₦airaland Forum

The U.S. propaganda machine in full swing.

They will say anything and do anything to demonize Russia but the jig is up cos people are now seeing the so called anti ISIS coalition spearheaded by the U.S., for the complete sham it is.

Putin, through this military action and with every village, town & city that gets liberated by the Syrian Arab Army is unraveling the pack of lies and cloak of deceit that the U.S. - in the words of their leaders: the indispensable and exceptional nation - has established all these years.

Shymm3x and Missy89 have this penchant for always ALMOST derailing the thread (actually derailing it somewhat) whenever they go at each other.

Since neither of you will budge, can we just revert to the topic at hand - which seems to me to be a significant escalation of Washington's media and psychological warfare against Russia. This indeed are dangerous times and I wonder if true to Zbigniew Brzezinski's threat of military action against Russia, Ashton Carter's "prediction" of "reprisal attacks and casualties" and l.o.o.ney John McCain's call to arm "moderates" with SAMs, we are about to see Russians start taking in losses.

Lalasticlala Oga, is there any reason why this thread hasn't made the front page?

Phame:
Putin has established a foothold on Syria without the UN security council vote and you are here saying this?

No UN Security Council vote is needed. Syria is a sovereign state with an existing security pact with another sovereign state - Russia. As a sovereign state Syria has EVERY right to defend itself and seek the help of any of its allies to achieve just that.

We can't however say the same for the US and its allies such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia that are violating sovereign airspace and bombing Syrian Kurds and Yemeni Houthis indiscriminately.

What about Israel that has violated Syrian airspace countless times & bombed Syria over the past several years? Israel has even gone as far as providing aid to Al-Nusra fighters (local Al-Qaeda) based in the occupied Golan Heights.

So who is actually violating sovereign territory?



The US has openly admitted it is destabilizing and overthrowing government after government around the world, along Russia and China's borders, telling Moscow and Beijing they are next (http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-arab-spring-a-virus-that-will-attack-moscow-and-beijing/248762/). And these nations aren't supposed to do something to defend themselves?

You have US Senator John McCain on stage in Kiev with literal Nazis and shaking hands in Libya with literal Al Qaeda commanders... the US government has lost its way, and the American people should ensure that the question of who will win between the US and Russia never has to be answered by reining in these criminally insane megalomaniacs...

This - for those that are still trapped in the matrix - will be my go-to article, my Introduction to Geopolitics 101 for the uninitiated, for the un-awoken deep asleep or living in denial.

Missy89:
I think they are using both dumb and smart bombs.

I agree with your assertion. I'm sure Russia has got a bit of aging dumb bombs that it would like to get rid of and bombing these insurgents presents the perfect opportunity. For highly sensitive targets though, I think they will opt for the smart bombs to avoid high civilian casualties; "collateral damage" as my western "friends" would say.

This article, with it's sarcastic tone and perhaps like no other, sums up the situation in Syria. It is funny that I stumbled upon this yesterday just after I had asked a supposedly enlightened and learned friend of mine his thoughts on Russia's intervention in Syria. He reponse was basically, "Pffft! You have come up with conspiracy theories again." To say I was disappointed and saddened is an understatement .

This is for all those that have been zomb.i.e.fied and eat mainstream propaganda for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Good luck to you guys!

[size=18pt]A Useful Prep-Sheet on Syria for Media Propagandists - Must Read![/size]
We loved this piece - brilliantly sums up everything that is wrong with American media and officialdom

Gary Leupp Subscribe to Gary Leupp(CounterPunch) 18 hours ago | 2,261 14

This article originally appeared at CounterPunch

State Department talking points on Syria for cable news anchors:

* Keep mentioning the barrel bombs. Do not mention how their use was pioneered by the Israeli Air Force in 1948, and how they were used by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam in Operation Inferno in 1968. Keep repeating, “barrel bombs, barrel bombs” and stating with a straight face that the Syrian regime is using them “against its own people.” Against its own people. Against its own people. Against its own people.

* Keep mentioning “200,000.” (The UN estimates that 220,000 have been killed in the conflict since 2011.) Declare like you really believe it that this is the number of civilians the Syrian government of Bashar Assad has killed during the war. (Do not be concerned about any need to back the figure up. No one is ever going to call you on it publicly.)

Do NOT mention that around half of the war dead (estimates range from 84,000 to 133,000) are Syrian government forces waging war against an overwhelmingly Islamist opposition, and an additional 73,000 to 114,000 are anti-government combatants.

Do not discuss these figures because they would call into question the claim that the Syrian government is targeting and killing tens of thousands of civilians willy-nilly. (If feeling any qualms of conscience, recall Karl Rove’s immortal dictum that “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”)

* Keep mentioning the “Arab Spring” and how in 2011 Syrians peacefully mobilized to challenge the regime were violently repressed. But don’t dwell on the Arab Spring too much. Realize that the State Department was actually shocked by it, particularly by its repercussions in Egypt, where democratization brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power before the U.S.-backed military drowned its opponents in blood.

