Salman Rafi Sheikh – 2-24-2018

With war into its sixth year, it is by far clear to all the actors involved in the Syrian conflict that Syria’s Assad is not “going home” now. But then this war was never about one person only; it was more about changing fundamentally the Middle East’s geo-political landscape in favor of the Wahabbi (i.e., Saudis) centre of power and rid the region of a common enemy of the US, Israel and Wahabbism: Iran. And the way the war in Syria progressed throughout these years and the way this has changed the geo-political landscape to the orchestrators’ disadvantage means that this war is not going to end anytime soon.

A mere restoration of Syrian territory and sovereignty wouldn’t do that either, for the real target of the US-Saudi nexus, Iran, remains strong, in fact much stronger than it was before the beginning of this war. Therefore, now that Russia and its allies have succeeded in voiding imperial agenda of ‘regime change’ in Syria, the US still has no intention of withdrawing. Instead, it is now demanding from Russia to ‘distance’ itself (its interests) from that of Iran in Syria, and thus allow some space for the US and its regional allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, to push back Iran from Syria and limit its influence. This is hardly any doubt that this is a sure-short recipe of new conflict in the region.

The US, on its part, has already started to build up pressure. This is evident from the video the Pentagon released in the second week of February, showing its fighter jets destroying a Russian tank, giving a message to Russia about the imperative of staying clear of the next fight-in-the-making in Syria in which Israel is taking the lead, evident from its last week’s air attacks and the consequent downing of one its jets. There is no doubt that Israel has the US backing against Iran. And there is hardly any doubt that the momentum for an armed conflict isn’t being built. Its most recent manifestation came from James Mattis on February 12 when he defended Israel’s ‘right to self-defence.’ He said:

“Israel has an absolute right to defend itself, and I think that’s what happened yesterday.”….“They don’t have to wait until their citizens are dying under attack before they actually address that issue. So when Syria, which has made no … excuse for what they’re doing alongside Iran, when they are providing throughout for Iran to give weapons, including more sophisticated weapons, to the Lebanese Hezbollah, Israel has an absolute right to defend themselves. It is interesting that everywhere we find trouble in the Middle East, you find the same thing behind it. Whether it be in Yemen or Beirut, or in Syria, in Iraq, you always find Iran engaged.”

The “First Northern War”

And since the Israelis aren’t interested in waiting for a real attack to come to them, they are already preparing for what many in Israel have already started to call the “first northern war”, because it will be fought on both Lebanese and Syrian fronts.

The US mainstream media is not lagging behind in paving the way for this war. A New York Times report recently noted that Iran is expanding its ‘axis of resistance’ in Syria against Israel. According to the rogue projections made in the report, “many Israelis say the danger is not just from the new Iranian-backed militias, but also from the Iranian efforts to give advanced, high-precision weapons capable of hitting sensitive infrastructure to Hezbollah.”

The claims made in the report about the possibility of Iran hitting Israel have been largely endorsed by the US officials too. According to McMaster, “What’s particularly concerning is that this network of proxies is becoming more and more capable as Iran seeds more and more” of its “destructive weapons into these networks”, requiring them to now start thinking in terms of acting “against Iran.”

Israel is prepared to do so as is evident from the recent Israeli attacks and as re-affirmed by the Israeli leadership. And while Israel’s war rhetoric has recently become highly charged, Israel doesn’t seem to be interesting in using its own ground forces. Instead, to counter Iranian presence in Syria, Israel has started to arm Syrian rebel groups. According to a report of Israeli media Hareetz:

“At least seven Sunni rebel organizations in the Syrian Golan are now getting arms and ammunition from Israel, along with money to buy additional armaments. This change has taken place at a time when America has greatly reduced its involvement in southern Syria.”

This has already been officially confirmed. According to a separate report of Times of Israel, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon confirmed, in the last week of January, that

“Israel has been providing aid to Syrian rebels, thus keeping the Druze () in Syria out of immediate danger.”

While he didn’t define the nature of this “aid”, recent developments have already started to show that this “aid” isn’t just medical.

While the momentum of conflict is building up, there are many crucial go-betweens—and the most important of these is the Russian factor.

The Russians have installed its top of the line S-400 missiles in Syria, which they can use to sweep the Syrian skies any time they want. And as Russia’s Lavrov warned, sitting besides his Iranian counter-part in Moscow, the US of the dangers involved in ‘playing with fire’, it gave a clear hint of the fact that its position in Syria remains unchanged even after it has successfully protected the Syrian regime and that any new build up in Syria will have to duly consider the S-400 missile shield, which is capable of preventing the “first northern war.”

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by The Saker

February 20, 2018 “Information Clearing House” –  Events in Syria have recently clearly taken a turn for the worse and there is an increasing amount of evidence that the Russian task force in Syria is being targeted by a systematic campaign of “harassing attacks”.

First, there was the (relatively successful) drone and mortar attack on the Russian Aerospace base in Khmeimin. Then there was the shooting down of a Russian SU-25 over the city of Maasran in the Idlib province. Now we hear of Russian casualties in the US raid on a Syrian column (along with widely exaggerated claims of “hundreds” of killed Russians). In the first case, Russian officials did openly voice their strong suspicion that the attack was if not planned and executed by the US, then at least coordinated with the US forces in the vicinity. In the case of the downing of the SU-25, no overt accusations have been made, but many experts have stated that the altitude at which the SU-25 was hit strongly suggests a rather modern MANPAD of a type not typically seen in Syria (the not so subtle hint being here that these were US Stingers sent to the Kurds by the US). As for the latest attack on the Syrian column, what is under discussion is not who did it but rather what kind of Russian personnel was involved, Russian military or private contractors (the latter is a much more likely explanation since the Syrian column had no air-cover whatsoever). Taken separately, none of these incidents mean very much but taken together they might be indicative of a new US strategy in Syria: to punish the Russians as much as possible short of an overt US attack on Russian forces. To me this hypothesis seems plausible for the following reasons:

First, the US and Israel are still reeling in humiliation and impotent rage over their defeat in Syria: Assad is still in power, Daesh is more or less defeated, the Russians were successful in not only their military operations against Daesh but also in their campaign to bring as many “good terrorists” to the negotiating table as possible. With the completion of a successful conference on Syria in Russia and the general agreement of all parties to begin working on a new constitution, there was a real danger of peace breaking out, something the AngloZionist are absolutely determined to oppose (check out this apparently hacked document which, if genuine, clearly states the US policy not to allow Russia to get anything done).

