Monday the President of the United States excoriated Russian
President, Vladimir Putin for supporting the elected President of Syria, Bashir
Assad and Syria’s military in Syria’s fight against the U.S. supported rebels
and terrorists who have waged war in Syria for the past five years.
President Obama further accused Putin of annexing Crimea, after
the people of Crimea voted to join the Russian Federation following the removal
of the elected President of Ukraine through a U.S. backed bloody coup. From Washington Post:
Excerpt:
At U.N., Obama takes Russia to task for actions in Ukraine, Syria
UNITED NATIONS -- President Obama
blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin's approach to other countries Monday,
suggesting in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly that the world's nations
must uphold international order in Syria and Ukraine or risk global
instability.
In his speech, Obama praised the international order "that has underwritten
unparalleled advances in human liberty and human dignity…"
The president said Russia's
annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in southeastern Ukraine has
backfired, bringing Ukrainians closer to Europe and damaging Russia's economy.
"We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a
nation is flagrantly violated."
And he said that the United States
was willing to work with any nation, including Iran and Russia, to end the
lengthy civil war in Syria. At the same time, he emphasized, any resolution of the conflict must lead to the exit
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The destabilization caused by US foreign policy of regime
change has led to unbelievable tragedy, human suffering and death and does not support
Obama’s claims before the United Nations that “international order and unparalleled
advances in human liberty and human dignity” have resulted from the American,
EU/NATO military aggression. From WorldSocialist Network:
Excerpt:
Washington prepares heightened aggression against Damascus and Moscow
Addressing the United Nations
General Assembly on Monday, President Barack Obama portrayed himself and the US
government as the preeminent defenders of international law and diplomacy. He
did so even as the catastrophic consequences of the illegal wars of aggression
he has overseen continued to send waves of refugees fleeing the ruins of entire
countries—including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen—and as Washington
took new steps to turn Eastern Europe into a militarized zone for eventual war
against Russia.
With his trademark hypocrisy and
contempt for the intelligence of his audience, Obama hailed “an international
system that imposes a cost on those who choose conflict over cooperation…..”
This from a man who asserts the right of his government to launch
“preemptive” wars against any country or group deemed hostile to Washington’s
drive for hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East and the rest of the world; who has killed untold thousands in drone
missile assassinations; waged an unprovoked
war against Libya and murdered its leader, Gaddafi; and armed and financed
a sectarian civil war using Al Qaeda-linked killers as its proxy force, turning Syria into a chamber of horrors….
He denounced the main targets of US
aggression, calling Assad a “tyrant,”accusing Russia of violating “the
sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine, implied that China was attacking “the basic principles of freedom of
navigation and the free flow of commerce” in the South China Sea and singled out Iran for continuing to “deploy
violent proxies to advance its interests.”
The chief backer of tyrants in the
Middle East, violator of national sovereignty and territorial integrity in
Ukraine, threat to freedom of navigation in East Asia and deployer of violent proxies is, of course, the United States.
Looks like Obama may see regime change in the Middle East
after all, just not the one he wants. One
of Obama’s “chief tyrants in the Middle East and violent proxies” is on the hot
seat. From The Guardian:
Excerpt:
Saudi royal calls for regime change in Riyadh
A senior Saudi prince has launched
an unprecedented call for change in the country’s leadership, as it faces its
biggest challenge in years in the form of war, plummeting oil prices and
criticism of its management of Mecca, scene of last week’s hajj tragedy.
The prince, one of the grandsons of
the state’s founder, Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, has told the Guardian that there is
disquiet among the royal family – and among the wider public – at the
leadership of King Salman, who acceded the throne in January.
The prince, who is not named for security reasons, wrote two letters
earlier this month calling for the king to be removed.
“The king is not in a stable condition and in reality the son of the
king [Mohammed bin Salman] is ruling the kingdom,” the prince said. “So four
or possibly five of my uncles will meet soon to discuss the letters. They are
making a plan with a lot of nephews and that will open the door. A lot of the
second generation is very anxious.”
“The public are also pushing this very hard, all kinds of people,
tribal leaders,” the prince added. “They say you have to do this or the country
will go to disaster….”
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sounds
like Saudi Arabia is feeling the angst that comes from a war based economy like
just like the rest of the world. Wars are
expensive, you can have butter or guns, make your choice.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a new
arrival to the Saudi senior leadership team but has already become one of the
most controversial…
Many Saudis are sickened by the sight
of the Arab world’s richest country
pummelling its poorest, and as the cost in lives and treasure grows,
criticism is mounting that Prince Mohammed bin Salman– whose unofficial nickname is “Reckless” – rushed in without a
proper military strategy or an exit plan.
Ha, ha, his nickname is “Reckless” must be
because of the friends he keeps. And you know who else’s country is sick of
sacrificing butter for guns? Obama’s buddy
David Cameron, seems the new Labour Leader Corbyn is causing a stir. From New Europe:
Excerpt:
The new Labour strongman and
scarecrow of the political establishment Jeremy Corbyn might be derided for his
appearance, attire and archaic speech, but he certainly understands about spin.
Labour has announced it had set up an advisory committee including Nobel
Prize-winning U.S. economist Joseph Stiglitz and Frenchman Thomas Piketty to
help develop its anti-austerity policies.
Britain’s opposition Labour Party
will thus launch a “radical review” of the national institutions that manage
the economy, including the Bank of England, its finance spokesman said.
John McDonnell, a hard-left former
trade unionist who has advocated
renationalising banks and imposing wealth taxes, promised a Labour
government would ensure the proceeds of economic growth are shared more equally
around the country.
McDonnell said that if his party
wins power in 2020 Britain would live within its means but invest to help the
economy grow.
McDonnell has previously called for the government to reclaim the power
to set interest rates from the Bank of England. But the source said the
party’s position would be that the central bank would remain independent.
