ISIS

The UK’s Conservative Party Declares War on YouTube, Twitter, Free Speech and Common Sense

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Screen Shot 2014-09-30 at 11.43.22 AMSome of the most memorable moments of my tabloid-filled youth consisted of watching Geraldo Rivera interviewing and confronting Neo-Nazis and racists both in his studio and on the streets. Often times, these heated encounters resulted in brawls such as the one in this video, which has over 600,000 views on YouTube.

Geraldo and many others gave “a voice” to countless hateful groups on a regular basis throughout my youth, and millions of my fellow Americans saw them and were exposed to their unenlightened and pathetic ideology. This didn’t result in hordes of youth turning to violent extremism or the beginning of a Fourth Reich. Rather, what these interviews successfully did was expose the idiocy of these groups and make them even more isolated than they were before. That is how things work in a functioning free society. You aren’t afraid of ideas, you exchange them.

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U.S. Propaganda Enters Into Insane, Irrational Overdrive in Attempt to “Sell” War in Syria

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Screen Shot 2014-09-24 at 12.09.44 PMThanks to a dizzying barrage of lies, mainstream media fear-mongering and a couple of beheadings, the Obama Administration finally achieved its long sought after war in Syria. The tactic that proved most effective in mobilizing the American public back into a shivering, post-9/11 fetal position, was the same tactic used by elites in the UK to convince Scotland against voting for independence. That tactic, as I detailed in a recent post, is fear.

However, fear in itself is not enough. It must be coupled with endless slogans and misdirection by the mainstream media and politicians. It must lead the public to subconsciously embrace a thought process that is completely irrational. Such tactics can be labeled propaganda, and it results in a public suddenly supporting a war it strongly opposed only a year ago. All it takes is a little repackaging. Propaganda allows those who profit from war to push the American public into a tizzy of trepidation based on a couple of beheadings from ISIS, while not batting an eye over the daily beheadings that were simultaneously occurring in Saudi Arabia.

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Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen: “I’m Glad People Have This 9/11 Mentality Again”

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Screen Shot 2014-09-11 at 11.37.09 AMIn the wake of non-stop propaganda from politicians of both parties, as well as a mainstream media desperate for ratings, the American public is finally terrified enough to support another war in the Middle East. This is an unfortunate development I lamented in yesterday’s post: The American Public: A Tough Soldier or a Chicken Hawk Cowering in a Cubicle? Some Thoughts on ISIS Intervention.

With just 6% of likely U.S. voters thinking Congress is doing a good or excellent job according to a recent Rasmussen poll, it’s no surprise to see so many of these corrupt clowns falling over one another to appear tough on ISIS, using myriad hyperbolic and Orwellian statements.

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How I Remember September 11, 2001

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I wrote the following a year ago today. I’m reposting because it is more important now than ever in light of the most recent war propaganda:

How I Remember September 11, 2001

I remember 9/11 like it was yesterday. I was one year into my Wall Street career. I got up that morning just like every other morning and headed toward Union Square station to get on the subway down to 3 World Financial Center, the headquarters of Lehman Brothers. I had just purchased breakfast in the cafeteria when I saw one of the human resources folks from my floor yelling to evacuate. I was confused but I got my ass downstairs fast. When I got down there I joined the hundreds of others staring in awe skyward at the gaping hole in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. People speculated that a helicopter had hit the building, but I said no way. It looked like a bomb went off to me.

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James Foley Worked Under USAID, a Known U.S. Intelligence Front. Was He More Than Just a Journalist?

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Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to make a few things clear.

First, the brutal beheading of anyone is barbaric, unacceptable and tragic beyond description. Second, this piece is in no way intended to cause any harm or pain to the Foley family. Third, I don’t have any proof that James Foley was involved in covert intelligence work for the U.S. government.

All that being said, I do think it is important people understand he worked under USAID in Iraq only three years before he was abducted in Syria. As such, I believe the question as to whether or not he was more than just a journalist is a reasonable one to ask.

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Obama Celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Bombing Iraq

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“Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish!”

– U.S. President Lyndon Johnson commenting on the Gulf of Tonkin incident

Fifty years ago yesterday, on August 7, 1964, Congress passed the now infamous Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which led to a massive escalation of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Without a formal declaration of war, the resolution permitted President Johnson to take “all necessary measures” to support South Vietnam, including armed forces. This resulted in 58,000 dead Americans and well over a million dead Vietnamese, both civilians and military personnel.

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Saudi Human Rights Lawyer and Activist Jailed for 15 Years for Free Speech Under New “Anti-Terror” Law

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Screen Shot 2014-07-07 at 11.14.53 AMBack in April, I published a post titled, Saudi Arabia Passes New Law that Declares Atheists “Terrorists.” In it, I highlighted an article from the UK Telegraph which noted:

In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.

The organization said the new “terrorism” provisions contain language that prosecutors and judges are already using to prosecute and convict independent activists and peaceful dissidents.

Concerns that this law would be used to silence dissent and crackdown on basic human rights were apparently well justified, as the Wall Street Journal reported today that a Saudi court has sentenced human rights lawyer and activist Waleed Abu Alkhair to 15 years in prison for “inciting public opinion,” i.e., effectively utilizing free speech. The WSJ reports that:

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America’s Disastrous Foreign Policy – My Thoughts on Iraq

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But in the years they were getting started, a key component of ISIS’s support came from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf States of Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Sometimes the support came with the tacit nod of approval from those regimes; often, it took advantage of poor money laundering protections in those states, according to officials, experts, and leaders of the Syrian opposition, which is fighting ISIS as well as the regime.

“Everybody knows the money is going through Kuwait and that it’s coming from the Arab Gulf,” said Andrew Tabler, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “Kuwait’s banking system and its money changers have long been a huge problem because they are a major conduit for money to extremist groups in Syria and now Iraq.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been publicly accusing Saudi Arabia and Qatar of funding ISIS for months. Several reports have detailed how private Gulf funding to various Syrian rebel groups has splintered the Syrian opposition and paved the way for the rise of groups like ISIS and others.

– From the excellent Daily Beast article, America’s Allies Are Funding ISIS

The world is a very complicated place, and the Middle East is a particularly difficult region to try to get your head around. Between decades of colonialism, gigantic oil reserves, governments that are essentially feudal kingdoms, and the never-ending and always shifting Western government propaganda that often changes the targets of demonization on a whim, it’s no wonder people are so confused.I’m not writing this post proclaiming to be an expert on the region, nor am I saying I have all of the answers. What I am trying to do is give my perspective based on what I have seen so far, and more importantly, ask readers to ask their own set of questions.

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