial figure in US circles for a number of reasons. In May, he claimed in an Al Jazeera interview that the rise of Islamic extremism in the Middle East, including the emergence of Al-Nusra Front and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, was not the result of chance or ignorance – but of calculated thinking.
General Flynn dismissed Al Jazeera’s suggestion that the Obama administration had simply overlooked the DIA’s analysis, instead arguing that the government had “turned a blind eye” on his agency on purpose.“I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision,” the former DIA chief said, referring to a highly-contentious 2012 DIA memo.
The Pentagon veteran, who was a key figure in the Bush administration’s War on Terror, also lambasted Washington for criticizing Russia’s plans to fight Islamic State in Syria. Flynn told RT in October that he strongly believes that “Russia and the United States working together and trying to work with the other partners that we all have in this region can come up with some other solutions.”
“We have to understand as Americans that Russia also has foreign policy; Russia also has a national security strategy. And I think that we failed to understand what that is,” said the former DIA chief.
Flynn was heavily criticized for taking this position. In a Washington Postinterview, Dana Priest tried to portray him as a supporter of Russia, and therefore the antithesis of everything Washington stands for. The interviewer grilled Flynn about a trip he had taken to Moscow, when he was among the speakers and panel guests at an RT conference celebrating its first 10 years on air, and met with President Vladimir Putin. When Priest questioned Flynn about his opinion of RT, the general replied that he didn’t see a difference between the work of RT and US news networks like MSNBC and CNN.
In US circles, the Pentagon veteran is seen by some as representing the legacy of firebrand former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. As the former commander of special ops in Iraq and Afghanistan, he is considered to be “one of the most influential figures in the dramatic post-9/11 expansion of the role of US Special Operations forces globally,” the Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill wrote in September.
Appointment to the post of national security adviser does not require confirmation by the Senate, and the choice of the former DIA chief was merely a rumor until it was confirmed on November 18 by NBC, which spoke to an official close to the transition.
Flynn will be replacing Susan Rice, and is considered to be part of Donald Trump’s cabinet reshuffle that aims to reflect a tougher stance toward both friends and rivals. Flynn was DIA chief in 2012-2014, but reportedly left early due to clashes with senior Obama officials. He is also known for proposing an overhaul of the DIA that was met with opposition.
The controversial figure and Trump loyalist is perhaps best known to the American public for making incendiary remarks about Islam in past tweets, such as the one claiming that it is “rational” to fear Muslims.
There continues to be anxiety about what the new US president will do on a whole series of issues, including, but not limited to, Syria, Iran, and Russia. Trump is expected to make his first international appearance at this summer’s G20 and NATO summits.
US President Barack Obama has just given the Pentagon orders to assassinate commanders of the Al Nusra terror network in Syria. American media reports over the weekend say the new urgency arises from US intelligence fears that al Qaeda-affiliated groups are preparing to mount terror attacks against Western targets from strongholds in Syria.
The purported US «kill list» will be acted on through drone strikes and «intelligence assets». The latter refers, presumably, to US special forces that are already operating in northern Syria alongside Turkish military.
Last week, a similar announcement was carried in the British press, which reported that elite British SAS troops had received orders to kill up to 200 jihadi volunteers from Britain who are suspected to be active in Syria (and Iraq). Again, the same rationale was invoked as in the latest American plan. That the assassination program was to pre-empt terror attacks rebounding on Western states.
A British defense official was quoted as saying that the mission could be the most important ever undertaken by the SAS in its entire 75-year history. «The hunt is on», said the official, «to take out some very bad people».
Significantly, too, the British SAS kill operations in Syria are reportedly being carried out as part of a «multinational effort». That suggests that the Pentagon’s initiative reported this weekend is being coordinated with the British.
However, there is something decidedly odd about this sudden determination by the Americans and British to eliminate terrorists in Syria.
Since the outbreak of the Syrian war in 2011, US, British and other NATO forces have shown meagre success in delivering on official claims of combating al Qaeda-linked terror groups, such as Islamic State (IS, ISIS or Daesh) and Jabhat al Nusra (also known as Jabhat al Fatal al Sham).
A straightforward explanation for this apparent anomaly is that the US and its NATO allies are in reality covertly working with these terror networks as proxies for regime change against the Assad government – a longtime ally of Russia and Iran. What Washington refers to as «moderate rebels» whom it supports are in reality serving as conduits for arms and funds to the known terror groups. In this context, the terror groups have been Western assets in the regime-change war. Therefore, there has been no incentive to liquidate these assets – until now that is. Why now is the telling question.
The recent ceasefire debacles in the battleground northern city of Aleppo have demonstrated a systematic Western terror link. The failure by Washington to deliver on its commitment to separate so-called moderates from extremists is clear evidence that the alleged dichotomy is a hoax. The plain fact is that the US-backed «rebels» are fully integrated with the terror groups. That is, the US and its allies are sponsors of terrorism in Syria.
This has led to the reasonable charge by the Russian government that the US is supporting al Nusra, despite the latter being an internationally proscribed terrorist organization at the heart of the so-called American «war on terror». That charge has been corroborated by claims made by Nusra commanders who say that they have been receiving covert weapons supplies from the Americans. It is also substantiated by recent finds of US weaponry among terrorist dens that have been over-run by the Syrian Arab Army.
So, the question is: what is this latest urgency from the Pentagon to wipe out Nusra’s leadership in Syria really about?
First, let’s note that the implied precision of terrorist «kill lists» that the Americans and British are suddenly working on seems incongruous given that these NATO powers have up to now apparently been unable to furnish Russia with coordinates for extremist bases in Syria.
The Russian Ministry of Defense disclosed last week that the Americans have not provided a single scrap of information on the location of terrorist groups in Syria. The US was obliged to share intelligence on extremist positions as part of the ceasefire plans resolved in September by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
That then marks a seeming curious shift. From not being able to provide any intelligence on terror groups, now we are told in a different context that the US and its British counterpart are urgently moving ahead to carry out decapitation strikes on Nusra and ISIS commanders.
On the British side, reports said that a kill list of hundreds of British jihadis had been drawn up by the intelligence services of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. Why wasn’t this information shared before with Russia, as part of the Kerry-Lavrov accord?
Timing is also another telling factor. Obama’s announced order to the Pentagon to ramp up assassination of Nusra leaders comes in the wake of the shock presidential election victory for Donald Trump. Trump’s election last week was an outcome that completely blindsided the White House and the Washington establishment, who thought that Democrat rival Hillary Clinton was a safe bet.
The abrupt US impetus to neutralize Nusra cadres also comes as the Russian navy flotilla takes up position in the Mediterranean off Syria. The flotilla is led by the aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, along with destroyers equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles. The naval formation has been described as the biggest Russian deployment since the end of the Cold War 25 years ago. It will greatly enhance Russia’s air power which already has over the past year transformed the Syrian war into an eminent defeat for the Western-backed insurgents.
Now that nearly three weeks of Russia’s unilateral cessation in air strikes on terror targets in Syria has elapsed to no avail for a surrender by the insurgents, it is anticipated that Russian air power and Syrian forces on the ground are readying for a final, decisive offensive to vanquish the Western-backed proxy war.