Yowza, it’s back to the future. Back to where people run the banks instead of
banks running the people. But it looks
like Cameron isn’t interested, he’s still wedded to a war based economy and
regime change in Syria. From LancashireEvening Post:
Excerpt:
World leaders remain "miles apart" over the Syria crisis,
David Cameron conceded as he dismissed any prospect of any "phoney"
solution that involved Bashar Assad.
The Prime Minister is at the United Nations in New York where talks
between Western allies and their
Russian and Iranian counterparts have
failed to break the deadlock over taking on Islamic State (IS)….
"In the end, however far apart we might be whether with the
Iranians or the Russians, those two countries have an influence over what
happens in Syria and we need to convince
them that a new Syria with a different leader wouldn't necessarily be
against their interests but it would help to get rid of Isil.
"So far the problem has been that Russia and Iran have not been prepared to contemplate the
end state of a Syria without Assad."
Vladimir Putin - who met face to
face with US President Barack Obama for discussions last night - said it would
be "an enormous mistake" not to involve the Syrian president.
I have an idea, how about regime change in the UK, US and
Canada. That might be a good start, and
let’s end this war based economy once and for all. It’s time to decide on what is your priority,
guns or butter. You know, we’ll never
get out of this world alive.
Oh how far America has fallen since the overthrown of their
elected government in 2000. If you think
the Bush Cheney Administration was a nightmare, the Obama Biden Administration
is a horror story of untold proportions.
Today the belligerent, ignorant President of the
United States excoriated Russian President, Vladimir Putin for preventing
America from overthrowing the elected government in Syria and supporting the
Syrian military in their fight against the terrorists that America is training
and arming to overthrow President Bashir Assad.
From Washington Post:
Excerpt:
At U.N., Obama takes Russia to task for actions in Ukraine, Syria
UNITED NATIONS -- President Obama
blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin's approach to other countries Monday,
suggesting in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly that the world's nations
must uphold international order in Syria and Ukraine or risk global
instability.
In his speech, Obama praised the international order "that has underwritten
unparalleled advances in human liberty and human dignity…"
The president said Russia's
annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in southeastern Ukraine has
backfired, bringing Ukrainians closer to Europe and damaging Russia's economy.
"We cannot stand by when the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a
nation is flagrantly violated."
And he said that the United States
was willing to work with any nation, including Iran and Russia, to end the
lengthy civil war in Syria. At the same time, he emphasized, any resolution of the conflict must lead to the exit
of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Through the years, as nations across the world faced war and
devastation the one thing the people of the world could believe in and hope to
achieve was the success of the American dream where anything was possible. My mother, who was a war bride from Belgium,
recounted the horror of the Nazi occupation of Belgium.
She told stories of her brother-in-law and nephew working
with the underground to fight against the Nazi occupation. She
recounted how their citizens were forced to give blood for the wounded German
soldiers and were left with enough blood in their bodies to crawl out into the
street and die.
She spoke of the unbelievable suffering and starvation the
people endured. People across Europe
survived unimaginable horror and misery and when the Americans finally became involved
in the war, the elation of the European people gave them the energy to hold on,
America was on the way.
She said, when the Americans prevailed in Normandy the
joyous news spread like wildfire across the world, and when the American troops
rolled into Belgium it was like the gates of heaven had opened. This was the America that the world came to
love and admire. This was the America
that selflessly gave their blood and treasure to save the world and the world
felt undying gratitude toward this amazing nation.
But Americans and their Western allies didn’t prevail on
their own. Russia gave life, blood and
treasure that surpassed that of America and her allies, and without Russia the
world may not have survived the Nazi occupation. But the new American government has no sense
of history. The new American government
has an arrogant disregard for the sacrifices of others.
Barack Obama, like his predecessor George W. Bush have a
doctrine of “American Exceptionalism” that has changed the worldview of America
and not for the better. The arrogance,
and ignorance on display at the United Nations today is just the latest insult
heaped upon Vladimir Putin and the people of Russia. From Truthout:
Excerpt:
President Obama Insulted the Memory of Russians Who Died in World War
II
It was the 70th celebration of
Victory Day over Nazi Germany on May 9 in St. Petersburg, Russia… the US
was snubbing the day. Victory Day honors the Russian WW II dead and Russians
take pride in the defeat of an adversary that nearly conquered the Soviet
Union.
Obama and Western European leaders
did not send senior officials to the largest Victory Day gathering in Moscow,
ostensibly to further repudiate Russian President Vladimir Putin for the
ongoing Ukraine crisis….
As the Business Insider reported in
a 2014 article, "In terms of total numbers, the Soviet Union bore an
incredible brunt of casualties during WWII. An estimated 16,825,000 people died
in the war, over 15 percent of its population...
In Russia, remembering the dead isn't the sole province of self-serving corporate
tributesand political sloganeering.
It is not a day of watching sports on television and barbecues.
It is a day of gatherings - large
and small - to honor those who died so
that Russia could survive and prevail against a brutal Nazi assault against
its major cities, including the famous Russian defense of Stalingrad (now
Volgograd) - in which estimates reach as
high as 2 million Russian civilians and soldiers dead. As for the battle
for Moscow, the International Business Times recounts that "Americans also should be grateful for the
roughly 1.5 million Russians [some military historians say the total is
much higher] who died fighting in the Battle of Moscow."
It should be recalled that the
Soviet Union was in alliance with the US and the UK at this time - with
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin personally meeting during the war - and that
the large number of German military units on the eastern front with Russia
allowed the Western allies to confront fewer Nazi forces. Some military historians even conjecture that the D-Day landing might
not have succeeded except for Nazi military forces pinned down on the Soviet
front. According to a Christian Science Monitor article on D-Day,
And finally – and perhaps incredibly
to many Americans, even to this day – Normandy
and the Allied invasion were not Hitler’s most dire military problem. That
was the Russians. Two-thirds of the German Army was deployed as a shield
against the Red Army on the Eastern Front.
