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Gary Edwards

'Clinton death list': 33 spine-tingling cases - 0 views

www.wnd.com/...-list-33-most-intriguing-cases

Clinton-Body-Count

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Feb 17
     
    "(Editor's note: This list was originally published in August 2016 and has gone viral on the web. WND is running it again as American voters cast their ballots for the nation's next president on Election Day.) How many people do you personally know who have died mysteriously? How about in plane crashes or car wrecks? Bizarre suicides? People beaten to death or murdered in a hail of bullets? And what about violent freak accidents - like separate mountain biking and skiing collisions in Aspen, Colorado? Or barbells crushing a person's throat? Bill and Hillary Clinton attend a funeral Apparently, if you're Bill or Hillary Clinton, the answer to that question is at least 33 - and possibly many more. Talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh addressed the issue of the "Clinton body count" during an August show. "I swear, I could swear I saw these stories back in 1992, back in 1993, 1994," Limbaugh said. He cited a report from Rachel Alexander at Townhall.com titled, "Clinton body count or left-wing conspiracy? Three with ties to DNC mysteriously die." Limbaugh said he recalled Ted Koppel, then-anchor of ABC News' "Nightline," routinely having discussions on the issue following the July 20, 1993, death of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster. In fact, Limbaugh said, he appeared on Koppel's show. "One of the things I said was, 'Who knows what happened here? But let me ask you a question.' I said, 'Ted, how many people do you know in your life who've been murdered? Ted, how many people do you know in your life that have died under suspicious circumstances?' "Of course, the answer is zilch, zero, nada, none, very few," Limbaugh chuckled. "Ask the Clintons that question. And it's a significant number. It's a lot of people that they know who have died, who've been murdered. "And the same question here from Rachel Alexander. It's amazing the cycle that exists with the Clintons. [Citing Townhall]: 'What it
Paul Merrell

On this Veterans Day, suicide has caused more American casualties than wars in Iraq and... - 0 views

www.montereyherald.com/...151119969

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy veterans suicide stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • One of the most tragic problems afflicting those who served their country is the specter of suicide, often the fallout of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After more than a year of intense lobbying by veterans groups, Congress this year passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, named for a Marine veteran who took his own life even after working as an advocate for suicide prevention. The law is designed to reduce military and veteran suicides, and improve access to quality mental health care. But veterans experts estimate that 17 of the 22 daily suicides involve vets not enrolled in the VA’s healthcare system, suggesting more research — and far greater funding — will be necessary to get a handle on the problem.
  • With U.S. combat operations winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the suicide rate among ex-military members has risen from 18 a day in 2010, although studies undertaken by the Veterans Administration have failed to pinpoint a direct cause. Only about a third of all vets use the VA for healthcare, which leaves a wide swath of people who once wore the uniform outside the reach of the military’s data gathering.“Common sense would have us expect a correlation between number of deployments and combat with suicide risk,” says Fred MacRae, lead suicide prevention coordinator at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. But recent research suggests that’s not necessarily the case. #AD_text{ font-size: 11px; color: #999999; } Advertisement Not even the horrors of battle are a proven cause. “More and more,” says Jackie Maffucci, research director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “the data are suggesting that exposure to combat is not one of the high-risk factors.”
  • Almost everyone who has served in the military now knows someone — often several someones — who suffers from disabling depression. Some end their own lives. Members of the IAVA were asked in a survey last year if they knew at least one post-9/11 veteran who had attempted suicide, and 47 percent answered yes. Another 40 percent knew at least one veteran who had died by suicide. “And 31 percent indicated they had thought about taking their own life since joining the military,” says Maffucci. “Those are startling numbers.”Daniel Faddis told another veteran in his family that he felt he had let down his military buddies when he was booted out. “He carried around a lot of guilt about that,” Stan Faddis says. “Some guys he knew ended up dying in combat, and he felt bad he wasn’t there to save them, or to die with them.”The current wait time for a mental health appointment at the VA in Palo Alto is about 12 days, and in a recent national study by the Government Accountability Office it averaged 26 days. Still, that’s considerably shorter than when the country went on a wartime footing following 9/11. “In 2001, your chances of dying by suicide were greater if you got your care in the VA system than if you got it elsewhere,” MacRae acknowledges. The new federal legislation is creating a program to help the VA recruit psychiatrists by assisting with their tuition payments, and it also requires an annual evaluation of VA mental health and suicide-prevention programs.
Paul Merrell

Here's What a Man Who Studied Every Suicide Attack in the World Says About ISIS' Motive... - 0 views