President-elect Trump has stated on several occasions his approval of Russian and Syrian anti-terror efforts, unlike the Obama administration, which has sought to hamper them by accusing Moscow and Damascus of «war crimes» against civilians. Russia has rejected those claims as false. It points to recent initiatives to set up humanitarian corridors in Aleppo as evidence that it is trying to minimize civilian casualties. It is the US-backed militants who have sabotaged the humanitarian efforts.
In any case, Trump’s accession to the White House can be expected to give Russia a freer hand to bring the Syrian war to a close. And as noted, increased Russian military forces appear to be poised for this final push.
This is perhaps where the real significance of the latest Pentagon and British terrorist kill program is evinced. If we accept the plausible and proven premise that the Americans and their NATO allies have been covertly funding, arming and directing jihadi terror proxies, then one can expect that there is plenty of evidence within the terrorist ranks of such state-sponsoring criminal connections.
As Russian and Syrian forces eradicate the terrorist remnants one can anticipate that a trove of highly indicting information will be uncovered that grievously imputes Washington, London, Paris and others in Syria’s dirty war. Among the finds too will be hundreds of Nusra and other terrorist operatives who may be willing to testify as to who their handlers were. A huge can of worms awaits to be prized open.
To pre-empt such devastating evidence of Western culpability in waging a covert criminal war in Syria, the Pentagon and its British partner appear to be dispatching their elite troops to perform a little bit of «house cleaning». That cleaning may involve whacking jihadis who know too much.
No wonder the British official said it could the most important mission for the SAS in its 75-year history. Washington and London’s neck is on the line.
US officials are split over the future of Raqqa, Syria, with some claiming all international forces will leave the city once it is freed from terrorists, and others announcing plans to stay to ‘govern’ it along with Turkey.
As Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters, backed by US advisers and coalition airstrikes, slowly advance on the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) stronghold of Raqqa, US officials have been voicing their opinions on what will happen to Raqqa once it is liberated. The US State Department says that after the terrorists are defeated, all foreign forces will leave the city to let the Syrians run it.
“How the liberation takes place, how we get local governance re-established after the liberation: our expectation, as has been elsewhere, is that outside forces would then withdraw,” US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a daily press briefing on Monday. He then clarified that US forces will supervise the re-establishment of local authority in the city, but other than that will not intervene in its governance.
“We don’t want to see semi-autonomous zones. The reality is, though, as territory is liberated from [Islamic State], you’ve got to get some kind of governance back into these areas, but by no means are we condoning… any kind of semi-autonomous areas in northern Syria.
“Ultimately, we want to see a sovereign, intact Syria,” Toner stressed.
The US military’s position, however, differs slightly from that of the State Department.
“The coalition and Turkey will work together on the long-term plan for seizing, holding and governing Raqqa,” US General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Sunday, following a meeting with his Turkish counterpart General Hulusi Akar in Ankara.
He went further, saying that taking and holding Raqqa requires a “predominantly Arab and Sunni Arab force.”
“And there are forces like that. There is the moderate Syrian opposition, the vetted Syrian forces and the Free Syrian Army forces, and there is some initial outreach to forces in Raqqa proper,” the general added.
Syrian political analyst, Taleb Ibrahim, called these statements “a language for war,” and said the US has no right to impose any governance in Syria given the fact that it is an independent state which has a government, while the United States have never even received permission from Syrian authorities to participate in the conflict on Syrian land.
“I don’t think this is an appropriate language and it indeed is not the language of peace. It is not a language of political resolution, it is not a language for reconciliation – it is a language for war, it is a language for making new maps [in] the Middle East which were called in the past time the maps of blood,” Ibrahim said.
“This indicates a very dangerous concept and I am very much concerned about the future of Syria… They are intervening illegally in an independent state which has a government, an elected president and a real authority on the ground. But [the US uses Islamic State] as justification to occupy large areas of Syria for their geopolitical goals,” he noted.
Dr. Max Abrahms, assistant professor of public policy in the department of political science at Northeastern University, said the US is counting their chickens before they are hatched, deciding the fate of Raqqa at this stage.
“It’s almost premature to talk about governance. This Raqqa mission is going to take a long time,” Abrahms told RT.
The Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF, an alliance of predominantly Kurdish fighters and Arab tribal militia, is currently advancing on Raqqa. While the US has been supporting the SDF with weapons and airstrikes, General Dunford said he does not see the group as capable of governing Raqqa after the fighting is over.
“We always knew the SDF wasn’t the solution for holding and governing Raqqa. What we are working on right now is to find the right mix of forces for the operation.” He added that in deciding what these “right forces” are, the US military will rely on none other than Turkey.
“They will be helpful in identifying the right forces to do that,” he said.
Turkey, meanwhile, has been vocally opposing the SDF, or rather the dominant part of it – the YPG militia – from being the leading force in the Raqqa operation. Ankara sees the group as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and is worried that Kurdish advances in Syria will inflame a three-decade-old Kurdish insurgency in Turkey and lead to the establishment of a Kurdish state.
Turkish General Akar once again told Dunford on Sunday of Turkey’s frustration at the presence of Kurdish forces in Manbij, a strategically important northern Syrian city, whose liberation prompted Turkish intervention, as it is close to the Turkish border. Earlier this Tuesday, alluding to the YPG, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara wants to ensure that the “wrong groups” do not participate in the Raqqa operation, and most importantly do not enter the city, although they may take part in the siege. He warned that Turkey was “taking measures” to guarantee this outcome, but did not specify what measures exactly, Reuters reported.
The Kurds themselves have been calling Turkey an “obstacle” to the attack on Raqqa all along, with SDF official Rezan Hiddo warning the group would halt the advance on Raqqa if Turkish forces moved against the Kurds in northern Syria, which even the US State Department sees as possible.
“Any attempt by Turkey to make an aggression against Manbij will certainly impede liberation of Raqqa and we will not remain silent. Our priority is confronting Turkey’s aggression against Manbij. The ball is now in the coalition’s court and its seriousness will be shown in forcing the Turks to withdraw from the region,” Hiddo was quoted as saying by Fars News Agency.
The US State Department says that in this “complicated climate,” the US will try and “keep pressure on what is the common enemy here, which is [Islamic State],” but Max Abrahms believes it is not likely they will succeed.
“I think that the US is really just trying to placate Turkey [but] I think that there’s a real concern that Turkey is going to go on the offensive even more on Kurdish fighters,” he stated.
The SDF has meanwhile moved south towards the city despite fierce resistance from IS militants. Alliance forces captured at least 10 villages and advanced on two fronts, including at least 10 kilometers (six miles) south towards the city from the towns of Ein Issa and Suluk, SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told AFP on Tuesday.
In both locations, the SDF is still some distance away from Raqqa, but the offensive is said to be going according to plan. The SDF says it has some 30,000 fighters taking part in the operation dubbed “Wrath of Euphrates,” aiming to surround and isolate terrorists inside Raqqa before launching an assault on the city itself. The US-led coalition said it carried out 16 airstrikes on Islamic State positions on Sunday, hitting the group’s tactical units and several car bombs near Ein Issa.