And recall but do NOT mention how in Bahrain, peaceful demonstrations by the majority Shiites against the repressive Sunni monarchy were crushed by a Saudi-led invasion force tacitly supported by the U.S. And NEVER mention that the bulk of the peaceful protesters in the Syrian Arab Spring want nothing to do with the U.S.-supported armed opposition but are instead receptive to calls from Damascus, Moscow and Tehran for dialogue towards a power-sharing arrangement.

Do NOT explain that the pro-democracy student activists and their allies fear most is the radical Islamists who have burgeoned in large part due to foreign intervention since 2011.

* Keep mentioning the “Free Syrian Army” and the “moderate opposition” to give the impression that they actually exist in the real world.

Do NOT point out that the FSA organization is actually a joke; that its leaders live in Turkey; that its remaining units are headed by CIA officers; that U.S. efforts to train over 5000 FSA troops have been an utter failure; that the tiny group of 54 recently sent to the front were immediately captured by the al-Nusra Front and another 70 dispatched from Turkey immediately turned over their arms to that al-Qaeda-linked group; that their chief of staff has resigned protesting U.S. incompetence; that Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the top American commander in the Middle East, told Congress last month that only “four or five” Syrians had been trained by the U.S. to fight ISIL; and that the U.S.-trained forces have been accused of multiple human rights abuses.

Do NOT mention these things. They are so totally embarrassing that the State Department officials responsible just want to curl up into a ball and roll into a corner. Your mission is to put a bright face on this and continue to pretend there’s something in Syria, supported by the U.S., that falls between the terrorists and the Assad regime.

* Keep expressing consternation if not outrage that Russia is “interfering” in Syria. Scrunch up your face and act like you think it’s puzzling.

Do NOT mention that Syria is much closer to Russia than to the U.S. and that Russia faces a much greater threat of Islamist terror than the U.S. (in places like Chechnya and Dagestan that your viewers can’t locate on a map).

Downplay the fact that Russia has had a military relationship with Syria since the 1950s no more nor less legitimate that the U.S. military relationship with Saudi Arabia. (And avoid any objective comparisons of the human rights records of Saudi Arabia and Syria since the former’s is manifestly so much worse than the latter’s!)

Do NOT imply any moral equivalence between Russia’s desire to prevent U.S.-backed regime change in Syria and the U.S.’s desire to inflict another Iraq or Libya-type regime change on that tragically war-torn country.

* Keep treating the Assad regime as an obvious pariah, whose leader has “lost legitimacy.” Say that with an air of authority, like you really believe that U.S. presidents—like Chinese emperors of the past or medieval popes— enjoy so much “legitimacy” that they can confer this on, or remove it from, anybody else.

Study CNN anchor Chris Cuomo’s facial expressions and body language when he announces—so matter-of-factly, as a self-evident fact, as a done deal—that (come on, everybody!) “Assad hast lost legitimacy.”

(Chris is your model. He’s the State Department’s pleasantly vapid headed scion-of-privilege poster boy, whose occasional dark flashes of indignation—especially those directed towards anyone questioning the official talking points on Russia—embody the attitude Foggy Bottom seeks to encourage in the corporate press.)

Do NOT remind viewers that the Syrian government is internationally recognized, holds a UN seat, retains cordial relations with most nations and is engaged in a life-and-death struggle against people who enslave, crucify, behead, bury alive and burn alive people and want to replace Syria’s modern secular government with a medieval religious one intolerant of any diversity.

* Keep insisting that the Assad regime somehow is responsible for, and even in league with, the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front and ISIL. Since this makes no logical sense, just have faith in the ignorance of the viewership and its disinclination to distinguish one Arab from another and to assume that they’re all linked in ways that aren’t worth even trying to sort out. Imply that by staying in power (and not complying with Obama’s demand that he step down) Assad has actually invited the presence of radical Islamists to his country, or provoked their emergence.

Do NOT mention that al-Qaeda offshoots have proliferated globally since the U.S. invaded and wrecked Iraq in 2003, in a war based entirely on lies, and that there was no al-Nusra Front or ISIL until the U.S. set out to effect regime change throughout the Middle East. Do NOT let on that State Department PR strategy is precisely to obfuscate the real causal relationship, and to impute to the beleaguered Assad phenomena actually generated by U.S. aggression in the region.

* Keep treating Russian President Vladimir Putin as America’s Enemy Number One, an ally of a Syrian government that U.S. has said must go, deploying force in Syria to bolster Assad rather than (as Moscow claims) to target ISIL.

Do NOT lend any credence to the Russian assertion that the Syrian Army is the force best placed to defeat ISIL. Do NOT point out the incongruity of the U.S. invading and attacking countries from Pakistan to Libya since 2001 while expressing alarm that Moscow is (after much hesitation) taking action against Islamist terrorists at Damascus’s invitation.