Second, both Trump and Netanyahu have promised to bring in lots of “victories” to prove how manly and strong they are (as compared to the sissies which preceded them). Starting an overt war against Russian would definitely be a “proof of manhood,” but a dangerous one. Killing Russians “on the margins,” so to speak, either with plausible deniability or, alternatively, killing Russian private contractors is much safer and thus far more tempting option.

Third, there are presidential elections coming up in Russia and the Americans are still desperately holding on to their sophomoric notion that if they create trouble for Putin (sanctions or body bags from Syria) they can somehow negatively impact his popularity in Russia (in reality they achieve the opposite effect, but they are too dull and ignorant to realize that).

Last but not least, since the AngloZionists have long since lost the ability to actually get anything done, their logical fall-back position is not to let anybody else succeed either. This is the main purpose of the entire US deployment in northern Syria: to create trouble for Turkey, Iran, Syria and, of course, Russia.

The bottom line is this: since the Americans have declared that they will (illegally) stay in Syria until the situation “stabilizes” they now must do everything their power to destabilize Syria. Yes, there is a kind of a perverse logic to all that…

For Russia, all this bad news could be summed up in the following manner: while Russia did defeat Daesh in Syria she is still far from having defeated the AngloZionists in the Middle-East. The good news is, however, that Russia does have options to deal with this situation.

Step one: encouraging the Turks

There is a counter-intuitive but in many ways an ideal solution for Russia to counter the US invasion of Syria: involve the Turks. How? Not by attacking the US forces directly, but by attacking the Kurdish militias the Americans are currently “hiding” behind (at least politically). Think of it, while the US (or Israel) will have no second thoughts whatsoever before striking Syrian or Iranian forces, actually striking Turkish forces would carry an immense political risk: following the US-backed coup attempt against Erdogan and, just to add insult to injury, the US backing the creation of a “mini-Kurdistsan” both in Iraq and in Syria, US-Turkish relations are at an all-time low and it would not take much to push the Turks over the edge with potentially cataclysmic consequences for the US, EU, NATO, CENTCOM, Israel and all the AngloZionist interests in the region. Truly, there is no overstating the strategic importance of Turkey for Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle-East, and the Americans know that. From this flows a very real if little understood consequence: the Turkish armed forces in Syria basically enjoy what I would call a “political immunity” from any US attacks, that is to say that (almost) no matter what the Turks do, the US would (almost) never consider actually openly using force against them simply because the consequence of, say, a USAF strike on a Turkish army column would be too serious to contemplate.

In fact, I believe the US-Turkish relationship is so bad and so one-sided that I see a Turkish attack on a Kurdish column/position with embedded US Special Forces far more likely than a US attack on a Turkish army column. This might sound counter-intuitive, but let’s say the Turks did attack a Kurdish column/position with US personnel and that US servicemen would die as the result. What would/could the US do? Retaliate in kind? No way! Not only is the notion of the US attacking a fellow NATO country member is quite unthinkable, it would most likely be followed by a Turkish demand that the US/NATO completely withdraw from Turkey’s territory and airspace. In theory, the US could ask the Israelis to do their dirty job for them, but the Israelis are not stupid (even if they are crazy) and they won’t have much interest in starting a shooting war with Turkey over a US-created problem in a “mini-Kurdistan,” lest any hallowed “Jewish blood” be shed for some basically worthless goyim.

No, if the Turks actually killed US servicemen there would be protests and a flurry of “consultations” and other symbolic actions, but beyond that, the US would take the losses and do nothing about it. As for Erdogan, his popularity at home would only soar even higher. What all this means in practical terms is that if there is one actor which can seriously disrupt the US operations in northern Syria, or even force the US to withdraw, it is Turkey. That kind of capability also gives Turkey a lot of bargaining power with Russia and Iran which I am sure Erdogan will carefully use to his own benefit. So far Erdogan has only threatened to deliver an “Ottoman slap” to the US, and Secretary of State Tillerson is traveling to Ankara to try to avert a disaster. But the Turkish insistence that the US choose either the Turkish or the Kurdish side in the conflict very severely limits the chances of any real breakthrough (the Israel lobby being 100% behind the Kurds). One should never say never, but I submit that it would take something of a miracle at this point to really salvage the US-Turkish relationship. Russia can try to capitalize on this dynamic.

The main weakness of this entire concept is, of course, that the US is still powerful enough, including inside Turkey, and it would be very dangerous for Erdogan to try to openly confront and defy Uncle Sam. So far, Erdogan has been acting boldly and in overt defiance of the US, but he also understands the risks of going too far and for him to even consider taking such risks there have to be prospects of major benefits from him. Here the Russians have two basic options: either to promise the Turks something very beneficial or to somehow further damage the current relationship between the US and Turkey. The good news here is that Russian efforts to drive a wedge between the US and Turkey are greatly assisted by the US support for Israel, Kurds, and Gulenists.

The other obvious risk is that any anti-Kurdish operation can turn into yet another partition of Syria, this time by the Turks. However, the reality is that the Turks can’t really stay for too long in Syria, especially not if Russia and Iran oppose this. There is also the issue of international law which is much easier for the US to ignore than for the Turks.

For all these reasons using the Turks to put pressure on the US has its limitations. Still, if the Turks continue to insist that the US stop supporting the Kurds, or if they continue putting military pressure on the Kurdish militias, then the entire US concept of a US-backed “mini-Kurdistan” collapses and, with it, the entire US partition plan for Syria.

So far, the Iraqis have quickly dealt with the US-sponsored “mini-Kurdistan” in Iraq and the Turks are now taking the necessary steps to deal with the US-sponsored “mini-Kurdistan” in Syria at which point *their* problem will be solved. The Turks are not interested in helping Assad or, for that matter, Putin and they don’t care what happens to Syria as long as *their* Kurdish problem is under control. This means that the Syrians, Russians, and Iranians should not place too much hope on the Turks turning against the US unless, of course, the correct circumstances are created. Only the future will tell whether the Russians and the Iranians will be able to help to create such circumstances.