The most fateful chapter of the war in northern Syria may be deemed to have commenced on Sunday with the launch of the offensive by Syrian Kurdish militia, backed by American and French Special Forces, to retake control of Raqqa, ‘capital’ of the Islamic State, situated almost mid-point between Aleppo and Mosul. (Japan Times)
Raqqa’s fall will be a lethal blow for IS. But expert opinion has been that US is ill-prepared for a full-bodied campaign on Raqqa. A former US Army colonel Daniel Davis wrote in the National Interest magazine last week that with no state-supported military unit leading the assault, no allied militia, no resupply lines through friendly territory, wresting control of a major city such as Raqqa, “in a hostile foreign land enmeshed in a years-long civil war… could… result in deadly consequences.” (National Interest)
Yet, President Barack Obama decided otherwise. US soldiers have been spotted on the frontline. (RT)
What is the US gameplan? Indeed, driving the IS out of Raqqa is invested with symbolism, as Obama will be fulfilling his pledge to “degrade and defeat” the IS before leaving office. With the November 8 election no longer constraining him, Obama hopes to notch up a legacy in Syria as the president who ‘defeated’ the IS.
Second, there is the ‘big picture’. Washington is hoping to stall the capture of Aleppo by Syrian government forces (backed by Russia and Iran) so that the next US president has the option to revisit Syrian conflict. Control of Raqqa would allow the US to keep a direct influence on Aleppo.
Again, in immediate terms, the IS fighters coming under pressure in Mosul may evacuate to Raqqa and the US intends to blockade Raqqa at least partially so as to revisit the front after the battle for Mosul has been won.
To be sure, Raqqa is shaping up to be the bloodiest battle yet in the Syrian conflict. An estimated 5000 IS fighters are located in Raqqa.
The ‘known unknown’ will be the reactions of Turkey and Russia. The Turkish-Russian rapprochement faces a litmus test here. Suffice it to say, Russia will be watching Turkey’s ‘strategic autonomy’ vis-à-vis the US. There are conflicting signals that US and Turkey have a tacit understanding over Raqqa. (KUNA)
Meanwhile, Syrian Kurds also claim to have an understanding with the US to keep Turkey out in the cold. (Rudaw)
The Americans are playing a smart game. Turkey couldn’t have chosen this moment to push to capture the hugely strategic town of al-Babi without informing US, because the operation’s main aim is to thwart Kurdish plans to establish a contiguous enclave in northern Syria. Simply put, how is it possible that Turks are ostensibly hitting the Syrian Kurds hard just when the latter are fighting Obama’s war on IS in Raqqa? How could that possibly happen without some back-to-back US-Turkish understanding? (Read an excellent analysis in Al-Monitor on the Turkey’s plans in northern Syria)
In the developing situation, a Russian-Syrian consolidation in Aleppo becomes complicated if Americans and the French manage to establish a base camp in Raqqa from where they can lend support seamlessly to rebel groups in Aleppo. Prima facie, Obama’s one-year old warning of a ‘quagmire’ for Russians in Syria no longer seems far-fetched. (Reuters)
But then, Russians seem to estimate that capturing Raqqa is beyond the US’ capability anytime soon. For Tehran, too, Turkey and US’s control of al-Bab and Raqqa could foreclose a direct Iranian access route via Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, which is crucial for bolstering the military capability of Hezbollah. In fact, Raqqa leads to Zeir e-Zor city in eastern Syria, just 120 kilometers away, which is under Syrian government control and is a gateway for Iran to access Lebanon. The US and Israel have been hoping to bring Zeir e-Zor under control of Salafi groups hostile to Iran.
Show me an American Neocon today and I will show you a pro-Clinton supporter. In fact, it is indicative of Hillary Clinton’s particular brand of foreign policy that Republican hawks have fled the GOP standard to join ranks with the warmongering Democrats.
In order to guarantee another 4-8 years of US-led military aggression in the Middle East, and heightened tensions with Russia and China (which all translates into lucrative defense spending), the Neocons have found it necessary to drag Russian President Vladimir Putin into the 2016 presidential race as a means of deflecting attention away from a devastating series of leaked emails, courtesy of Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, that portray Clinton and her campaign team in less than glowing terms.
The latest Neocon to grease the wheels of Clinton’s War & Wall Street machine is Madeleine Albright, 79, the former Secretary of State, who is perhaps most famous for two quotes, “What’s the point of having this superb military… if we can’t use it?” And second, when asked in a 1996 interview with the news program 60 Minutes if the price of UN sanctions against Iraq – which was half a million dead Iraqi children – was worth it, Albright unhesitatingly responded, “We think the price is worth it.”
Albright opened her opinion piece in USA Today with a fast curve ball, no easy feat even for professional throwers: “Democrats have been renewing their call this week for the FBI to release more information on the connections among Donald Trump, his top advisers and the Russian government. But it is already clear that Russia’s intervention in our election on Trump’s side is the real scandal of 2016… ”
Like a veteran manipulator, Albright attempts to control the narrative, not to mention the history books, by telling the reader that Russia’s (unproven) intervention in the 2016 presidential election is the “real scandal” of the year, as opposed, of course, to Julian Assange’s torturous, slow-drip outing of Hillary Clinton and her mind-boggling list of ‘poor decision-making.’
“The Russian government has already hacked into the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in an effort to create confusion and turn voters off from politics,” Albright wrote, essentially telling Americans ‘nothing to look at here, please move on and have a nice day.’
Nowhere does Albright question the meaty contents of the emails. Instead, she waxes poetic about the undefiled beauty of the democratic landscape and the authoritarian governments and their “shadow campaigns” that would trash them. This deliberate oversight explains why Albright and her fellow Neocons found it so necessary to drag Russia into this scandal. The allegations contained in the WikiLeaks emails are so potentially damaging to Clinton’s chances at the White House that they required a diversion as large as Russia to conceal them.
Yet, even the FBI admits there is no convincing evidence linking the leaked emails as an effort by Russia to boost Trump’s victory chances on Nov.8th. And judging by the tarnished reputations of the Republican and Democratic contenders, it should come as no surprise that Russia should have no clear favorite in this dog race even if they could rig the game.
But all this misses the main point, indeed as it is cunningly designed to do. With all of the spin going on, can anybody still recall what the released Clinton emails revealed?
In short, the leaked documents revealed that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had colluded with the Clinton campaign to ensure Hillary Clinton received the nomination ahead of other potential candidates, including the popular Bernie Sanders. These damning revelations led to the ouster of DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The Russians clearly had nothing to do with that.
Second, the woman who replaced Schultz, Democratic strategist and former CNN contributor, Donna Brazile, was found to have tipped off the Clinton campaign on the content of two questions ahead of the final Clinton-Trump CNN-hosted debate. The horrific implications of that explosive finding, which could have tipped the scales in favor of Clinton, deserves nothing short of a Watergate-style investigation.
By the way, the Russians had nothing to do with that bit of insider intrigue, either.
But that’s mere child’s play compared to documents that show how Clinton, as the Secretary of State, severely mishandled the 2012 Benghazi attack, which was orchestrated by a radical Islamic group. US Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was killed in the attack. In an interview with Democracy Now, Assange said Clinton was even responsible for arming Islamic State fighters in Syria in an effort to bring down the government of President Bashar Assad.
Clinton’s leaky emails point to “the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails,” the WikiLeaks co-founder said. “There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone,” he added.