Three weeks after D-Day, Stalin launched his own attack, Operation
Bagration. It was "the greatest offensive of the war," writes Max
Hastings. Almost two and a half million
Red Army troops threw themselves upon German divisions, which had been
ordered to stand firm, as in Normandy. In
two months, Soviet units advanced 450 miles. By the end of August, they were
nearing East Prussia and Germany itself….
It has been widely noted the
Western … nations, especially the United
States and the United Kingdom, very publicly dissed Russia on the 70th
anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. This despite the
fact that the Soviet Union had the
predominant role in the winning of World War II.
For President Obama and the Western European nations not to have sent
senior representatives to honor the Russian people for their sacrifice is to put nationalistic - and global
economic concerns - above the interests of creating an international
community of compassion between people of different nations.
Obama showed contempt toward the very citizens of Russia whose parents,
grandparents and great grandparents may have saved the United States and
England from defeat by sacrificing millions to the Nazi war machine - and
thus preventing Hitler from shifting a large percentage of the German military
forces to fight the allied forces invading through France.
Insulting Putin may have been Obama's objective, but he showed disdain
toward the sacrifice of a whole nation, of people who still mourn those whose
lives perished in the German onslaught as they endured the ravaging of
their nation - and the threat of the total annihilation of their country.
It took over a hundred years to come to fruition, but the
plans laid out since the beginning of the Republic finally came to fruition in
the year 2000. It had been a long tedious
slog but evil is a patient, relentless monster.
Evil slowly, slowly chipped away at Democracy until the very foundation was
weakened to the point that it only took a nudge to topple the great experiment
that was America.
All that was good in America died December 12, 2000 when the
American government was overthrown by an evil that the world was unaware
existed in America. But it did exist,
and had been always been there bubbling below the surface rearing its ugly head
from time to time. The United States
Senate has become the breeding ground for evil.
The Senate had been kept in check through the division of
power in the United States government. The
Senate now controls the entire government and the Executive and Judicial
branches are subservient to the Senate.
In looking back at how this has happened it was interesting to find that
prior to the Seventeenth Amendment, the Senate was, according to the
constitution, was chosen by the state legislators. From Senate.gov:
Excerpt:
Voters have elected their senators in the privacy of the voting booth
since 1913. The framers of the Constitution, however, did not intend
senators to be elected in this way, and included in Article I, section 3,
"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from
each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator
shall have one Vote…."
This process seemed to work well
until the mid-1850s. At that time, growing hostilities in various states
resulted in vacant Senate seats. In Indiana, for example, the conflict between
Democrats in the southern half of the state and the emerging Republican Party
in the northern half prevented the election of any candidate, thereby leaving
the Senate seat vacant for two years. This marked the beginning of many
contentious battles in state legislatures, as the struggle to elect senators
reflected the increasing tensions over slavery and states' rights which led to
the Civil War.
Intimidation and bribery marked some of the states' selection of
senators. Nine bribery cases were brought before the Senate between 1866
and 1906. In addition, forty-five
deadlocks occurred in twenty states between 1891 and 1905, resulting in
numerous delays in seating senators. In 1899, problems in electing a senator in
Delaware were so acute that the state legislature did not send a senator to
Washington for four years….
After the turn of the century,
momentum for reform grew rapidly. William Randolph Hearst expanded his
publishing empire with Cosmopolitan, and championed the cause of direct
election with muckraking articles and strong advocacy of reform. Hearst hired a
veteran reporter, David Graham Phillips,
who wrote scathing pieces on senators, portraying them as pawns of
industrialists and financiers.
The pieces became a series titled
"The Treason of the Senate," which appeared in several monthly issues
of the magazine in 1906. These articles galvanized the public into maintaining
pressure on the Senate for reform…..
The House initially fared no better
than the Senate in its early discussions of the proposed amendment. Much
wrangling characterized the debates, but in the summer of 1912 the House
finally passed the amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. The
campaign for public support was aided by senators such as Borah and political
scientist George H. Haynes, whose scholarly work on the Senate contributed
greatly to passage of the amendment….
Connecticut's approval gave the
Seventeenth Amendment the required three-fourths majority, and it was added to the Constitution in 1913. The following year marked the first time
all senatorial elections were held by popular vote.
Yes, when the Senators were selected by state legislators
they became pawns of industrialists and financiers, so the Seventeenth
Amendment was passed that allowed the people to select their Senators in the
privacy of the voting booth. That was in
1913, so just before the people would have a chance to elect their Senators
taking the power away from the industrialists and financiers the Senate illegally
passed the Federal Reserve Act. From
Liberty for Life:Excerpt:
Federal Reserve Bank (Inc.) A Murderous History? Banksters, the Worlds Worst Gangsters
Arguably the formation of the
Federal Reserve Bank is The Crime of the Century. The Federal Reserve Banking Act, passed in
1913 is categorically unconstitutional, it is unlawful. The Federal Reserve Bank's money fraud has
devalued the dollar to about four percent of its worth in 1930.
Henry Ford once said "It is
well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and
monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before
tomorrow morning".
Article 1, section 8, of the
Constitution reads:
The Congress shall have the
Power.....To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof…
Congress has no authority to
delegate this responsibility to third parties.
As a show of audacity and control, the Federal Reserve Bank prints their
Notes with the faces of Presidents who adamantly opposed having a private
National Bank, and Presidents the bank either tried to or did kill.
There will never be world peace,
there will never be economic stability, there will never be a free economy as
long as these banksters control the worlds money supply. Their goal is to
achieve a socialist one world government - a "New World Order", as is
printed in Latin on their $1 Note.
The last nail was pounded into the New World Order casket on
December 15, 2000 when the United States Senate completed the banking takeover
of the American Government with the passage of the Gramm Leach Bliley bill that
completely deregulated the Banking and Insurance industries allowing the
formation of derivatives and credit default swaps that caused the worldwide
collapse of the banking system. The
Senate had already repealed Glass Steagall earlier in the year.