Step two: saturating Syria with mobile modern short/middle range air defenses

Right now nobody knows what kind of air-defense systems the Russians have been delivering to the Syrians over the past couple of years, but that is clearly the way to go for the Russians: delivering as many modern and mobile air defense systems as they can to the Syrians. While this would be expensive, the best solution here would be to deliver as many Pantsir-S1 mobile Gun/SAM systems and 9K333 Verba MANPADs as possible to the Syrians and the Iranians. The combination of these two systems would immensely complicate any kind of air operations for the Americans and Israelis, especially since there would be no practical way of reliably predicting the location from which they could operate. And since both the US and Israel are operating in the Syrian skies in total violation of international law while the Syrian armed forces would be protecting their own sovereign airspace, such a delivery of air-defense systems by Russia to Syria would be unquestionably legal. Best of all, it would be absolutely impossible for the AngloZionist to know who actually shot at them since these weapon systems are mobile and easy to conceal. Just like in Korea, Vietnam or Lebanon, Russian crews could even be sent to operate the Syrian air defense systems and there would be no way for anybody to prove that “the Russians did it” when US and Israeli aircraft would start falling out of the skies. The Russians would enjoy what the CIA calls “plausible deniability”. The Americans and Israelis would, of course, turn against the weaker party, the Syrians, but that other than feeling good that would not really make a difference on the ground as the Syrians skies would not become safer for US or Israelis air forces.

The other option for the Russians would be to offer upgrades (software and missile) to the existing Syrian air defense systems, especially their road-mobile 2K12 Kub and 9K37 Buk systems. Such upgrades, especially if combined with enough deployed Pantsirs and Verbas would be a nightmare for both the Americans and the Israelis. The Turks would not care much since they are already basically flying with the full approval of the Russians anyway, and neither would the Iranians who, as far as I know, have no air operations in Syria.

One objection to this plan would be that two can play this game and that there is nothing preventing the US from sending even more advanced MANPADs to their “good terrorist” allies, but that argument entirely misses the point: if both sides do the same thing, the side which is most dependent on air operations (the US) stands to lose much more than the side which has the advantage on the ground (the Russians). Furthermore, by sending MANPADs to Syria, the US is alienating a putative ally, Turkey, whereas if Russia sends MANPADs and other SAMs to Syria the only one who will be complaining will be the Israelis. When that happens, the Russians will have a simple and truthful reply: we did not start this game, your US allies did, you can go and thank them for this mess.

The main problem in Syria is the fact that the US and the Israelis are currently operating in the Syrian skies with total impunity. If this changes, this will be a slow and gradual process. First, there would be a few isolated losses (like the Israeli F-16 recently), then we would see that the location of US and/or Israeli airstrikes would gradually shift from urban centers and central command posts to smaller, more isolated targets (such as vehicle columns). This would indicate an awareness that the most lucrative targets are already too well defended. Eventually, the number of air sorties would be gradually replaced by cruise and ballistic missiles strikes. Underlying it all would be a shift from offensive air operations to force protection which, in turn, would give the Syrians, Iranians, and Hezbollah a much easier environment to operate in. But the necessary first step for any of that to happen would be to dramatically increase the capability of Syrian air defenses.

Hezbollah has, for decades, very successfully operated under total Israeli air supremacy and their experience of this kind of operations would be invaluable to the Syrians until they sufficiently built up their air defense capabilities.

Conclusion: is counter-escalation really the only option?

Frankly, I am starting to believe that the Empire has decided to attempt a partial “reconquista” of Syria, even Macron is making some noises about striking the Syrians to “punish” them for their use of (non-existing) chemical weapons. At the very least, the US wants to make the Russians pay as high a price as possible for their role in Syria. Further US goals in Syria include:

1. The imposition of a de-facto partition of Syria by taking under control the Syrian territory east of the Euphrates river (we could call that “plan C version 3.0”)
2. The theft of the gas fields located in northeastern Syria
3. The creation of a US-controlled staging area from which Kurdish, good terrorist and bad terrorist operations can be planned and executed
4. The sabotaging of any Russian-backed peace negotiations
5. The support for Israeli operations against Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and Syria
6. Engaging in regular attacks against Syrian forces attempting to liberate their country from foreign invaders
7. Presenting the invasion and occupation of Syria as one of the “victories” promised by Trump to the MIC and the Israel lobby

So far the Russian response to this developing strategy has been a rather passive one and the current escalation strongly suggests that a new approach might be needed. The shooting down of the Israeli F-16 is a good first step, but much more needs to be done to dramatically increase the costs the Empire will have to pay for is policies towards Syria. The increase in the number of Russian commentators and analysts demanding a stronger reaction to the current provocations might be a sign that something is in the making.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Gun bans are no more effective than banning drugs.

What explains school shootings and other mass shootings—the ones that are real?

The gun control lobby blames “gun violence.” Gun violence is a nonsensical term. It attributes action and intent to an inanimate physical object as if the gun decides to kill people and moves around on its own pulling its own trigger. Clearly there is no such thing as gun violence. The reliance on such a nonsense term makes a person wonder what the real agenda is of gun control advocates.

People commit violence with guns, just as they do with bombs, Molotov cocktails, knives, baseball bats, tasers, rocks, slingshots, chainsaws, bows and arrows, cars, trucks, fists, and so on. How silly would you sound if you described American Indians’ use of bows and arrows as “bow and arrow violence” or referred to Jack-the-Ripper as “knife violence.”

Nevertheless, the nonsense term has been used by gun control advocates for so many years that people born to its use don’t realize its absurdity. Students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida told the media that they “have had enough of gun violence” (parroting the senseless mantra they hear from sources all around them).

The term is not only nonsensical, it is malicious. It blames behavior on an inanimate object. Consequently, focus is shifted away from the causes of the behavior.