www.thenation.com/...world-says-about-isiss-motives

war & peace suicide-attacks causation stats

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • espite the existence of a good deal of research about terrorism, there’s a gap between the common understanding of what leads terrorists to kill and what many experts believe to be true. Ad Policy Terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are widely seen as being motivated by their radical theology. But according to Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, this view is too simplistic. Pape knows his subject; he and his colleagues have studied every suicide attack in the world since 1980, evaluating over 4,600 in all. He says that religious fervor is not a motive unto itself. Rather, it serves as a tool for recruitment and a potent means of getting people to overcome their fear of death and natural aversion to killing innocents. “Very often, suicide attackers realize they have instincts for self-preservation that they have to overcome,” and religious beliefs are often part of that process, said Pape in an appearance on my radio show, Politics and Reality Radio, last week. But, Pape adds, there have been “many hundreds of secular suicide attackers,” which suggests that radical theology alone doesn’t explain terrorist attacks. From 1980 until about 2003, the “world leader” in suicide attacks was the Tamil Tigers, a secular Marxist group of Hindu nationalists in Sri Lanka.
  • espite the existence of a good deal of research about terrorism, there’s a gap between the common understanding of what leads terrorists to kill and what many experts believe to be true. Ad Policy Terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda are widely seen as being motivated by their radical theology. But according to Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and founder of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, this view is too simplistic. Pape knows his subject; he and his colleagues have studied every suicide attack in the world since 1980, evaluating over 4,600 in all. He says that religious fervor is not a motive unto itself. Rather, it serves as a tool for recruitment and a potent means of getting people to overcome their fear of death and natural aversion to killing innocents. “Very often, suicide attackers realize they have instincts for self-preservation that they have to overcome,” and religious beliefs are often part of that process, said Pape in an appearance on my radio show, Politics and Reality Radio, last week. But, Pape adds, there have been “many hundreds of secular suicide attackers,” which suggests that radical theology alone doesn’t explain terrorist attacks. From 1980 until about 2003, the “world leader” in suicide attacks was the Tamil Tigers, a secular Marxist group of Hindu nationalists in Sri Lanka.
  • According to Pape’s research, underlying the outward expressions of religious fervor, ISIS’s goals, like those of most terrorist groups, are distinctly earthly: What 95 percent of all suicide attacks have in common, since 1980, is not religion, but a specific strategic motivation to respond to a military intervention, often specifically a military occupation, of territory that the terrorists view as their homeland or prize greatly. From Lebanon and the West Bank in the 80s and 90s, to Iraq and Afghanistan, and up through the Paris suicide attacks we’ve just experienced in the last days, military intervention—and specifically when the military intervention is occupying territory—that’s what prompts suicide terrorism more than anything else.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Pape’s analysis is consistent with what Lydia Wilson found when she interviewed captured ISIS fighters in Iraq. “They are woefully ignorant about Islam and have difficulty answering questions about Sharia law, militant jihad, and the caliphate,” she recently wrote in The Nation. “But a detailed, or even superficial, knowledge of Islam isn’t necessarily relevant to the ideal of fighting for an Islamic State, as we have seen from the Amazon order of Islam for Dummies by one British fighter bound for ISIS.”
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Jan 16
     
    Note that this article's unquoted portions in large part stem from the unproved and dubious hypothesis -- claimed as undisputed fact -- that the motives of "terrorist groups" like ISIL stem from within those organizations rather than from the governments that maintain and control them.
Joseph Skues

Yes, Islam condones wife beatings - 0 views

www.calgaryherald.com/...story.html

islam condones yes

shared by Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Joseph Skues on 23 Jan 11
     
    "Recently, Marvin Levant (Dec. 28), Steve Harris (Dec. 30), Syed Soharwardy (Jan. 2), and Riazuddin Ahmed (Jan. 5) debated Islam through the forum of the Herald's letters to the editor. The issue of wife beating and gender inequality in Islam has become convoluted and highly controversial as many Muslims try to sugar-coat the ugly truths and others try to shed some light on the issue. Soharwardy's statement that "Beating one's wife is not only wrong, it is criminal and completely un-Islamic" is incorrect. The Qur'an says that "men are in charge of women because Allah has made one of them (men) to excel the other (women), thus man's superiority over women . . . good women are the obedient ones . . . admonish the rebellious women and banish them, and scourge them (whip them severely to inflict pain) (4:34) . . . smote them (hit or strike with the hand or with a weapon causing pain, beat them . . . (4:62)". Islam does not recognize gender equality. For example, polygamy is accepted in Islam, but polyandry is not. A woman's testimony is considered half as worthy as a man's in court; a son inherits twice as much as a daughter does. Muslim men may marry Muslim, Jewish or Christian women, but Muslim women can marry only Muslim men. In short, sharia law leads to the inhuman treatment of Muslim women by their husbands and others, especially in South Asia and the Middle East. Higher education is emphasized more for sons than for daughters; in cultural honour killings, almost always women are the target for murder. Under sharia, divorced Muslim women get custody of their sons under eight years of age and daughters until puberty, and then the fathers take the children away. Sharia enabled one of the worst fundamentalists, the vile and ruthless military dictator, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, to put more than 15,000 rape victims in jail because they could not comply with the absurd Islamic condition requiring them to have numerous male witnesses of their victimization. They were char
Paul Merrell

Health plan covers assisted suicide but not new cancer treatment | News | Eugene News, ... - 0 views

www.kval.com/26140519.html

health care

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • SPRINGFIELD, Ore. -- Barbara Wagner has one wish - for more time.  "I'm not ready, I'm not ready to die," the Springfield woman said. "I've got things I'd still like to do." Her doctor offered hope in the new chemotherapy drug Tarceva, but the Oregon Health Plan sent her a letter telling her the cancer treatment was not approved. Instead, the letter said, the plan would pay for comfort care, including "physician aid in dying," better known as assisted suicide. "I told them, I said, 'Who do you guys think you are?' You know, to say that you'll pay for my dying, but you won't pay to help me possibly live longer?' " Wagner said.
  • He said the state has a financial incentive to offer death instead of life: Chemotherapy drugs such as Tarceva cost $4,000 a month while drugs for assisted suicide cost less than $100.
  • Saha said state health officials do not consider whether it is cheaper for someone in the health plan to die than live. However, he admitted they must consider the state's limited dollars when dealing with a case such as Wagner's. "If we invest thousands and thousands of dollars in one person's days to weeks, we are taking away those dollars from someone," Saha said.
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 12
     
