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Meet the Rebels

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This Syrian civil war is extremely sad and tragic, but it has become abundantly clear that there are no “good guys” when it comes to the main factions fighting. The idea that we would provide aid to a side that is allied with al-Qaeda, the terrorist group used to justify the destruction of civil liberties domestically, is beyond absurd.

As we see from today’s New York Times article, these rebel factions are not fighting for peace or democracy, but more often than not for simple bloodthirsty revenge. Some of the factions are actively trying to form an Islamist state, while others are calling for the extermination of an entire group of people based solely on the fact they are part of a particular religious group, the Alawites. From the New York Times:

The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.

The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.

The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.

This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.

In the more than two years this civil war has carried on, a large part of the Syrian opposition has formed a loose command structure that has found support from several Arab nations, and, to a more limited degree, the West. Other elements of the opposition have assumed an extremist cast, and openly allied with Al Qaeda.

Across much of Syria, where rebels with Western support live and fight, areas outside of government influence have evolved into a complex guerrilla and criminal landscape.

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The Onion: Poll Shows Majority Of Americans Approve Of Sending Congress To Syria

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Epic, hilarious and accurate. Excerpts below from The Onion: WASHINGTON—As President Obama continues to push for a plan of limited military intervention in Syria, a new poll of Americans has found that though the nation remains wary over the prospect of becoming involved in another Middle Eastern war, the vast majority of U.S. citizens strongly … Read more

10 Chemical Weapons Attacks the U.S. Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About

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A couple of weeks ago I highlighted the fact that declassified documents analyzed by Foreign Policy proved that the U.S. government knew about Saddam Hussein’s egregious use of chemical weapons and in fact we helped him be more effective in their deployment. Well unfortunately that’s just the tip of the American chemical weapons iceberg.

From white phosphorus and depleted uranium (DU) usage in Iraq, to secret radioactive tests in poor black neighborhoods within the U.S. itself (something I previously covered here), the list is pretty horrific. While you might be able to say that this is the reality of war, then what the heck are we doing entering a civil war in a country where chemical weapons are being used that poses no threat to us? Absolutely insane and criminal.

I summarized the Top 10 list here, but I highly suggest also checking out the entire post with pictures from PolicyMic. Summary below:

Washington doesn’t merely lack the legal authority for a military intervention in Syria. It lacks the moral authority. We’re talking about a government with a history of using chemical weapons against innocent people far more prolific and deadly than the mere accusations Assad faces from a trigger-happy Western military-industrial complex, bent on stifling further investigation before striking.

1. The U.S. Military Dumped 20 Million Gallons of Chemicals on Vietnam from 1962 – 1971

Vietnam estimates that as a result of the decade-long chemical attack, 400,000 people were killed or maimed, 500,000 babies have been born with birth defects, and 2 million have suffered from cancer or other illnesses.

2. Israel Attacked Palestinian Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2008 – 2009

White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary chemical weapon that melts human flesh right down to the bone.

In 2009, multiple human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and International Red Cross reported that the Israeli government was attacking civilians in their own country with chemical weapons.

The Israeli military denied the allegations at first, but eventually admitted they were true.

3. Washington Attacked Iraqi Civilians with White Phosphorus in 2004

In 2004, journalists embedded with the U.S. military in Iraq began reporting the use of white phosphorus in Fallujah against Iraqi insurgents. First the military lied and said that it was only using white phosphorus to create smokescreens or illuminate targets. Then it admitted to using the volatile chemical as an incendiary weapon.

4. The CIA Helped Saddam Hussein Massacre Iranians and Kurds with Chemical Weapons in 1988

CIA records now prove that Washington knew Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons (including sarin, nerve gas, and mustard gas) in the Iran-Iraq War, yet continued to pour intelligence into the hands of the Iraqi military, informing Hussein of Iranian troop movements while knowing that he would be using the information to launch chemical attacks.

5. The Army Tested Chemicals on Residents of Poor, Black St. Louis Neighborhoods in The 1950s

In the early 1950s, the Army set up motorized blowers on top of residential high-rises in low-income, mostly black St. Louis neighborhoods, including areas where as much as 70% of the residents were children under 12. The government told residents that it was experimenting with a smokescreen to protect the city from Russian attacks, but it was actually pumping the air full of hundreds of pounds of finely powdered zinc cadmium sulfide.

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Before We Bomb Syria, What’s Happening in Libya?

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Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

– Albert Einstein

Some may read my writings and think that when I say that the “leaders” in these United States are insane I am merely doing it for effect and that it’s an exaggeration. It isn’t.

If you read Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity above, it is clear the folks pulling the strings in this nation are completely and totally insane. As if anyone needed further proof, I will provide some here.

As we all know by now, Barack Obama and his neocon allies are pushing for military intervention in Syria, a country that has not attacked us and poses no imminent threat to the nation. Nevertheless, we are throwing our support behind the Al-Qaeda rebels for “humanitarian” reasons. We made a similar argument in Libya, and the decision ended up removing from earth John McCain’s good buddy Muammar al-Gaddafi. Well the results are in from Libya and they’re not good. Naturally, we should look at that epic failure and then get involved in another civil war which has nothing to do with us. USA! USA!

From the UK Independent:

A little under two years ago, Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, urged British businessmen to begin “packing their suitcases” and to fly to Libya to share in the reconstruction of the country and exploit an anticipated boom in natural resources.

Yet now Libya has almost entirely stopped producing oil as the government loses control of much of the country to militia fighters.

