₦airaland Forum

Those are indeed navy seals using ordinary Toyota pickup trucks. I can also see them carrying Kalashnikovs. Must have been a special mission in which blending in was paramount

Solid points you made on Haitian history and the contributing factors that have made Haiti the mess it is today BUT should we continue to wait with endless hope for the western countries to make amends for the harm they have caused? We may insist that they are obliged to BUT what if they are not in the least interested in making repatriation? What next? You see why we need to take it upon ourselves?

Institutionalized racism in Amerika. They won't call you nigger to your face but will find other subtle means to F**K you over nonetheless.

By the way, for those that do not know, the Samson Option is the name that some military analysts have given to Israel's hypothetical deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a "last resort" against nations whose military attacks threaten its existence.[1][2]



The Koch Brothers’ ‘Samson Option’
October 8, 2013
Exclusive: The fiscal crisis in Washington is not simply a threat to economic and government stability, as serious as that is. It is a premeditated scheme to carve out a new constitutional structure that gives the Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires the power to void the democratic process, writes Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry


https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/koch_brothers.jpg
Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch.

The Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires who provoked the government shutdown and now are angling for an even more devastating credit default see themselves as the people who deserve to rule the United States without interference from lesser citizens, especially those with darker-colored skin.

Their “masters of the universe” world view is that they or their daddies or their daddies’ daddies were the ones who “built America” and, thus, it’s their right to tear down the remarkable edifice of U.S. law, politics and economics created over the past two-plus centuries — if the country’s less-deserving inhabitants insist on raising taxes on the rich to fund programs benefiting the poor and the middle class.



That is what we’re watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers’ “Samson Option,” pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes.

Charles and David Koch and other right-wing billionaires and near-billionaires are blind with anger after wasting millions of dollars on Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and the Republican Party in a failed attempt to defeat Barack Obama, the Democrats and health-care reform. These were the guys who smirked knowingly when Romney sneered at “the 47 percent” of Americans who receive some government help; they got snappish when Obama called them “fat cats”; they demanded the honorific title of “job creators.”

Then, they had to sit in their plush party rooms waiting to celebrate Romney’s victory only to be frustrated by a coalition of voters led by African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and young urban whites who are comfortable in a more diverse country.

Despite all the money and electoral tricks, the Koch Brothers and friends failed to block the reelection of the first African-American president; they watched the Democrats defy the odds and retain the Senate; and they barely managed to hold onto a slender Republican House “majority” through aggressive gerrymandering and other anti-democratic anomalies that overcame the GOP’s loss in the popular vote of about 1½ million ballots.

To make matters worse, these rich white guys had to listen to endless commentary about the coming demographic changes and the need for Republicans to improve their image with racial and ethnic minorities. Through a blinding rage, the Right’s billionaires plotted revenge.

Plotting Obama’s Downfall

Of course, many pragmatic rich folk understand how the extraordinary U.S. system – built by the sweat and ingenuity of countless “average Americans” and protected by the blood of heroic common citizens – has made their fortunes possible. These patriotic multi-millionaires cringe at the spectacle of a U.S. government shutdown and panic at the thought of defaulting on U.S. debt.

But the right-wing billionaires and their political front groups welcome the current chaos. Indeed, they began planning today’s fiscal crisis as soon as their stunning defeat of last November sank in. Rather than behave as a loyal opposition, the Right started plotting soon after Obama took the oath of office a second time, as the New York Times reported:

“Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.

“Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed ‘blueprint to defunding Obamacare,’ signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups. It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government. …

“To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known. …

“Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.

“The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.”

The Right also has relied on its well-financed propaganda machine to obscure for millions of Americans what is actually underway in Washington. The curtain on that was lifted briefly on Sunday with the recognition that the Democrats agreed to the budget terms demanded by House Speaker John Boehner, who then double-crossed them.

On TV interview shows, Boehner conceded that he had struck a deal with the Democrats in which the Senate would accept the lower House budget figures, which included the so-called “sequester” cuts, in exchange for passage of a continuing resolution to keep the government going.

Reneging on a Deal

As the Times reported, “the speaker acknowledged that in July he had gone to the Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid … and offered to have the House pass a clean financing resolution. [Boehner’s] proposal would have set spending levels $70 billion lower than Democrats wanted, but would have no contentious add-ons like changing the health-care law. Democrats accepted, but they say Mr. Boehner then reneged under pressure from Tea Party conservatives.”

So, Boehner had laid out terms for a deal that the Democrats disliked but agreed to accept, only to see Boehner pocket their major concession, tack on a host of new demands including stopping health-care reform, and then berating them with the “talking point” that it was the Democrats who wouldn’t negotiate.

There was also the point that House Republicans had refused for six months to appoint members of a conference committee to hammer out budget differences between the House and Senate.

If not for the powerful right-wing media which continues to repeat the “Democrats won’t negotiate” mantra, the American public would have no doubt who provoked the current crisis. But what’s even more significant is what this right-wing strategy means to the future of American democracy.

The position of the Koch Brothers and other right-wing plutocrats is that democracy itself is the problem. It’s bad enough that they have to listen to views that they disagree with; they certainly shouldn’t have to sit back and watch these lesser beings elect leaders and enact policies that involve raising taxes on the rich to provide benefits to other Americans.

While reflective of “free-market” extremism, this right-wing view also has a racial component, since the Right’s billionaires have relied on Tea Party foot soldiers to fight these political wars – and many of those white populist right-wingers are attracted by neo-Confederate ideology, i.e. the supposed “rights” of states to ignore federal mandates, especially those designed to help blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

“States’ rights” have had a long and grim history in the United States, touted from the early years of the Republic as necessary to defend slavery, then leading to the Civil War and to a near-century of Jim Crow racial segregation.

After the civil rights movement of the 1960s, opportunistic Republicans, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, saw their chance to snatch the South by playing to white resentment against integration. So, they played up their commitment to “states’ rights” and were rewarded by switching the Deep South from the Democrats to the GOP.

Danger of Fair Elections

Today, however, the Right fears that the nation’s demographic changes could mean that fair elections would end frequently with the selection of candidates who favor stronger federal action to address problems confronting the nation and the world, from the economic risk posed by the concentration of wealth in the top one percent to the existential threat posed by global warming.