Just take an inventory of what has happened in America since
the overthrow of the American government in 2000. There was the withdrawal from the Nuclear
Arms Treaty with Russia, the American spy plane shot down over China, the
murder of Japanese school kids on a fishing trip when campaign donors of George
W. Bush were allowed to joy ride in a Nuclear Submarine. Then there was the rounding up of protestors
and moving them into “free speech zones” leading up to the 9-11 attack on the World
Trade Center, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq and on and on.
To see the President of the United States stand before the
United Nations spewing hatred and lies before countries who know history and
know the truth. For those countries
living with the blowback from the overthrow of the elected government in
Ukraine and the bloody, failed coup against Syrian President Assad turned into
a civil war, it must be particularly galling.
For instance Belarus. According
to the Business Insider:
Belarus suffered the worst
devastation of any country during the war (WW II) in terms of a percentage of
its population. Over a quarter of its population, 2,290,000 people, died during
the conflict.
In terms of total numbers, the
Soviet Union bore an incredible brunt of casualties during WWII. An estimated
16,825,000 people died in the war, over 15% of its population. China also lost
an astounding 20,000,000 people during the conflict.
So you would think that Barack Obama would have some sort of
shame, some sort of sense of irony when he scolds Putin for supporting the
elected government of Syria against the terrorists that America has trained and
equipped to overthrow the Assad regime.
It was just two years ago when Obama, Biden and Kerry were lying to the
world about Assad using chemical weapons against “his own people” in order to
bomb Syria. From Radio Free Europe:
Excerpt:
Belarus President Likens U.S. To Nazi Germany
Belarusian President Alyaksandr
Lukashenka has compared the United States with Nazi Germany and slammed
Washington's position on Syria.
In an interview with the Kazakh
television channel 24KZ in Minsk on October 2, Lukashenka said the United
States "considers itself an exceptional nation" that has the right to
"force everyone to comply with its standards by bombing other
countries."
Lukashenka added that German
"exceptionalism" cost 50 million lives in the last century.
Lukashenka also warned against
international military intervention in Syria, saying it would have dire
consequences.
He praised the late Syrian
President Hafez al-Assad and his son, current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
calling the latter a close friend and a kind man.
According to Lukashenka, stability
in the Arab world is important for the Eurasian Economic Union, a Russia-led
project uniting Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan that is scheduled to start
functioning in 2015.
This is America after the fall. Instead of walking softly and carrying a big
stick, the new America is a rabid bull in the Arab world’s china cabinet. Instead of a Statesman we have a blathering
idiot on the world stage spewing empty admonishments against nation states that
have seen this story before and know how the story ends.
Pope Francis addressed a joint
session of congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House John Boehner on
Thursday, September 24th. While
the media coverage of his message has been emphasizing emotionally charged issues
like abortion, gay marriage, death penalty, immigration and global warming, his
message of the evil of weapons proliferation and America’s proxy wars with
Russia have been largely ignored. From
Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone:
Excerpt:
Why Do We Care Whose Side the Pope Is On? Why Are So Many Pundits Trashing the Pope?
So the pope is here. His arrival
has spawned a Drake/Meek Mill-style diss battle within the pundit class, pitting
conservatives bemoaning the pope's false prophecy against liberals swooning
over his platitudinous anti-capitalism….
Overt religiosity is the norm on
the GOP side, with God-stalking nutballs like Michele Bachmann or Ben Carson
perennially front and center. Meanwhile, the closest thing to a famed religious
liberal that America has seen over the span of many decades was probably Susan
Sarandon's nun character in Dead Man Walking….
Pope Francis won over urban
liberals through writings like his 184-page encyclical on climate change, which
described the earth as an "immense pile of filth…."
Conservatives loved the pre-Francis
Catholic strategy for dealing with the poor. First, you create lots of cheap
third-world factory labor by discouraging contraception. Then you give lip
service to alleviating poverty by pushing a program of strictly voluntary
charitable donations.
Those were the sentiments of media both right and left on
Pope Francis address but the Pope’s warning about congress funding war
profiteers was largely ignored Maybe
that is because just a week prior to his address before congress, the US and UK
held the world’s largest weapons fair in London. From Mint Press:
US And UK Arm Child Soldiers At World’s Largest Arms Fair In London
LONDON — Against the objections of the United Nations, this week the United States and the United Kingdom
together helped arm the world’s child soldiers.
Tuesday through Friday this week,
the British capital played host to the world’s largest arms fair, Defence and
Security Equipment International, where global arms vendors — many from the
U.S. — sell their wares to world
governments seeking to upgrade their arsenals. The event was expected to
draw 32,000 visitors from 60 countries, including
multiple nations that make use of child soldiers in violation of international
law.
According to a report from The
Guardian, of the 23 nations known by the United Nations to use child soldiers,
the U.K. sold arms to 19 of them during the past five years…
Sad, that living babies dying on the battlefield do not
foster the same tears and outrage from congress that the unborn do. So here is what Pope Francis had to say
before the war mongering congress. FromDan Froomkin at The Intercept:
Excerpt:
Pope Decries “Shameful and Culpable Silence” on Arms Sales “Drenched in
Innocent Blood”
Pope Francis on Thursday gently
scolded Congress on a variety of issues, from immigration to foreign policy, but on one unexpected topic — the weapons
sales that fuel armed conflicts around the world — he couldn’t have been much
more blunt.
He was speaking about his
determination “to minimize and, in the long term, to end the many armed
conflicts throughout our world,” when he said this:
Here we have to ask ourselves: Why are deadly weapons being sold to
those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?
Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is
simply for money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In
the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.
Those were fighting words,
especially given where he spoke them. The
U.S. is by far the largest arms supplier in the world, with domestic
manufacturers selling more than $23.7 billion in weapons in 2014 to nearly 100
different countries. During the Obama
administration, weapons sales have surged to record levels, in large part
due to huge shipments to Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia.
In the American media, the deafening sound of crickets, didn’t
merit any coverage at all. And the type
of weapons that are being sold are particularly vile designed for maximum
killing of civilians. While congress is
willing to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood, they
allocate money for the arms industry without the blink of an eye, paid for by
the American taxpayers.
