I have always found it unfathomable that anyone in the US wants their tax dollars spent on military bases and activities around the world. Taxpayers get absolutely nothing for that money, other than the hatred of people where our bases are located. So taxpayers pay big bucks to have their country hated., all while our own country crumbles due to lack of funding for infrastructure, education, healthcare and general welfare. If "Isolationism" means taking care of ourselves, then I am an ardent isolationist.
Yup, and our national debt is now over 36 trillion dollars. All the kids with $150,000 student debt will definitely enjoy the increased taxation throughout their lives that results from that. By the way, when I went to college and graduate school in the 1970s, college was either cheap, or free. As an out of state student in the CA state university system I paid $50 a credit ($150 per course). So that's what you get when you monetize education.
In 1966, before Reagan was elected governor, I paid $50 for full time tuition as a graduate student at a CA state university. And my parking pass was $5.
The bogeyman of "isolationism" is used to instill fear, which is how the National Security State ensures its continued control over all levers of power. There are numerous fear mongering terms that are part of its arsenal---terrorism, communism, isolationism, extremism, anti-semitism, etc. The mainstream media feeds the US public a steady diet of fear mongering to try to kill off any challenge to the status quo neocon/neoliberal order. Why? Because the mainstream media happily regurgitates whatever the National Security State demands. It's like a closed feedback loop. Unless and until there is a total rejection of this charade, not a damn thing is going to change.
Imperialist propaganda formula: Isolationism allowed Hitler therefore America must intervene everywhere IN THE WORLD to prevent another Hitler, so if you are anti-intervention you're a Nazi enabler.
It's based on the theory that if the US had joined the League of Nations, then it would have been strong enough to prevent the rise of Hitler and Tojo. It was one argument for the UN when it was first being formed.
There's absolutely no way to know what would have happened if Wilson had gotten the US to join the League. That argument was propaganda then, and it still is. Historically, it's nothing more than sheer speculation.
"A serious national conversation is needed on what a genuine defense strategy would look like,.."
Instead of investing in weapons and munitions, a good defense strategy would be investing in the health, education and well being of our citizens combined with a restoration of our infrastructure and environment.
TWENTY-SIX THINGS ABOUT THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS-ISIL-DAESH) THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT by Prof Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research 14 Jan 24 [originally published 18 Nov 14]
Part 1:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In 2014 President Obama launched a “counter-terrorism campaign” allegedly directed against The Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The operation consisted in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.
In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.
Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counter-terrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights. (See 13 below).
Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.
The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”
The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory [see map online). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation
It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.
TWENTY SIX THINGS…
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA
1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.
2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
4. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. “. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings”
5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)
6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad.
8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in: “a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.
13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel.
14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria.
16 The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)
19. “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.
22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China.
HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS
23 The Terrorists R Us: While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, Obama’s holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.
24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.
The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.
25. The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
26 Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF THE “GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM” IS TO SUBDUE THE CITIZENS, TOTALLY DEPOLITICIZE SOCIAL LIFE IN AMERICA, PREVENT PEOPLE FROM THINKING AND CONCEPTUALIZING, FROM ANALYZING FACTS AND CHALLENGING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE INQUISITORIAL SOCIAL ORDER WHICH RULES AMERICA.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS IMPOSED A DIABOLICAL CONSENSUS WITH THE SUPPORT OF ITS ALLIES, NOT TO MENTION THE COMPLICIT ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL. THE WESTERN MEDIA HAS EMBRACED THE CONSENSUS; IT HAS DESCRIBED THE ISLAMIC STATE AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY, AN OUTSIDE ENEMY WHICH THREATENS THE WESTERN WORLD. [EMPASIS added. Note: And the Trump and Biden administrations have continued that imposition and consensus.]
The Rutherford Institute’s John and Nisha Whitehead’s 10 Jan 24 piece CRIMINALITY IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL PSYCHOPATH begins as follows…:
“’When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.’— Richard Nixon
“Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POLITICIAN AND A PSYCHOPATH?”
“The answer, then and now, remains the same: NONE.
“THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PSYCHOPATHS AND POLITICIANS.
