COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Mainstream media “stars” lie in calling facts a lie – won't distinguish between facts and lies – contribute to a dangerous breakdown in the public’s ability to sort truth from lie

WILL THE NY TIMES POST THIS STORY?


How the NYT Plays with History

January 19, 2017

Special Report: By failing to tell the hard truth about Establishment wrongdoing, The New York Times — along with other mainstream U.S. media outlets — has destabilized American democracy, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry CONSORTIUM NEWS

Whenever The New York Times or some other mainstream news outlet holds itself out as a paragon of professional journalism – by wagging a finger at some pro-Trump “fake news” or some Internet “conspiracy theory” – I cringe at the self-delusion and hypocrisy.

No one hates fake news and fact-free conspiracy theories more than I do, but the sad truth is that the mainstream press has opened the door to such fantasies by losing the confidence of the American people and becoming little more than the mouthpiece for the Establishment, which spins its own self-serving narratives and tells its own lies.

Rather than acting as a watchdog against these deceptions, the Times and its mainstream fellow-travelers have transformed themselves into little more than the Establishment’s apologists and propagandists.

If Iraq is the “enemy,” we are told wild tales about how Iraq’s non-existent WMD is a danger to us all. If Syria is in Washington’s crosshairs, we are given a one-sided account of what’s happening there, black hats for the “regime” and white hats for the “rebels”?

If the State Department is backing a coup in Ukraine to oust an elected leader, we are regaled with tales of his corruption and how overthrowing a democratically chosen leader is somehow “democracy promotion.” Currently, we are getting uncritical stenography on every conceivable charge that the U.S. government lodges against Russia.

Yet, while this crisis in American journalism has grown more severe in recent years, the pattern is not entirely new. It is reflected in how the mainstream media has missed many of the most significant news stories of modern history and has, more often than not, been an obstacle to getting at the truth.

Then, if the evidence finally becomes so overwhelming that continued denials are no longer tenable, the mainstream media tries to reclaim its tattered credibility by seizing on some new tidbit of evidence and declaring that all that went before were just rumors but now we can take the long whispered story seriously — because the Times says so.

For instance, we have the case of Richard Nixon’s sabotage of President Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War peace talks in 1968 to give himself a crucial boost in a tight presidential race against Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In “real time” – both as Nixon was executing his maneuver and in the years immediately afterwards – there was reporting by second-tier newspapers and independent journalists into what Johnson privately called Nixon’s “treason,” but the Times and other “newspapers of record” treated the story as little more than a conspiracy theory.

As the years went on and the case of Nixon’s guilt grew stronger and stronger, the story still never managed to cross the threshold for the Big Media to take it seriously.

Definitive Evidence

Several years ago, I compiled a detailed narrative of the 1968 events from material declassified by Johnson’s presidential library and I published the material at Consortiumnews.com. Not only did I draw from newly available recordings of Johnson’s phone calls but from a file of top secret wiretaps – labeled “The ‘X’ envelope” – which Johnson had ordered his national security adviser, Walt Rostow, to remove from the White House before Nixon’s inauguration.

I also traced how Nixon’s paranoia about the missing White House file and who might possess it led him to assemble a team of burglars, known as the Plumbers, whose activities later surfaced in the Watergate scandal.

In other words, by unraveling the mystery of Nixon’s 1968 “treason,” you change the narratives of the Vietnam War and Watergate, two of the pivotal issues of modern American history. But the mainstream U.S. media studiously ignored these new disclosures.

Just last November, in a review of past “October Surprise” cases – in the context of FBI Director James Comey telling Congress that the FBI had reopened its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails – the Times offered this summary of the 1968 affair:

“President Lyndon Baines Johnson announced a halt to bombing of North Vietnam, based on his claim that peace talks had ‘entered a new and a very much more hopeful phase,’ and he invited the government of South Vietnam and the Viet Cong to take part in negotiations. Raising hopes that the war might end soon, the announcement appeared to bolster the standing in the polls of Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee, but Humphrey still fell short in the election against former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican.”

In other words, the Times treated Johnson’s bombing halt and claim of peace-talk progress as the “October Surprise” to try to influence the election in favor of Humphrey. But the evidence now is clear that a peace agreement was within reach and that the “October Surprise” was Nixon’s sabotage of the negotiations by persuading South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to boycott the Paris talks.

The Times got the story upside-down by failing to reexamine the case in light of convincing new evidence that had been available for years, albeit circulating outside the mainstream.