In my day most of us had guns. By the age of 10, 11, and certainly by 12, we had our first .22 rifle or 410 shotgun. None of us ever shot anyone. My uncle brought back from WW II a .45 pistol, a .30 caliber M1 carbine and ammunition galore. As soon as we were able to ride bicycles, my friends and I were at Granny’s playing with the weapons, loading and unloading them. Granny wasn’t the least bit worried. We knew everything about safe handling and never to point a gun at anyone, ourselves included. In the 1960s it was common for high school students in rural areas during deer season to take their deer guns to school in their cars and trucks. It was a commonplace sight to see a rifle or shotgun hanging across the back window in a pickup truck cab.

There were no shootings in those days. So what do we conclude? Do we conclude that guns just hadn’t learned to move around on their own and pull their own triggers, or do we conclude that something has happened to people?

There are many explanations offered for the appearance of mass murders. One is behavior control drugs that some kids are on. Another is the extreme violence seen on TV and movies and practiced on video games. Yet another is the destruction of religious influence and the fear of God’s judgment. GMOs and processed food are blamed by some who are concerned with the impact of diet on behavior and mental/emotional stability.

Something has erased in some people moral conscience and concern for others. We need to find out why our society is falling apart like this, not pass the buck to inanimate objects.

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It is called “Surveillance Capitalism.” But selling products is only one aspect of the power of Google Surveillance. How about the total loss of privacy?

Unfortunately we live in a generation of people who don’t seem to care about privacy. That’s a shame, because if you don’t care about privacy then you don’t have any. Freedom requires privacy. No privacy equates to no freedom and a society where a tiny percentage of people have control over everyone else.

Is that what you want?

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Finian Cunningham – February 07, 2018

Provocatively and recklessly, the American Pentagon has recently accused Russia of threatening European allies with nuclear weapons. On the basis of this deplorable accusation, the US is embarking on a $1 trillion upgrade of its nuclear arsenal.

The American nuclear revamp not only puts it in potential violation of disarmament agreements; the move is also destabilizing nuclear forces and increases the risk of catastrophic global war.

If ever Washington’s reckless power politics were in doubt, this is surely the touchstone issue.

As with so many other allegations leveled by Washington against Russia – from election hacking to Olympic sports doping – the claim that Moscow is engaging in nuclear threats is far from evidenced. Indeed, one could say, it’s in the realm of fantasy.

But the insane claim is then used to justify Washington’s own reprehensible behavior.

In the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) published last week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis states in the document’s preface that “Russia’s seizure of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s decided return to Great Power competition.”

Mattis goes on to make other claims against Russia, including that it is in breach of arms controls treaties to reduce nuclear stockpiles. He also alleges that Moscow is using “non-strategic nuclear systems to provide a coercive advantage in crises and at lower levels of conflict,” and that Moscow is “lowering the threshold for first-use of nuclear weapons.”

At the same time, it was reported this week, even by US media, that Russia has fully complied with meeting its reduction targets for nuclear weapons prescribed by the 2010 New START accord.

In any case, the Pentagon’s anti-Russia accusations continue unabated. In particular, Washington claims that Russia has violated the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by developing short-range land-launched cruise missiles. Moscow has denied any violation. Again, Washington does not present evidence to verify its claims.

Presumably, what Washington is referring to is the installation by Russia of Iskander ballistic missiles in its exclave territory of Kaliningrad adjacent to the Baltic states and Poland. This is also what the Pentagon appears to be referring to when it accuses Russia of “threatening our allies”.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite – a notorious Russophobe and ardent NATO cheerleader – recently said that the Russian Iskanders in Kaliningrad (range 500km) were threatening “half of Europe”.

But hold on a moment. Kaliningrad is Russian soil. As Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed out, it is Russia’s sovereign right to position any of its forces anywhere on its own territory.

NATO’s warped logic has also been applied in the case of Russian military holding exercises on its Western flank. Last year, when Russia held its Zapad defense drills there were hysterical claims from NATO and the Western media that Moscow was about to invade the Baltic region.

Meanwhile, it goes without a hint of irony, that NATO has increasingly built up its forces and military maneuvers along Russia’s Western borders over the past decade and more. Yet, Washington and its allies get away – thanks to Western media servility – with the double-think that such force build-up on Russia’s borders is “defensive”; while any counter-move by Russia from within its territory is distorted as “outrageous” and “offensive”.

Getting back to the issue of nuclear weapons and allegations of Russia’s threat, the stark conclusion from Washington’s warped logic is that Moscow is not allowed to have any nuclear weapons.

Evidently, the US-led NATO military alliance is permitted to station warplanes, warships, troops and tanks on Russia’s borders, including anti-missile systems – all in violation of past agreements. But if Russia positions defensive systems on its own territory then it is behaving provocatively, illicitly, and threateningly. Which then on the basis of this absurd claim allows Washington to expand its nuclear forces against Russia – as the Pentagon is proposing to do in its latest Nuclear Posture Review.

Specifically, Washington is committing to a “more flexible use” of nuclear weapons, and the development of new submarine-launched cruise missiles, as well as so-called “low-yield” ballistic warheads.

Such a move will potentially bring the US into severe breach of non-proliferation and arms control treaties. That is, the very malign behavior that Washington is provocatively accusing Moscow of.

Truly, Washington’s logic is an amalgam of Orwellian and Dr Strangelove.

Furthermore, an extremely sinister change in the American nuclear doctrine is its call for explicitly using “nuclear deterrence” in a scenario of conventional military conflict or, what it dubiously deems to be “new forms of aggression” by adversaries.

This is a highly dangerous move by the Pentagon to lower the trigger for deploying nuclear weapons – and on the basis of its faulty, politicized perception about what constitutes “aggression.”

For example, the US has repeatedly accused Russia of “hybrid warfare” with regard to the conflict in Ukraine. Russia is accused of instigating that conflict, when in reality, it was Washington and Europe’s meddling in the internal affairs of that country, resulting in a neo-Nazi coup in Kiev in February 2014.

The United States has continually accused Russia of engaging in “asymmetric warfare” from “cyberattacks” and “election interference”. Such claims have never been substantiated, let alone verified – yet they have been raised to the alarmist level of allegedly constituting a “national security threat”.