    Oregon is the only state that has legalized physician-assisted suicide. 
Gary Edwards

Boston And More Government Lies : Personal Liberty Digest™ - 0 views

personalliberty.com/...oston-and-more-government-lies

Boston Government-Lies False-Flag

shared by Gary Edwards on 02 May 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 02 May 13
     
    "However, now we - at least those of us who pay attention - know, thanks to Glenn Beck, the Saudi person of interest is not just some innocent bystander after all. Just hours after the April 15 bombing, Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi was put on a terror watch list and had an event file created that indicated he was armed and dangerous; and actions began that would lead to his deportation. Alharbi, who is related to a number of terrorists now residing in Gitmo and/or listed as part of al-Qaida, was admitted to the United States under a "special advisory opinion," indicating someone pulled some strings for him. His strings go a long way - all the way to the White House, where Alharbi was a frequent visitor (seven times since 2009). His file contained one prior event, indicating he was already in the terrorism watch list system. Yet even though he's marked as a terrorist, he was allowed in. Perhaps that explains Michelle Obama's hospital visit. Alharbi and the Obamas are friends. After news of his possible deportation leaked, government officials backtracked. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refused to answer questions from a Congressman about Alharbi. An Immigration and Customs Enforcement official told Beck a different Saudi was in custody but not connected to the bombing. Someone altered Alharbi's file on April 17 in a way that disassociated him from the bombing, according to Beck, but an original had been printed out and saved. The change happened around the time that first Secretary of State John Kerry and then President Barack Obama met with the Saudi foreign minister - a meeting that wasn't on Obama's schedule. There are photographs on the Internet that purport to show Alharbi with two other Saudis near the bomb site. If the government will lie about who Alharbi is and whether his is a suspect, what else about the official narrative is a lie? Despite initial claims by the FBI that included a request to help identify the two men
Gary Edwards

Obama Playing America For a Fool on Second Amendment | Tea Party - 0 views

www.teaparty.org/fool-on-second-amendment-18901

Jerome-Corsi Executive-Orders Guns Gun-Control second-amendment

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Jan 13
     
    "In pursing this political agenda, Obama will certainly neglect credible and important research demonstrating the psycho-active drugs being prescribed wholesale by psychiatrists in the nation's public schools cause suicidal tendencies and violent behavior by the underage children who are forced to take these drugs. Writing in Ethical Human Sciences and Services, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal, in 2003, Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant at the National Institute of Mental Health, concluded SSRI drugs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) could relate in suicide, violence, and other forms of extreme abnormal behavior, as evidenced in case reports, controlled clinical trials, and epidemiological studies in children and adults. Readers are invited to examine a long list of school-related violent incidents that are fully documented to be related to psychoactive medications that psychiatrists and other medical doctors have prescribed for children in schools. The evidence that Dr. Breggin is right is overwhelming, even though the scientific research proving drugs cause violence is completely ignored in the politically motivated gun law debate the White House is pushing on the American people. Obama and the Democrats will never consider that school shooters themselves are the victims of teacher union-imposed social control measures that depend on dispensing these drugs without any appreciation of the risk." ................ Incredible list of psychoactive medications responsible for violent shootings and mass murder:   http://ssristories.com/index.php
Paul Merrell

Chelsea Manning On Obama's "Short List" For Commutation - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...224004

surveillance state whistleblowers Manning Obama pardon commutation

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Whistleblower Chelsea Manning is on President Barack Obama’s “short list” for a potential commutation, a Department of Justice source told NBC News, which adds that the president’s decision could be announced as early as Wednesday. Manning, who is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking evidence of military crimes, has faced solitary confinement for attempting twice to take her own life in the past year.
Gary Edwards

Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil - or, Carter's an Idiot! - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...SB123362422088941893.html

carter appeasement hate-america daniel-pearl gitmo

shared by Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 09 - Cached
  • Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.
  • Gary Edwards on 04 Feb 09
     
    But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices. Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.
Gary Edwards

The Suicide of Liberty    : By Paul Craig Roberts - 1 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29386.htm

Paul-Craig-Roberts Suicide-of-Liberty Patrick-Buchanan

shared by Gary Edwards on 14 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 14 Oct 11
     
    Paul Craig Roberts reviews the recently published Patrick Buchanan book, "The Suicide of Liberty".
Paul Merrell

Russia May Hit Back at Saudi Arabia for Volgogard Attacks - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37364.htm