The weapons sales to Saudi Arabia include cluster bombs and other munitions being used to hit densely populated areas, schools, and even a camp for
displaced people in Yemen.
And a healthy chunk of those arms
sales — especially to Israel and Egypt —
are heavily subsidized by the U.S. taxpayer.
Congress, whichcould
have blocked any of this, went along happily— in no small part because of the approximately $150 million
a year the defense industry spends on lobbying and direct campaign
contributions….
U.S. firms make up seven of the top
10 arms-exporting companies, with Lockheed Martin and Boeing coming in at
numbers one and two. Also in the top 10: Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General
Dynamics, United Technologies and L-3 Communications.
Thursday’s speech was not the first
time the Pope has spoken out about the arms trade. He referred to it as “the industry of death” in a talk with Italian
schoolchildren in May. “Why do so many
powerful people not want peace? Because they live off war,” he said.
Yes, in America war is big bucks baby, and those big bucks
have been funding the American governments’ proxy war with Russia through the
overthrow of the government of Ukraine and the war that America refuses to allow
to end in Syria unless their elected leader Assad goes.
The American congress’ latest big bucks gift to the arms industry
was the funds to train “moderate rebels” to help to overthrow the Assad
regime. And what did the cash strapped
American People get for their “hard earned tax dollars” that congress
spent? From Mint Press:
Excerpt:
New US-Trained Rebels In Syria Gave Their Weapons To al-Qaeda
Reports out of Syria suggest that
the group immediately took its weapons and vehicles to al-Qaeda territory and
turned them all over to them.
It’s already been heavily reported
how badly the first class of New
Syrian Forces (NSF), also known as Division 30, did after being trained by the
US and sent into Syria. There were 54 of them to start, and last week
Centcom conceded there were only “four
or five left.” This may still look like a runaway success compared to the
second class.
The second class entered Syria by way of Turkey on Friday, and
according to reports there were between
70 and 75 of them in total. Today, reports out of Syria suggest that the group immediately took its weapons and
vehicles to al-Qaeda territory and turned them all over to them.
So the American congress is training and arming al-Qaeda in
order to line their own pockets with campaign funds, at the same time the
American congress is cutting Social Security disability by 20% to fund the arms
industry. Now that’s how congress looks
out for the taxpayers. From Dispatch:
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The 11million Americans who
receive Social Security disability
benefits face steep cuts next year,
the government said on Wednesday.
The trustees who oversee Social
Security and Medicare said the disability trust fund will run out of money in
late 2016. That would trigger an
automatic 19 percent cut in benefits,
unless Congress acts.
The average monthly benefit for disabled workers and their families
is $1,017. The typical beneficiary
would receive $193 less per month.
In more bad news for beneficiaries, the trustees project that there will be
no cost-of-living increase in benefits at the end of the year. It would
mark only the third year without an
increase since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.
Separately, about 7 million Medicare beneficiaries could face a monthly premium increase of at least $54 for
outpatient coverage. That works out to an
increase of more than 50 percent.
Hey America, baby needs a new pair of combat boots,
literally. And while congress is waging
this proxy war against Russia, do you really think Putin is just going to sit
there and take it? I guess not, From
Washington Times:
Excerpt:
Putin takes charge, orders Russian troops to Syria after Obama’s plan
flops
Vladimir Putin views the Syrian
army and its Iranian allies as incapable of defeating the Islamic State in
Syria, prompting the Russian president to directly intervene in recent weeks by
setting up an air base and sending in tanks, artillery and jet fighters, a
report to Congress says.
Mr. Putin’s bold yet risky move of putting troops on the ground directly confronting a terrorist
group contrasts sharply with the Obama administration’s strategy of an air
campaign over Syria but little other military action in that country….
Analysts at the Congressional
Research Service delivered an assessment to lawmakers Friday that says Mr. Putin is helping his ally, Syrian
President Bashar Assad, and protecting Russia’s southern flank in the Caucasus,
where Islamist fighters congregate and deploy…
The report added: “Putin’s recent call for an all-out effort
against the Islamic State also may stem from the sizable number of jihadist
fighters from the North Caucasus fighting in Syria, who may pose a serious
problem for Moscow should they return to Russia.”
If Mr. Putin does view the war against the Islamic State as stagnant,
he has an ally in Army Gen. Martin E.
Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Dempsey told reporters
this month that the war is “tactically stalemated.”
This whole gang in the White House, the Pentagon and State
Department have really made a mess. The
Islamic State is their creation due to their zeal to overthrow the government
of Assad in Syria, demanding that Assad must go. But the whole world believes that Assad is
part of the solution not part of the problem.
And the mess they’ve made in Syria is just like the mess
they made in Ukraine, both are proxy wars with Russia. This is the new cold war with Russia that
began when W. Bush withdrew from the Non
Proliferation Treaty with Russia as soon as he came into office.
There is no good that can come from this. The Bush Cheney Doctrine of arrogance and
brute force with the President as judge, jury and executioner has been replaced
with the Obama Biden Doctrine of arrogance and brute force with the President
as judge, jury and executioner. The
predictable outcome has been the decline of America as a Super Power, losing
its grip on the Middle East. From MintPress:
Excerpt:
Twenty five years ago, on September
11, 1990 then US president George H.W. Bush declared the United States the
“sole superpower”; however, times have indeed changed for Washington since then…
…. the most irrefutable evidence of
Washington’s loss of influence in the Middle East is Barack Obama’s reaction to Russia’s recent activity in the region
aimed at halting the Syrian crisis.
America’s top policy makers have rushed to blame Russia for what they
have called exacerbating the situation in the Middle East. But why is
Washington sweating bullets over Moscow’s involvement in Syria?
“What has Washington freaked out is
not the possibility that Russia will make the situation worse in Syria. After more than one year of destructive
bombing by US and NATO planes, creating the present EU Syrian refugee
crisis, the situation could hardly get much worse if Russia’s actions manage to
isolate ISIS [ISIL].