Nor did the Russians help the United States to bungle Benghazi, or command Clinton to furnish arms to Islamic State, as the correspondences suggest she did.
So why all the mindless media chatter about Russia?
There was yet another potential bit of ‘collateral damage’ in the ongoing WikiLeaks drama that has largely gone overlooked. Since it is preposterous to think that Russia would have any need or desire to influence the US elections, nor has there been a single piece of convincing evidence to support the claim, WikiLeaks somehow managed to get the leaked documents. Why not from a DNC insider? In fact, why not from Seth Rich, the director of voter expansion with DNC who would have had access to the incriminating emails?
We’ll probably never know because Mr. Rich is no longer around to provide his testimony.
In the early hours of July 10th, Rich was shot multiple times in the back as he walked home alone from a Washington pub. Was Rich the victim of a robbery? If so, investigators were baffled as to why his wallet, credit cards, wrist watch and cellphone were not removed from his body.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier admitted at a press conference, “Right now, we have more questions than answers.”
Julian Assange, falling short of admitting Rich – as opposed to Russia – was the source of the leaked information, offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the individual(s) responsible for the premature death of Mr. Rich.
Neverthless, Newsweek was just one of many media outlets that brushed off the incident as “yet another round of Clinton conspiracy theories, this one claiming that Rich was murdered—at dawn—as he was on his way to sing to the FBI about damning internal DNC emails.”
Funny how the Western media regularly accuses foreign media of jumping on wild “conspiracy theories,” yet they have no qualms saddling up their own highly questionable ideas about “Russian involvement” in the WikiLeaks.
Although it may be true that Mr. Rich died the victim of a robbery gone awry, there are still grounds to believe that he was the DNC whistleblower. Somehow the mainstream media, however, found it more expedient to pin the blame on a foreign power without a shred of evidence.
Indeed, Newsweek was apparently satisfied that it had performed due diligence by quoting an anonymous source that said: “There was no indication that any insider was involved in this… Every indication is this was a remote attack from a foreign government—the Russians.”
When the Neocon defection began
When Donald Trump first announced he would scale back the size of America’s global military footprint if elected president, neo-conservatives unleashed a collective howl of pain as they began fleeing en masse the ship of the Republican Party.
Robert Kagan, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and a top Neocon ideologue, signaled the defection when he said a Trump presidency would herald in a new age of American-style fascism.
Today, the tattered flag of the Neocons is flapping high above the Clinton camp, distant fires glowing, as they continue to spearhead a scathing attack on Trump just days before the election. What is the source for this great defection against their own party? Quite simply, it shows the Neocons have no allegiance except to individuals – like George W. Bush and, yes, Barack Obama – who pledge to continue America’s wars of expansion and empire.
Clinton’s past record in Iraq, Libya and Syria strongly suggest she will lead the Neocons to more plunder; Trump has pledged to bring home the troops in order to “Make America Great Again.” Neocons are not big fans of filling potholes and spending on schools.
Trump alienated the Republican warhorses when he pledged to pursue, like a real disciple of the conservative political creed, a foreign policy that does not send American men and women off to distant battlefields to be killed and maimed in senseless military adventures.
The following passage by Joseph A. Mussomeli – in the Washington Post, of all places – really nailed it as to why the Neocons hate Donald Trump:
“Our cadre of neoconservative foreign policy experts, unhumbled after marching us into a reckless war in Iraq and a poorly conceived one in Afghanistan, who applauded as we bombed Libya and bitterly resent our having failed to bomb Bashar al-Assad in Syria, are frightened… But what really troubles them is [Trump’s] generally level-headed and unmessianic attitude toward foreign affairs… Clinton is just another neocon, though wrapped in sheep’s clothing — just as on some foreign policy issues Trump is little more than Bernie Sanders in wolf’s clothing.”
Anne Applebaum, perennial anti-Russia scaremonger and notable Neocon, tossed a smoke grenade into the WikiLeaks scandal, attempting to obfuscate Julian Assange’s work with groundless accusations:
“Russia will continue to distribute and publish the material its hackers have already obtained from attacks on the Democratic National Committee, George Soros’s Open Society Foundation, former NATO supreme commander Gen. Philip Breedlove and probably others. The point will be to discredit not just Hillary Clinton but also the U.S. democratic process and, again, the “elite” who supposedly run it.”
Applebaum wants the distracted public to forget that the leaks already discredited Clinton. Moreover, the lesson between the lines of Applebaum’s diatribe is that all the bad things Clinton has been connected with should be forgiven and forgotten because, well, Russia allegedly had a hand in the mess. A disturbing example of ‘killing the messenger’ who never delivered the message to begin with. Now, all the news is about the fictional messenger who should know better than to be the bearer of bad news, or meddle in America’s lily-white affairs.
Albright claimed that Russia seeks to “undermine Western leaders by making them seem corrupt or malicious.” The reader may discern, based on what we already know from Mr. Assange, the value of that statement for themselves.
So in closing, here we have the very same provocateurs that cheered when former Secretary of State Colin Powell shook a vial of fake anthrax in the UN General Assembly, spooking the world into believing Saddam Hussein was sitting on a hoard of WMDs, thereby triggering war against a sovereign state that has killed over 1 million Iraqis and counting, now would like us to believe Russia is behind the WiliLeaks emails that threaten to sink Clinton’s rat-infested ship once and for all.
We would be fools to let them get away with such deliberate deception again.
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist based in Moscow, Russia. His articles have been featured in many publications, including Russia in Global Affairs, The Moscow Times, Lew Rockwell and Global Research. Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, “Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released in 2013. email: robertvbridge@yahoo.com
Seven is a winning throw of the dice. But in our civil society, seven now signifies the multi-thong scourge, the whip used by the Western world as its instrument of punishment and, in response; seven signifies Nemesis and her sisters, the inescapable agents of the West’s downfall.
The seven scourges of the Western world are used against the people of Asia, Africa, Latin and North America. These whips are constructed, wielded and unleashed especially by the US and the UK.
The seven sisters of Nemesis, the Erinyes, are the Furies who pursue the injustices committed by the Western world against Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe. Those holding the scourge detest and fear Nemesis and the Furies, but are incapable of destroying them. Try as they might, their whip is in corrupt and feeble hands and, of course, it can only follow their orders: Otherwise, it just twitches and remains immobile, while Nemesis pursues the scourgers of humanity.
The Seven-Tailed Scourge of the Western World
The ‘whip’ wielded by the Western world, is used to punish disobedient, ‘rebellious’ people, movements and states. Their multiple lashes have bloodied countless generations and buried millions.
The seven scourges against humanity are unrepentant in their promotion of ‘Western values’ – visible to the terrified world on the red raw backs of oppressed people, their wounds flayed open by the faceless drones proclaiming their gifts of freedom and democracy.
Let us go forward now and describe the pillars holding up the Western empire, the seven-tailed scourge of humanity.
1. Mexico: The Cartel, the Narco-State, US Bankers and Death Squads
Over the last two decades, over a quarter million Mexicans have been murdered by the joint forces of the drug cartels, the Mexican State and its death squads, presided over by the US state and backed by its rapacious financial sector. Cartels and complicit Mexican officials prosper because US banks launder their narco-dollars by the billions. On their part, US corporations grow even richer by relocating their plants to Mexico where terrorized workers can be exploited for 1/5 the cost. Amidst the terror and exploitation, over 11 million Mexican workers and family members have fled to the US running from their local scourges, only to confront the US scourge of deportation. Over 2 million have been imprisoned and expelled under Obama.