* Do not harp on the past, revisit history, or attempt to place the contemporary situation in Syria in perspective. Do NOT complicate the storyline by mentioning Damascus’s cooperation in the “War on Terror” and the U.S. use of Syrian torture chambers in its “special renditions” program after 2001. Do NOT mention Syria’s large Christian minority or its historical support for Assad’s Baath party, which was co-founded by a Syrian Christian.

Please keep everything simple, following the examples set by MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Scarborough and CNN’s Cuomo, and inculcate in the mind of the viewer that Assad is the main problem and most horrible actor in the Syrian situation. Tell them that Putin, while striving to revive the tsarist empire, is backing Assad as a loyal ally and using his military to prolong his rule that Washington condemns rather than (as he states) taking action against ISIL.

If you do all this, you will demonstrate your loyalty to the State Department, the bipartisan foreign policy consensus, the military-industrial complex, the One Percent, your advertisers, your producers and editors, and the unsung heroes behind the scenes who arrange your teleprompter scripts.

You too could be an Andrea Mitchell, or Christiane Amanpour, posturing as an “expert” while trotting out our talking points. And even after they’re exposed as bullshit, you won’t have to say you’re sorry. People will soon forget anyway.

Those unconscionable barrel bombs! 200,000 civilians killed by the illegitimate regime! U.S. support for the moderate opposition! Russia up to no good, supporting Assad and not really targeting ISI!. Russian moves “worrisome” (whereas U.S. moves are not.)

I just had to share this:

Nairaminted, Appleyard, Shymm3x, et al, keep the flag of truth and justice flying.
Wow! It takes quite an effort to keep up with events as they unfold so fast but I must say I am enjoying the discourse (including yours Missy89, although I sense a bit of stubbornness and denial in your viewpoints) that you guys are engaging in.

SERIOUSLY, ARE YOU STILL ON WITH THIS COMICAL THREAD? Seriously?

I am afraid that this is certainly a ploy to buy more time whilst the neocons re strategize and come up with a counter plan.
Once the neocons decide to embark on a regime change exercise, no form of appeasement can make them change their mind.
They tricked Ghadaffi even after he had given up on his nuclear weapons ambitions- so much so that they labelled him an important partner in their fictional war against terror.
The neocons bidded their time when Putin was able to forestall an attack on Syria by forcing it to give up his chemical weapons even though it was found out later through a study at MIT, Massachusetts and investigations by several other bodies that the 2013 Ghouta chemical attack was perpetrated by the Islamists.
The much celebrated Iran nuclear weapons deal, mark my words, will be rescinded as soon as another president occupies the White House - no matter who he/she is. MARK MY WORDS.
These blood thirsty, evil, depraved men won't stop until Assad is unseated and their proxy terror armies are moved over to the Caucusus, Iran and Xinjiang province, China to destroy all remaining resistance to Washington's insatiable appetite for world preeminence.

The best thing Russia can do at the moment is to vigorously continue on the diplomatic front - while expanding its military support to Syria- by forming a coalition involving the likes of Iran, China, Lebanon and any other willing nation cos if they fail to fight ISIS here in the Levant, they will definitely fight them on their home soil.

Let's keep our eyes on the goal here: to support the secular government of Al-Assad and the Syria Arab Army as it battles proxy jihadist armies unleashed by the West and its allies. It's better these depraved, evil mercenaries are stopped here in Syria before they are shipped off next to the Cacausus in Russia and XiaJing province in China just as they were moved into Syria soon after their evil work was done in Libya.
A foreign policy championed by Putin trumps anyone supported by Obama in my books

Below are excerpts of Washington's foreign policy through the lips of key government officials in case you have forgotten:

"I have met with these brave fighters, and they are not Al-Qaeda. To the contrary: They are Libyan patriots who want to liberate their nation. We should help them do it." - John McCain, Benghazi, Libya April 22, 2011 - as an Al- Qaeda flag was hoisted over a Benghazi courthouse......

“Of course they are Muslims, but they are moderates. I guarantee you that they are moderates — I know them, and I have been with them.”- Senator John McCain speaking about the rebels in Syria, Washington, September 3, 2013

“Not true, not true! Frankly, I just disagree… There’s about 70 percent still who are Free Syrian Army.” Senator John McCain Washington, September 18, 2013

“This is an acknowledgment that U.S. stated goal to degrade and destroy ISIS is not working. If it were, we would not be talking to these not quite foreign terrorist groups.”

Retired Army general and former CIA Director David Petraeus advocating for the use of Al-Qaeda (perpetrators of 9/11) to fight ISIS.

Appleyard, I catch up most times with the going-ons in the Foreign Affairs section & I must say, I find it unnecessary to comment since the likes of you and Nairaminted (& others that I can't remember at the moment)are doing such a splendid job.

Perhaps no one could have narrated better than PCR himself. Narrated in a sarcastic & comically manner but hard hitting and provoking nonetheless.

