Month: October 2015

So Who Are the Syrian Moderates Anyway? (Hint: Al Qaeda)

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You don’t need me to tell you how disastrous the Obama Administration’s Syria “strategy” has been. After all, he pretty much admitted as much by announcing a pullback earlier today.

While the retreat in itself is garnering all the headlines, with people superficially focused on how “Putin outmaneuvered Obama,” the truth is far more disturbing. Putin didn’t so much outmaneuver Obama, as much as he called bullshit on the entire operation. Putin basically said that Russia would begin bombing terrorists in Syria, but the problem is that the U.S. is supporting terrorists in Syria. This is undoubtably true, which is the real reason Obama is pulling back. He needs to get out now before Putin proves to the whole world that the CIA is fighting with al-Qaeda in Syria.

For a dose of hard-hitting truth, I once again turn to one of the best sources out there, investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed.

Here is some of what he published at Middle East Eye:

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Ranking the Peasants – China Introduces Orwellian “Citizen Scores”

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The following is extraordinarily creepy and disturbing. It’s also extremely clever, from a jackbooted, fascist thug perspective. When massive censorship itself isn’t enough…

TechDirt reports:

China’s plan to control the hearts, minds and internet connections of its citizens continues unimpeded. That’s the great thing about authoritarian regimes: rollout of mandatory programs is usually only a problem of logistics, not opposition.

The Chinese government has mandated a rating system for all of its connected citizens. It looks like a credit rating but goes much deeper than just tying a measurement of financial risk to a number. It’s a way of defining who someone in terms of the government’s desires and aims. And its desires aren’t all that honorable.

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Saudi Arabia Bombs Second Yemeni Wedding in a Week – At Least 23 Dead

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Saudi Arabia, the recently crowned head of a UN human rights panel and close U.S. government ally, has now bombed two wedding parties in Yemen in just over a week. Yes, you read that right.

The New York Times reports:

SANA, Yemen — Airstrikes by a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia hit a house south of the capital on Wednesday, killing at least 23 people who were attending a wedding party, said witnesses and a local medical worker.

The attack was the second airstrike on a wedding in Yemen in a little over a week, and it added to growing criticism over the coalition’s air campaign, which has killed more than 1,100 civilians over the past six months, according to the United Nations.

On Sept. 28, coalition warplanes bombed wedding tents on the Yemen’s Red Sea coast, killing at least 70 people.

Saudi Arabia launched a military offensive in March against rebels known as the Houthis after they drove the Saudi-backed government from power. As war has spread throughout the country, more than 2,355 civilians have been killed — the majority of them in coalition airstrikes, human rights workers say.

Interestingly, this indiscriminate murdering of civilians is finally starting to get some attention in Washington D.C. We learn from Al-Monitor that:

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When it Really Mattered, Ben Bernanke Coddled, Protected & Bailed Out Financial Criminals

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Most of you will have seen Ben Bernanke’s recent crocodile tears regarding how he wished more individuals were held responsible, for you know, destroying the American middle class and handing over the nation to a handful of criminal oligarchs.

As David Dayen notes, he is completely full of shit. As usual.

From the Intercept:

Former Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke joined practically everyone in America by saying in his new memoir, The Courage to Act, that more Wall Street executives should have gone to jail for criminal misconduct that led to the financial crisis.

“It would have been my preference to have more investigation of individual action, since obviously everything what went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm,” he wrote.

Unlike practically everyone else in America, however, Bernanke was in a pretty good position to actually facilitate criminal misconduct proceedings, if he wanted to see them so badly — as  head of the nation’s most powerful bank supervisory agency from 2006 to 2014.

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How the TPP Could Lead to Worldwide Internet Censorship

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On Monday, we learned that global “leaders” had come to an agreement on the infamous Trans Pacific Partnership, or TPP. While discouraging, this doesn’t mean the game is over — far from it.

Although politicians have come to a secret agreement, this democracy killing, corporate monstrosity still has to pass the U.S. Congress. So it’s now up to all of us to create an insurmountable degree of opposition and make sure this thing is dead on arrival.

The more I learn about the TPP, the more horrified I become. In case you need to get up to speed, check out the following:

U.S. State Department Upgrades Serial Human Rights Abuser Malaysia to Include it in the TPP

Julian Assange on the TPP – “Deal Isn’t About Trade, It’s About Corporate Control”

Trade Expert and TPP Whistleblower – “We Should Be Very Concerned about What’s Hidden in This Trade Deal”

As the Senate Prepares to Vote on “Fast Track,” Here’s a Quick Primer on the Dangers of the TPP

If that wasn’t enough to concern you, here’s the latest revelation.

From Common Dreams:

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Welcome to the Recovery – Homelessness Amongst Students Doubles Since Before the Recession

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How’s that recovery going for you? That’s what I thought.

Here’s the latest data point from the ongoing oligarch crime spree shamelessly marketed to the masses as an “economic recovery.”