An energetic federal government is needed to address these challenges. If the Great American Middle Class is to survive, Congress will have to raise taxes on the rich and invest that money in national infrastructure, cutting-edge research, affordable education, expanded health care and other domestic programs. If global warming is to be slowed and eventually reversed, the federal government must move quickly to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions while revamping the U.S. energy system.

But the Right wants to prevent such government activism. So, it has developed strategies to give more weight to the votes of white Republicans and less weight to the votes of blacks, Hispanics and other groups that tend to go Democratic. That’s why organizations supported by the Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires have backed Republican efforts to impose strict voter ID laws, reduce voting hours and aggressively gerrymander congressional districts to lump Democratic votes in one while ensuring solid Republican majorities in others.

The Right is implementing a strategy as old as the southern poll tax and literacy tests for blacks, i.e. the need to negate post-Civil War amendments that guaranteed equal rights under the law and the right to vote regardless of the color of a person’s skin.

Today’s right-wing strategy follows the thinking of urbane conservative William F. Buckley, who explained in 1957 – when Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders were agitating for enforcement of post-Civil War provisions – that “The white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically.”

Now the Buckley doctrine is being applied nationwide. But the problem for the Right is that even with all the voter suppression and shorter voting hours creating nightmarish lines especially in minority neighborhoods, the American people still reelected Barack Obama and favored Democrats over Republicans for Congress.

Thanks to gerrymandering and other anti-democratic moves, the Right still has a tenuous foothold through its control of the House and can count on the Senate GOP minority to filibuster nearly everything.

However, for the Right to have the power to implement policies of its choice, a new strategy was needed. It surfaced first in 2011 with the threat to default on the nation’s debt, which coerced President Obama into accepting severe cuts in federal spending, called the “sequester.”

Now, in 2013, the Republican Right has doubled down on that strategy, merging a government shutdown with an impending credit default in an effort to extort more concessions from Obama and the Democrats. But the larger goal is to create a new constitutional structure in which the Right, regardless of its minority status, gets to dictate what the federal government can and cannot do.

To make this strategy work, however, requires a readiness to play Samson and to pull down the temple on your enemies as well as yourself. That appears to be the extreme option that the Koch Brothers and their fellow right-wing billionaires have chosen. If they can’t rule America, they will reduce the country to economic rubble through a fiscal crisis and a premeditated financial collapse.

Then, perhaps out of the rubble, a chastened American people will emerge to accept their subordinate position in this new plutocratic structure. In the future, they will know better than to do something that the Koch Brothers and their right-wing friends don’t like.

All that stuff about a government of the people, by the people and for the people will finally have perished from the earth.  [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Government by Extortion."]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Institutionalized racism in Amerika. They won't call you nigger to your face but will find other subtle means to F**K you over nonetheless.


The Koch Brothers’ ‘Samson Option’
October 8, 2013
Exclusive: The fiscal crisis in Washington is not simply a threat to economic and government stability, as serious as that is. It is a premeditated scheme to carve out a new constitutional structure that gives the Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires the power to void the democratic process, writes Robert Parry.


By Robert Parry


https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/koch_brothers.jpg

The Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires who provoked the government shutdown and now are angling for an even more devastating credit default see themselves as the people who deserve to rule the United States without interference from lesser citizens, especially those with darker-colored skin.

Their “masters of the universe” world view is that they or their daddies or their daddies’ daddies were the ones who “built America” and, thus, it’s their right to tear down the remarkable edifice of U.S. law, politics and economics created over the past two-plus centuries — if the country’s less-deserving inhabitants insist on raising taxes on the rich to fund programs benefiting the poor and the middle class.


Oil billionaires David and Charles Koch.
That is what we’re watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers’ “Samson Option,” pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes.

Charles and David Koch and other right-wing billionaires and near-billionaires are blind with anger after wasting millions of dollars on Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and the Republican Party in a failed attempt to defeat Barack Obama, the Democrats and health-care reform. These were the guys who smirked knowingly when Romney sneered at “the 47 percent” of Americans who receive some government help; they got snappish when Obama called them “fat cats”; they demanded the honorific title of “job creators.”

Then, they had to sit in their plush party rooms waiting to celebrate Romney’s victory only to be frustrated by a coalition of voters led by African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans and young urban whites who are comfortable in a more diverse country.

Despite all the money and electoral tricks, the Koch Brothers and friends failed to block the reelection of the first African-American president; they watched the Democrats defy the odds and retain the Senate; and they barely managed to hold onto a slender Republican House “majority” through aggressive gerrymandering and other anti-democratic anomalies that overcame the GOP’s loss in the popular vote of about 1½ million ballots.

To make matters worse, these rich white guys had to listen to endless commentary about the coming demographic changes and the need for Republicans to improve their image with racial and ethnic minorities. Through a blinding rage, the Right’s billionaires plotted revenge.

Plotting Obama’s Downfall

Of course, many pragmatic rich folk understand how the extraordinary U.S. system – built by the sweat and ingenuity of countless “average Americans” and protected by the blood of heroic common citizens – has made their fortunes possible. These patriotic multi-millionaires cringe at the spectacle of a U.S. government shutdown and panic at the thought of defaulting on U.S. debt.

But the right-wing billionaires and their political front groups welcome the current chaos. Indeed, they began planning today’s fiscal crisis as soon as their stunning defeat of last November sank in. Rather than behave as a loyal opposition, the Right started plotting soon after Obama took the oath of office a second time, as the New York Times reported:

“Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.

“Out of that session, held one morning in a location the members insist on keeping secret, came a little-noticed ‘blueprint to defunding Obamacare,’ signed by Mr. Meese and leaders of more than three dozen conservative groups. It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government. …

“To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of conservatives show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law, the Affordable Care Act, since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of conservative groups with more money, organized tactics and interconnections than is commonly known. …

“Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.

“The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.”

The Right also has relied on its well-financed propaganda machine to obscure for millions of Americans what is actually underway in Washington. The curtain on that was lifted briefly on Sunday with the recognition that the Democrats agreed to the budget terms demanded by House Speaker John Boehner, who then double-crossed them.