“NOR IS THERE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HAVOC WREAKED ON INNOCENT LIVES BY UNCARING, UNFEELING, SELFISH, IRRESPONSIBLE, PARASITIC CRIMINALS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO LIE TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS, TRADE POLITICAL FAVORS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, TURN A BLIND EYE TO THE WISHES OF THE ELECTORATE, CHEAT TAXPAYERS OUT OF HARD-EARNED DOLLARS, FAVOR THE CORPORATE ELITE, ENTRENCH THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND SPARE LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE IMPACT THEIR THOUGHTLESS ACTIONS AND HASTILY PASSED LEGISLATION MIGHT HAVE ON DEFENSELESS CITIZENS.
“Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.
“Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. [Note: As in Biden, the Clintons, and Obama; or Cheney, Bush II, and Trump.]
“Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. SUCH LEADERS EVENTUALLY CREATE PATHOCRACIES: TOTALITARIAN SOCIETIES BENT ON POWER, CONTROL, AND DESTRUCTION OF BOTH FREEDOM IN GENERAL AND THOSE WHO EXERCISE THEIR FREEDOMS.
“Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. ‘At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,’ author James G. Long notes. ‘We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.’
“In other words, ELECTING A PSYCHOPATH TO PUBLIC OFFICE IS TANTAMOUNT TO NATIONAL HARA-KIRI, THE RITUALIZED ACT OF SELF-ANNIHILATION, SELF-DESTRUCTION AND SUICIDE. IT SIGNALS THE DEMISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR A TOTALITARIAN REGIME THAT IS LEGALISTIC, MILITARISTIC, INFLEXIBLE, INTOLERANT AND INHUMAN.
“Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence… .”
It continues as follows:
“The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.
“When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.
“Instead, what we are experiencing is a PATHOCRACY: TYRANNY AT THE HANDS OF A PSYCHOPATHIC GOVERNMENT, WHICH ‘OPERATES AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF ITS OWN PEOPLE EXCEPT FOR FAVORING CERTAIN GROUPS… .’
“Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, ‘[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.’
“People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.
“Much depends on how leaders ‘cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,’ says Professor Alex Haslam. ‘I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’
“THE GOAL OF THE MODERN CORPORATE STATE IS OBVIOUS: TO PROMOTE, CULTIVATE, AND EMBED A SENSE OF SHARED IDENTIFICATION AMONG ITS CITIZENS. TO THIS END, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE BECOME ‘WE THE POLICE STATE.’
“We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions... .”
And it concludes:
“This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.
“We are not cogs in the machine...we are not slaves.
“We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.
“The Founders understood that OUR FREEDOMS DO NOT FLOW FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE NOT GIVEN TO US ONLY TO BE TAKEN AWAY BY THE WILL OF THE STATE. THEY ARE INHERENTLY OURS. IN THE SAME WAY, THE GOVERNMENT’S APPOINTED PURPOSE IS NOT TO THREATEN OR UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOMS, BUT TO SAFEGUARD THEM.
“Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.”
In his article, Wm. Hartung says that, "A trillion dollars is a hard figure to process."
If you built a stack of $100 bills laid flat one on top of the other, it would reach 680 miles high. Laid on it's side that stack would almost reach Chicago from New York city.
How many trees would you have to kill for that many $100 bills?
Then consider, our national debt is 34 times that amount.
Foreign policy seems to be about creating an enemy (Putin, isolationism, etc.) and pounding it into the heads of the public. It gives you more freedom to maneuver.
Just as we shouldn't have a cosmic isolationism-- polluting our nights that once transfixed our Ancestors, and now we have to go so far into the Boonies to see what they once saw we also should not embrace a political, or world view isolationism..! We must fight the dumbing down of America in the enormously powerful, and influential Mass Media in my opin...
Clearly the reason democracy wasn't destroyed when Trump was in office was that the progressives fought him so hard. So send in your cash or check today!!
Isolationism is an epithet. What the country needs is neutralism as a foreign policy as well as a national ethos of neutralism.
You may be moving in that direction, and you have to be careful. As chairman, CEO and only member of the Neutralist Association of the US, I may designate you a senior fellow of NAitUS.
Regarding Rev. I'm sure God is coming soon in all his great glory at about the time as a thief in the night and this 4.5 billion year old World is gonna reel and rock as he comes in his heavenly airplane....! All us Saints and angels will tremble and cry in pain surely!