2. Honduras and Guatemala: Imperial Wars, Drug Gangs and Narco-Oligarchs
Destitution and state terror are direct products of US–installed regimes in Honduras and Guatemala. Guatemala’s indigenous majority was ravaged by US and Israeli-trained military battalions and death squads. In their wake, scores of narco-gangs, sponsored by local oligarchs and their own private death squads, have emerged. The Honduran people attempted to elect an enlightened liberal President, and were ‘rewarded’ for their peaceful democratic election with a military coup orchestrated by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. They further underscore the lesson of ‘Western values’: Scores of human rights activists and peasant leaders have been murdered and the scourges continue unabated.
3. Colombia: Nobel Prize for Death Squad President
For the past fifteen years, (2001-2016), the Clinton-Bush-Obama regimes launched the seven-billion-dollar ‘Plan Colombia’ terror campaign against the Colombian people. This scourge was so powerful that over two and a half million peasants, Indigenous peoples, and Afro-Colombians have been driven from their homes and villages while, tens of thousands of peasants, trade unionists, human rights activists and civic leaders have been killed. The notorious narco-President Alvaro Uribe and his Vice President Santos worked with the death squads and the Colombian military under the instruction of over one thousand US military advisers and contract mercenaries as they imposed a scorched earth policy – to consolidate a ‘reign of Western values’.
In Colombia, the three-tailed scourge of narco-presidents, death squads and the military decimated rural communities throughout that large and populous nation. They finally induced the FARC guerrillas to submit to a ‘peace’ agreement, which perpetuated the oligarchy. The US remains free to exploit Colombia for its military bases against the rest of Latin America, while foreign corporations exploit its mineral riches. For his part in promoting the ‘peace of the dead’, Colombian President Santos received the Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize.
4. Saudi Arabia: A Household Name Among the Middle East Scourges
No country in the Middle East has financed, organized and directed terrorism in the Middle East, South Asia, North and East Africa, the former Soviet Union and even North America, more than the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It currently scourges the tiny nation of Yemen. Using its ISIS mercenaries, backed by jets, missiles, and logistical support from the UK and the USA, the Saudi despots have invaded maimed and murdered tens of thousands of Yemenis, while hundreds of thousands face starvation in a Saudi-imposed blockade.
The Saudi billionaire regime bankrolled thousands of terrorists in Syria and Iraq, giving billions of dollars of business to US and UK arms manufacturers. Saudi monarchs and their extended clans form a parasitic rentier regime unique in the world. They rely on the skills and labor of imported professionals, workers, household servants, mercenary solders, financial managers and even their praetorian guards. They confine their women behind the veil and closed doors, under the absolute rule of male relatives. They chop off the hands, feet and heads of foreign workers and their own citizens for minor offenses, including ‘blasphemy’, criticism of the king or resisting an employer’s abuse. Saudi Arabia, which is totally dependent on Washington’s protection, has become a scourge especially against Muslim people throughout the Middle East and beyond.
5. Israel: The Scourge of Palestine and Free People Near and Far
The Israeli State is the head commanding the tentacles of a far-reaching Zionist Power Configuration operating in the US, Canada, England, France and, to a less degree, in satellite states and institutions. Israel was established on the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinians from their homes and villages since 1948. For almost 50 years, 600,000 ‘Israeli’ Jews (immigrants given automatic ‘citizenship’ and stolen property based solely on their ‘ethno-religious’ identity) have illegally moved into what remained of historical Palestine, building exclusive ‘Jews-only’ colonial towns on land ripped from its original inhabitants. The Palestinians are herded into apartheid militarized enclaves and squalid camps. Israel invaded and devastated large parts of Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. They have bombed other nations, like Jordan and Iraq, with impunity. The Israeli state uses a virtual fifth column of loyalist organizations and billionaire financiers in the US and EU who ultimately dictate Middle East policy to the ‘elected’ Western politicians. Presidents and Prime Ministers, Cabinet members and legislators must publicly bow to the increasing demands of the overseas Zionist power structure. This has undermined the will and interests of national electorates and democratic procedures. All public discourse on this vital issue has been censored because critics of Israel’s influence are subjected to unremitting campaigns of overt coercion, threats, jailing on trumped up charges, vilification and job loss – within their own countries in the ‘democratic’ West. Meanwhile, Israel has sold its much-vaunted expertise in surveillance, torture and counter-insurgency to its fellow scourgers in Guatemala, Colombia, Mexico and even Afghanistan.
6. Egypt: Modern Scourges of an Ancient People
For decades, Egyptian military dictators have served the Anglo-American Empire and Israel’s ruling colonists in the Middle East, North and East Africa. Generals-turned-‘Presidents’ Hosni Mubarak and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi specialized in murdering, torturing and jailing thousands of Egyptian trade unionists, dissident activists, peasant leaders and the restless urban poor. These violently installed Egyptian rulers are expected to collaborate with Israel and trap millions of desperate Palestinians in the world’s largest open air prison: Gaza. Cairo actively collaborates with the US and Israel in subverting the people and institutions of Gaza, Libya, Somalia and Sudan – guaranteeing that none will be functioning, independent modern states. Egypt’s first and only elected president Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by General Sisi and sentenced to twenty years in a military torture dungeon (a virtual death sentence for a 65 year old) by a kangaroo court under the direction of Washington and Tel Aviv. Egypt, once the epicenter for civil democratic expression — ‘the Arab Spring’ — has become the a major staging area for US-backed jihadi terrorists entering Syria.
7. ISIS, NUSRA Front, Ukraine and Syria: Puppets, Kleptocrats, Fascists and Terrorists
In this very modern Western world, where democratic values are sold to the cheapest buyer, the US, the UK and the EU shop for mercenaries and puppet regimes in order to scourge their critics and adversaries.
The West, led by the Grand Scourger Hillary Clinton, bombed Libya and destroyed its entire modern state apparatus. They opened the floodgates to thousands of mercenaries and terrorist-thugs of all colors and stripes to feed off the carcass of what Mouammar Gaddafi and the modern Libyan state had built over the past 40 years. These criminals, draped in the banners of ‘humanitarian intervention’ or ‘mission civilisatice’, ran amok, killing and ravaging tens of thousands of Libyan citizens and contract workers of sub-Saharan African origin. The tens of thousands of Africans desperately fleeing each year into the Mediterranean are the result of this Western rampage against the Libyan state. The jihadis have moved on… by those who forgot to distinguish between terrorists who support our ‘democratic values’ and those who would attack the West. The West can’t be blamed: Mercenaries change sides so often.