On TV interview shows, Boehner conceded that he had struck a deal with the Democrats in which the Senate would accept the lower House budget figures, which included the so-called “sequester” cuts, in exchange for passage of a continuing resolution to keep the government going.

Reneging on a Deal

As the Times reported, “the speaker acknowledged that in July he had gone to the Senate majority leader, Senator Harry Reid … and offered to have the House pass a clean financing resolution. [Boehner’s] proposal would have set spending levels $70 billion lower than Democrats wanted, but would have no contentious add-ons like changing the health-care law. Democrats accepted, but they say Mr. Boehner then reneged under pressure from Tea Party conservatives.”

So, Boehner had laid out terms for a deal that the Democrats disliked but agreed to accept, only to see Boehner pocket their major concession, tack on a host of new demands including stopping health-care reform, and then berating them with the “talking point” that it was the Democrats who wouldn’t negotiate.

There was also the point that House Republicans had refused for six months to appoint members of a conference committee to hammer out budget differences between the House and Senate.

If not for the powerful right-wing media which continues to repeat the “Democrats won’t negotiate” mantra, the American public would have no doubt who provoked the current crisis. But what’s even more significant is what this right-wing strategy means to the future of American democracy.

The position of the Koch Brothers and other right-wing plutocrats is that democracy itself is the problem. It’s bad enough that they have to listen to views that they disagree with; they certainly shouldn’t have to sit back and watch these lesser beings elect leaders and enact policies that involve raising taxes on the rich to provide benefits to other Americans.

While reflective of “free-market” extremism, this right-wing view also has a racial component, since the Right’s billionaires have relied on Tea Party foot soldiers to fight these political wars – and many of those white populist right-wingers are attracted by neo-Confederate ideology, i.e. the supposed “rights” of states to ignore federal mandates, especially those designed to help blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

“States’ rights” have had a long and grim history in the United States, touted from the early years of the Republic as necessary to defend slavery, then leading to the Civil War and to a near-century of Jim Crow racial segregation.

After the civil rights movement of the 1960s, opportunistic Republicans, such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, saw their chance to snatch the South by playing to white resentment against integration. So, they played up their commitment to “states’ rights” and were rewarded by switching the Deep South from the Democrats to the GOP.

Danger of Fair Elections

Today, however, the Right fears that the nation’s demographic changes could mean that fair elections would end frequently with the selection of candidates who favor stronger federal action to address problems confronting the nation and the world, from the economic risk posed by the concentration of wealth in the top one percent to the existential threat posed by global warming.

An energetic federal government is needed to address these challenges. If the Great American Middle Class is to survive, Congress will have to raise taxes on the rich and invest that money in national infrastructure, cutting-edge research, affordable education, expanded health care and other domestic programs. If global warming is to be slowed and eventually reversed, the federal government must move quickly to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions while revamping the U.S. energy system.

But the Right wants to prevent such government activism. So, it has developed strategies to give more weight to the votes of white Republicans and less weight to the votes of blacks, Hispanics and other groups that tend to go Democratic. That’s why organizations supported by the Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires have backed Republican efforts to impose strict voter ID laws, reduce voting hours and aggressively gerrymander congressional districts to lump Democratic votes in one while ensuring solid Republican majorities in others.

The Right is implementing a strategy as old as the southern poll tax and literacy tests for blacks, i.e. the need to negate post-Civil War amendments that guaranteed equal rights under the law and the right to vote regardless of the color of a person’s skin.

Today’s right-wing strategy follows the thinking of urbane conservative William F. Buckley, who explained in 1957 – when Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders were agitating for enforcement of post-Civil War provisions – that “The white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically.”

Now the Buckley doctrine is being applied nationwide. But the problem for the Right is that even with all the voter suppression and shorter voting hours creating nightmarish lines especially in minority neighborhoods, the American people still reelected Barack Obama and favored Democrats over Republicans for Congress.

Thanks to gerrymandering and other anti-democratic moves, the Right still has a tenuous foothold through its control of the House and can count on the Senate GOP minority to filibuster nearly everything.

However, for the Right to have the power to implement policies of its choice, a new strategy was needed. It surfaced first in 2011 with the threat to default on the nation’s debt, which coerced President Obama into accepting severe cuts in federal spending, called the “sequester.”

Now, in 2013, the Republican Right has doubled down on that strategy, merging a government shutdown with an impending credit default in an effort to extort more concessions from Obama and the Democrats. But the larger goal is to create a new constitutional structure in which the Right, regardless of its minority status, gets to dictate what the federal government can and cannot do.

To make this strategy work, however, requires a readiness to play Samson and to pull down the temple on your enemies as well as yourself. That appears to be the extreme option that the Koch Brothers and their fellow right-wing billionaires have chosen. If they can’t rule America, they will reduce the country to economic rubble through a fiscal crisis and a premeditated financial collapse.

Then, perhaps out of the rubble, a chastened American people will emerge to accept their subordinate position in this new plutocratic structure. In the future, they will know better than to do something that the Koch Brothers and their right-wing friends don’t like.

All that stuff about a government of the people, by the people and for the people will finally have perished from the earth.  [For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's "America's Government by Extortion."]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

cap28: its funny how you never once mentioned in your rant the role that .......

Why do Nigerians always feel the need to resort to insults in order to discredit someone's viewpoints?
How exactly did I rant? Those were facts laid down besides I never said the white man should be totally absolved of blame. What I said is that the black man is just as guilty himself as the white man is.


Contrary to what you have resorted to believe about me, I DO NOT kowtow to the white man's ideology, commands or viewpoints. You can scour through my posts to see that I am TOTALLY and COMPLETELY PROAFRICAN and PROBLACK. I have been quite vocal about it and even while at it - unlike the brash and uncouth manner most Nigerians on here in NL do - I have presented my views in a rational and irrefutable manner backed up with lots of evidence. Even the originator of this thread amongst many others would attest to that. So it baffles me that cos I have asked us to fix ourselves first, you have irrationally and without doing your homework labeled me a white man lover. Na wa o! I actually find it very insulting that you have used me with the term "white masters" in the same sentence!

I am fully aware of Haiti's history, thank you! And that is even besides the point!