What scares Washingtonwar
hawks is the possibility that
Russia’s strategy could succeed in ending the ISIS [ISIL] reign of terror…”
On September 15, 2015 the CSTO members unanimously denounced
terrorism in Iraq and Syria and expressed
their readiness to team up to fight extremism in the Middle East and
Central Asia, particularly the Islamic State…
According to Wikipedia “the CSTO is the Collective Security
Treaty Organizations an intergovernmental
military alliance, acting as counterpart
to the NATO alliance, which was signed on 15 May 1992. In 1992, six
post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia,
Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.”
If the CSTO deploys their forces in
Syria under the UN auspices it would
be far more effective than the US-led coalition forces…
“Unlike the Coalition, the CSTO
maintains positive relations with the governments of Iraq and Syria, which
enables it to envisage far greater efficiency… Technically speaking, the CSTO has the capacity to deploy up to 50,000
men in less than two weeks…”
While Russia is gaining ground in the Middle East due to its diplomatic
peace strategy, Washington’s “strategy of wars everywhere” is facing a
decline.
“If Russia is able now to forge a
genuine, honest coalition of nations to
isolate and destroy the Washington-created Frankenstein monster called ISIS
[ISIL] or IS, and to allow Syrians to settle their problems with the
duly-elected President, Bashar al-Assad in free elections without the
US-financed NGOs of George Soros or the National Endowment for Democracy, the
world will take a giant step away from war…”
The media’s deadly silence on Pope Francis’ message to the
war mongering congress was an endorsement of the proliferation of arms
sales for maximum profits and America’s proxy wars with Russia. Hopefully congress will learn from the Pope’s
message that your flag decals won’t get you into heaven anymore.
Well the ABC’s of Armageddon are at it again on the eve of
Pope Francis’ visit to America where he will address the American congress, the
US and the UK just held the world’s largest arms fair in London selling arms to
governments known to use children soldiers.
Since the governments in America, Britain and Canada were
taken over by rightwing extremists the world has suffered from the instability
that overthrowing governments, stealing their assets and destroying their
natural resources brings. The rightwing
rise has been accompanied by, if not created by Rupert Murdoch’s media empire
in a “what came first the chicken or the egg” scenario.
The recipe for the rightwing takeover was crafted through
think tanks whose members are comprised of Americans, Israelis, Canadians,
British and Australians. Here is a quick recap of the movement from Zerohedge:
Excerpt:
Rewind to the era before the War on
Terror. In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s “dovish” Prime Minister, was
assassinated by a right-wing zealot. This precipitated an early election in
which Rabin’s Labor Party was defeated by the ultra-hawkish Likud, lifting
hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to his first Premiership in 1996.
That year, an elite study group
produced a policy document for the incipient administration titled, “A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The membership of the Clean
Break study group is highly significant, as it included American
neoconservatives who would later hold high offices in the Bush Administration
and play driving roles in its Middle East policy…
The Clean Break study group’s
leader, Richard Perle... while serving
as chairman of a high level Pentagon advisory committee, Perle helped
coordinate the neoconservative takeover of foreign policy in the Bush
administration and the final push for war in Iraq.
Another Clean Breaker, Douglas
Feith, was a Perle protege and a key player in that neocon coup. After 9/11, as
Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Feith created two secret Pentagon
offices tasked with cherry-picking, distorting, and repackaging CIA and Pentagon
intelligence to help make the case for war.
Feith’s “Office of Special Plans”
manipulated intelligence to promote the falsehood that Saddam had a secret
weapons of mass destruction program that posed an imminent chemical,
biological, and even nuclear threat. This lie was the main justification used
by the Bush administration for the Iraq War…
Douglas Feith, that’s the guy the General Tommy Franks
called "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth." The Iraq war was a gateway to the real prize
these neocons had in their sites, the crown jewel was Syria.
But why did the Netanyahu/Bush
Clean Breakers want to regime change Iraq in the first place? While reference
is often made to “A Clean Break” as a prologue to the Iraq War, it is often
forgotten that the document proposed
regime change in Iraq primarily as a “means” of “weakening, containing, and
even rolling back Syria.” Overthrowing Saddam in Iraq was merely a stepping
stone to “foiling” and ultimately
overthrowing Bashar al-Assad in neighboring Syria….
As incoherent as it may have been, getting at Syria through Iraq is what the
neocons wanted. And this is also highly significant for us today, because the US has now fully embraced the
objective of regime change in Syria, even with Barack Obama inhabiting the
White House instead of George W. Bush.
The violent extremism of the Bush/Cheney years has been on
steroids since the Administration of Barack Obama and his Vice President, the
self-proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden, took up the gauntlet. The Obama Biden Administration has expanded
the war agenda overthowing the governments in Ukraine, Libya, Burkina Faso, and
has instigated a civil war in Syria.
When Obama Biden and their Secretary of State, John Kerry
were pushing for a bombing campaign in Syria, Vladimir Putin along with Pope
Francis were able to stop the war mongers.
From Shoebat.com:
Excerpt:
Pope Francis And Putin Conduct Secret Meeting To Fight Against Obama’s
Anti-Christian Policies That Are Advancing The Islamic Persecution Of
Christians
After both of Bush’s and the
pro-Muslim Brotherhood, Barack Hussein Obama’s policies in the Middle East,
ancient communities and holy sites have
been destroyed, millions displaced and bishops were murdered.
The major rift between the Vatican
and Washington began with the invasion of Iraq when Pope John Paul II argued vociferously against sending U.S. troops to
oust Saddam Hussein while the
perceived Evangelical type President George W. Bush “spoke and behaved as if he
was divinely inspired and seemed genuinely to believe that it was a war of
right against wrong…”
Nothing is more dangerous than a world leader believing he
is divinely inspired to murder a whole nation of people. Many, myself included believe Pope John Paul II was murdered after he spoke out against the war in Iraq.