The anti-Russia political climate being whipped up by Washington – from “Russiagate” to cyberattacks, from sports doping to nuclear aggression – has reached the level of hysterical insanity where Russia by merely having a military defense system is now being traduced as somehow behaving criminally and offensively.

However, parlaying this perverse logic, the US is moving to increase its nuclear threats against Russia – in contravention of international agreements and any objective reasoning.

Even US media outlets like the Washington Post and US-based scientists warned this week that the new nuclear posture was a disturbing drift towards catastrophic war.

American history professor Colin Cavell, commenting for this column, said that the hegemonic mentality of the US ruling class is such that no other powers are tolerated to have weapons, even if for self-defense purposes.

Said Cavell: “The US is a capitalist society. It is the preeminent imperialist power in the world today. As such, those who rule the US perceive that maintaining a class-divided society to be of paramount concern. Internationally, this translates into maintaining at least a two-tiered international system where the US is master and the rest of the world are its servants.  This will not change until capitalism is overthrown or destroys itself.”

This attitude of US rulers is ultimately tyrannical in their relations to the rest of the world. Ironically, American vice president Mike Pence this week accused North Korea of being “the most tyrannical and oppressive regime on the planet.”

With regard to Russia, the logic of the US is this: You are not allowed to have nuclear weapons, nor even a viable conventional defense system. We, on the other hand, are allowed to threaten you with increasing menace of nuclear annihilation until you do as we demand.

In short, supreme arrogance. But an arrogance that will bring its own downfall.

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630% more “aerosolized flu virus particles” emitted by people who received flu shots… flu vaccines actually SPREAD the flu.

January 30, 2018: Mike Adams

A bombshell new scientific study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds that people who receive flu shots emit 630% more flu virus particles into the air, compared to non-vaccinated individuals. In effect, this finding documents evidence that flu vaccines spread the flu, and that so-called “herd immunity” is a medical hoax because “the herd” is actually transformed into carriers and spreaders of influenza.

The bombshell finding is documented in a study entitled Infectious virus in exhaled breath of symptomatic seasonal influenza cases from a college community. The study authors are Jing Yan, Michael Grantham, Jovan Pantelic, P. Jacob Bueno de Mesquita, Barbara Albert, Fengjie Liu, Sheryl Ehrman, Donald K. Milton and EMIT Consortium.

Details of this bombshell study have been revealed by Sayer Ji at Green Med Info, a site that’s rapidly becoming one of the world’s most authoritative sources on intelligent analysis of real science. Green Med Info has published 500 studies that document the adverse effects (and injury) of vaccines. Find that extensive list at this link.

630% more aerosolized flu virus particles shed by vaccinated individuals

The study, which examined 355 volunteers who were sick with flu-like symptoms, found that people who previously received flu shots emitted sharply higher quantities of flu virus particles that can infect other people. From the study:

Fine-aerosol viral RNA was also positively associated with having influenza vaccination for both the current and prior season… We provide overwhelming evidence that humans generate infectious aerosols and quantitative data to improve mathematical models of transmission and public health interventions… Our observation of an association between repeated vaccination and increased viral aerosol generation demonstrated the power of our method, but needs confirmation.

Shockingly, people who received prior flu shot vaccinations were found to emit 6.3 times (or 630%) the number of flu virus particles emitted by non-vaccinated individuals.

This means — prepare yourself for this realization — that the most responsible way to avoid infecting other people is to AVOID being vaccinated with flu shots.

People who receive flu shots, in other words, are irresponsible spreaders of the flu. They’re the ones making other people sick, just as we’ve observed for years.

“Anti-vaxxers” are responsible citizens because they don’t shed viruses and spread disease

Also from the study:

Self-reported vaccination for the current season was associated with a trend (P < 0.10) toward higher viral shedding in fine-aerosol samples; vaccination with both the current and previous year’s seasonal vaccines, however, was significantly associated with greater fine-aerosol shedding in unadjusted and adjusted models (P < 0.01). In adjusted models, we observed 6.3 (95% CI 1.9–21.5) times more aerosol shedding among cases with vaccination in the current and previous season compared with having no vaccination in those two seasons.

In other words — just to repeat this — people who avoided vaccines spread less than 1/6th the number of flu virus particles compared to those who received flu shots. Thus, non-vaccinated people are the ones who don’t spread the flu. The “anti-vaxxers,” it turns out, are the ones protecting the children after all.

Yet to hear vaccine propagandists like Jimmy Kimmel say it, people who don’t get vaccines are very nearly “child murderers.” That’s the false narrative of the corrupt, pseudoscience vaccine industry.

Scientific evidence that the flu vaccine SPREADS the flu

These results reveal the shocking truth about flu vaccines that few have dared utter, for fear of being branded “anti-vaxxers:” Flu vaccines spread the flu. (Is it by design? We’ll cover that in a later article…)

“Clearly, if this finding is accurate and reproducible, flu vaccination may actually make you more likely to infect others,” explains Sayer Ji in his Green Med Info article. “We have been reporting on the conspicuous lack of evidence for flu vaccine effectiveness (and safety) for over a decade, based largely on the underreported failure of the Cochrane Database Review to show them effective (and safe), despite hundreds of industry-funded studies that have attempted to do so. Learn more: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/shocking-lack-evidence-supporting-flu-vacc…”

Far from the current tactic of the vaccine industry blaming non-vaccinated people for spreading disease, this study reveals why it’s actually vaccinated children and adults who keep spreading infectious disease. They are the ones “shedding” the flu virus particles that infect others! (This also explains why flu outbreaks frequently occur among children who were already vaccinated with flu shots.)

“Herd immunity” hoax collapses in the face of real science

Furthermore, the so-called “herd immunity” effect that’s often touted to push more vaccines on everyone has been exposed as a complete hoax by this study. If vaccinated people are the very ones spreading flu virus particles into the air, then the herd is spreading the flu, not preventing it.

“Herd immunity,” it turns out, actually becomes “herd multiplication” of the viral strain, since the herd is “weaponized” into flu virus spreaders. This finally explains why so many children who get infected with the flu (or measles, mumps and other infectious diseases) tend to be the very same children who were vaccinated against those diseases. The vaccines transform children into carriers of the disease, infecting others and contributing to the epidemic. This, in turn, results in panic among the news media, which urges everyone to rush out and get vaccinated as quickly as possible. Within a few days, a second wave of infectious begins to spread, caused by the vaccine itself.