war & peace Russia U.S. Saudis Sochi Volgograd Olympics terroism

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Russian intelligence has now reportedly obtained solid proof that Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the twin terror attacks on the city of Volgograd. The attacks killed more than 32 people and injured over 100 others. Most of the victims were civilians. According to an informed Russian official source, reported by the Fars News Agency, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has informed President Vladimir Putin of the Saudi link to the Volgograd massacre. This will come as no surprise to Putin. The Russian leader was warned by the Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan during a heated four-hour private meeting back in July that Wahhabi-sponsored terrorists based in the North Caucasus region of Russia would be targeting the Sochi Winter Olympics.
  • The Sochi Games are due to open on February 7. Volgograd is a key transport hub linking Moscow with the southern Russian territory and the Black Sea resort city of Sochi in particular, where the Winter Olympics are to be held. The double bombings on Volgograd’s transport system on 29-30 December were therefore unmistakably an assault on Russia’s hosting of the Olympics. The atrocity caused the deaths of several women and children, and in the aftermath President Putin was livid in his disgust at the attacks. He said there was no justification, whatsoever, for the killing of innocent civilians and he vowed to “destroy the terrorists” behind the bombings. This raises the onerous question: What will Putin do next if he has, in fact, been told that the authors of the Volgograd crime against humanity are connected to the Saudi rulers? This could be construed as an act of war. There are unconfirmed reports that Putin and his senior intelligence officers have already drawn up plans to “destroy Saudi Arabia” over its systematic sponsoring of terrorism on Russian territory.
  • The Volgograd atrocity is just the latest in a long series of terrorist acts connected to Saudi-sponsored radicals in the North Caucasus. Back in October, another suicide bomb on a packed bus in Volgograd left six dead. The group believed to be behind these attacks is known as the Caucasus Caliphate, led by Doko Umarov. Saudi Arabia is a major source of funds for the Caucasus Caliphate, which espouses the same fundamentalist ideology as the Saudi-sponsored Takfiris operating in Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan, Yemen and Iraq. Based in Chechnya and Dagestan, Umarov has publicly stated that “all means necessary would be used to derail” the Sochi Olympics. Previously, the same network carried out suicide bomb attacks on Moscow’s metro system in 2010 and 2011, which caused dozens of deaths. The Caucasus extremists are known to have close logistical connection with both American and Saudi military intelligence.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Indeed, from the early 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Americans and the Saudis redeployed their Afghan Al Qaeda tactics into the southern Russian territories as a way to further destabilize Moscow. One of the architects of this plan was former CIA chief William Casey. This US and Saudi covert operations fuelled the two Chechen wars of 1994-95 and 1999-2000. Although Moscow has since managed to subdue the large-scale violence, the Caucasus Caliphate remains a potent source of terrorism and sabotage, as the latest horror in Volgograd all too grimly attests. Saudi spy chief Bandar’s earlier threat to Putin that the Sochi Games were at risk of attack from the Caucasus-based terror groups was thus no idle threat. In retrospect his words amount to self-indictment. Bandar reportedly boasted to Putin: “We control them (the Caucasus militants).” This implies that Saudi Arabia can turn on and off the conduct of these terror groups. That places Saudi Arabia as the ultimate author of a catalogue of crimes that Russia has endured for the most part of 20 years, the latest being in the city of Volgograd.
  • It is not known what precise evidence Russian intelligence has lately uncovered that allegedly pinpoints Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the Volgograd massacre. But there is already copious circumstantial evidence, as well as Bandar’s own braggadocio. One of the suicide bombers in the Volgograd double attack has been identified as Russian national Pavel Pechyonkin (32). He reportedly traveled to Syria last year and fought in the ranks of Saudi-backed extremists trying to topple the government of Bashar al Assad.
  • If the Russians have acquired hard evidence of Saudi collusion in terrorism on their soil, there is firm legal ground for Russia to exact retaliation under the doctrine of self-defense. In a second meeting between Bandar and Putin, the Russian leader reportedly told the Saudi in no uncertain terms that his support for terrorism was “a double-edged sword” that would eventually inflict damage on those who wield it. For years now Saudi Arabia has gotten away with covert state-sponsored terrorism disrupting its Middle East neighbors. Syria, Lebanon and Iraq are but the latest victims. The Saudis have done this with impunity in the service of American imperialism, just as Zionist Israel has likewise functioned as an imperial crime syndicate. But now Saudi Arabia may have swung its double-edged sword too recklessly. It has apparently been caught red-handed in an outrage against the Russian bear. Prince Bandar, we can be sure, will from now on be making extra checks beneath his car.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14
     
    Note that it has long been known that Chechen revolutionaries in Russia have been the beneficiaries of Saudi and U.S. assistance, with firm evidence of Saudi command and control.  
Paul Merrell

M of A - Obama and Putin Agreed To Screw Erdogan? - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...n-agreed-to-screw-erdogan.html