George W. Bush became the face of
American evangelical Christianity during his eight-year presidency….
The Pope, who was ruthlessly
criticized by many, at the time even sent a personal envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi,
to bring his case to President George W. Bush on March 5, 2003 to no avail. “I
had the impression that they had already decided,” the veteran diplomat told a
group in Italy months later…
The U.S. invasion was a disaster for Christians in the Middle East.
Just as the Vatican predicted, ancient communities
and holy sites have been destroyed, millions displaced and bishops murdered.
Today, the same American proponents of invading Iraq are promoting
military escalation on Ukraine’s eastern border…
Another example is Belarus when U.S. policy since 2004 has been largely
antagonistic toward the Alexander Lukashenko regime, including the
imposition of various sanctions for undemocratic practices….
Another U.S. blunder, and is the
reason for Putin meeting with the Pope, is in Syria. Both Francis and Putin, working with and through their respective
churches coordinated to thwart U.S. intervention in Syria. In 2013, Washington, as did Bush in Iraq, falsely accused Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad’s regime. One of these
accusations is the killing of more than 1,400 people in a chemical weapons
attack and warned of military intervention.
Investigative journalist Seymour
Hersh, who broke the story of the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison
scandal, reported that the Assad regime might not be responsible for the
chemical weapons attacks in Syria. He
stressed that the Obama administration and other senior level American
officials knew this while they were making the case against Assad.
Yes, meet the new Administrations in America and Britain,
same as the old Administrations.
Hersh claims that the Obama
administration knew quite well that claims that only the Syrian army had access
to sarin were wrong. “The American and
British intelligence communitieshad
been aware since the spring of 2013 that some rebel units in Syria were
developing chemical weapons,”
Being Judeo Christian and all, you would think the same gang
that bankrupted their nations bringing war to Iraq and Syria would have some
moral conscience to care for the poor civilian victims who are seeking refuge
from the wars caused by their “errors” in judgment. But sadly you’d be wrong.
So why are America, Britain and Canada doubling down on
their rape and pillage of Syria? Maybe
the answer is in the article from Mint Press:
Excerpt:
What Rothschild, Murdoch, Cheney, And Israel Love Most About Syria
(ANTIMEDIA) What do Syria, New
Jersey, Lord Jacob Rothschild, and former Governor of New Mexico Bill
Richardson have in common?
Besides sounding like the
introduction to a wince-worthy conspiracy quip, the most elementary answer is
also nauseatingly cliche as an explanation for the penchant the U.S. government
displays for inserting itself in the domestic affairs of nearly every country
in the Middle East:
Oil.
Afek, a subsidiary of New
Jersey-based Genie Energy, Ltd., announced the discovery of a large liquid oil
reservoir and requested an extension of its exploration license for areas in
“Northern Israel.”
After having spent over three years
in active exploration from the time initial hydrocarbon measurements and
geological tests hinted at the presence of such a reserve, Afek’s discovery might have been welcome news all around —
were it not contentiously located within Israeli-occupied Syria, in the region
known as the Golan Heights.
“Initial findings from the drilling
confirm the discovery of an oil reservoir in the Golan and further justifies continuing
the exploration program,” stated Afek’s request. “We need more time for this.”
While Israel and Afek might
dismissively refer to Syria’s Golan Heights as Northern Israel in
documentation, international law
definitively marks the region as occupied by foreign forces — making the U.S. company’s controversial oil
exploration arrogantly hegemonic, as well as illegal.
Taking full advantage of the public
announcement about the findings, the next day Genie Oil and Gas proceeded to publicize the names of new appointees
who will join the eyebrow-raising Rupert
Murdoch, Dick Cheney, and Lord Jacob Rothschild on the Strategic Advisory Board
(SAB). Those members are:
Dr. Lawrence Summers, 71st Secretary of the Treasury under
President Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under Pres.
Obama; former Louisiana Senator Mary
Landrieu, who is credited with helping pass the U.S.-Israel Energy
Cooperation Bill while she chaired the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources; former governor of New
Mexico, Bill Richardson, who became an industry insider after serving as
the Clinton administration’s Energy Secretary; and former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey, who
co-founded the U.S. Energy Security Council.
My, my, my. Thick as
thieves. The war industry funds the elections of the politicians that in turn
rob their treasuries to perpetuate the wars that fund the war industry. While their citizens are ignorant, starved
and fed a steady diet of hate from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the US and UK
are arming child soldiers at world’s largest arms fair in London.
All this is taking place amidst a backdrop of European
countries being flooded with refugees from their endless wars. From MintPress:
US And UK Arm Child Soldiers At World’s Largest Arms Fair In London
LONDON — Against the objections of the United Nations, this week the
United States and the United Kingdom together helped arm the world’s child
soldiers.
Tuesday through Friday this week,
the British capital played host to the world’s largest arms fair, Defence and
Security Equipment International, where global arms vendors — many from the
U.S. — sell their wares to world
governments seeking to upgrade their arsenals. The event was expected to
draw 32,000 visitors from 60 countries, including
multiple nations that make use of child soldiers in violation of international
law.
According to a report from The
Guardian, of the 23 nations known by the United Nations to use child soldiers,
the U.K. sold arms to 19 of them during the past five years…
You know, in the United States the Republicans are planning
to shut down the government in order to defund Planned Parenthood because of
bootleg videos showing “babies” killed in abortion. Isn’t that rich? If only they had a tenth of the outrage for
the infants born with severe deformities caused by the use of depleted uranium in
nations poisoned by war.
And, of those 23 nations, five
countries received an invitation to this year’s DSEI: Angola, Azerbaijan,
Egypt, Kazakhstan and Thailand.