I have always found it unfathomable that anyone in the US wants their tax dollars spent on military bases and activities around the world. Taxpayers get absolutely nothing for that money, other than the hatred of people where our bases are located. So taxpayers pay big bucks to have their country hated., all while our own country crumbles due to lack of funding for infrastructure, education, healthcare and general welfare. If "Isolationism" means taking care of ourselves, then I am an ardent isolationist.
You can't say we get nothing -- we get BIG DEBT. What more could we want?
Yup, and our national debt is now over 36 trillion dollars. All the kids with $150,000 student debt will definitely enjoy the increased taxation throughout their lives that results from that. By the way, when I went to college and graduate school in the 1970s, college was either cheap, or free. As an out of state student in the CA state university system I paid $50 a credit ($150 per course). So that's what you get when you monetize education.
In 1966, before Reagan was elected governor, I paid $50 for full time tuition as a graduate student at a CA state university. And my parking pass was $5.
The good thing about BIG DEBT is that BIGGER DEBT doesn't seem that much different (sarc).
If America takes care of America, then Putin wins...... <sarc>
Calling isolationist is a tool of the unarmed debater.
"If America takes care of America, then Putin wins." Thanks for making me smile.
The bogeyman of "isolationism" is used to instill fear, which is how the National Security State ensures its continued control over all levers of power. There are numerous fear mongering terms that are part of its arsenal---terrorism, communism, isolationism, extremism, anti-semitism, etc. The mainstream media feeds the US public a steady diet of fear mongering to try to kill off any challenge to the status quo neocon/neoliberal order. Why? Because the mainstream media happily regurgitates whatever the National Security State demands. It's like a closed feedback loop. Unless and until there is a total rejection of this charade, not a damn thing is going to change.
Imperialist propaganda formula: Isolationism allowed Hitler therefore America must intervene everywhere IN THE WORLD to prevent another Hitler, so if you are anti-intervention you're a Nazi enabler.
It's based on the theory that if the US had joined the League of Nations, then it would have been strong enough to prevent the rise of Hitler and Tojo. It was one argument for the UN when it was first being formed.
There's absolutely no way to know what would have happened if Wilson had gotten the US to join the League. That argument was propaganda then, and it still is. Historically, it's nothing more than sheer speculation.
"A serious national conversation is needed on what a genuine defense strategy would look like,.."
Instead of investing in weapons and munitions, a good defense strategy would be investing in the health, education and well being of our citizens combined with a restoration of our infrastructure and environment.
WELCOME TO THE EMPIRE by Caitlin Johnstone 20 Jan 24
Welcome to the empire
Where genocide is self-defense and peace rallies are genocide
Where war criminals are the victims and the hospitals are terrorists
Where calls for freedom are hateful and ceasefires are anti-semitic
Where civilians get called terrorists and real terrorists get Nobel Peace Prizes
Where the propaganda is journalism and the journalism is propaganda
Where the democracy is real and the apartheid is imaginary
Where the corporations are people and the people are corporate resources
Welcome to the empire
Whose bombs are humanitarian and whose provocations are invisible
Whose veterans are heroes and whose victims are forgotten
Whose wars are always just and whose enemies are always Hitler
Whose cause is always righteous and whose critics are always Russian
Whose sufferings are unforgivable and whose crimes are erased from history
Whose atrocities are always an unfortunate accident and whose enemies kill civilians for fun
Whose disastrous interventions are always innocent mistakes no matter how often they happen
Welcome to the empire
Ever the victim of unprovoked attacks from the people it has been strangling
Ever the shining city on a hill of human corpses
Ever the defender of the poor helpless plutocrats of Wall Street
Ever the savior of the families incinerated by missiles made by Raytheon
Ever the protector of natural resources in the soil of foreign nations
Ever the upholder of the rules-based order of a world with a boot on its throat
The empire loves you with a heart made of dollars and oil
The empire watches over you through your smartphone and your computer
The empire is your only friend
The empire is the only one who will ever love you
You can’t leave
You can’t get rid of the empire
If you get rid of the empire, this world could be taken over by tyrants
TWENTY-SIX THINGS ABOUT THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIS-ISIL-DAESH) THAT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT by Prof Michel Chossudovsky / Global Research 14 Jan 24 [originally published 18 Nov 14]
Part 1:
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In 2014 President Obama launched a “counter-terrorism campaign” allegedly directed against The Islamic State (ISIS-Daesh). The operation consisted in providing a justification for the extensive bombing of Iraq and Syria, largely targeting residential areas and civilians.