Vaccines, in other words, are self-perpetuating infectious disease spreaders. Their role in society, as currently structured, is to cause infectious disease outbreaks that create a surge in demand for vaccine sales. The media’s role is crucial in all this, as it’s the job of the media to create fear and panic among parents, then urge them to have their children vaccinated. This perpetuates the spread of the disease and sets up the entire scam for another round of outbreaks, panic and vaccine sales.

Vaccine marketing relies on vaccines spreading infectious disease

The product markets itself, in other words. While crack cocaine and heroin rely on addiction for self-perpetuating marketing, vaccines actually cause the very conditions they claim to prevent. Each outbreak then becomes another marketing push, and the cycle repeats in waves (as children are injured and killed by vaccines all across America).

To keep the medical scam going, any person who dares cite legitimate scientific findings that question the vaccine dogma of the modern medical cartel is immediately branded an “anti-vaxxer” and marginalized by the media. Thus, vaccines are never subjected to scientific scrutiny, since all science that observes effects which counter the vaccine dogma is sidelined, attacked or ignored. Only findings that support the pseudoscience vaccine narrative are “accepted” by the medical establishment, thus ensuring that no challenge to vaccine safety or effectiveness can ever see the light of day.

This is how the vaccine industry continues to carry out what has often been called a “medical holocaust” while stifling skepticism, science and critical thinking that dares point out the risks associated with widespread immunization policies.

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January 26, 2018 – The threats made against North Korea are due to one single fact: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea refuses to accept the world hegemony of the American Empire. It has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It has become a ritual now to state that all the permanent members of the Security Council are armed with nuclear weapons, that the United States has used them on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that they have continuously threatened to use them to intimidate other nations since 1945, that Pakistan, India, and Israel have them, that NATO members in Europe have them at their disposal under US direction, that North Korea is in violation of no international law in developing them to defend themselves, to ensure their security just as all those other nations have done, that North Korea threatens no one and seeks only to have a full and final peace with the United States.

The nuclear weapon issue is a simply the pretext that the United States is using to try to solidify its tyranny over Korea, over the world. The threat to the world peace comes not from North Korea. It comes from the United States and its allies: the nations who have degraded themselves into subjugated vassal states ready to obey any criminal order of their masters of war in Washington. In response to criminal actions, Christopher Black and Dr. Graeme MacQueen, Founder and former Director of the Centre For Peace Studies, at McMaster University, felt it necessary to send the following Open Letter to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on January 23 . . .
Full story: journal-neo.org

Comment: These dynamics are changing not just because two Koreas are cozying up to each other but because other regional powers, particularly Russia, are inserting themselves in the peninsula in a way that would considerably help diminish the tension. Russia is positioning itself to act—if the talks between the two Koreas gain traction—by extending the Trans-Siberian railway line via North Korea to South Korea and also by building oil and gas pipelines connecting Siberia and the Russian Far East with Korean markets . . . what we today have on the ground in the Korean peninsula is little to no reason of war between North Korea and the US or between the two Koreas. The détente is likely to go on for some time, and with Russia and China willing to extend it, the US is left with no option but to become a bit “flexible” (journal-neo.org).

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Paul Craig Roberts – 1-31-2018

Last year I was awarded Marquiss Who’s Who In America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. This did not prevent a hidden organization, PropOrNot, from attempting to brand me and my website along with 200 others “Putin stooges or agents” for our refusal to lie for the corrupt, anti-American, anti-constitutional, anti-democratic, warmonger police state interests that rule the Western World.

The only honest, factual media that exists in the Western World today are the names on the PropOrNot list of “Putin agents.”

The purpose of ProOrNot is to convince Americans that freedom of speech must be halted by destroying fact-based Internet media, such as this website and 200 others that provide factual information at odds with Big Brother’s universal brainwashing as delivered by CNN, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of the utterly corrupt presstitute media, a collection of scum devoid of all integrity and all respect for truth.

A conspiracy of US government agencies, tax-exempt think tanks funded by the ruling interests, and media acting in behalf of a war and police state agenda work to shape perceived reality as it is described in George Orwell’s book, 1984, and in the film, The Matrix. Controlled perception-based reality is only a Facebook “like” away from killing one person or one million or elevating a liar or the warmonger responsible for the killing to hero status or to the control of the CIA or FBI or the US presidency.

Here on OpEdNews is an article by George Eliason that reports on who exactly PropOrNot is and who is underwriting the disinformation that is PropOrNot.
https://www.opednews.com/populum/printer_friendly.php?content=a&id=219560

Eliason’s article is long and documented. It demonstrates the organized conspiracy against truth that exists in the Western World. Nothing stated in the Western presstitute media and no statement by any Western government or subservient vassal state can be trusted to comply with the facts.

Truth is the enemy of the state, and the state is eliminating the truth.

Peoples in the United States, Europe, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the various vassal states, such as Japan, all live day in, day out, an orchestrated lie that serves interests directly opposed to the interests of the peoples.

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Trump is dirty, he’s fully compromised, but not in the way most of his critics claim

On May 9th, 2017 Trump fired FBI director James Comey. The timing and the official justification for the move bordered on the absurd, and set off a firestorm of speculation and accusations. This is intentional. They want you chasing red herrings. He’s waving his left hand so he can make his real move on the right.We’ll get into that more in a moment.

Trump is dirty, he’s fully compromised, but not in the way most of his critics assume.

Both Trump and Bill Clinton were frequent fliers aboard the Lolita Express with Jeffery Epstein. Epstein is the billionaire pedophile who got busted running an elite child prostitution ring.

Victims testified that Epstein had them sleep with rich and powerful men from around the world. They also said that he directed them to collect information on these men. He referred to this as “investing in people”.

Epstein was let off with a slap on the wrist. Pled guilty to one count of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, and agreed to settle complaints regarding 40 other women in a civil arrangements.

As part of this deal:

Prosecutors agreed not to bring far more serious federal charges against Epstein, and not to charge “potential co-conspirators”, including four named individuals.