war & peace Syria Turkey Kurds safe-zones U.S.-foreign-policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • It's official! The New York Times finally admits that the "CIA rebels" in Syria who received tons of TOW anti-tank missiles are working under the field command of al-Qaeda/Jabhat al Nusra: Rebel commanders scoffed when asked about reports of the delivery of 500 TOWs from Saudi Arabia, saying it was an insignificant number compared with what is available. Saudi Arabia in 2013 ordered more than 13,000 of them. Given that American weapons contracts require disclosure of the “end user,” insurgents said they were being delivered with Washington’s approval. But, be assured, because these "CIA rebels" feel bad about it, they are still "moderate" or somewhat "relative moderate". Advancing alongside the Islamist groups, and sometimes aiding them, have been several of the relatively secular groups, like the Free Syrian Army, which have gained new prominence and status because of their access to the TOWs. ... It is a tactical alliance that Free Syrian Army commanders describe as an uncomfortable marriage of necessity, because they cannot operate without the consent of the larger and stronger Nusra Front. But Mr. Assad and his allies cite the arrangement as proof that there is little difference between insurgent groups, calling them all terrorists that are legitimate targets.
  • That these "relative secular" al-Qaeda auxiliaries are threatening suicide attacks against Russians only confirms their secularism. Judging from the reader comments to that NYT piece the U.S. people are pretty aghast about this now openly admitted cooperation. They, and a realist op-ed in the NYT, call for cooperation with Russia and the Syrian government. There may already be more cooperation between Russia and the U.S. than we can see. At least that is what the Turkish President Erdogan perceives. Yesterday the U.S. dropped 50 tons of small weapons and munition to Kurdish fighters in north east Syria. According the U.S. justification for this those Kurds along with some Arab Syrian tribals are supposed to attack the Islamic State in Raqqa. (Those Arab tribals are by the way just a bunch of worthless thieves. This according to the Voice of America(!).) But the Kurds do not seem to know about those Raqqa plans anyway. They have different aims:
  • U.S. officials hope the YPG will now turn its attention to Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the defacto capital of the Islamic State, which lies just 60 miles south of Tal Abyad, a border town the YPG seized from the Islamic State in June, with U.S. help. But PYD spokesman Can said the Kurdish group’s first priority is to link the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, northwest of the Syrian city of Aleppo, with Kobani, the Kurdish enclave northeast of Aleppo. That would mean clearing the Islamic State from villages along 60 miles of the Turkey-Syria border, in particular the border town of Jarablus. “Our prime and most important goal is to liberate Jarablus and to connect Kobani with Afrin,” Can told McClatchy. Capturing Raqqa, a mostly Arab city, is “not really” a PYD objective, he said. “Not for now,” he said. That is just as I suspected the Kurds to react. But why did the U.S. officials claim that these Kurds and the collection of thieves would attack Raqqa? Did they not coordinate with them or was that Raqqa story a ruse? The Turks seem to assume such and they accuse the U.S. as well as Russia of coordinating with the Kurds to seal the border with Turkey: Turkey warns U.S., Russia against backing Kurdish militia in Syria
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Turkey has warned the United States and Russia it will not tolerate Kurdish territorial gains by Kurdish militia close to its frontiers in north-western Syria, two senior officials said. "This is clear cut for us and there is no joking about it," one official said of the possibility of Syrian Kurdish militia crossing the Euphrates to extend control along Turkish borders from Iraq's Kurdistan region towards the Mediterranean coast. ... "The PYD has been getting closer with both the United States and Russia of late. We view the PYD as a terrorist group and we want all countries to consider the consequences of their cooperation," one of the Turkish officials said. Turkey suspects Russia, which launched air strikes in Syria two weeks ago, has also been lending support to the YPG and PYD. "With support from Russia, the PYD is trying to capture land between Jarablus and Azaz, going west of the Euphrates. We will never accept this," the official said.
  • Is there now really coordination between Russia and the U.S. to seal the Syrian-Turkish border witch would cut off the Islamic State but also the al-Qaeda "CIA rebels" from their supplies? This would destroy all Turkish plans for Syria: a "safe zone" in Syria under Turkman control, a Sunni ruled pipeline corridor from Qatar to Europe, the Turkish-Ottoman annexation of Aleppo. Turkey would be pushed back into a secondary role. Do Russia and the U.S. now really make common cause and decided to screw Erdogan? This would make sense if the destruction of the Islamic State and all other terrorists in Syria is the common aim. That would be a change in the Obama administration's policy. Up to now it only helped the "salafist principality" to grow and never seriously attacked it. And if there is such cooperation why does the U.S still deliver thousands of TOWs to al-Qaeda which only kill more Syrians and prolong the fighting?
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Oct 15
     
    Cutting off the ISIL and al-Nusrah supply lines from Turkey would indeed create problems for Turkish (and U.S. neocon) plans. 
Paul Merrell

Missing Libyan Jetliners Raise Fears of Suicide Airliner Attacks on 9/11 | Washington F... - 0 views

freebeacon.com/...uicide-airliner-attacks-on-911

war & peace 11-Libyan-airliners war-propaganda

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Islamist militias in Libya took control of nearly a dozen commercial jetliners last month, and western intelligence agencies recently issued a warning that the jets could be used in terrorist attacks across North Africa. Intelligence reports of the stolen jetliners were distributed within the U.S. government over the past two weeks and included a warning that one or more of the aircraft could be used in an attack later this month on the date marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against New York and Washington, said U.S. officials familiar with the reports. “There are a number of commercial airliners in Libya that are missing,” said one official. “We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes.”
  • A senior State Department counterterrorism official declined to comment on reports of the stolen jetliners.  A second State department official sought to downplay the reports. “We can’t confirm that,” he said.
  • The officials said U.S. intelligence agencies have not confirmed the aircraft theft following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport in late August, and are attempting to locate all aircraft owned by two Libyan state-owned airline companies, as security in the country continued to deteriorate amid fighting between Islamists and anti-Islamist militias.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The aircraft were reportedly taken in late August following the takeover of Tripoli International Airport, located about 20 miles south of the capital, by Libyan Dawn. Al Jazeera television reported in late August that western intelligence reports had warned of terror threats to the region from 11 stolen commercial jets. In response, Tunisia stopped flights from other Libyan airports at Tripoli, Sirte, and Misrata over concerns that jets from those airports could be on suicide missions.
  • Ansar al Sharia, which is based in Benghazi, recently publicized on social media that it has obtained large numbers of more sophisticated weapons, including SA-6 surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenades, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, assault rifles, and armored vehicles. The group is closely aligned with al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria.
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Sep 14
     