Yet the use of child soldiers isn’t the only offense committed by
these countries’ governments, Townsend noted. Human rights are deteriorating rapidly in Azerbaijan, and the
European Union recently demanded that its government end a crackdown on aid
workers. Egypt has also been the
source of an increasing number human rights concerns, especially since the 2013 military coup by the U.S.
backed…
Last month, Andrew Smith, an
activist from Campaign Against Arms Trade, one of the groups planning to
organize against DSEI, told MintPress News that the weapons sold at this arm
fair have a devastating effect on people worldwide:
“Arms companies profit from war and
conflict across the globe and must be opposed wherever they are. Companies like
Raytheon and Lockheed Martin might operate from the West, but their real impact
is felt on the ground in countries like Gaza and Yemen. The arms companies and
the governments that support them need to be confronted with the devastating
consequences of their actions.”
Sickening isn’t it?
And, as the US, Britian and Canada continue to arm “moderate terrorists”
to fight against Syria’s elected President Bashir Assad, Putin is sending aid
to Syria to fight against the US created ISIL.
From Aljazeera:
Excerpt:
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov has confirmed that the country's "humanitarian" flights to
Syria carry military equipment as well as humanitarian aid - after the US and NATO warned Moscow over its involvement in the
Syrian conflict.
"Russian planes are sending to
Syria both military equipment in accordance with current contracts and
humanitarian aid," Lavrov told reporters on Thursday…
"Going back 60 years, Russia has been supplying Syria with arms,
advisers, military equipment. Nothing much has really changed.
"The threat coming from
Islamic State [ISIL] is evident... The only force capable of resisting it is
the Syrian armed forces," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov,
reiterating Russia's position that its
longtime ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, should be part of
international efforts to combat ISIL.
Washington has put pressure on Greece and Bulgaria in recent days to
deny Russia's requests to use their airspace for its Syria flights.
During a press conference with the
Slovakian prime minister, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk
announced the country will close its airspace to Russian planes flying to
Syria.
Putin and the Pope were able to stop the Obama regime from
bombing Syria on trumped up charges, Obama and Biden had a work around to
proceed with bombing. From GlennGreenwald:
Excerpt:
Out Bush-ing Bush: Syria is 7th mostly Muslim country bombed by 2009
Nobel Peace winner Obama
The U.S. today began bombing
targets inside Syria, in concert with its lovely and inspiring group of five
allied regimes: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Jordan.
That means that Syria becomes the
7th predominantly Muslim country bombed by 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate Barack
Obama - after Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and Iraq.
The utter lack of interest in what possible legal authority Obama
has to bomb Syria is telling indeed: Empires
bomb who they want, when they want, for whatever reason (indeed, recall
that Obama bombed Libya even after
Congress explicitly voted against authorization to use force, and very few
people seemed to mind that abject act of lawlessness; constitutional
constraints are not for warriors and emperors).
It was just over a year ago that
Obama officials were insisting that bombing and attacking Assad was a moral and
strategic imperative. Instead, Obama is now bombing Assad's enemies while
politely informing his regime of its targets in advance. It seems irrelevant on whom the U.S. wages war; what matters is that it
be at war, always and forever.
Six weeks of bombing hasn't budged
ISIS in Iraq, but it has caused ISIS recruitment to soar. That's all
predictable: the U.S. has known for years that what fuels and strengthens
anti-American sentiment (and thus anti-American extremism) is exactly what they
keep doing: aggression in that region. If you know that, then they know that.
At this point, it's more rational to say they do all of this not despite
triggering those outcomes, but because of it. Continuously creating and strengthening enemies is a feature, not a
bug. It is what justifies the ongoing greasing of the profitable and power-vesting machine of Endless War.
If there is anyone who actually believes that the point of all of this is a moral crusade to vanquish
the evil-doers of ISIS (as the U.S. fights alongside its close Saudi friends),
please read Professor As'ad AbuKhalil's explanation today of how Syria is a
multi-tiered proxy war. As the disastrous Libya "intervention" should
conclusively and permanently demonstrate, the U.S. does not bomb countries for
humanitarian objectives. Humanitarianism
is the pretense, not the purpose.
Pope Francis is coming to address the congress in America
and is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday. His
address to congress should be interesting coming on the heels of the US and UK
largest arms fair in London where the US and UK just sold arms for child
soldiers. After all, this is what the
Pope had to say about arms dealers in February of 2014. From Religion News Service:
Excerpt:
VATICAN CITY (RNS) "Think of
the great dining halls," Pope Francis said, "of the parties thrown by
the bosses of the weapons industry who makes the arms. ... A sick child,
starving, in a refugee camp -- and the great parties, the fine life for those
who manufacture weapons.”
Yes, Pope Francis is going to speak before the American
congress, the same congress that just a week ago voted to cut aid to refugees
of war. From Roll Call:
Excerpt:
U.S funding for refugees could be cut by hundreds of millions of dollars next year under the Senate’s
proposed spending plan even as a global
humanitarian crisis, spurred by the exodus of millions of people from their
homes in Afghanistan, Iraq, and especially Syria, grows steadily worse.
The Senate’s fiscal 2016 foreign
aid (S. 1725) bill would reduce by 14 percent, or $415 million, the Migration
and Refugee Assistance account, which is currently funded at just under $3.06
billion…
The U.N. High Commissioner for
Refugees in late August reported it has only 41 percent of what it needs to
meet the needs of registered Syrian refugees for the rest of the year, a
funding gap of nearly $800 million.
And the World Food Program announced last week that due to lack of funds it had to remove one-third of Syrian refugees
living in the region, including 229,000 people in Jordan, from its already scaled-back food voucher program,
according to the Associated Press.
Nearly 60 million people were displaced globally in 2014 – the highest number ever recorded….
The House State-Foreign Operations spending bill (HR 2772) would keep funding stable at fiscal
2015 levels WHILE THE OBAMA
ADMINISTRATION REQUESTED A DECREASE IN FUNDING OF ABOUT $600 MILLION.
Yes, indeedy the Pope’s visit to the American congress
should be real interesting.The ABC’s of Armageddon spend lavishly on
war machinery while children are dying in war torn countries funded by the ABC’s
of Armageddon. Maybe they should play
Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner for the Pope.