From the Guardian

Trump’s name came up several times in this case, and in a separate criminal complaint which accused both Epstein and Trump of raping a minor.

The judge that let Epstein off with a slap on the wrist and protected the other predators was a man named Alexander Acosta. That would be the same Alexander Acosta that Trump nominated as Labor Secretary. I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

Trump has tried to pretend that he hardly knew Epstein, but he made the following quote in an interview in 2002:

“He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it – Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Trump in 2002

Now Mr. Comey did behave in a bizarre fashion during the Election. We won’t dive into the details here (lots of wedge issues there). But if you look at that story again in the context of a network of compromised politicians, royalty and ceo’s, one could make the case that it played out something like this: Comey was ordered to stand down. He resisted at first. He saw evidence of corruption. So levers were pulled. Bill Clinton’s conversation with Loretta Lynch on the tarmac was part of this, but we’ll probably never know the full extent. Everyone has skeletons in their closets. Very few have the integrity to do what’s right when facing total ruin.

After Trump launched airstrikes on the Syrian government, in effect strengthening ISIS, Russia immediately suspended its airspace agreement with the United States,. Putin then moved quickly to set up a network of no-fly zones which the United States was banned from. Turkey, which up to that point was a key NATO partner, will be one of the countries enforcing these new zones.

They also issued sharp warnings to the Trump administration and made it clear that they would be reinforcing Syria’s air defenses.

Trump for his part went from criticizing the anti-Russian narratives, and covert wars of the Obama administration, to engaging in exactly the same behavior in an even more aggressive way. Next up: Trump is moving a major occupation force into Raqqa, while simultaneously escalating on multiple fronts around the world.

Trump wants you chasing Russian windmills, so that he can carry on with World War 3.

This also gives talking heads on the alt-right who still support Trump an easy out. Instead of being pressured to admit that the man they helped put into office is evil, and utterly compromised, they get to spar over an issue that (for them and their audience) is patently absurd. This is shielding them from serious questions about their journalistic integrity, and their refusal to call Trump out for what he is.

Time to start confronting these rodeo clowns on both the left and the right. Stop letting them pull people into empty rabbit holes while the most dangerous war in human history kicks off with hardly a murmur of dissent. It just takes one voice to break the conformity principle. The emperor wears no clothes.

And to those positioned in the alphabet soup agencies that can access the evidence from these cases: You need to take a long hard look at the people you’re working for. When the rule of law has been hijacked by abject criminals, there comes a time when disobedience becomes a moral imperative.

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January 19, 2018

Instances of the United States overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, a foreign government since the Second World War. (* indicates successful ouster of a government)

• China 1949 to early 1960s
• Albania 1949-53
• East Germany 1950s
• Iran 1953 *
• Guatemala 1954 *
• Costa Rica mid-1950s
• Syria 1956-7
• Egypt 1957
• Indonesia 1957-8
• British Guiana 1953-64 *
• Iraq 1963 *
• North Vietnam 1945-73
• Cambodia 1955-70 *
• Laos 1958 *, 1959 *, 1960 *
• Ecuador 1960-63 *
• Congo 1960 *
• France 1965
• Brazil 1962-64 *
• Dominican Republic 1963 *
• Cuba 1959 to present
• Bolivia 1964 *
• Indonesia 1965 *
• Ghana 1966 *
• Chile 1964-73 *
• Greece 1967 *
• Costa Rica 1970-71
• Bolivia 1971 *
• Australia 1973-75 *
• Angola 1975, 1980s
• Zaire 1975
• Portugal 1974-76 *
• Jamaica 1976-80 *
• Seychelles 1979-81
• Chad 1981-82 *
• Grenada 1983 *
• South Yemen 1982-84
• Suriname 1982-84
• Fiji 1987 *
• Libya 1980s
• Nicaragua 1981-90 *
• Panama 1989 *
• Bulgaria 1990 *
• Albania 1991 *
• Iraq 1991
• Afghanistan 1980s *
• Somalia 1993
• Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
• Ecuador 2000 *
• Afghanistan 2001 *
• Venezuela 2002 *
• Iraq 2003 *
• Haiti 2004 *
• Somalia 2007 to present
• Honduras 2009
• Libya 2011 *
• Syria 2012
• Ukraine 2014                            ____________________________________________________________

Corrupt And Failing Regimes Always Falsely Vilify Those That Are Doing Better

Finian Cunningham, 1-23-24, 2018 “Information Clearing House”

The United States and its NATO allies are facing an existential threat. But the threat has nothing to do with Russia, China, or any other external “enemy” for that matter.

The West’s own worst enemy is itself. Or more precisely, the intellectual bankruptcy of its political and military leaders and their dominant public discourse.

This week Nobel literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa reportedly condemned the US for descending into “political and intellectual poverty.” He said: “The consequences are predictable: China and Russia are taking the positions that the US is withdrawing from, gaining political and economic influence.”

Perhaps the clearest expression of Western intellectual impoverishment and dishonesty is the relentless Russophobia touted by American and European politicians, military leaders, think-tanks and mainstream corporate news media.

Hardly a week goes by without repetition of this tired old trope alleging that Russia is a threat to Western societies. Russian President Vladimir Putin is portrayed as some kind of “evil genius” hellbent on undermining the West – without a plausible explanation ever being given for why the Russian leader would harbor such alleged dastardly designs.

And if it’s not Russia, it is some other supposed malevolent foreign force, such as China, Iran or North Korea. Yes, the latter has a nuclear weapons program. But the Western public rarely hears that North Korea has embarked on developing these weapons due to decades of warmongering threats from Washington and its allies.

Arguably, though, it is Russophobia that most preoccupies official discourse in the US and Europe.

For the past year and more, Russia is accused of “interfering” in US and European elections, “subverting” democratic processes, and “sowing divisions” among allies with “fake news.”

President Donald Trump, who has at times dismissed claims of Russian meddling in the US elections, has at other times jumped on the Russophobia bandwagon. He signed off the US National Security Strategy last month in which it is asserted that “Russia aims to weaken US influence in the world and divide us from our allies… Through modernized forms of subversive tactics, Russia interferes in the domestic political affairs of countries around the world… The United States and Europe will work together to counter Russian subversion and aggression.”

