As soon as the 9/11 attacks occurred, the Bush administration's eyes were on Iraq, and the intelligence agencies were ordered to get the proof. Detainees were even tortured to force them implicate Saddam Hussein, and false stories about contract between al-Qaeda and Saddam's regime were floated.
Can we make any sense of this fixation on Iraq? I think we can.
... but remember, none of us are perfect!
I attended a hearing on August 24 before a Dauphin County district justice (magistrate) for a “driving with an expired license charge” against a member of the Independent Gazette team. John drives a car with a big “Ron Paul” sticker on the rear window, as seen in the photo below. One day back in July, as he drove up Interstate 283, he was pulled over by a Pennsylvania State Police trooper. The trooper pulled him over for driving with an expired license. How did he know that? He allegedly randomly ran John’s license plate and found that information in one of the databases to which he had access.
by Scott Atran
Simply treating Isis as a form of “terrorism” or “violent extremism” masks the menace. Merely dismissing it as “nihilistic” reflects a wilful and dangerous avoidance of trying to comprehend, and deal with, its profoundly alluring moral mission to change and save the world. And the constant refrain that Isis seeks to turn back history to the Middle Ages is no more compelling than a claim that the Tea Party movement wants everything the way it was in 1776. The truth is more complicated. As Abu Mousa, Isis’s press officer in Raqqa, put it: “We are not sending people back to the time of the carrier pigeon. On the contrary, we will benefit from development. But in a way that doesn’t contradict the religion.”
What links global warming and the ruling class? A fervent belief in the former seems to have a powerful inverse correlation with the impressiveness of the latter.
The ruling class is made up of people from privileged backgrounds. They are usually wealthy. They go to elite colleges and often hold important jobs. They are the class from which many of our important leaders are drawn.
The Italian sociologist Pareto theorized that ruling classes, after time, lose their vigor and sense of purpose. They go soft. When that happens, they are replaced by tougher upward strivers.
If we need yet another example of why we should hunt down every liberal environmentalist and deport them to ... anywhere .. maybe China where they will be right at home with their fellow socialists. While we are at it bring in any immigrant who will gladly work three jobs with no welfare. Difficult to find many American citizens who will do that!
As Deep Throat said, follow the money.
So here is the purported logic: climate change leads to terrorism, but one can’t eradicate the primary funding source of the biggest terrorist threat in the world, the Islamic State, because of dangers it may lead to even more environmental damage and climate change.
We are truly speechless at this idiocy.
Meanwhile, the real reasons behind ISIS massive wealth build up: the illicit oil trade facilitated by, and involving NATO-member state Turkey, whose president and his son collect billions in illegal profits by arranging the charter of Islamic State oil to Israel and other international buyers of ISIS’ cheap oil, and which involves such “highly respected” commodity traders as Trafigura and Vitol, continues to this day, and only Putin has done anything to put a dent in it.
For those who can’t believe any of this (and it took us quite a while to realize this is not some elaborate prank) here is the clip proving the former CIA deputy director actually said it all.
WASHINGTON – Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia, and Emerging Threats, on Saturday issued the following statement concerning Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet fighter on the Turkey-Syria border.
... Russia should be applauded. Instead, it is being castigated for doing what our government is unwilling to do to confront the terrorist offensive now butchering innocent human beings from Africa, to the Middle East, to the streets of Paris.
If being in NATO means protecting Erdogan in this situation, either he shouldn’t be in NATO or we shouldn’t.
Gee Mr. Trump, you want a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on.” Besides admitting in your statement that you haven't figured out what is going on, perhaps you should read someone who can explain a little history to you.
The Islamophobia “industry,” dormant for several years, has returned with a vengeance. There are books to be rewritten about those “scary Muslims,” a lot of money to be made, and most importantly primary presidential elections to be won. Donald Trump’s statements about Muslims and what he would do if he is elected President would make the 1930s European fascists proud. With every statement he makes his polls improve. After all, he has been endorsed by the Daily Stormer, the most popular Neo-Nazi news website. Ted Cruz, the other conservative and borderline fascist declares that if he is elected President, he will bomb the Middle East so relentlessly that we will all learn whether “sands can glow in the dark.” He is also surging in the polls.
So, there seems to be no downside to being an Islamophobe and even fascist, right? Wrong! There is a downside, and we the ordinary people pay for it with our flesh, blood, and money, not to mention our freedom. The Islamophobes and fascist politicians do not, however, explain why this is so.
While the country has been fixated on Donald Trump’s tormenting his Republican primary opponents and deeply concerned about the government’s efforts to identify any confederates in the San Bernardino, California, killings, a team of federal prosecutors and FBI agents continues to examine Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state in order to determine whether she committed any crimes and, if so, whether there is sufficient evidence to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Just in case we forget where we stand in the immensity of the universe, Carl Sagan reminds us here.
The excerpt below is from a text of talks given by Noam Chomsky, the full text of which is available here. I highly recommend downloading this PDF and reading the entire thing. Chomsky's views are readically defferent from anything you'll hear in the drive by media or even from most patriot and libertarian sources. In fact while I have no reason to know if George Carlin and Chomsky ever met, Carlin's historic rant about who really owns this country and your miniscle place in it can be found here with all the foul language in tact and perfectly, if colorfully, similarly reflects Chomskys point of view - remember the truth will set you free!
Keep in mind that this statement from Chomsky was made in the early 1990's and is as true today as it was then. When then, cannot the candidates including Mr Trump and his idiotic companions in crime come close to a statement like this. Perhaps it is because they like keeping you in a state of willful ignorance.
Editor
Questioner: Dr. Chomsky, I have a question. Would you agree that in this attack on the less powerful people of the world generally, there is also a secret, vicious war being waged on the Muslim people? And what do you think is in store for Muslims in general in the world?
Well, it does happen to be the case that plenty of Muslims have been getting it in the neck from the United States - but that's not because they're Muslims, it's because they're not sufficiently under control. There are plenty of white Christian people who are also getting it in the neck. In the 1980s, the United States fought a vicious war in Central America primarily against the Catholic Church - and that means European priests, not just priests from indigenous origins - because the Church had started working for what they called "the preferential option for the poor," therefore they had to go. In fact, when Americas Watch [a human rights organization focused on North and South America] did their wrap-up study on the 1980s, they pointed out that it was a decade framed by the murder of the Archbishop in 1980 and the murder of six Jesuit intellectuals in 1989, both in El Salvador-yeah, that wasn't accidental.
Read more: The Truth About Islamic Fundamentalism versus U.S. Policy
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