9/11 Fourteen Years Later
September 10, 2015 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article Print This Article


[size=18pt]9/11 Fourteen Years Later[/size]

Millions of refugees from Washington’s wars are currently over-running Europe. Washington’s 14-year and ongoing slaughter of Muslims and destruction of their countries are war crimes for which the US government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory was the catalyst. Factual evidence and science do not support Washington’s conspiracy theory. The 9/11 Commission did not conduct an investigation. It was not permitted to investigate. The Commission sat and listened to the government’s story and wrote it down. Afterwards, the chairman and cochairman of the Commission said that the Commission “was set up to fail.” For a factual explanation of 9/11, watch this film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsoY3AIRUGA&feature=youtu.be

Here is a presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Laaq44SDgg

Here is an extensive examination of many of the aspects of 9/11: http://www.luogocomune.net/site/modules/sections/index.php?op=viewarticle&artid=167

Phil Restino of the Central Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace wants to know why national antiwar organizations buy into the official 9/11 story when the official story is the basis for the wars that antiwar organizations oppose. Some are beginning to wonder if ineffectual peace groups are really Homeland Security or CIA fronts?

The account below of the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory reads like a parody, but in fact is an accurate summary of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. It was posted as a comment in the online UK Telegraph on September 12, 2009, in response to Charlie Sheen’s request to President Obama to conduct a real investigation into what happened on September 11, 2001.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/6177194/Charlie-Sheen-urges-Barack-Obama-to-reopen-911-investigation-in-video-message.html#disqus_thread

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this:



Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah. 

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes.



And hangover or not, they manage to give the world’s most sophisticated air defence system the slip. 



Unfazed by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely. 



The laws of physics fail, and the world watches in awe as asymmetrical damage and scattered low temperature fires cause steel-framed buildings to collapse symmetrically through their own mass at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.



Despite their dastardly cunning and superb planning, they give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the destruction of steel and concrete and fall to the ground where they are quickly discovered lying on top of the mass of debris.

Meanwhile in Washington



Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a jet airliner. 

Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little. 

Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the Pentagon. 
Without ruining the nicely mowed lawn and at a speed just too fast to capture on video.



In the skies above Pennsylvania 



Desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that would not be possible until several years later.



And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, the airliner crashes into a Pennsylvania field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants except for the standard issue Muslim terrorist bandana.



During these events



President Bush continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class of primary school children.


In New York



World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously. 


In Washington

The Neoconservatives are overjoyed by the arrival of the “New Pearl Harbor,” the necessary catalyst for launching their pre-planned wars.

More from Articles & Columns ↓

Take into consideration that a simulated dogfight between Indian pilots flying Russian SU-35s and those flying American F-22s, the SU35s came out on top.
The F-35 that was only this week declared fit for combat after being beset by a myriad is problems is most likely gonna turn out to be another expensive toy and an overkill in the schemes of things as far as modern warfare is concerned. All is it takes it to render this aircraft is to hack into its advanced communications system which it is almost entirely dependent on and take complete control over it. The revised Chinese military doctrine emphasizes heavily on this hence their investments in electronic warfare and satellite/ space technology supremacy.

This article from a Western news media even alludes to the fact that Russian SU-35s (which are not truly 5th generation by the way), trump 5th generation F-22s.

http://www.businessinsider.com/sukhoi-su-35-competes-with-the-f-35-2013-4?op=1

Just a few days ago as well, Iraqi defense ministers expressed his desire to switch over to Russian weapons from American ones as they have been proven to be more effective in Iraq's war against ISIS. E

Appleyard, I couldn't have said it any better.
People fail to understand the difference between a military whose doctrine is to defend its territorial integrity and win its war at all costs within its borders. Such a military doesn't have the need for expensive - and to be frank, increasingly easy to target super-carriers. Has any of you heard about the super-carrier destroyers such as the DF-1D or YJ-18 missiles China has developed just for the purpose of incapacitating these carrier groups? What about the hypersonic missiles they recently tested? This so called blue-water power projection is of no interest to Russia since it has no desire to embark on "freedom" or "liberation" campaigns such as Iraqi Enduring Freedom. Lol! Well, I guess we can conclude with certainty that Iraq is at the moment enjoying that "Enduring Freedom" Uncle Sam has gifted them.
To say Russia has a second rate military is an insult to the sensibilities of those of us that know better. Why then hasn't NATO dare attack Russia but instead engages more in saber rattling or empty threats? Why don't they embark on a bombing campaign and liberate the poor people of Russia from the evil and despotic Putin? Cos they know that both parties are more or less evenly matched as far as conventional forces go and that the only way Russia could be possibly defeated is to employ a nuclear first strike so devastating and so unexpected that the chances of Russia launching a counter attack of its own is very minimal or non existent. The only other way Russia can succumb to the West is to defeat it from within hence the unnecessary and unprovoked sanctions with the hope that Russians would revolt and overthrow the Putin led government. Another tactic is using those so called NGOs such as NED, Amnesty International, etc and all those other fifth column agencies to fund and sponsor anti government activities.