The relentless Russophobia – an irrational, morbid fear of Russia – is now worse than at any time during the former Cold War, says Moscow’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

British Prime Minister Theresa May glibly accuses Russia of “sowing division”; French President Emmanuel Macron alleges that Russian news media interfered in his country’s elections last year. The EU’s Commissioner on Security Sir Julian King last week casually smeared Russian news media outlets RT and Sputnik as “Kremlin-orchestrated disinformation.”

All these claims are never substantiated with hard evidence or credible analysis. They are simply asserted in the realm of speculation and fantasy.

Surely, if there were any standard of intellectual and journalistic integrity, the claims made against Russia should be tested for objective credibility. But they never are tested or challenged. They are simply mouthed, echoed and amplified by politicians, think-tanks and media.

Of course, that’s not to say the West is devoid of intelligent thinkers. But their voices of sanity are drowned out by the cacophony of nonsense that dominates public discourse.

US-based political analyst Randy Martin says that Washington’s political class is especially bankrupt in intelligence.

He says the American narrative of accusing Russia “has become exhausted” from lack of credibility. “It has become so tired from lack of facts and credibility, ordinary common-sense citizens have become weary of it. The official Washington description of the world has no longer any relevant application to international relations.”

Martin asks: “How can any country chart a viable direction when its strategic thinking is so fundamentally false and, in effect, based on paranoid delusion?” He adds: “It is inevitable that if a nation or group of nations construct policies and allocate resources based on a fundamentally erroneous assessment of the world then such a direction is bound to result in disastrous failure and collapse.”

We have already noted the US National Security Strategy signed off by Trump. Another example is seen with the latest US National Defense Strategy unveiled by Pentagon chief James Mattis last week.

The Pentagon is claiming that Russia (and China) is now a greater security threat to the US than non-state terror groups. To counter Russia, the US is planning to increase its annual military spending to even more astronomical levels – some $700 billion a year.

Also, this week, the head of Britain’s armed forces General Sir Nick Carter made the same pitch as Mattis. In a telling repetition of narrative, Carter reportedly claimed too that Russia presents a greater threat to Britain’s national security than terrorism.

Again, the bottom line is for Britain, as with the US, to allocate more resources to military spending to “confront” the alleged Russian threat.

A core problem, says analyst Randy Martin, is that Western public discourse is dominated by think-tanks which are closely tied to the military-industrial complex and the US-led NATO alliance.

These think-tanks, such as the Atlantic Council, the American Enterprise Institute and Royal United Services Institute, set the parameters for public discussion, which is, in turn, adopted by politicians, military chiefs and news media.

However, because of the intellectual bankruptcy in official Western discourse, there is no rigorous interrogation of the false premises and claims.

“There is no intelligent self-reflection,” says Martin. “Without honest self-reflection the result is eventually a form of collective paranoid delusion.”

It is as blatant as this: The West is so dependent on military industry and financing, the ideology must be constructed to shore up this warped economy. That, in turn, requires casting a world of invented enemies and threats. For that purpose, countries like Russia must be demonized and slandered, otherwise, the whole charade would fall apart.

The function of think-tanks, politicians, military chiefs and the corporate media is to maintain the fiction of “enemies and threats” to justify war and what is otherwise an obscene waste of economic and social resources. This travesty of discourse can only be maintained because of intellectual dishonesty and bankruptcy in the US and its NATO allies.

Such systematic deception is endangering the entire world by fueling tensions and risking all-out war. It is also literally killing societies in the West from poverty and social deprivation. Just think of how much more humane and civilized this world would be if economies were directed away from militarism towards improving life.

The deception is so outrageous, it can only be achieved through massive intellectual corruption in the West. The enemy to these societies is not some foreign entity. Ironically, Western elites who claim to defend their nations from foreign threats are the ones who are actually inflicting the fatal damage.

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Paul Craig Roberts – 1-11-2018

The US military/security complex has taken another step toward starting a war the US will regret. The Pentagon has prepared a nuclear posture review (NPR) that gives the OK to development of smaller “usable” nuclear weapons and permits their use in response to a non-nuclear attack.

As Reagan and Gorbachev understood, but the warmongers who have taken over America are not sane, there are far too many nuclear weapons already.

It is reckless and irresponsible for Washington to make such a decision in the wake of years of aggressive actions taken against Russia. The Clinton criminal regime broke Washington’s promise that NATO would not move one inch to the East. The George W. Bush criminal regime pulled out of the ABM Treaty and changed US war doctrine to elevate the use of nuclear weapons from retaliation to first strike. The Obama criminal regime launched a frontal propaganda attack on Russia with crazed Hillary’s denunciation of President Putin as “the new Hitler.” In an effort to evict Russia from its naval base in Crimea, the criminal Obama regime overthrew the Ukrainian government during the Sochi Olympics and installed a Washington puppet as the new leader. US missile bases have been established on Russia’s border, and NATO conducts war games against Russia on Russian borders.

This is insanity. These and other gratuitous provocations have convinced the Russian military’s Operation Command that Washington is planning a surprise nuclear attack on Russia. The Russian government has replied to these provocations with the statement that Russia will never again fight a war on its own territory.

Those such as myself who point out that Washington’s reckless and irresponsible behavior has created an enemy out of a country that very much wanted to be friends, do not get much attention from the presstitute media. The US military/security complex needed to invent an enemy sufficient to justify its vast budget and power, and the Western media has accommodated that selfish and dangerous need.

Russia today is far stronger and better armed than the Soviet Union ever was. Russia also has an alliance with China, an economic and military power. This alliance was forced to come together because of Washington’s threats against both countries.

Europe and Japan need to understand that they have responsibility for the resurrection of the Cold War in a far more dangerous form than existed in the 20th century. Europe and Japan, whose political leaders are owned by Washington, have taken money from Washington and sold out their people along with the rest of humanity.

The entirety of the Western World is devoid of honest political leadership. This leaves countries such as Russia, China and Iran with the challenge of preserving life on earth as the Western World pushes humanity toward more war.

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