However, finally, that disdain for the story may be dissipating. Earlier this month, the Times highlighted in an op-ed and a follow-up news article cryptic notes from Nixon’s 1968 campaign revealing Nixon’s instructions to top aide H.R. Haldeman.

Haldeman’s notes – discovered at the Nixon presidential library by historian John A. Farrell – reveal Nixon telling Haldeman “Keep Anna Chennault working on SVN,” meaning South Viet Nam and referring to the campaign’s chief emissary to the South Vietnamese government, right-wing Chinese émigré Anna Chennault.

Nixon’s gambit was to have Chennault pass on word to South Vietnamese President Thieu that if he boycotted Johnson’s Paris peace talks – thus derailing the negotiations – Nixon would assure Thieu continued U.S. military support for the war.

Monkey Wrench It

Another Haldeman note revealed Nixon’s intent to get Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, R-Illinois, to berate Johnson about a planned bombing halt while Nixon looked for “Any other way to monkey wrench it? Anything RN [Richard Nixon] can do.”

Though Haldeman’s scribbling is sometimes hard to decipher, the next entry makes reference to “SVN” and adds: “tell him hold firm” – the same message that Anna Chennault later passed on to senior South Vietnamese officials in the last days of the 1968 campaign.

Though Farrell’s discovery is certainly newsworthy, its greatest significance may be that it has served as a tipping point that finally has forced the Times and the mainstream media to move past their longstanding dismissals of this “conspiracy theory.”

The Times gave Farrell space on its op-ed page of Jan. 1 to explain his discovery and the Times followed up with an inside-the-paper story about the Haldeman notes. That story included some favorable comments from mainstream writers, such as former Newsweek bureau chief Evan Thomas saying Farrell “nailed down what has been talked about for a long time.”

Of course, the story of Nixon’s Vietnam peace-talk sabotage has been more than “talked about for a long time.” A series of journalists have pieced together the evidence, including some as the scheme was unfolding and others from digging through yellowed government files as they became available over the past couple of decades.

But the major newspapers mostly brushed aside this accumulation of evidence apparently because it challenged their “authoritative” narrative of that era. As strange and vicious as some of Nixon’s paranoid behavior may have been, it seems to have been a bridge too far to suggest that he put his political ambitions ahead of the safety of a half million U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam war zone in 1968.

For the American people to have been told that troubling truth might have profoundly shaken their trust in the Establishment, given the deaths of 58,000 U.S. soldiers in the Vietnam War, plus the killing of several million Vietnamese. (Nearly half of the dead were killed after Johnson’s peace talks failed and as Nixon lived up to his commitment to Thieu by extending the direct U.S. combat role for four more years.)

[For more details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “LBJ’s ‘X-File’ on Nixon’s ‘Treason’” and “The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate.”]

A Reprise


But the mainstream media’s concealment of Nixon’s “treason” was not a stand-alone problem in terms of distorting recent U.S. history. If the American people had realized how far some top U.S. officials would go to achieve their political ambitions, they might have been more willing to believe other serious allegations of government wrongdoing.


President Ronald Reagan, delivering his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 1981, as the 52 U.S. hostages in Iran are simultaneously released.
For instance, the evidence is now almost as overwhelming that Ronald Reagan’s campaign reprised Nixon’s 1968 gambit in 1980 by undermining President Jimmy Carter’s negotiations to free 52 American hostages then held in Iran, another well-documented “October Surprise” case that the mainstream media still labels a “conspiracy theory.”

With more than two dozen witnesses – including U.S., Iranian, Israeli and other officials – describing aspects of that Republican behind-the-scenes deal, the reality of this “prequel” to Reagan’s later Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal should be widely accepted as a real piece of modern American history.

But a half-hearted congressional investigation in 1991-93 naively gave then-President George H.W. Bush the crucial job of assembling internal U.S. government records to confirm the allegations – despite the fact that Bush was a principal suspect in the 1980 operation.

Several years ago, I uncovered documents from the Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas, showing how Bush’s White House staff organized a cover-up to conceal key evidence and hide a key witness from the investigation.

One memo by one of Bush’s lawyers disclosed that the White House had received confirmation of a key October Surprise allegation – a secret trip by campaign chairman (and later CIA Director) William Casey to Madrid – but then withheld that information from congressional investigators. Documents also showed the White House frustrating attempts to interview former CIA officer Donald Gregg, a key witness.

Another document bluntly set out the White House’s goal: “kill/spike this story” to protect Bush’s reelection chances in 1992.