The ethnic cleansing scourges of the past returned to the Ukraine: as (neo) fascists took power in Kiev, storming the Parliament and forcing the President to flee. Nazi-era banners decorated the streets of Kiev under the approving gaze of the US State Department. Neo-Nazi thugs massacred scores of unarmed ethnic Russian citizens in the port city of Odessa when they set fire to the main trade union hall where the trapped men, women and youths were burned alive or bludgeoned while fleeing the flames. The US State Department had spent $5 billion dollars to replace an elected government with a pliant regime in Kiev while large parts of the country fell into civil war. The ethnic Russian populations of the industrialized Donbas region resisted and were invaded by an ethnically cleansed and neo-fascist putschist Ukrainian army – under US-EU supervision. The war has cost tens of thousands of lives, a million refugees fled to Russia and a divided failing state now festers in the heart of Europe. Kleptocrats and Fascists in Kiev oversee an utterly bankrupt economy. The destitute citizens abandon the towns and cities; some fleeing to Poland to pick potatoes as their serf ancestors did a century ago.
Syria has been ravaged by an immense army of mercenary scourges, financed and supplied by the US, EU, Turkey and, of course, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda had merely to change its battle flags to NUSRA and receive the US benediction as ‘moderate pro-Western democrats’ resisting a Baathist dictatorship in Damascus. In the course of their ‘democratic’ mission they destroyed the ancient, critical cultural and economic center of Aleppo – scourging the Christians and non-jihadi Muslims and other ancient minorities. Over two million Syrians have died or fled the fiery scourge of Anglo-American and Saudi-Turkish terror.
The Seven Sisters: Nemesis and the Furies Confront the Western World
The scourges are falling on hard times: East and West, North and South they face their inescapable Nemesis. Their exposed injustices, crimes and grotesque failures herald their inevitable downfall. The seven furies are even emerging in unusual places:
1. The economic and trade power of China challenges the West throughout world, expanding even into the heartland of the empire. The West’s fear over China’s peaceful economic expansion has led Western political leaders to revive protectionist policies, claiming that barriers against Chinese investors must be raised to prevent takeovers by Beijing. From July 2015 to September 2016, the West blocked nearly $40 billion in productive Chinese investment. This comes after decades of preaching the virtues of foreign investment and the universal benefits of ‘globalization’. Suddenly Western leaders claim that Chinese investment is a ‘threat to national security’ and ‘profits Chinese businesses over Western-owned enterprises.’
Meanwhile, far from this Sino-phobic hysteria, the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America actively seek greater economic ties with China to the detriment of US-EU multinationals. Once servile Asian countries, like the Philippines, have declared unfettered US access to frontline imperial military bases in doubt, as they sign favorable multi-billion trade and investment agreements with China. Western imperial ideology about investment and globalization has boomeranged and met its Nemesis.
2. The Russian Furies: Vladimir Putin
During the 1990s, the US plundered Russia at will. Washington imposed a uni-polar world, celebrated as the New World Order. They bombed and devastated former Russian allies like Yugoslavia and Iraq, setting up ethnically cleansed rump states like Kosovo for their huge military bases. Meanwhile, Washington reduced Russia, under the inebriate Yeltsin regime, to a backwater vassal stripped of its resources, its institutions, scientists, and research centers. In the absence of war, the Russian economy declined by 50% and life expectancy fell below that of Bangladesh. The US celebrated this ‘victory of democracy’ over a helpless, deteriorating state by welcoming the most obscene new gangster oligarchs and pillagers and laundering their bloodstained loot.
The door slammed shut on the pillage with the election of Vladimir Putin and the demise of the Yeltsin gangster-government. Russia was transformed. Putin reversed Russia’s demise: the economy recovered, living standards rose abruptly, employment in all sectors increased, and cultural, educational and scientific centers were restored. Vladimir Putin was elected and re-elected by overwhelming majorities of the Russian electorate despite huge sums of Western money going to his opponents. Russia systematically recovered many strategic sectors of the economy illegally seized by Western-backed Israeli-Russian oligarchs Even more important, Putin restored Russian statecraft and diplomacy – formulating a strategy for an independent, democratic foreign policy and restoring Russia’s defense capability. The loss of this critical vassal state under its dipsomaniacal Boris Yeltsin shook the US EU-NATO alliance to its very core.
In the beginning President Putin did not oppose the US-NATO military invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. It went along with the economic sanctions imposed on Iran. It even maintained its cooperation despite a US-sponsored attack by the government of Georgia against South Ossetia killing scores of Russian peacekeepers. In the wake of those destabilizing disasters, what finally led the Russian government to reverse its complicity with the West was the horrific US-financed invasion of Syria where Russian jihadis from the Caucasus were playing an important role as mercenaries, threatening to return and undermine the stability of Russia. This was quickly followed by the US-sponsored putsch in Ukraine, fomenting a civil war on Russia’s frontiers, threatening is vital naval base in Crimea and repressing millions of ethnic Russian-Ukrainian citizens in the industrialized Donbas region. This blatant aggression finally pushed Putin to challenge the expansionist policies of Washington and the EU.
Putin backed a plebiscite in Crimea and won when its citizens voted overwhelmingly to re-join and preserve the Russian bases. Putin has backed the rebel defense of the Donbas against a NATO-neo-fascist Kiev invasion.
Putin accepted a request for aid from the Syrian government as it battled mercenaries and jihadis to preserve its national integrity. The Russians sent arms, troops and air support for the Syrian Arab Army, rolling back the Western and Saudi armed terrorists.
In response to the Washington-EU economic sanctions against Russia over the Crimean plebiscite, Putin signed multi-billion-dollar trade and investment agreements and joint defense pacts with China – mitigating the impact of the sanctions.
Wherever Washington seeks to seize and control territory and regimes in Eurasia, it now faces the Putin nemesis. In Russia and overseas, in the Middle East and the Caucuses, in the Persian Gulf and Asia, the US meets stalemates at best, and roll-back at worst.
The CIA-stooge Yeltsin and his cronies were evicted from the Kremlin to the indignation of Washington and the EU. Many of the kleptocrats, politicos, thugs and swindlers fled to their new homes in Langley, on Wall Street, in Washington or set up talk-shops at Harvard. Even the gruesome Chechens had their ‘color-coded’ support center (the CIA-American Committee for Peace in Chechnya) based in Boston. Never in modern history has a country so rapidly transformed from degraded vassalage to a dynamic global power as Russia. Never has the US seen its grand imperial design so successfully challenged in so many places at the same time.
The Putin Nemesis has become the inescapable agent of the downfall of the US Empire.
3. The Islamic Republic of Iran became a Muslim-nationalist alternative to the US-Israeli dominated Muslim dictatorships and monarchies in the Middle East. The Iranian Revolutions inspired citizens throughout Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq and Yemen. As a result of its growing influence, Iran was punished by the US and EU with crippling economic sanctions pushed especially by Tel Aviv and its Western agents. Fearful that Iran’s example would destabilize its control, the US invaded Lebanon, promoted the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon and has backed the terrorist campaign to dismember Syria. The results have been dismal for Washington: Iran continues to support the powerful Hezbollah, a major political and military power in Lebanon. The Saudi’s war against Yemen is largely an ethno-religious campaign to destroy Yeminis who favor independence over Saudi-US control and have Iran’s support. Iraq’s Shia resistance forces are leading the attack against the Saudi-funded ISIS terrorists, with Iranian commanders playing a significant role.
Hezbollah, Iran’s ally in Lebanon, drove out the Israeli occupation forces and raised the cost of another invasion by Tel Aviv.
Against all the impotent, corrupt Arab puppets in the Middle East, only Iran has supported the Palestinians. It is the only force capable of retaliating against an Israeli sneak attack – which is why it is demonized.