India at the moment has cancelled it's order for French Rafale fighter planes and has switched to Russian SU-35 fighter jets. It is also considering buying the groundbreaking T-14 Armata tanks. China too has ordered 20 something plus SU-35s. If Russian military technology is second rate why then is their air defense system acknowledged as one of the world's best if not the very best and take a minute to appreciate that when u consider that when the S-500 system finally comes on board, the Russia air space will be practically impenetrable with the full spectrum coverage the S-500, S-400, Antey 2500 missiles - amongst others- will guarantee.

5. Illegal Detention
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/vp-admin-detention-final-2013-10-17.png

6, 7 & 8. Segregation of Resources
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/gaza_water_rev1_aug28.jpg

9 & 10. Segregation of Travel
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/segregated-roads-2012-05-28.png

11. The Wall
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/vp-icj-final-20130725.jpg


Like this article? Check out: 5 Reasons Israel Is An Apartheid State (Video)

https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/120213-apartheid-roads-750x400.jpg
[size=18pt]Understand the Israeli – Palestinian Apartheid In 11 Images[/size]

Ahmed Naguib April 15, 2014

Check out A South African’s Opinion of Comparing Israel to the South African Apartheid

All the graphics are from the site Visualizing Palestine, a site dedicated to creating informative and impactful graphics about the occupied region. Check out many more of these images on their site

1. The Forced Exile of The Palestinian People
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/vp-an_ongoing_displacement-en-20130514.png

2. Maintenance of the Occupation
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/vp-aida-oslo-final-2013-10-11.png

3. Continued Displacement and Destruction
[img]http://visualizingpalestine.org/infograhic/a-policy-of-displacement[/img]

4. A Pattern of Violence and Aggression
https://thrivalroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/vp-violence-timeline-2012-11-23_0.png

Watch Ancient Aliens. Whilst some claims may be sensational or dubious, you however arrive at the conclusion that we are definitely NOT alone.

Aliens have been visiting for thousands of years - possibly hundreds of thousands of years.

Reason I can't even partake in threads such as the SOuth Africa xenophobic attacks.

thoth:
There is no race more useless, more weak,more foolish,more cowardly and more ignorant than the Black Race.

Lol! Take it easy my man, Thoth. Harsh words you have used but unfortunately very TRUE. We as black people just don't know any better. It's a sad, pitiful situation really.

Check out for instance how we are clamouring for the ICC whenever any of us utters any words that are remotely tribalistuc or xenophobic. Whilst I do not condone tribal sentiments we fail to realize the dangers of blindly subjugating ourselves to the judgement dished out by body created by the white man to further impose their will and control over us. Why the feck isn't Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield, etc foremost candidates for the ICC? Yet we quickly shout ICC for the slightest words of hatred or incitement. SMFH!

There has got to be a point where you draw the line between satire and disrespect for other people's culture and beliefs. As far as I am concerned this Charlie Hebdo guys have gone way too far. They have been reckless and insensitive with the garbage they have been churning out, shoved down our throats as satire. Below is what they posted just a few days before the Charlie Hebdo attacks.

They had it coming.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6v_NDuCMAAhoMZ.jpg

Above is a caricature which one of the folks who got murdered had just posted. The text reads: "Still no terrorist attacks in France - Wait, we have until the end of January to send you are best wishes". The crazy person shown in the drawing is packing a Kalashnikov and wearing an Afghan "Pakol" - the typical "crazy Muslim" in Charlie Hebdo's world

That despicable cartoon was brought to you by your favourite satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo in the spirit of "Freedom of Speech". A cartoon depicting African migrants with their charcoal dark skin and plump red lips sinking to the bottom of the sea. For those of you that jumped on the ‪#‎IamCharlie‬ fad, here is a new one for you to relate with........

By the way, let's not even get into the issue of how/why places like Libya and Syria are now shitholes that all the desperate migrants are trying to get away from...............

Horus:
One of the simplest ways to prove ALIEN & UFO existence is through the Ancient African Dogon Tribe in Mali, who still are alive today.
They record the landing of a Space Craft in Africa as Nommo. They were given star maps by Extraterrestrials Thousands of years ago of the sirius "B" star rotation which cannot be seen without a telescope. There were no "Telescopes" or "Modern Equipment" in the ancient times of the Dogons. With the aid of scientific equipment, Modern Man only discovered the existence of this star's rotational path in 1970, yet the Dogons had this knowledge Thousands of years ago given to them by travelling Reptilians.