    "We found out on September 11 what can happen with hijacked planes." Wrong. Make that, "We found out on September 11 what can happen with controlled demolition." Please notice that no one in U.S. government will confirm that the aircraft were actually taken or ever existed. Just in time for the anniversary of 9/11 and Congress convening to consider new authorizations for use of military force anytime and anywhere he pleases.  Stamp this one as "War Party propaganda until proved otherwise."
Paul Merrell

M of A - Ankara Bombing Fails To Achive Strategic Changes - 0 views

www.moonofalabama.org/...nges-after-ankara-bombing.html

war & peace Turkey Syria YPK car-bombing false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The bombing in Ankara yesterday killed 27 mostly military people. It was a big car bomb and a suicide attack.The Turkish government claims that the person who did this was one Saleh Nejar and also claims that he is connected to the Syrian Kurdish group YPG. There is no way to verify this. But the YPG has so fare never used any car bombs or done any suicide attacks. It never touched any target in Turkey. It officially denied to have taken any part in it. The Turkish group PKK has done vehicle bomb attacks and a few suicide attacks but not in Ankara or any other major west-Turkish city. Its attacks are usually operational, not strategic like this one. In the last Turkish version of its magazine the Islamic State had called for attacks in Turkey and on Turkish soldiers. It is the entity that has most to win through such an attack that would predictably be blamed on the Kurds. It is the most plausible culprit. The attack could also have been arranged by the Turkish secret service MIT. But the number and type of casualties seems to be too high and valuable for a stage-managed false flag attack.
  • The Turkish government called in the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council to present its evidence. A "western diplomat" told the Wall Street Journal that the evidence shown was "not conclusive". That is the diplomatese expression for "bullshit". The Turkish attempt to use the attack to change the U.S. and EU relations to the YPK failed. The YPK and its associated Arab and Turkmen forces is a very valuable asset for the U.S. to fight the Islamic State. It will refrain from condemning it as long as that is the case. The YPG groups in west Syria are fighting together with others under the label Syrian Democratic Forces. These and the mysterious additional attendants are pressing Jihadi forces in the Azaz pocket at the Turkish border. They are now seeing more resistance. The Turks use artillery to protect the Jihadis in Azaz and the number of enemies has grown. One "rebel" tells Reuters that 2,000 "rebels" with some tanks came from Idleb through Turkey to Azaz. That number is dubious. The British MI6 outlet SOHR as well as a Turkish pro government daily put the numbers at 350 on Monday and another 500 on Wednesday. To transport the tanks through Turkey would likely have been too much a hassle. I doubt that any reached Azaz.
  • I suspect that many of these "rebels" in Azaz are actually Turks of some radical nationalist and Islamist faction as well as Grey Wolf fascists which have strong connections to the MIT. Pictures show such "rebels" in Latakia with Turkish and Islamic State flags and in Azaz with their typical Grey Wolf hand sign.
Paul Merrell

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35403.htm - 0 views

www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35403.htm

war & peace ron paul veterans foreign policy foreign wars

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Many who shout the loudest that we must “support the troops” urge sending them off to unwinnable and undeclared wars in which there is no legitimate US interest. The US military has been abused by those who see military force as a first resort rather than the last resort and only in self-defense. This abuse has resulted in a generation of American veterans facing a life sentence in the prison of tortured and deeply damaged minds as well as broken bodies. The numbers sadly tell the story: more military suicides than combat deaths in 2012, some 22 military veterans take their lives every day, nearly 30 percent of veterans treated by the VA have PTSD.
  • We should be saddened but not shocked when we see the broken men and women return from battles overseas. We should be angry with those who send them to suffer and die in unnecessary wars. We should be angry with those who send them to kill so many people overseas for no purpose whatsoever. We should be afraid of the consequences of such a foolish and dangerous foreign policy. We should demand an end to the abuse of military members and a return to a foreign policy that promotes peace and prosperity instead of war and poverty.
Paul Merrell

Big Media's Contra-Cocaine Cover-up - Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...medias-contra-cocaine-cover-up

fake-news-propaganda debunking Contra-cocaine-scandal Gary-Webb

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Special Report: Twelve years ago, a campaign of character assassination by the major U.S. newspapers drove an honest journalist to suicide. Now those papers claim to be paragons of truth-telling, says Robert Parry. By Robert Parry Amid the mainstream U.S. media’s current self-righteous frenzy against “fake news,” it’s worth recalling how the big newspapers destroyed Gary Webb, an honest journalist who exposed some hard truths about the Reagan administration’s collaboration with Nicaraguan Contra cocaine traffickers. Webb’s reward for reviving that important scandal in 1996 – and getting the CIA’s inspector general to issue what amounted to an institutional confession in 1998 – was to have The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times lobby for, essentially, his banishment from journalism.
  • The major media pile-on was so intense and so effective that Webb lost his job at the San Jose Mercury-News and could never find regular work in his profession again. Betrayed by his journalistic colleagues, his money gone, his family broken and his life seemingly hopeless, Webb committed suicide on Dec. 9, 2004. Even then, the Los Angeles Times wrote up his obituary as if the paper were telling the life story of an organized-crime boss, not a heroic journalist. The Times obit was then republished by The Washington Post. In other words, on one of the most significant scandals of the Reagan era, major newspapers, which now want to serve as the arbiters of truth for  the Internet, demonstrated how disdainful they actually are toward truth when it puts the U.S. government in a harsh light.
  • Indeed, if it had been up to the big newspapers, this important chapter of modern history would never have been known. A decade earlier, in 1985, Brian Barger and I first exposed the Contra-cocaine connection for The Associated Press – and we watched as the big papers turned their backs on the scandal then, too. The main point that Webb added to the story was how some of the Contra cocaine fed into the production of crack-cocaine that had such a devastating effect on America’s black communities in particular. Webb’s disclosure of the crack connection infuriated many African-Americans and the big papers acted as if it was their civic duty to calm down those inner-city folks by assuring them that the U.S. government would never do such a thing. So, instead of doing their jobs as journalists, the major newspapers acted as the last line of defense against the people learning the truth.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 16
     