In turn, ISIS-Daesh was covertly supported and funded by the U.S. and its allies including Israel.
Israel was directly involved in President Obama’s “counter-terrorism” bombing raids directed against Syria, while also supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS mercenaries out of the Golan Heights. (See 13 below).
Going after ” Islamic terrorists”, carrying out a worldwide pre-emptive war to “Protect the American Homeland” are used to justify a military agenda.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is a creation of US intelligence. Washington’s “Counter-terrorism Agenda” in Iraq and Syria consists in Supporting the Terrorists.
The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.
The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”
The Islamic State is protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June.
The Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory [see map online). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been -from a military standpoint- a rapid and expedient surgical operation
It could not have been undertaken without the unbending support of the Western media which has upheld Obama’s initiative as a counter-terrorism operation.
TWENTY SIX THINGS…
THE HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF AL QAEDA
1. The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for almost half a century since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.
2. CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan. In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”
3. Since the Reagan Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network.
Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades. It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.
4. Jihadist textbooks were published by the University of Nebraska. “. “The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings”
5. Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
Al Qaeda was not behind the 9/11 Attacks. September 11, 2001 provided a justification for waging a war against Afghanistan on the grounds that Afghanistan was a state sponsor of terrorism, supportive of Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were instrumental in the formulation of the “Global War on Terrorism”.
THE ISLAMIC STATE (ISIL)
6. The Islamic State (ISIL) was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة).
7. The ISIL brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of Bashar al Assad.
8. NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011. According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in: “a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)
9.There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.
10. Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.
“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)
11. The ISIL’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
12. Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIL mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISIL. Saudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades.
13. Israel has supported the ISIL and Al Nusrah brigades out of the Golan Heights.
Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass tacitly acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by Israel.
Part 2:
SYRIA AND IRAQ
14 The ISIL are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.
15. US Senator John McCain has met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria.
16 The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US. Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.
17. US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.
18. The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM (GWOT)
19. “The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) is presented as a “Clash of Civilizations”, a war between competing values and religions, when in reality it is an outright war of conquest, guided by strategic and economic objectives.
20 U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen.
These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc, create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.
21 Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011), Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia, among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.
22. The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.
Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US) is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China.
HOMEGROWN TERRORISTS
23 The Terrorists R Us: While the US is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, Obama’s holy mandate is to protect America against ISIL attacks.
24 The homegrown terrorist threat is a fabrication. It is promoted by Western governments and the media with a view to repealing civil liberties and installing a police state. The terror attacks by alleged jihadists and terror warnings are invariably staged events. They are used to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.
In turn, the arrests, trials and sentences of “Islamic terrorists” sustain the legitimacy of America’s Homeland Security State and law enforcement apparatus, which has become increasingly militarized.
The ultimate objective is to instill in the minds of millions of Americans that the enemy is real and the U.S. Administration will protect the lives of its citizens.
25. The “counter-terrorism” campaign against the Islamic State has contributed to the demonization of Muslims, who in the eyes of Western public opinion are increasingly associated with the jihadists.
26 Anybody who dares to question the validity of the “Global War on Terrorism” is branded a terrorist and subjected to the anti-terrorist laws.
THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF THE “GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM” IS TO SUBDUE THE CITIZENS, TOTALLY DEPOLITICIZE SOCIAL LIFE IN AMERICA, PREVENT PEOPLE FROM THINKING AND CONCEPTUALIZING, FROM ANALYZING FACTS AND CHALLENGING THE LEGITIMACY OF THE INQUISITORIAL SOCIAL ORDER WHICH RULES AMERICA.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION HAS IMPOSED A DIABOLICAL CONSENSUS WITH THE SUPPORT OF ITS ALLIES, NOT TO MENTION THE COMPLICIT ROLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL. THE WESTERN MEDIA HAS EMBRACED THE CONSENSUS; IT HAS DESCRIBED THE ISLAMIC STATE AS AN INDEPENDENT ENTITY, AN OUTSIDE ENEMY WHICH THREATENS THE WESTERN WORLD. [EMPASIS added. Note: And the Trump and Biden administrations have continued that imposition and consensus.]