https://web.ticino.com/cusi/Redaz/Editor/scheda03_03.jpg

On left: the orbit of Digitaria (Sirius B) around Sirius as portrayed by the Dogon in their sand drawings. On right: A modern astronomical diagram of the orbit of Sirius, the years indicated being the positions of Sirius B in its orbit on those dates. Note that the Dogon do not place Sirius at the centre of their drawing but seem to place it near one focus of their approximate ellipse, which constitutes one of the most extraordinary features of their information, and matches the diagram on the right to an uncanny degree.

https://dragonfly-wisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/dogon-tribe.jpg

African Dogon Tribe in Mali

Not just the Dogon tribe but there have been several other cultures and empires in the past that have references to the Orion constellation (where the twin star Sirius lies) in their cultures and even in the manner in which their monuments were constructed, in alignment to this constellation - from the ancient pyramids of Egypt to Teotihuacan of the Aztecs in present day Mexico.
How they could have constructed these magnificent - and seemingly impossible to build - monuments in precise alignment to the Orion constellation or how they even knew that Sirius is a twin star remains a a mystery.

You can read more on http://vigilantcitizen.com/hidden-knowledge/connection-between-sirius-and-human-history/

This is indeed very disturbing. Just what are our "leaders" doing about it?

The scramble for Africa continues

Killing for the Sake of It: The Grisly Reality of the Failing US Empire
Mired in financial collapse, moral decay, and lack of leadership & direction, the last sole superpower is lashing out in every direction, spreading brutal destruction throughout the world for nothing more than its own depraved sake


This article originally appeared at Club Orlov

The story is the same every time: some nation, due to a confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes powerful — much more powerful than the rest — and, for a time, is dominant. But the lucky circumstances, which often amount to no more than a few advantageous quirks of geology, be it Welsh coal or West Texas oil, in due course come to an end. In the meantime, the erstwhile superpower becomes corrupted by its own power.

As the endgame approaches, those still nominally in charge of the collapsing empire resort to all sorts of desperate measures — all except one: they will refuse to ever consider the fact that their imperial superpower is at an end and that they should change their ways accordingly. George Orwell once offered an excellent explanation for this phenomenon: as the imperial end-game approaches, it becomes a matter of imperial self-preservation to breed a special-purpose ruling class — one that is incapable of understanding that the end-game is approaching. Because, you see, if they had an inkling of what’s going on, they wouldn’t take their jobs seriously enough to keep the game going for as long as possible.

The approaching imperial collapse can be seen in the ever-worsening results the empire gets for its imperial efforts. After World War II, the U.S. was able to do a respectable job helping to rebuild Germany, along with the rest of Western Europe. Japan also did rather well under U.S. tutelage, as did South Korea after the end of fighting on the Korean peninsula. With Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, all of which were badly damaged by the U.S., the results were significantly worse: Vietnam was an outright defeat, Cambodia lived through a period of genocide, while amazingly resilient Laos — the most heavily bombed country on the planet — recovered on its own.

The first Gulf War went even more badly: fearful of undertaking a ground offensive in Iraq, the U.S. stopped short of its regular practice of toppling the government and installing a puppet regime there and left it in limbo for a decade. When the U.S. did eventually invade, it succeeded — after killing countless civilians and destroying much of the infrastructure — in leaving behind a dismembered corpse of a country.

Similar results have been achieved in other places where the U.S. saw fit to get involved: Somalia, Libya and, most recently, Yemen. Let’s not even mention Afghanistan, since all empires have failed to achieve good results there. So the trend is unmistakable: whereas at its height the empire destroyed in order to rebuild the world in its own image, as it nears its end it destroys simply for the sake of destruction, leaving piles of corpses and smoldering ruins in its wake.

Another unmistakable trend has to do with the efficacy of spending money on “defense” (which, in the case of the U.S., should be redefined as “offense”). Having a lavishly endowed military can sometimes lead to success, but here too something has shifted over time. The famous American can-do spirit that was evident to all during World War II, when the U.S. dwarfed the rest of the world with its industrial might, is no more. Now, more and more, military spending itself is the goal — never mind what it achieves.

And what it achieves is the latest F-35 jet fighter that can’t fly; the latest aircraft carrier that can’t launch planes without destroying them if they are fitted with the auxiliary tanks they need to fly combat missions; the most technologically advanced AEGIS destroyer that can be taken out of commission by a single unarmed Russian jet carrying a basket of electronic warfare equipment; and another aircraft carrier that can be frightened out of deep water and forced to anchor by a few Russian submarines out on routine patrol.

But the Americans like their weapons, and they like handing them out as a show of support. But more often than not these weapons end up in the wrong hands: the ones they gave to Iraq are now in the hands of ISIS; the ones they gave to the Ukrainian nationalists have been sold to the Syrian government; the ones they gave to the government in Yemen is now in the hands of the Houthis who recently overthrew it. And so the efficacy of lavish military spending has dwindled too. At some point it may become more efficient to modify the U.S. Treasury printing presses to blast bundles of U.S. dollars in the general direction of the enemy.