Speaking of history by the way, you got it twisted with the way you have somehow attributed Japan's recovery and economic prosperity to the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan if you check your history books very well, you'll see was directed at the European countries devastated by the war. The Japanese did receive some aid but it was seperate from the Marshall Plan and it cannot be claimed that this alone made Japan what it is today. The Japanese are the way they are today cos of their extreme discipline, industry, nobleness, selflessness and deep love for their country.

This statement of your says it all:

cap28: by the way why should Africa offer aid to Haiti when the US and Europe are responsible for transporting the ancestors of those Haitians to that island - not only that America has continued to meddle in the affairs of that country ever since they emancipated themselves and are singularly responsible for the economic devastation that that country has been subject to.

WHY should Africa you say?? So we might as well abandon the Haitians to their fate and let the oyinbos fix them cos they the oyinbos are the cause of of their problems? No African country should take the lead in the recovery efforts just like America bailed Europe out with the Marshall Plan? Ok na!

You see, like I mentioned before, if we, blacks do not do our homework and present our case in a well founded, rational manner, our ranting will be taken for what it is:bellicose rhetoric, senseless twaddle!!

SMH.....Undoubtedly, Americans live in an ignorance bubble....

I loved this comment in particular:

"And they're STILL allowed to vote. This Republic is doomed. It will die of CID. Citizen Idiots Disease. A pre-existing condition, not covered by ObamaCare."



Video: Obama Supporters Don’t Know What Party Obama Is Affiliated With



How can Americans even begin to understand Obamacare or the government shut down?

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
October 4, 2013

In his latest ‘man on the street’ video, Mark Dice talks to Obama supporters in San Diego who struggle to work out which political party Obama is actually affiliated with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nhRViM02Mk&
The majority of the people Dice talked to didn’t know which party Obama was associated with and some even thought he was in fact a Republican.

One man thought Obama was associated with the “best ideas” party.

“The average American is a zombie and doesn’t even know what political party he stands for,” Dice tells one man who asserted that Obama was a Republican. “I would agree,” the man responds.

“What political party is Barack Obama affiliated with?” Dice asks another man, who responds, “It’s one of those.”

In response to the same question, another woman responds, “I have nothing good to say, I’m sorry.”

The clip would be hilarious if it wasn’t a tragic reflection of how dumbed down and ignorant of basic facts Americans have become in the modern era. Given that a substantial percentage of them don’t even know that Obama is a Democrat, how could they possibly hope to understand things like Obamacare or the government shut down?

If you think that this footage is a misrepresentation of the average intelligence of Obama supporters and other politically naive Americans, then you should probably become familiar with Dice’s countless other videos, which all point to the same conclusion. They include;

- Obamacare supporters signing a petition to add birth control drugs to the water supply;

- Students at the University of California accepting “abortion in a can” fruit juice drinks;

- Endorsing 19th century communist ideologue Karl Marx as the next President of the United States;

- Signing a petition to repeal the 4th amendment to the Constitution;

- Supporting a move to end the right to remain silent by repealing the 5th amendment;

- Signing a petition to support post-birth abortion up to age 3 and making infanticide a part of Obamacare;

- Signing a petition to support making euthanasia of senior citizens a mandatory part of Obamacare;

- Supporting a move to release all illegal aliens from prison no matter what crime they have committed and then giving them free US citizenship;

- Signing a petition to grant Obama immunity for all crimes he commits while in office.

And those are from just the last few months alone.

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*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for [url]Infowars.com [/url] and [url]Prison Planet.com[/url]. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

This article was posted: Friday, October 4, 2013 at 11:24 am

Saudi black op team behind Damascus chem weapons attack – diplomatic sources

Published time: October 04, 2013 13:14
Edited time: October 04, 2013 17:58


Tags
Bill Dod, Crime, Military, Oksana Boyko, Paula Slier, Politics, Saudi Arabia, Scandal, Syria

The August chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital’s suburbs was done by a Saudi Arabian black operations team, Russian diplomatic sources have told a Russian news agency.

“Based on data from a number of sources a picture can be pieced together. The criminal provocation in Eastern Ghouta was done by a black op team that the Saudi’s sent through Jordan and which acted with support of the Liwa Al-Islam group,” a source in the diplomatic circles told Interfax.

The attack and its consequences had a huge impact on the Syrian situation, another source said.

“Syrians of various political views, including some opposition fighters, are seeking to inform diplomats and members of international organizations working in Syria what they know about the crime and the forces which inspired it,” he told the agency.

Liwa Al-Islam is an Islamist armed group operating near Damascus headed by the son of a Saudi-based Salafi cleric. The group claimed responsibility for the bombing of a secret governmental meeting in Damascus in July 2012 that killed a number of top Syrian officials, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha, his deputy Asef Shawkat, and Assistant Vice President Hassan Turkmani.

The allegations mirror a number of earlier reports, which pointed to Saudi Arabia as the mastermind behind the sarin gas attack, which almost led to US military action against Syrian government. Proponents of this scenario say intelligence services in Riyadh needed a false flag operation to provoke an American attack in Syria, which would tip the balance in favor of the armed opposition supported by Saudi Arabia.

While the majority of Western countries say they are certain that the Syrian government carries the blame for the attack, Damascus maintains that the rebel forces must be behind it. Russia shares this conviction too, calling the incident a provocation.

https://rt.com/files/news/20/a6/80/00/un-syria.jpg
United Nations vehicles are seen leaving the hotel in Damascus (AFP Photo / Louai Beshara)


Back in March US President Barack Obama said the use of chemical weapons would be a ‘red line’ for the Syrian government, crossing which would prompt America’s intervention into the bloody Syrian conflict. After the August attack, which the US believes has claimed some 1,400 lives, the president was called on his words by many supporters of the Syrian opposition both at home and outside of the US.

Earlier a UN report concluded that nerve gas had indeed been used “on a large scale” in August. However, the consistency of the findings is under question.

According to the report, none of the environmental samples the UN collected in Western Ghouta tested positive for Sarin, while biomedical samples, taken from affected people, all tested positive.

RT’s Worlds Apart host Oksana Boyko has spoken to Angela Kane, UN high representative for disarmament affairs, who has just returned from Damascus.