Mutinying security men have taken over oil ports on the Mediterranean and are seeking to sell crude oil on the black market. Ali Zeidan, Libya’s Prime Minister, has threatened to “bomb from the air and the sea” any oil tanker trying to pick up the illicit oil from the oil terminal guards, who are mostly former rebels who overthrew Muammar Gaddafi and have been on strike over low pay and alleged government corruption since July.

As world attention focused on the coup in Egypt and the poison gas attack in Syria over the past two months, Libya has plunged unnoticed into its worst political and economic crisis since the defeat of Gaddafi two years ago. Government authority is disintegrating in all parts of the country putting in doubt claims by American, British and French politicians that Nato’s military action in Libya in 2011 was an outstanding example of a successful foreign military intervention which should be repeated in Syria.

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You Know You Are a Neocon If…

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Over the past several decades, a tumorous growth has emerged from and taken over the Republican Party. This cancer is called a neoconservative, or colloquially just simply neocon. These folks are extremely insecure and hotheaded. It is best to avoid them in the wild whenever possible. Some signs that you may be in the presence … Read more

Incredible Tweets from John McCain on Libya and Syria from 2009 and 2011

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Earlier today I called John McCain a weapon of mass destruction on Twitter. Little did I know that just moments later he would be caught playing a game of poker on his iPhone during the Senate’s hearing on launching missiles at Syria. Nevertheless, none of this should surprise us, as John McCain has shown signs … Read more

Journalism’s Revolving Door: Washington Post’s National Security Editor Joins the State Department

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The revolving door. It’s as American as apple pie, warfare, naked body scanners and the NSA. This seemingly never-ending reshuffling of thieving crooks from crony capitalistic “private” enterprises into public “service” and back defines the U.S. economy more than anything else these days. Thought it was merely concentrated in high finance, healthcare and defense contractors? Well … Read more

Vietnam Bans Free Speech Online with Decree 72

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I’ve been watching the progressive erosion of civil liberties in Vietnam with a watchful eye for some time now. The country first appeared on my radar due to its particularly aggressive measures against the citizenry’s gold buying. As the progression usually goes, first a country will lash out against its own people for buying protection against the leadership’s mismanagement of the economy by blaming gold. Once that fails, a country will usually then start cracking down on civil liberties. Shortly after that we usually see the cracking of heads. It appears Vietnam has taken a frightening and dangerous step forward in the progression with Decree 72. From the BBC:

A controversial law banning Vietnamese online users from discussing current affairs has come into effect.

The decree, known as Decree 72, says blogs and social websites should not be used to share news articles, but only personal information.

Dozens of activists, including bloggers, have been convicted for anti-state activity in the country this year.

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How the UK Government Approved Sarin Gas Components to Syria for Export in 2012

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The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

– Ernest Hemingway

A nation pushing toward war as a distraction from internal problems and political failures is as old as human civilization itself. It is a tried and true method for hanging on to positions of power and often ends up in massive displays of destruction, chaos and death. Sadly, we find ourselves on the precipice of such a moment right now. With Labor Day 2013 in the history books, we Americans are about to be pushed into another pointless unconstitutional war, with this particular conflict having grave potential to escalate into something far worse than our recent military boondoggles.

Not only is a civil war in Syria, with Bashar al-Assad on one side and Al-Qaeda on the other, nothing we should want to get embroiled in, but our entire rationale for intervention is absurd. Not only did the U.S. government and intelligence agencies play key roles in Saddam’s far worse chemical weapons attacks in the 1980’s, but now we discover that the UK had approved sarin gas components for export to Syria as recently as last year! The sale was only blocked due to EU regulations. Wow. More from the UK Independent:

The Government was accused of “breathtaking laxity” in its arms controls last night after it emerged that officials authorised the export to Syria of two chemicals capable of being used to make a nerve agent such as sarin a year ago.

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, will today be asked by MPs to explain why a British company was granted export licences for the dual-use substances for six months in 2012 while Syria’s civil war was raging and concern was rife that the regime could use chemical weapons on its own people. The disclosure of the licences for potassium fluoride and sodium fluoride, which can both be used as precursor chemicals in the manufacture of nerve gas, came as the US Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States had evidence that sarin  gas was used in last month’s atrocity in Damascus.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills insisted that although the licences were granted to an unnamed UK chemical company in January 2012, the substances were not sent to Syria before the permits were eventually revoked last July in response to tightened European Union sanctions.

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India Moves to Ban Gmail

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The fallout from the Snowden revelations continue. While India has already been attempting to fight economic reality with import duties on gold in an desperate move to reduce buying, they are now also trying to take further control of their technology infrastructure. Although this may appear to be a good thing on the surface, perhaps it is merely a move to further consolidate their own domestic snooping powers, which we already know they are trying to do.

In the latest news, it is being reported that the government will soon ask its employees to stop using Google’s Gmail due to the presence of the company’s servers within the U.S. More from The Times of India:

BANGALORE/NEW DELHI: The government will soon ask all its employees to stop using Google’s Gmail for official communication, a move intended to increase security ofconfidential government information after revelations of widespread cyberspying by the US. 

A senior official in the ministry of communications and information technology said the government plans to send a formal notification to nearly 5 lakh employees barring them from email service providers such as Gmail that have their servers in the US, and instead asking them to stick to the official email service provided by India’s National Informatics Centre. 

“Gmail data of Indian users resides in other countries as the servers are located outside. Currently, we are looking to address this in the government domain, where there are large amounts of critical data,” said J Satyanarayana, secretary in the department of electronics and information technology. 

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