Iran is the Nemesis against US plans to conquer and dismember Syria. It has provided arms and volunteers on the battlefield against terrorist mercenaries.
Iran effectively negotiated a partial lifting of Western sanctions, overcoming Israeli intransigence and securing billion-dollar trade agreements with Germany, Russia and China. It holds the prospects for productive trade and diplomatic deals in the near future – to the howling consternation of its enemies in Washington, Riyadh, London and Tel Aviv.
For all the efforts by the tentacles of Israel’s fifth column, Iran has survived and emerged as the Nemesis of Anglo-American and Israeli ambitions in the Middle East.
4. Venezuela became the leading proponent for an independent foreign policy in Latin America. For almost twenty years, the US tried repeatedly to overthrow the government in Caracas. They failed. By ballot or by bullet, despite slapping economic sanctions on Venezuela, the US suffered humiliating defeats and failed coups and aborted uprisings. Venezuela remains Washington’s principal Nemesis, thwarting its efforts to make ‘free trade’ pacts and deepen military alliances in Latin America.
5. Upon taking office in June 2016, the Philippines new president Rodrigo Duterte assumed the lead role of Washington’s most colorful ‘Nemesis’ in Southeast Asia. Under his widely popular presidency, he pivoted to China, promising to sharply reduce joint Philippine-US military exercises in the South China Sea directed against Beijing and, in return, he secured the co-operation of several hundred leading Philippine entrepreneurs in winning an initial $13 billion dollar public-private Chinese investment package for critical infrastructure and trade development..
President Duterte has frequently denounced Washington’s interference in his domestic war on drug traffickers – citing the US hypocrisy in its criticism of his human rights record. He has personally held President Obama responsible for meddling in Philippine affairs. Drawing on the history of the bloody US colonial war against the Philippine people in 1898, he holds the US responsible for inciting ethno-religious conflicts in the southern island of Mindanao – Duterte’s home region.
President Duterte’s declaration of independence from Washington (“I am no one’s ‘tuta’ [puppy dog]”)and his foreign policy priority of ‘pivoting’ from US military domination to regional economic co-operation with Beijing has turned the Philippines into Washington’s prime Nemesis in Southeast Asia.
6. The resistance of the Yemeni people, mainly ethnic Houthi freedom fighters, against the onslaught of bombing and missile strikes by the Saudi-US-UK air force, has aroused widespread solidarity throughout the Middle East.
Despite the ongoing massacre of over 10,000 Yeminis, mostly civilians, the Saudi ‘alliance’ has failed to impose a puppet regime. US links with the Saudi dictatorship have undermined its claims of humanitarian concerns for the people of Yemen. The embattled Houthi rebels have secured the support of Iran, Iraq and the majority of people in the Persian Gulf countries. As the war continues, the Saudi’s increasingly rely on military trainers, fighter bombers and logistical experts from the US, UK and NATO to pick the targets and maintain the starvation blockade. Sooner or later the courageous and tenacious resistance of the free people of Yemen against the Saudi overlords will inspire a domestic Saudi uprising against its grotesque and decrepit theocratic-monarchist state. The fall of the Royal House of Saud will bury a major scourge in the Middle East. In a word, the battle for Yemen has become the Nemesis of US-Saudi domination.
7. Everywhere in the Western world the ruling classes and their media outlets fear and loath ‘populists’ – leaders, movements, electorates – who reject their austerity programs designed to deepen inequalities and further enrich the elite. Throughout the European Union and in North and South America, workers and middle class majorities are on the march to oust the ‘free market’ regimes and restore the ‘populist’ welfare state, with its emphasis on social services, living wages and humane working conditions.
From the UK to France, Poland to Portugal, China to North America, Mexico to Argentina, the Nemesis and Furies of populist rollbacks threaten to dislodge the scourge held by the bankers, conglomerates and billionaires. Scattered populists may hold diverse ideologies; some may be nationalists, leftists, workers, farmers, petit bourgeois and public employees, indebted students, ecologists or protectionists. All are both united and divided by disparate interests and beliefs. And all are preparing for the inevitable downfall of the empire of the free market and wars.
Conclusion
Today the world’s greatest global conflicts have lined up the Imperial West and its frontline scourging allies against the Furies and Nemesis emerging on all continents. These are the inescapable agents of the Empire’s downfall.
The scourges of the West have been free to plunder the wealth of subject peoples and launch wars, which ravage both ancient and modern states and cultures while slaughtering and dispossessing scores of millions. The West derives its lifeblood through its seven-tailed scourge. Western elites rule through a chain of scourging puppet states with their bloody accomplices, from narco-murderers, Islamists terrorists, death squads to ordinary ‘piecework’ torturers.
Without resorting too much to the wisdom of the ancient Greek myths, we have come to believe that states, regimes, movements and people finally will emerge to act as the inescapable agents of the justice leading to the downfall of the Western empire. Modern Nemesis and Furies have a dual existence: While bringing down the old order they seek to create alternatives.
The ‘scourgers’ are by their nature specialists in wanton crimes against humanity. Nemesis and her sisters challenge and oust the latter as they construct their own new centers of wealth and power. China, Russia and Iran have gone beyond the role of Nemesis to the West – they are poised to build a new civilization on its ruins.
It remains an open question whether they can avoid becoming the new scourge against the people and nations who have risen in revolt.
On the heels of damning WikiLeaks revelations, the Clinton Foundation has confirmed allegations that it received a $1 million ‘gift’ from Qatar without telling the State Department, breaking a signed agreement requiring it to reveal all foreign donations.
The payment, which was first revealed in an email exchange with Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta a month ago, has just been officially confirmed by the Foundation. The check was reportedly a gift to former President Bill Clinton in 2011 for his 65h birthday. A meeting was to take place between him and Qatari officials at some point, according to an email published last month. It is not clear if this ever took place, however.
Earlier in 2009, when Clinton became Secretary of State, she had to sign an agreement to prevent any conflicts of interest which stipulated that her influential global foundation could not receive any support from foreign sources without her notifying the State Department, according to Reuters. This was intended to ensure transparency and combat public perception that US foreign policy could be dictated by foreign money.
The agreement was also designed to give the State Department time to examine donations and raise any concerns in cases when a foreign entity wanted to “increase materially” the funding for any of the Foundation’s programs.
However, Clinton kept the $1 million check from Qatar a secret. While Foundation officials declined to confirm its existence last month, with just days to go before the election, the daily WikiLeaks revelations, and the FBI’s relaunched investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server gaining momentum, its spokesman, Brian Cookstra, finally admitted to receiving the money, though he insisted that the sum did not qualify as a “material increase” in Qatari support of the foundation.
When Cookstra was asked by Reuters what the Foundation considered an increase in funding, he refused to specify, only saying that the Qatar donations were intended for “overall humanitarian work.”
For additional comments, Reuters tried to contact the Qatari embassy, the Clinton presidential campaign and Bill Clinton personally, but received no response from any.
Although Cookstra said the sum did not constitute an increase in funding, there is evidence of at least eight other countries besides Qatar whose donations can clearly be construed as an ‘increase in funding.’ This includes the UK, which tripled the sum slated for the Foundation’s health project to $11.2 million in the years 2009-2012.