“If you read the report, the report comes out and says sarin was used. It is also a matter that maybe in the environmental samples they took there was no sarin found, but that does not mean that sarin was not used,” Kane told Worlds Apart. “It was there in the human samples. If they had more time to go around they would have found different samples. It was a limited collection that they did, but the collection was conclusive. I think, it was very comprehensive, therefore, we shared all of those samples with the Syrian government.”

At the same time, there have been concerns voiced that witnesses the UN team spoke to were brought by the opposition from different regions and did not live in Western Ghouta.

“I think it is not possible to say ‘We brought them all from a different area.’ To my mind that is inconceivable. You can come up with the theory, but this does not mean the theory is correct,” Kane said.

When asked if the UN team had requested examining dead bodies to take more samples, Kane said they had not, because “there was no need to exhume dead bodies” as victims’ accounts “are much more powerful.”

“Dead body can’t tell you anything. The dead body can’t tell how the person dies, how the person was affected, how the person suffered. A living person can tell you that,” Kane said.

After the UN team left Syria on Monday, Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) experts arrived in the country. They are currently making preparations for the disarmament.

The OPCW team will start conducting tests on October 7.

MRAP, ACV, APC, IFV, AFV, JLTV, HMMWV, etc...So many acronyms for different vehicles of varying use. About time someone standardized it and fixed this madness..

Henry120: Even US special forces use pick-up trucks

These are not special forces. These are FBI SWAT teams deployed in a civilian environment in response to the shooting incident in Washington yesterday.. I'll go out on a limb to say that this truck is probably also deployed for everyday use like a normal truck would

Tumisang: Pledged R1-million for the relief effort, sent a local aid agency for humanitarian assistance and a team of medical professionals for the search-and-rescue operations.

Well if they really made this pledge and made good on that pledge, then that's very commendable of SA. Never heard about it also. Kudos to them

Good that justice has been served for all those that lost their lives either directly or indirectly as a result of Taylor's bloodletting. I now wonder if Bush and Blair would suffer the same fate? Probably not

Fact: Israel is an occupying force with no internationally recognized borders.
Fact: Israel has got stockpiles of undeclared nuclear and chemical weapons
Fact: Israel knows it's illegitimacy and in order to keep the status quo will do anything to demonize and weaken any country that voices out against its illegitimacy.
Fact: Israel has violated several UN resolutions and continues to expand its settlements.
Fact: Israel is not in the least interested in returning lands seized from wars in the past to their rightful owners and would prefer a situation in which the Palestines are denied statehood. On the very same day that the last round of negotiations were announced, Israel announced expansion of new settlements.

As much as I support pro-black/panafrican ideals & rhetoric, I find fault in the stupidity, greed and recklessness of the black man with regards to the Haiti situation. First, they experienced a devastating earthquake and rather than rally to support each other and get the nation back on its feet, they embarked upon a looting spree and breakdown of law and order on an unprecedented scale. A country such as Japan had to face an even devastating trio of tragedies in the form of an earthquake, tsunami and radiation apocalypse.Yet there wasn't a single recorded case of looting or disorderliness! I was utterly shocked to see these noble and respectable Japanese queuing up in civilized manner for supplies and finding the strength to help each other out in the face of overwhelming destruction and loss. This is a marvel that I have pointed out to my friends over and over again. Should any of those tragedies occur in any African or black dominated society, even on a much smaller scale, you can be rest assured that untold chaos will ensue.

In addition, how many African countries have offered financial aid or otherwise or been in the forefront of efforts to restore this broken country? What has the self acclaimed "Giant of Africa", Nigeria done? What has South Africa done?

Believe me, I totally believe in the renaissance of the black man. I believe that black man is bedeviled by all sorts of ills and that we are constantly playing catch up with the rest of the civilized world but for us to be taken seriously, we have to first of all fix ourselves before pointing the finger at the white man as the reason for everything that is wrong us. If we do not take another look at ourselves and realize that we, Negroes, are innately more self-centred and selfish than other races. Until we fix ourselves, the rest of the world will never take us as serious competitors in the world stage and will look at articles penned by Ezili Dantò and many others as bellicose rhetoric, senseless twaddle

I wonder what the Putin haters have to say for themselves now

Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize because he 'actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet'

Russian President's efforts to thwart a US strike on Syria recognised
One supporter said he was 'more worthy' than President Obama
Previous winners of the prize include Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa
By WILLS ROBINSON
PUBLISHED: 19:31 GMT, 2 October 2013 | UPDATED: 19:38 GMT, 2 October 2013


Recognised: Russian President Vladimir Putin's efforts to stop a US strike on Syria were highlighted as part of the nomination
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The former KGB agent has been recommended by an activist group because he 'actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet'.
His attempts to prevent a US air strike on Syria after suspected chemical weapons attacks on civilians was also given as a reason behind the recognition.
Despite being the main supplier of weapons to Bashar Al-Assad's regime, fellow politicans have rushed to his defense, with one claiming he is 'more worthy' than Barack Obama.
Activist group The International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World put his name forward but made no mention of the violent campaigns he waged against the separatists in Chechnya or the war in Georgia.
The letter of recommedationn read: 'Being the leader of one of the leading nations of the world, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin makes efforts to maintain peace and tranquillity not only on the territory of his own country but also actively promotes settlement of all conflicts arising on the planet' The New York Times reported.
Russian singer and MP Iosif Kobzon, backed the nomination comparing his actions to that of the US President, who won the same prize in 2009.
He told Interfax news agency: 'Barack Obama is the man who has initiated and approved the United States' aggressive actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
 

'Now he is preparing for an invasion into Syria. He bears this title nevertheless.
'Our president, who tries to stop the bloodshed and who tries to help the conflict situation with political dialogue, is more worthy of this high title.'

Prize: Putin has been put up for the award, despite being the main supplier of weapons to Bashar Al-Assad's regime and his responsibility for violent campaigns in Georgia and Chechnya
The prize is awarded to 'the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses'.
Previous winners of the prize have included Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced on October 11 and the deadline for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize nominations is in February.

panafrican: In less than 3 years, you will see he will be overthrown for daring.

Or he could die in a plane crash or there would be a popular uprising from so-called pro democracy groups or their economy could take a nose dive, etc.....several ways to f**K the dude up for his insolence....

panafrican: In less than 3 years, you will see he will be overthrown for daring.