With the strategy of “destroying in order to create” no longer viable, but with the blind ambition to still try to prevail everywhere in the world somehow still part of the political culture, all that remains is murder. The main tool of foreign policy becomes political assassination: be it Saddam Hussein, or Muammar Qaddafi, or Slobodan Milošević, or Osama bin Laden, or any number of lesser targets, the idea is to simply kill them.

While aiming for the head of an organization is a favorite technique, the general populace gets its share of murder too. How many funerals and wedding parties have been taken out by drone strikes? I don’t know that anyone in the U.S. really knows, but I am sure that those whose relatives were killed do remember, and will remember for the next few centuries at least. This tactic is generally not conducive to creating a durable peace, but it is a good tactic for perpetuating and escalating conflict. But that’s now an acceptable goal, because it creates the rationale for increased military spending, making it possible to breed more chaos.

Recently a retired U.S. general went on television to declare that what’s needed to turn around the situation in the Ukraine is to simply “start killing Russians.” The Russians listened to that, marveled at his idiocy, and then went ahead and opened a criminal case against him. Now this general will be unable to travel to an ever-increasing number of countries around the world for fear of getting arrested and deported to Russia to stand trial.

This is largely a symbolic gesture, but non-symbolic non-gestures of a preventive nature are sure to follow. You see, my fellow space travelers, murder happens to be illegal. In most jurisdictions, inciting others to murder also happens to be illegal. Americans have granted themselves the license to kill without checking to see whether perhaps they might be exceeding their authority. We should expect, then, that as their power trickles away, their license to kill will be revoked, and they will find themselves reclassified from global hegemons to mere murderers.

As empires collapse, they turn inward, and subject their own populations to the same ill treatment to which they subjected others. Here, America is unexceptional: the number of Americans being murdered by their own police, with minimal repercussions for those doing the killing, is quite stunning. When Americans wonder who their enemy really is, they need look no further.

But that is only the beginning: the precedent has already been set for deploying U.S. troops on U.S. soil. As law and order break down in more and more places, we will see more and more U.S. troops on the streets of cities in the U.S., spreading death and destruction just like they did in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The last license to kill to be revoked will be the license to kill ourselves.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/22/crimeans-keep-saying-no-to-ukraine/

Crimeans Keep Saying No to Ukraine
March 22, 2015

Exclusive: In a rare moment of honesty, a Western news outlet, Forbes, admits that the people of Crimea expressed their legitimate will in last year’s referendum when they voted to abandon Ukraine and rejoin Russia, an inconvenient truth for the U.S. State Department and press corps, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

A central piece of the West’s false narrative on the Ukraine crisis has been that Russian President Vladimir Putin “invaded” Crimea and then staged a “sham” referendum purporting to show 96 percent support for leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia. More recently, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland claimed that Putin has subjected Crimea to a “reign of terror.”

Both elements have been part of the “group think” that dominates U.S. political and media circles, but this propagandistic storyline simply isn’t true, especially the part about the Crimeans being subjugated by Russia.

https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/putin-crowd-300x200.jpg?55ac53
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a crowd on May 9, 2014, celebrating the 69th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Crimean port city of Sevastopol from the Nazis. (Russian government photo)

Consistently, over the past year, polls conducted by major Western firms have revealed that the people of Crimea by overwhelming numbers prefer being part of Russia over Ukraine, an embarrassing reality that Forbes business magazine has now acknowledged.

An article by Kenneth Rapoza, a Forbes specialist on developing markets, cited these polls as showing that the Crimeans do not want the United States and the European Union to force them back into an unhappy marriage with Ukraine. “The Crimeans are happy right where they are” with Russia, Rapoza wrote.

“One year after the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula in the Black Sea, poll after poll shows that the locals there — be they Ukrainians, ethnic Russians or Tartars are all in agreement: life with Russia is better than life with Ukraine,” he wrote, adding that “the bulk of humanity living on the Black Sea peninsula believe the referendum to secede from Ukraine was legit.”

Rapoza noted that a June 2014 Gallup poll, which was sponsored by the U.S. government’s Broadcasting Board of Governors, found that 82.8 percent of Crimeans said the March 16 referendum on secession reflected the views of the Crimean people. In the poll, when asked if joining Russia would improve their lives, 73.9 percent said yes and only 5.5 percent said no.

A February 2015 poll by German polling firm GfK found similar results. When Crimeans were asked “do you endorse Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” 93 percent gave a positive response, with 82 percent saying, “yes, definitely.” Only 2 percent said no, with the remainder unsure or not answering.

In other words, the West’s insistence that Russia must return Crimea to Ukraine would mean violating the age-old U.S. principle of a people’s right of self-determination. It would force the largely ethnic Russian population of Crimea to submit to a Ukrainian government that many Crimeans view as illegitimate, the result of a violent U.S.-backed coup on Feb. 22, 2014, that ousted elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

The coup touched off a brutal civil war in which the right-wing regime in Kiev dispatched neo-Nazi and other extremist militias to spearhead a fierce “anti-terrorism operation” against resistance from the ethnic Russian population in the east, which – like Crimea – had supported Yanukovych. More than 6,000 Ukrainians, most of them ethnic Russians, have been killed in the fighting.