The Big Lie has become the Truth.
Source: https://www.globalresearch.ca/twenty-six-things-about-the-islamic-state-isil-that-obama-does-not-want-you-to-know-about .
The Rutherford Institute’s John and Nisha Whitehead’s 10 Jan 24 piece CRIMINALITY IN THE WHITE HOUSE: THE RISE OF THE POLITICAL PSYCHOPATH begins as follows…:
“’When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.’— Richard Nixon
“Many years ago, a newspaper headline asked the question: “WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A POLITICIAN AND A PSYCHOPATH?”
“The answer, then and now, remains the same: NONE.
“THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PSYCHOPATHS AND POLITICIANS.
“NOR IS THERE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE HAVOC WREAKED ON INNOCENT LIVES BY UNCARING, UNFEELING, SELFISH, IRRESPONSIBLE, PARASITIC CRIMINALS AND ELECTED OFFICIALS WHO LIE TO THEIR CONSTITUENTS, TRADE POLITICAL FAVORS FOR CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, TURN A BLIND EYE TO THE WISHES OF THE ELECTORATE, CHEAT TAXPAYERS OUT OF HARD-EARNED DOLLARS, FAVOR THE CORPORATE ELITE, ENTRENCH THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, AND SPARE LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE IMPACT THEIR THOUGHTLESS ACTIONS AND HASTILY PASSED LEGISLATION MIGHT HAVE ON DEFENSELESS CITIZENS.
“Psychopaths and politicians both have a tendency to be selfish, callous, remorseless users of others, irresponsible, pathological liars, glib, con artists, lacking in remorse and shallow.
“Charismatic politicians, like criminal psychopaths, exhibit a failure to accept responsibility for their actions, have a high sense of self-worth, are chronically unstable, have socially deviant lifestyles, need constant stimulation, have parasitic lifestyles and possess unrealistic goals.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. [Note: As in Biden, the Clintons, and Obama; or Cheney, Bush II, and Trump.]
“Political psychopaths are all largely cut from the same pathological cloth, brimming with seemingly easy charm and boasting calculating minds. SUCH LEADERS EVENTUALLY CREATE PATHOCRACIES: TOTALITARIAN SOCIETIES BENT ON POWER, CONTROL, AND DESTRUCTION OF BOTH FREEDOM IN GENERAL AND THOSE WHO EXERCISE THEIR FREEDOMS.
“Once psychopaths gain power, the result is usually some form of totalitarian government or a pathocracy. ‘At that point, the government operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups,’ author James G. Long notes. ‘We are currently witnessing deliberate polarizations of American citizens, illegal actions, and massive and needless acquisition of debt. This is typical of psychopathic systems, and very similar things happened in the Soviet Union as it overextended and collapsed.’
“In other words, ELECTING A PSYCHOPATH TO PUBLIC OFFICE IS TANTAMOUNT TO NATIONAL HARA-KIRI, THE RITUALIZED ACT OF SELF-ANNIHILATION, SELF-DESTRUCTION AND SUICIDE. IT SIGNALS THE DEMISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND LAYS THE GROUNDWORK FOR A TOTALITARIAN REGIME THAT IS LEGALISTIC, MILITARISTIC, INFLEXIBLE, INTOLERANT AND INHUMAN.
“Incredibly, despite clear evidence of the damage that has already been inflicted on our nation and its citizens by a psychopathic government, voters continue to elect psychopaths to positions of power and influence… .”
It continues as follows:
“The willingness to prioritize power above all else, including the welfare of their fellow human beings, ruthlessness, callousness and an utter lack of conscience are among the defining traits of the sociopath.
“When our own government no longer sees us as human beings with dignity and worth but as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, conned into believing it has our best interests at heart, mistreated, jailed if we dare step out of line, and then punished unjustly without remorse—all the while refusing to own up to its failings—we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic.
“Instead, what we are experiencing is a PATHOCRACY: TYRANNY AT THE HANDS OF A PSYCHOPATHIC GOVERNMENT, WHICH ‘OPERATES AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF ITS OWN PEOPLE EXCEPT FOR FAVORING CERTAIN GROUPS… .’