YOU ARE VERY RIGHT. UNFORTUNATELY, PEOPLE ARE BLIND TO ALL THESE MACHINATIONS AND GEOPOLITICS IN PLAY BY THE WESTERNERS.

Breaking Bad is arguably one of the best TV series ever made. Like me, who else would find it hard saying goodbye to such a brilliant series?? I am officially mourning the end of such a gripping and captivating TV drama.

I am hoping Breaking Bad, as I hold my breath in anticipation tonight, would be given a befitting finale; a finale that would bestow an extra element of immortality on the series.

Henry120: Amisom, ugandan troops in south african made MRAP's( cassipirs)

That MRAP looks like a rusty garbage bin from that angle. Not a flattering look at all

http://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/sep/27/seymour-hersh-obama-nsa-american-media

Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media

Pulitzer Prize winner explains how to fix journalism, saying press should 'fire 90% of editors and promote ones you can't control'


https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2013/9/27/1380263187095/Seymour-Hersh-008.jpg
Seymour Hersh exposed the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam war, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Photograph: Wally McNamee/Corbis

Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news bureaus of NBC and ABC, sack 90% of editors in publishing and get back to the fundamental job of journalists which, he says, is to be an outsider.

It doesn't take much to fire up Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist".

He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

Don't even get him started on the New York Times which, he says, spends "so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would" – or the death of Osama bin Laden. "Nothing's been done about that story, it's one big lie, not one word of it is true," he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.

Hersh is writing a book about national security and has devoted a chapter to the bin Laden killing. He says a recent report put out by an "independent" Pakistani commission about life in the Abottabad compound in which Bin Laden was holed up would not stand up to scrutiny. "The Pakistanis put out a report, don't get me going on it. Let's put it this way, it was done with considerable American input. It's a bullshit report," he says hinting of revelations to come in his book.

The Obama administration lies systematically, he claims, yet none of the leviathans of American media, the TV networks or big print titles, challenge him.

"It's pathetic, they are more than obsequious, they are afraid to pick on this guy [Obama]," he declares in an interview with the Guardian.

"It used to be when you were in a situation when something very dramatic happened, the president and the minions around the president had control of the narrative, you would pretty much know they would do the best they could to tell the story straight. Now that doesn't happen any more. Now they take advantage of something like that and they work out how to re-elect the president.

He isn't even sure if the recent revelations about the depth and breadth of surveillance by the National Security Agency will have a lasting effect.

Snowden changed the debate on surveillance

He is certain that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden "changed the whole nature of the debate" about surveillance. Hersh says he and other journalists had written about surveillance, but Snowden was significant because he provided documentary evidence – although he is sceptical about whether the revelations will change the US government's policy.

"Duncan Campbell [the British investigative journalist who broke the Zircon cover-up story], James Bamford [US journalist] and Julian Assange and me and the New Yorker, we've all written the notion there's constant surveillance, but he [Snowden] produced a document and that changed the whole nature of the debate, it's real now," Hersh says.

"Editors love documents. Chicken-shit editors who wouldn't touch stories like that, they love documents, so he changed the whole ball game," he adds, before qualifying his remarks.

"But I don't know if it's going to mean anything in the long [run] because the polls I see in America – the president can still say to voters 'al-Qaida, al-Qaida' and the public will vote two to one for this kind of surveillance, which is so idiotic," he says.

Holding court to a packed audience at City University in London's summer school on investigative journalism, 76-year-old Hersh is on full throttle, a whirlwind of amazing stories of how journalism used to be; how he exposed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, how he got the Abu Ghraib pictures of American soldiers brutalising Iraqi prisoners, and what he thinks of Edward Snowden.

Hope of redemption

Despite his concern about the timidity of journalism he believes the trade still offers hope of redemption.

"I have this sort of heuristic view that journalism, we possibly offer hope because the world is clearly run by total nincompoops more than ever … Not that journalism is always wonderful, it's not, but at least we offer some way out, some integrity."

His story of how he uncovered the My Lai atrocity is one of old-fashioned shoe-leather journalism and doggedness. Back in 1969, he got a tip about a 26-year-old platoon leader, William Calley, who had been charged by the army with alleged mass murder.

Instead of picking up the phone to a press officer, he got into his car and started looking for him in the army camp of Fort Benning in Georgia, where he heard he had been detained. From door to door he searched the vast compound, sometimes blagging his way, marching up to the reception, slamming his fist on the table and shouting: "Sergeant, I want Calley out now."

Eventually his efforts paid off with his first story appearing in the St Louis Post-Despatch, which was then syndicated across America and eventually earned him the Pulitzer Prize. "I did five stories. I charged $100 for the first, by the end the [New York] Times were paying $5,000."

He was hired by the New York Times to follow up the Watergate scandal and ended up hounding Nixon over Cambodia. Almost 30 years later, Hersh made global headlines all over again with his exposure of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

Put in the hours

For students of journalism his message is put the miles and the hours in. He knew about Abu Ghraib five months before he could write about it, having been tipped off by a senior Iraqi army officer who risked his own life by coming out of Baghdad to Damascus to tell him how prisoners had been writing to their families asking them to come and kill them because they had been "despoiled".

"I went five months looking for a document, because without a document, there's nothing there, it doesn't go anywhere."

Hersh returns to US president Barack Obama. He has said before that the confidence of the US press to challenge the US government collapsed post 9/11, but he is adamant that Obama is worse than Bush.

"Do you think Obama's been judged by any rational standards? Has Guantanamo closed? Is a war over? Is anyone paying any attention to Iraq? Is he seriously talking about going into Syria? We are not doing so well in the 80 wars we are in right now, what the hell does he want to go into another one for. What's going on [with journalists]?" he asks.

He says investigative journalism in the US is being killed by the crisis of confidence, lack of resources and a misguided notion of what the job entails.

"Too much of it seems to me is looking for prizes. It's journalism looking for the Pulitzer Prize," he adds. "It's a packaged journalism, so you pick a target like – I don't mean to diminish because anyone who does it works hard – but are railway crossings safe and stuff like that, that's a serious issue but there are other issues too.

"Like killing people, how does [Obama] get away with the drone programme, why aren't we doing more? How does he justify it? What's the intelligence? Why don't we find out how good or bad this policy is? Why do newspapers constantly cite the two or three groups that monitor drone killings. Why don't we do our own work?