    Big media's drive to discredit alternative news sites is setting off a raft of coverage in the alternative news scene about big media false reporting and cover-ups.
Paul Merrell

Federal Judge Rules for Anti-Trump GOP Delegate - NBC News - 0 views

www.nbcnews.com/...unbound-voting-him-rnc-n607461

Republican-convention delegate-voting-rights litigation Trump

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • A federal judge blocked enforcement Monday of a Virginia law binding delegates to support the primary winner at the nominating convention. It was a victory for Carroll "Beau" Correll, a delegate to the Republican national convention who argued that the law violated his First Amendment rights to vote for his preferred candidate. Correll supported Ted Cruz in the primary, while Donald Trump received the most votes in the state.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Jul 16
     
    Apparently some Republican delegates have a political death wish. Voting against the winning candidate on the first ballot is poltical suicide.
Paul Merrell

Wikileaks' Assange Hints Murdered DNC Staffer Was Email-Leaker, Offers $20k Reward For ... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...-leaker-offers-20k-reward-info

Auction 2016 Hillary DNC homicides

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Aug 16 - No Cached
  • The mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of 27-year-old Democratic-staffer Seth Rich (shot multiple times, and not robbed, at 420am near his home in Washington D.C., where no homicides have been reported within 1500 feet) have stirred Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to offer a $20,000 reward for information leading to a conviction. But it is Assange's comments during a Dutch TV interview that are most disturbing as he hinted that Rich - who was in charge of DNC voter expansion data - was the email-leaker and his death was a politically-motivated assassination.
  • As we detailed previously, the Clinton related body count so far this election cycle:  Five in just under six weeks - four convenient deaths plus one suicide... 1) Shawn Lucas, Sanders supporter who served papers to DNC on the Fraud Case (DOD August 2, 2016)   2) Victor Thorn, Clinton author (and Holocaust denier, probably the least credible on this list) shot himself in an apparent suicide. Conspiracy theorists at Mystery Writers of America said some guys will do anything to sell books. (DOD August, 2016)   3) Seth Conrad Rich, Democratic staffer, aged 27, apparently on his way to speak to the FBI about a case possibly involving the Clintons. The D.C. murder was not a robbery. (DOD July 8, 2016)   4) John Ashe, UN official who allegedly crushed his own throat while lifting weights, because he watched too many James Bond films and wanted to try the move where the bad guy tries to…oh, never mind. “He was scheduled to testify against the Clintons and the Democrat Party.” (DOD June 22, 2016)   5) Mike Flynn, the Big Government Editor for Breitbart News. Mike Flynn’s final article was published the day he died, “Clinton Cash: Bill, Hillary Created Their Own Chinese Foundation in 2014.” (DOD June 23, 2016) It must be coincidence, right?
Gary Edwards

The Mythical Banking Crisis and the Failure of the New Deal :: The Mises Economics Blog... - 0 views

bastiat.mises.org/...nd-the-failure-of-the-new-deal

Great-Depression FDR-Socialism David-Stockman Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Mar 14
     
    Everything you know about FDR, The New Deal and the Great Depression Banking Crisis is wrong!!!! "From David Stockman's Contra Corner. Remarks to the Committee For The Republic, Washington DC, February 2014 (Part 4 in a 6-Part Series) Go to Part 1. The Great Depression thus did not represent the failure of capitalism or some inherent suicidal tendency of the free market to plunge into cyclical depression-absent the constant ministrations of the state through monetary, fiscal, tax and regulatory interventions.  Instead, the Great Depression was a unique historical occurrence-the delayed consequence of the monumental folly of the Great War, abetted by the financial deformations spawned by modern central banking. But ironically, the "failure of capitalism" explanation of the Great Depression is exactly what enabled the Warfare State to thrive and dominate the rest of the 20th century because it gave birth to what have become its twin handmaidens--Keynesian economics and monetary central planning. Together, these two doctrines eroded and eventually destroyed the great policy barrier--that is, the old-time religion of balanced budgets- that had kept America a relatively peaceful Republic until 1914. To be sure, under Mellon's tutelage, Harding, Coolidge and Hoover strove mightily, and on paper successfully, to restore the pre-1914 status quo ante on the fiscal front.  But it was a pyrrhic victory-since Mellon's surpluses rested on an artificially booming, bubbling economy that was destined to hit the wall. The Hoover Recovery of 1932 Worse still, Hoover's bitter-end fidelity to fiscal orthodoxy, as embodied in his infamous balanced budget of June 1932, got blamed for prolonging the depression.  Yet, as I have demonstrated in the chapter of my book called "New Deal Myths of Recovery", the Great Depression was already over by early summer 1932."
Paul Merrell