Despite this reality, the mainstream U.S. news media has misreported the crisis and distorted the facts to conform to U.S. State Department propaganda. Thus, many Americans believe the false narrative about Russian troops crushing the popular will of the Crimean people, much as the U.S. public was misled about the Iraq situation in 2002-03 by many of the same news outlets.

Or, as Forbes’ Rapoza put it: “At some point, the West will have to recognize Crimea’s right to self rule. Unless we are all to believe that the locals polled by Gallup and GfK were done so with FSB bogey men standing by with guns in their hands.” The FSB is a Russian intelligence agency.

The GfK survey also found that Crimeans considered the Ukrainian media, which has been wildly anti-Russian, unreliable. Only 1 percent said the Ukrainian media “provides entirely truthful information” and only 4 percent said it was “more often truthful than deceitful.”

So, the people at the frontline of this conflict, where Assistant Secretary Nuland, detected a “reign of terror,” say they are not only satisfied with being restored to Russia, which controlled Crimea since the 1700s, but don’t trust the distorted version of events that they see on Ukrainian TV.

Practical Reasons

Some of the reasons for the Crimean attitudes are simply pragmatic. Russian pensions were three times larger than what the Ukrainian government paid – and now the Ukrainian pensions are being slashed further in compliance with austerity demands from the International Monetary Fund.

This month, Nuland boasted about those pension cuts in praising the Kiev regime’s steps toward becoming a “free-market state.” She also hailed “reforms” that will force Ukrainians to work harder and into old age and that slashed gas subsidies which helped the poor pay their heating bills.

Last year, the New York Times and other U.S. news outlets also tossed around the word “invasion” quite promiscuously in discussing Crimea. But you may recall that you saw no images of Russian tanks crashing into the Crimean peninsula or an amphibious landing or paratroops descending from the skies. The reason was simple: Russian troops were already in Crimea.

The Russians had a lease agreement with Ukraine permitting up to 25,000 military personnel in Crimea to protect the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. About 16,000 Russian troops were on the ground when the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch occurred in Kiev – and after a crisis meeting at the Kremlin, they were dispatched to prevent the coup regime from imposing its control on Crimea’s people.

That Russian intervention set the stage for the March 16 referendum in which the voters of Crimea turned out in large numbers and voted overwhelmingly for secession from Ukraine and reintegration with Russia, a move that the Russian parliament and President Putin then approved.

Yet, as another part of its false reporting, the New York Times claimed that Putin denied that Russian troops had operated inside Crimea – when, in fact, he was quite open about it. For instance, on March 4, 2014, almost two weeks before the referendum, Putin discussed at a Moscow press conference the role of Russian troops in preventing the violence from spreading from Kiev to Crimea. Putin said:

“You should note that, thank God, not a single gunshot has been fired there. … Thus the tension in Crimea that was linked to the possibility of using our Armed Forces simply died down and there was no need to use them. The only thing we had to do, and we did it, was to enhance the defense of our military facilities because they were constantly receiving threats and we were aware of the armed nationalists moving in. We did this, it was the right thing to do and very timely.”

Two days after the referendum, which recorded the 96 percent vote in favor of seceding from Ukraine and rejoining Russia, Putin returned to the issue of Russian involvement in Crimea. In a formal speech to the Russian Federation, Putin justified Crimea’s desire to escape the grasp of the coup regime in Kiev, saying:

“Those who opposed the [Feb. 22] coup were immediately threatened with repression. Naturally, the first in line here was Crimea, the Russian-speaking Crimea. In view of this, the residents of Crimea and Sevastopol turned to Russia for help in defending their rights and lives, in preventing the events that were unfolding and are still underway in Kiev, Donetsk, Kharkov and other Ukrainian cities.

“Naturally, we could not leave this plea unheeded; we could not abandon Crimea and its residents in distress. This would have been betrayal on our part.”

But to make it appear that Putin was denying a military intervention, the Times and other U.S. news outlets truncated Putin’s statement when he said, “Russia’s Armed Forces never entered Crimea.” The Western press stopped there, ignoring what he said next: “they were there already in line with an international agreement.”

Putin’s point was that Russian troops based in Crimea took actions that diffused a possibly violent situation and gave the people of Crimea a chance to express their wishes through the ballot. But that version of events didn’t fit with the desired narrative pushed by the U.S. State Department and the New York Times. So the problem was solved by misrepresenting what Putin said.

But the larger issue now is whether the Obama administration and the European Union will insist on forcing the Crimean people – against their will – to rejoin Ukraine, a country that is rapidly sliding into the status of a failed state and a remarkably cruel one at that.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). 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.

bookface:
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