“Worse, psychopathology is not confined to those in high positions of government. It can spread like a virus among the populace. As an academic study into pathocracy concluded, ‘[T]yranny does not flourish because perpetuators are helpless and ignorant of their actions. It flourishes because they actively identify with those who promote vicious acts as virtuous.’
“People don’t simply line up and salute. It is through one’s own personal identification with a given leader, party or social order that they become agents of good or evil.
“Much depends on how leaders ‘cultivate a sense of identification with their followers,’ says Professor Alex Haslam. ‘I mean one pretty obvious thing is that leaders talk about ‘we’ rather than ‘I,’ and actually what leadership is about is cultivating this sense of shared identity about ‘we-ness’ and then getting people to want to act in terms of that ‘we-ness,’ to promote our collective interests. . . [We] is the single word that has increased in the inaugural addresses over the last century . . . and the other one is ‘America.’
“THE GOAL OF THE MODERN CORPORATE STATE IS OBVIOUS: TO PROMOTE, CULTIVATE, AND EMBED A SENSE OF SHARED IDENTIFICATION AMONG ITS CITIZENS. TO THIS END, ‘WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE BECOME ‘WE THE POLICE STATE.’
“We are fast becoming slaves in thrall to a faceless, nameless, bureaucratic totalitarian government machine that relentlessly erodes our freedoms through countless laws, statutes, and prohibitions... .”
And it concludes:
“This much I know: we are not faceless numbers.
“We are not cogs in the machine...we are not slaves.
“We are human beings, and for the moment, we have the opportunity to remain free—that is, if we tirelessly advocate for our rights and resist at every turn attempts by the government to place us in chains.
“The Founders understood that OUR FREEDOMS DO NOT FLOW FROM THE GOVERNMENT. THEY WERE NOT GIVEN TO US ONLY TO BE TAKEN AWAY BY THE WILL OF THE STATE. THEY ARE INHERENTLY OURS. IN THE SAME WAY, THE GOVERNMENT’S APPOINTED PURPOSE IS NOT TO THREATEN OR UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOMS, BUT TO SAFEGUARD THEM.
“Until we can get back to this way of thinking, until we can remind our fellow Americans what it really means to be free, and until we can stand firm in the face of threats to our freedoms, we will continue to be treated like slaves in thrall to a bureaucratic police state run by political psychopaths.”
Full article at: https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/criminality_in_the_white_house_the_rise_of_the_political_psychopath ; EMPHASES added.
In his article, Wm. Hartung says that, "A trillion dollars is a hard figure to process."
If you built a stack of $100 bills laid flat one on top of the other, it would reach 680 miles high. Laid on it's side that stack would almost reach Chicago from New York city.
How many trees would you have to kill for that many $100 bills?
Then consider, our national debt is 34 times that amount.
"Political disputes today are what disputes between Christians were in the sixteenth century" ... Jacques Ellul, "The Political Illusion".
Foreign policy seems to be about creating an enemy (Putin, isolationism, etc.) and pounding it into the heads of the public. It gives you more freedom to maneuver.
Sadly, this is 90% of the Biden/Harris message. Vote for us because Trump bad and scary.
It's a losing message.
Just as we shouldn't have a cosmic isolationism-- polluting our nights that once transfixed our Ancestors, and now we have to go so far into the Boonies to see what they once saw we also should not embrace a political, or world view isolationism..! We must fight the dumbing down of America in the enormously powerful, and influential Mass Media in my opin...
Clearly the reason democracy wasn't destroyed when Trump was in office was that the progressives fought him so hard. So send in your cash or check today!!
Good video. Not surprising that "Genocide Joe" is cratering in the polls.
Trumper Madness
Isolationism is an epithet. What the country needs is neutralism as a foreign policy as well as a national ethos of neutralism.
You may be moving in that direction, and you have to be careful. As chairman, CEO and only member of the Neutralist Association of the US, I may designate you a senior fellow of NAitUS.
Modern media science: whoever repeats their epithet the most, wins.
Regarding Rev. I'm sure God is coming soon in all his great glory at about the time as a thief in the night and this 4.5 billion year old World is gonna reel and rock as he comes in his heavenly airplane....! All us Saints and angels will tremble and cry in pain surely!