Saudi chameleon: What next, jihad in Crimea? - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

rt.com/...mea-terrorism-saudi-tatars-050

war & peace Saudis Ukraine Crimea Tatars

shared by Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The House of Saud may be up to something in Crimea. Let’s pivot back to the desert to see how that could possibly be accomplished. A week ago, Minister of Information and Culture Abdelaziz Khoja proclaimed that the House of Saud “renews its firm position condemning terrorism in all its forms.” That was the preamble to ask all Saudi nationals, jihadists or otherwise, to abandon Syria. They were committing a crime, Saudi King Abdullah, ever closer to meeting his maker, decreed. Then, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain all called their ambassadors from Qatar, under the pretext that Doha continues to support “hostile media,” as in Al Jazeera. Finally Saudi Arabia officially declared the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda’s official Syrian branch) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - the rogue jihadists fighting both the Assad government in Syria and the Maliki government in Iraq - as terrorist organizations. Any Saudi member of any of these outfits not back to the Kingdom in 15 days would be thrown in jail for up to 30 years. By decree, the Saudi Interior Ministry (just in case) also branded as terrorists the Shiite Huthi rebels in northern Yemen, as well as an obscure, Saudi-based outfit called ‘Hezbollah Inside the Kingdom’. None of the above can so much as have a Facebook account.
  • Petromonarchy implosion It’s easy to laugh this off as the epic implosion of that prime collection of what the West calls ‘our’ bastards – the petromonarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), also known as Gulf Counter-Revolution Cub.
  • And yes, soon the whole thing degenerated into a trademark, vicious inter-Arab catfight. For Qataris, for instance - accused by the Saudis of “meddling” - the meddlers are in fact the Saudis, who supported the August 2013 military coup in Egypt and are responsible for the giant mess among fighting outfits in Syria. Predictably, reams of Saudi and Emirati journalists quit assorted Qatari media jobs, many following a ‘polite’ request by the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information. Yet it's more complicated. The Saudi royal decree follows an ultra-hardline counterterrorism law which targets any sort of criticism of the House of Saud. So this is not only about the House of Saud being terrified of blowback from assorted hardcore jihadists, after they hone their skills in the Levant. They are terrified of anything that moves in and around Saudi Arabia. Imagine their feelings about the world at large. They are terrified of young, Westernized Saudis with ‘revolutionary’ ideas. They are terrified of jihad freelancers. They are terrified of Muslim Brothers supported by their cousins in Qatar – which the West, laughably, praises as practicing a ‘more moderate’ brand of medieval Wahhabism. The old Emir Hamad al Thani – who recently deposed himself to the benefit of his son Tamim – had skillfully manipulated the Brotherhood as the key lever of Doha’s wide Middle-Eastern ambitions.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • To spice up the Saudi-Qatari melee, there was only one Saudi prince among the royals who was in favor of some accommodation, following the orders of his American exceptionalist masters. Yet Saudi heir apparent Prince Nayef, a perennial Minister of Interior from 1975 to 2012, is now dead. And now it’s wide in the open that Riyadh and Doha virtually come to blows on about everything – from Palestine and Egypt to Syria. After all, every grain of sand in Southwest Asian deserts always knew that the House of Saud is in favor of Salafis while Doha’s state policy was always to support the Ikhwan. Now it’s easy; you’re either with us or you’re a terrorist. Well, the Bush-Cheney regime in the US had thought about this one first. The difference is that with so many freelancers, Jihad Inc. was handed a monster PR problem, and the usual Gulf financiers, mostly Saudi and Emirati, lost control of the pack. Now, following the new order, any commando, mercenary, suicide bomber or beheader must abide by the strict American-Saudi playbook; otherwise he won’t be fully weaponized, or worse, will become a candidate for incineration by one of Obama’s choice Hellfire missiles. The Empire needs you, boys, but you gotta behave.
  • A shuttle to Simferopol? And that brings us, not accidentally, to Crimea. I was told by a very good Saudi source to keep a close eye on the House of Saud’s machinations in Ukraine; they seem to be immensely interested in what’s going on. This follows the destitution of too volatile Bandar bin Sultan, aka Bandar Bush, from his perch as top intelligence commander of the war on Syria (US Secretary of State John Kerry was crucial in his downfall); Bandar’s replacement by Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who is quite popular in Washington; and the ‘recall’ of Saudi fighters in the Levant. The Tatars in Crimea are Muslims. They are about to ‘celebrate’ the 70th anniversary of their mass deportation by Stalin. They were back to Crimea by the end of the 1980s, and now number roughly 250,000 in Crimea; 13 percent of a largely Russian population, with an unemployment rate of at least 50 percent. Refat Chubarov, the president of the Majlis, the National Assembly of Crimean Tatars, considers the Crimean referendum on March 16 a “threat” to the Ukraine. He is not promoting a jihad, but as many Tatar representatives, already forecasts “serious consequences” if Crimea’s statute is changed. There is certified Tatar backing to the neo-Nazis/fascists of the Svoboda and Right Sector kind in Kiev. From this ‘alliance’ to jihad, it’s just a suicide bombing away. Whatever happens in Crimea, the House of Saud is up to something. Bandar Bush had boasted to President Putin that he controlled Caucasus jihadists and could turn them on and off at will. His successor might as well be tempted to turn them on not in the Caucasus, but in establishing a shuttle from the Syrian desert to Simferopol. What a spectacular favor to his American masters. The emperor, after all, is soon to visit Riyadh.
  • Paul Merrell on 12 Mar 14
     
    Pepe Escobar, again.
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