"Our job is to find out ourselves, our job is not just to say – here's a debate' our job is to go beyond the debate and find out who's right and who's wrong about issues. That doesn't happen enough. It costs money, it costs time, it jeopardises, it raises risks. There are some people – the New York Times still has investigative journalists but they do much more of carrying water for the president than I ever thought they would … it's like you don't dare be an outsider any more."

He says in some ways President George Bush's administration was easier to write about. "The Bush era, I felt it was much easier to be critical than it is [of] Obama. Much more difficult in the Obama era," he said.

Asked what the solution is Hersh warms to his theme that most editors are pusillanimous and should be fired.

"I'll tell you the solution, get rid of 90% of the editors that now exist and start promoting editors that you can't control," he says. I saw it in the New York Times, I see people who get promoted are the ones on the desk who are more amenable to the publisher and what the senior editors want and the trouble makers don't get promoted. Start promoting better people who look you in the eye and say 'I don't care what you say'.

Nor does he understand why the Washington Post held back on the Snowden files until it learned the Guardian was about to publish.

If Hersh was in charge of US Media Inc, his scorched earth policy wouldn't stop with newspapers.

"I would close down the news bureaus of the networks and let's start all over, tabula rasa. The majors, NBCs, ABCs, they won't like this – just do something different, do something that gets people mad at you, that's what we're supposed to be doing," he says.

Hersh is currently on a break from reporting, working on a book which undoubtedly will make for uncomfortable reading for both Bush and Obama.

"The republic's in trouble, we lie about everything, lying has become the staple." And he implores journalists to do something about it.

GH KWAME: Haha! Ceremonial? Naa they l00k too serious for that! I have z00med that pix so many times and I am convinced its an arrow piece. **unconventional**

Am also curious to know what that arrow thing is!

GH KWAME: So far so g00d! The topic is focused sha.

Thank God it still is o cos that other thread on who has the strongest military in Africa has totally derailed. Reason i do not contribute there.

PS: Since when did Ghanians use "sha"

HolyHolla: UN Security Council agrees to diplomatic resolution of Syria's chemical weapons issue

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/world/middleeast/security-council-agrees-on-resolution-to-rid-syria-of-chemical-arms.html?client=ms-opera-mini-android&channel=new&

It is way too early to conclude that a diplomatic solution has been achieved. There are vested interests that have put in too much money and resources into toppling the Assad government. I highly doubt they would just accept this as a solution.

Watch and see the drama unfold!

thoth: Whenever i read such writings like many others in www.globalresearch.ca I always shake my head and I find myself muttering “If only Obama was the real policy maker”. You see I and many others do believe that Obama is only a stooge, he only does what he is told to do and can not do more or less than that. People looking up to him to be sensible is like expecting a block of stone to carve itself into a mermaid which would never happen.

I was in Chicago last year for my nephew’s wedding, he being a serious critic of US foreign policies later took us around, the rate of poverty and misery I saw in USA was soo alarming that I start to see that somehow we are better than these people, we don’t have that number of homeless people, we don’t have that number of seriously hungry families and destitute people. Even with the social care and all we are still better than these guys.
However that is not the point, my confusion lies in the that if there is so much decay in the American society and soo much poverty how come is the nation and the government still spending billions on wars which are far away and pose no real threat to the American people?
Such thoughts would make anyone conclude that the American government is not really the government for Americans and the American president is not really the president of America.

spot on thoth. I keep telling anyone that cares to listen that the American president isn't the most powerful person in America. There are the powers that be that have long shaped and influenced policies. All that is left is for the president is to implement those policies, especially foreign policy. America is just too powerful, too influential, too important to allow just about anyone to assume the position of president without that individual being fully aware of who his true masters are. JFK found out the hard way.

Speaking of poverty, I was last in the US in 2009 in Chicago as well. I visited the SouthSide neighbourhood and I couldn believe what I saw:dilapidated houses; rickety, rusty cars; several destitutes on the streets; youths hanging around up to no good, etc.....This was the case for several blocks within this area. I was with my camera and previously had been taking pictures of the city of Chicago but the moment i got into this area, I had to stow my camera away for the fear of standing out to much and getting mugged. And let me say it was a completely black community. It was like I was in the roughest parts of Lagos Island but the difference was that old.and young folks alike were wearing baggy American clothes and traipsing all over the place with swag...

And i hear that cities such as Camden and Flint (once America's automobile powerhouse) even look worse.

All these makes u wonder how the US finds money to fight even more wars while drowning in a $16trillion national debt and counting

This story came out some years ago. It has long been reported to be nothing but a silly hoax. Who believes such things anyway??

http://rt.com/op-edge/usa-iran-handshake-obama-rouhani-337/

Obama & Rouhani: The historic handshake that never happened
Nile Bowie

Published time: September 25, 2013 15:38
https://rt.com/files/opinionpost/20/8d/90/00/us-iran.si.jpg
U.S. President Barack Obama (Reuters / Kevin Lamarque) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (AFP Photo / Pool / Brendan McDermid)


As political leaders in Washington and Tehran signal they are in favor of diplomacy, is a genuine rapprochement between the two powers actually possible?

The speeches at this week’s UN General Assembly by the leaders of Iran and the US, although each striking conciliatory tones, both envisage a vastly different international order. Recently-elected President Hassan Rouhani, in his first speech to the assembly, reiterated that the Iranian nuclear issue is essentially a red herring, while eloquently addressing the moral deficiencies of the international order as it exists today. He spoke of the human cost of sanctions that devastate communities and the most vulnerable members of society, the illogicality of militaristic pursuits of hegemony, and the need for an international order that rests upon nations existing on an equal footing and the primacy of international law. Rouhani called upon nations to form a peacemaking coalition that rejects extremism and warmonger coalitions. Rouhani’s words were not bellicose, but grounded in moderation and compassionate sensibilities that reflect a growing consensus of global opinion in favor of a truly multipolar world.

The Iranian president’s speech reflects a world view that Iranians themselves overwhelmingly favor, and those who voted him into office are the victors, as Rouhani has taken to the world stage and emerged as a true statesmen and a representative of his people. Unfortunately, this is the point where optimism turns into pessimism.