When questioned by Reuters last year, Cookstra admitted that a complete list of donors hadn’t been published since 2010. In other cases, the Foundation said that there was either no increase in funding, or that a particular donation had simply slipped past unnoticed, and should have been caught earlier.
The only thing that’s certain, and spelled out on the Foundation’s website, is that it received up to $5 million from the Gulf Kingdom over the years. However, the Foundation appears to want all of this to be relegated to the past. It promised in August that, if Hillary becomes president, it will stop accepting money from all foreign governments and close down any ongoing programs sustained by those funds.
According to Foundation records and testimony, the Qatar money continued to come in at “equal or lower” levels after 2009, but it declined to specify the differences in the funding before and after that period, or if it had changed significantly after Clinton took on the post of secretary of state.
A former Foundation fundraiser details some $21 million raised for Bill Clinton’s birthday in another email.
The Foundation’s somewhat forced admission that it had received Qatari money comes shortly after a recently leaked email exchange between Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, from 2014 startlingly revealed that she was aware Qatar and Saudi Arabia are directly funding Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL] terrorists. This was discussed at length in John Pilger’s exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that airs on RT on Saturday and can be viewed in full here.
The WikiLeaks founder points to clear evidence that Clinton knew about her donors’ questionable dealings as early as several years back. The 2014 email from Clinton to Podesta says “that ISIL, ISIS is funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar – the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar,” according to Assange.
Assange admitted to Pilger, “I actually think this is the most significant email in the whole collection.”
“And perhaps because Saudi and Qatari money is spread all over the place, including into many media institutions, all serious analysts know, even the US government has mentioned or agreed with that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS, funding ISIS. But the dodge has always been, that’s… what… it’s just some rogue princes using their cut of the oil money to do what they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that – no, it is the governments of Saudi and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.”
Pilger and Assange go on to discuss Clinton as a “cog” in a greater machine involving big business, banks, and “a network of relationships with particular states.” According to Assange, she is “the centralizer that interconnects all these different cogs.”
Israel has condemned a “shameful” event hosted by the British House of Lords in which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust and Israel was compared to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
The session marked the launch of the Balfour Apology Campaign ahead of the Balfour Declaration centenary. The 1917 declaration pledged British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said the gathering “gave voice to racist tropes against Jews and Israelis alike.”
According to the Times, an audience member was applauded after suggesting Hitler only decided to kill Jews after being provoked by anti-German protests led by a rabbi, Stephen Wise, in New York.
“[He] made the boycott on Germany, the economic boycott… which antagonized Hitler, over the edge, to then want to systematically kill Jews wherever he could find them.”
The speaker also said Rabbi Wise told the New York Times in 1905 there were “6 million bleeding and suffering reasons to justify Zionism.” This quote is often used by Holocaust deniers to suggest the figure of 6 million Jews later killed by the Nazis was a myth.
The audience member – reportedly a member of the anti-Zionist strictly Orthodox Neturei Karta sect – also compared Israel to IS.
“Just as the so-called Jewish state in Palestine doesn’t come from Judaism. This Islamic State in Syria is nothing with Islam. It is a perversion of Islam just as Zionism is a perversion of Judaism.”
Another audience member said, to applause: “If anybody is anti-Semitic, it’s Israelis themselves.”
David Collier, a blogger who attended the session, says he “witnessed a Jew-hating festival at the heart of the British estate.”
The event run by Baroness Tonge, a former Liberal Democrat MP who sits as an independent, and the Palestinian Return Centre.
Tonge reportedly made no attempt to challenge the comments.
She has run into trouble for her own anti-Israeli outbursts and resigned as the Lib Dem whip after claiming the state of Israel was “not going to be there forever.”
The House of Lords event was also run by the Palestinian Return Centre.
Campaigners are calling on Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration and show remorse for its “past colonial crimes” in Palestine.
When Islamic State beheads someone it is terrorism. When an Iraqi housewife beheads an ISIS fighter and cooks his skull, it is freedom. That is the CNN doctrine.
CNN reports the story of 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed aka Um Hanadi, an Iraqi woman who supposedly leads a tribal militia force of around 70 men south of Mosul. She and her band allegedly helped “government forces” drive Islamic State out of a small town.
“I began fighting the terrorists in 2004, working with Iraqi security forces and the coalition,” she told CNN. CNN cites no other source other than Um Hanadi herself and Facebook in its coverage.
As a result, Um Hanadi said, she attracted the wrath of what eventually became al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which later morphed into ISIS. “I received threats from the top leadership of ISIS, including from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself,” she says. “I’m at the top of their most wanted list, even more than the [Iraqi] Prime Minister.”
Um Hanadi stated al Qaeda/AQI/ISIS planted car bombs outside her home in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2014.
Along the way, her first husband was killed in action. She remarried, but ISIS killed her second husband. ISIS also killed her father and three brothers. They also killed, she added, her sheep, her dogs and her birds, and tried to otherwise assassinate her six times.
Where Has Um Hanadi Been Hiding All These Years?
Despite her claim to have worked with the U.S. coalition, to be higher on the ISIS hit list than the Prime Minister, to have been the target of multiple bombing attempts, and to be a very, very, very rare example of a Muslim woman leading Muslim men in combat, I could not find any references to Um Hanadi that predate the CNN report. Um Hanadi does have a self-created social media presence which she updates between battles.
In addition, Um Hanadi may be the luckiest person in Iraq, apparently cheating death on a near-daily basis.
CNN did not explain in its coverage how it came to locate and interview Um Hanadi amid the chaos of present-day Iraq.
The Beheadings
Now, on to the beheadings.
CNN quotes Um Hanadi as saying of ISIS “I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies.” CNN states “She made no excuses, nor attempted to rationalize this. It was delivered as a boast, not a confession.”
“This is all documented,” she said. “You can see it on my Facebook page.”
The CNN reporter wrote that he indeed checked her Facebook page and saw photos, and though he could not verify them, still “got the point.”
Comment
This is propaganda of the worst, and most infantile, kind. In addition to the broad question of whether or not any of this is even true, the question of who set CNN up to meet with Um Hanadi is left unanswered. That CNN would run this story on its television news, and website, is a shameful descent into the decaying corpse of the First Amendment. Media around the globe, including the once venerable New York Times, have reprinted the story.
Lastly is the horrific idea that atrocities such as beheading people are somehow right when an anti-ISIS person does it, and justification for an entire undeclared war by the U.S. when ISIS does it.
CNN have you no shame? Hah, trick question, you bast*rds really don’t, do you?
By Kit Klarenberg | Mint Press News | January 28, 2025
Ever since Tel Aviv’s 1948 creation, much has been said and written about ‘Greater Israel’ – the notion Zionism’s ultimate end goal is the forcible annexation and ethnic cleansing of vast swaths of Arab and Muslim lands for Jewish settlement, based on Biblical claims this territory was promised to Jews by God. The mainstream media typically dismisses this concept as antisemitic conspiracy theory, or at most the fringe fantasy of a minuscule handful of extremist Israelis.
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CNN reports the story of 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed aka Um Hanadi, an Iraqi woman who supposedly leads a tribal militia force of around 70 men south of Mosul. She and her band allegedly helped “government forces” drive Islamic State out of a small town.
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