From Five-Thirty-Eight:

The number of homeless students in the country’s classrooms has more than doubled since before the recession, according to recently released federal data. That’s an alarming trend, but a new report offers some hope: At least part of the increase, the authors say, is not because more students have become homeless, but because states have gotten better at identifying homeless students.

Here’s a visual representation of America’s Banana Republic neo-feualism for those of you so inclined:

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Activists Fly Drone Over NSA Facility in Germany, Drop Fliers Encouraging Employees to Quit

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You probably haven’t heard of Intelexit, but you probably should. It’s an organization which describes itself as follows on its website:

Intelexit is an initiative that helps people leave the secret service and build a new life. It is civil society’s response to the lack of oversight and undemocratic practices of intelligence agencies.

In recent weeks, the organization’s members have embarked on creative protests that encourage  current intelligence employees to follow their conscience and quit. Their latest stunt, over an NSA facility in Germany, involved a drone and fliers.

Here’s some more from the Intercept:

A group of activists flew a drone over a key National Security Agency complex in Germany on Friday, dropping leaflets encouraging the intelligence workers inside to quit in protest over invasive surveillance.

The site of the drone fly-by, the Dagger Complex, is a U.S. military installation south of Frankfurt. It houses the European Cryptologic Center — a major source of signals and communications intelligence in Europe for the NSA. According to German media, its 1,100 employees monitor massive amounts of communications with tools such as XKEYSCORE, one of the programs revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

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U.S. Bombing of a Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan Was No Accident – “It Was the Target”

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In particular, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) quickly publicized numerous facts that cast serious doubt on the original U.S. claim that the strike on the hospital was just an accident. To begin with, the organization had repeatedly advised the U.S. military of the exact GPS coordinates of the hospital. They did so most recently on September 29, just five days before the strike. Beyond that, MSF personnel at the facility “frantically” called U.S. military officials during the strike to advise them that the hospital was being hit and to plead with them to stop, but the strikes continued in a “sustained” manner for 30 more minutes.  

– From Glenn Greenwald’s article: The Radically Changing Story of the U.S. Airstrike on Afghan Hospital: From Mistake to Justification

By now, all of you will have read about the U.S. military’s recent bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. What you may not be aware of, is how much the official story has changed in the days since this inexcusable act of barbarism became public.

Doctors Without Borders has been calling the attack a “war crime,” which to the average American sounds outlandish and impossible. The justification for this claim is simple — that the airstrike wasn’t an accident at all, and that the U.S. military intentionally targeted the hospital. As the days go by, it becomes increasingly clear that this is indeed the case, and the Pentagon is now scrambling to justify the intentional targeting of a hospital.

As Glenn Greenwald reports at the Intercept:

When news first broke of the U.S. airstrike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, the response from the U.S. military was predictable and familiar. It was all just a big, terrible mistake, its official statement suggested: an airstrike it carried out in Kunduz “may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility.” Oops: our bad. Fog of war, errant bombs, and all that.

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California Mayor Forced to Hand Over Electronics and Passwords at Airport – Compares U.S. to Nazi Germany

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“I think the American people should be extremely concerned about their personal rights and privacy. As I was being searched at the airport, there was a Latino couple to my left, and an Asian couple to my right also being aggressively searched. I briefly had to remind myself that this was not North Korea or Nazi Germany. This is the land of the Free.

– Anthony Silva, Mayor of Stockton, California

Just in case you’re still under the infantile illusion that you reside in a free country.

From ArsTechnica:

Stockton, California Mayor Anthony R. Silva attended a recent mayor’s conference in China, but his return trip took a bit longer than usual. At the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) this week, agents with the Department of Homeland Security detained Silva and confiscated his personal cell phone among other electronics. According to comments from the mayor, that may not even be the most alarming part.

“Unfortunately, they were not willing or able to produce a search warrant or any court documents suggesting they had a legal right to take my property,” Silva told SFGate. “In addition, they were persistent about requiring my passwords for all devices.”

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Welcome to the Banana Republic – Highlighting the Comment Section of Bernanke’s WSJ Propaganda Piece

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There’s nothing like the comment section when it comes to Federal Reserve propaganda in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. Liberty Blitzkrieg readers will remember the last time the WSJ published a disconnected piece of Central Bank stroking garbage from Fed propagandist John Hilsenrath, and the riotous anger which ensued in the comment section. If you missed it, I strongly suggest taking a read: “Revolution is Coming” – The Top 20 Responses to Jon Hilsenrath’s Idiotic WSJ Article.

Fast forward a few months, and here we have Ben “the courage to bail out billionaires” Bernanke writing an almost unreadable piece of propaganda in the WSJ titled “How the Fed Saved the Economy.”

At this point in a post I’d typically highlight the more egregious parts of an Op-Ed, but this one is so bad, so poorly written and completely uninteresting, there’s really no point. If you feel like wasting two minutes of your life go ahead and read it yourself, but it appears to me that it was put together in a couple of seconds by an intern instructed to boost book sales.

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