President Barack Obama’s speech, although conciliatory in some respects, was spoken through the lens of unilateralism and the mythology of exceptionalism that has dominated decision-making in the US for decades. Substantial elements of his speech were attempts to justify existing US policy, which is viewed as increasingly unsustainable and narrow throughout many corners of the world. In his 40-minute speech, Obama’s words reverberated in an Orwellian echo chamber, as the orator attempted to dress reactionary positions in the clothing of morality.

The undertones of the message signified an unwillingness to acknowledge evidence that is contrary to the White House’s stance (on Syria, for example), and a stubborn insistence that the forces of “progress” have a responsibility to protect people around the world from those leaders considered “tyrants” or “dictators” by a select few in Washington – a philosophy that is scantly more sophisticated than Bush’s “Us vs. Them” doctrine.

https://admin.rt.com/files/opinionpost/20/8d/90/00/iran-3.jpg
AFP Photo / Behrouz Mehri

The American president transparently attempted to defend inherently intransigent policies and self-serving positions, and he made clear that criticisms – the idea of an American empire – were to be brushed off as “propaganda.” American diplomats say that the Iranian delegation turned down an opportunity for an “encounter” between the two leaders, citing that the Iranian side faced too many domestic complications to go ahead with the meeting. Other accounts say Rouhani didn’t turn up to the luncheon where such a handshake could have taken place because alcohol was served.

The Iranian side has yet to address why the encounter failed to take place, but even so, the magnitude of problems between the two countries will require more than an informal greeting and a symbolic handshake between US and Iranian leaders – and no side should really be blamed for the meeting not materializing. The substance of the issue is that the fundamental positions between the two leaders are so palpably disparate, so undeniably grounded in divergent visions of an international polity, that the idea of a historic and meaningful détente is nearly impossible to surmise. I can’t express enough to readers how much I would like to see a historic rapprochement, one that would be mutually beneficial to the two peoples if they were given the chance to stand as equals.

My visit to Iran last year took me to the elegant mosques of Esfahan, the majestic deserts of Yazd, and rustic mountainous landscapes of Abyaneh. During my stay, the rial plummeted by 40 percent, prompting a public protest from venders in the Tehran bazaar, and a rush to buy gold and US dollars. From car manufacturers and energy exporters, to carpet weavers and pistachio cultivators, everyone was feeling the burn of the unethical and unyielding international sanctions regime spearheaded by the Obama administration.

I sprained my ankle and spent a few days in my hotel room in Tehran keeping off my foot. The hotel cleaning women, a mother in her late 40s, upon discovering that I was traveling on a US passport, asked me why Obama was adopting a position that is so destructive to Iranian civilians. The woman was nearly in tears explaining how her savings had been substantially eaten into by the free fall of the rial and how hyperinflation was punishing average people. I didn’t know what to say, other than what I felt to be the truth.

The truth is that Washington is unwilling to recognize the Islamic Republic as a legitimate political entity, but as a regime that exists only to be changed by the reactionary US political establishment through overt and covert measures.

https://admin.rt.com/files/opinionpost/20/8d/90/00/iran-2.jpg
AFP Photo / Behrouz Mehri

The values of Iran’s indigenous theocratic democracy are intolerable to Washington, and though Tehran has tangible shortcomings if one views their political landscape through the frame of Western liberal democracy, high public participation in elections and the ascension and massive popularity of President Rouhani suggest that the ruling political establishment is indeed viewed as legitimate in the eyes of the biggest stakeholders – Iran’s people.

Rouhani succinctly stated in his speech that the best way to overcome the Iranian nuclear hurdle is to simply allow Tehran to pursue its nuclear energy and research policies within the framework of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is the signatory. The solution couldn’t be any more straightforward; it entails all parties to transparently abide by international law.

Rouhani’s rise to power was the result of democratic elections that were treated as a public referendum on the nuclear issue. Iran’s people endorsed a slogan of moderation and constructive interaction with the world. I interviewed prominent Iranian journalist Kourosh Ziabari shortly before Rouhani’s inauguration, and he told me that he knew the Iranian people would “not find our president being left with an empty hall while addressing the UN General Assembly, we will not find our president being booed in Columbia University and we will not find our president being called a hawk by those who are the real hawks of our world today.”

Just as Rouhani assumed his position as president, the US simultaneously issued a new round of sanctions on Iran – consider it a token of goodwill from Washington. As political prisoners are pardoned, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls for “heroic flexibility,” Washington would truly be foolish to pass up this opportunity to mend fences.

Iran has indicated its willingness to operate and usher in a new diplomatic era with Washington on several occasions through cooperation over Afghanistan and other areas – all of which have been met with scant interest or outright hostility. It’s time for Obama to put down the reactionary talking points and visit Tehran. He should visit the humble quarters of the late Iman Khomeini; he should share dates and black tea with President Rouhani and bridge the differences.

Obama should stop the weapons flow to Syria’s opposition and work with Tehran and Moscow in promoting the Geneva-2 peace conference with no preconditions, resulting in internationally monitored elections in Damascus at a later date. Only a historic détente on an equal footing can rescue Obama’s disastrous foreign policy approach and his crumbling presidency.

Only when Obama feels the warmth of Iranian hospitality will he fully realize the extent of his foolish and unethical policies toward the Islamic Republic.

Henry120: Naah, the navy's SBS use thigh holstered pistols.

I meant to say thigh actually. We have all seen several pics of them of course. How I equated thigh to be same as hip!!.......

[b][/b]

GeneralJ: Same thing i was thinking, and also, it doesn't allow for instant aim, as the police officer would still have to put his hand back to aim, compared to if he had it the right way, all he would have to do is pull it up.
But this is really a disturbing trend among nigeriain military and security services, i've seen navy officer with his side arm holstered the same way, and a whole load of Police officers with their side army holsterd this way, i think this needs to be fixed, before it results in something else

tactical teams such as the Navy's SBS use THIGH holstered pistols

GeneralJ: Nigerian Police Anti Bomb Squad

My question is, do they know thats not the right way to holster thier sidearms, or is that a correct way of holstering a pistol?

This means that he reaches for his pistol with his right arm across his waist although I think this method is outdated and doesn't allow for a fast,easy draw like a hip holstered pistol grip would