After I discovered the Madrid confirmation several years ago – and sent the document to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who had headed the congressional inquiry which had concluded that there was no credible evidence supporting the allegations – he was stunned by the apparent betrayal of his trust.

“The [Bush-41] White House did not notify us that he [Casey] did make the trip” to Madrid, Hamilton told me in an interview. Asked if knowledge that Casey had traveled to Madrid might have changed the investigation’s dismissive October Surprise conclusion, Hamilton said yes, because the question of the Madrid trip was central to the inquiry.

Yet, to this day, both right-wing and mainstream media outlets cite the investigation’s inconclusive results as their central argument for defending Reagan and his legacy. However, if Nixon’s 1968 gambit – jeopardizing the lives of a half million U.S. soldiers – had been accepted as genuine history earlier, the evidence that Reagan endangered 52 U.S. embassy personnel might have seemed a lot easier to believe.

As these longstanding cover-ups slowly crack and begin to crumble, the serious history behind them has started to show through in the mainstream media. For instance, on Jan. 3, during a CNN panel discussion about interference in U.S. presidential elections, popular historian Doug Brinkley added, “One point: 1980, Ronald Reagan was taking on Jimmy Carter, and there was the October Surprise meeting keeping the hostages in Iran. William Casey, people in the Reagan administration were interfering with foreign policy then saying, ‘Keep the hostages in until after the election.’ So it has happened before. It’s not just Nixon here or Donald Trump.”

[For more details on the 1980 case, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative or Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery or Consortiumnews.com’s “Second Thoughts on October Surprise.”]

Contra-Cocaine Scandal

But the denial of serious Establishment wrongdoing dies hard. For instance, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other major news outlets have long refused to accept the overwhelming evidence that Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra rebels engaged in cocaine trafficking under the benevolent gaze of the White House and the CIA.

My Associated Press colleague Brian Barger and I assembled a lot of that evidence in 1985 for the first story about this scandal, which undermined Reagan’s claims that he was fighting a relentless war on drugs. Back then, the Times also went to bat for the Establishment. Based on self-serving information from Reagan’s Justice Department, the Times knocked down our AP reporting. And, once the Times got taken in by its official sources, it and other mainstream publications carried on vendettas against anyone who dared contradict the accepted wisdom.

So, when San Jose Mercury News reporter Gary Webb revived the Contra-cocaine story in 1996 — with evidence that some of that cocaine had fed into the “crack epidemic” — the Times and other big newspapers savaged Webb’s articles and destroyed his career. Not even an institutional confession by the CIA in 1998 that it had been aware of widespread Contra drug smuggling and looked the other way was enough to shake the mainstream media’s false conventional wisdom about the Contras’ and the CIA’s innocence.

After the CIA inspector general reached his damning conclusions admitting knowledge of the drug-running, the Times did run a story acknowledging that there may have been more to the allegations than the newspaper had previously believed, but the same article kept up the bashing of Webb, who was drummed out of journalism and, nearly penniless, committed suicide in 2004.

Despite the CIA admissions, The Washington Post also continued to deny the Contra-cocaine reality. When a movie about Webb’s ordeal, “Kill the Messenger,” was released in 2014, the Post’s investigative editor Jeff Leen kept up the paper’s long-running denial of the reality with a nasty new attack on Webb.

Leen’s story was endorsed by the Post’s former executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., who circulated Leen’s take-down of Webb with the added comment: “I was at The Washington Post at the time that it investigated Gary Webb’s stories, and Jeff Leen is exactly right. However, he is too kind to a movie that presents a lie as fact.”

[For more on Leen’s hit piece, see Consortiumnews.com’s “WPost’s Slimy Assault on Gary Webb.” For more on the Contra-cocaine story, see “The Sordid Contra-Cocaine Saga.”]

Lies as Truth


The fact that mainstream media “stars” lie in calling facts a lie – or they can’t distinguish between facts and lies – has contributed to a dangerous breakdown in the public’s ability to sort out what is and what is not real.

Essentially, the problem is that the mainstream media has sought to protect the integrity of the Establishment by dismissing real cases of institutional criminality and abuse of power. However, by shoring up these defenses – rather than challenging systemic wrongdoing – the mainstream media has watched its own credibility erode.

One might hope that someone in a position of power within the major news organizations would recognize this danger and initiate a sweeping reform, which might start by acknowledging some of the long-buried historical realities even if it puts Establishment icons, such as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, in a negative light.

But that is clearly not the direction that the mainstream U.S. news media is heading. Instead, the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets continue to take whatever Establishment sources hand out – now including dubious and bizarre U.S. intelligence allegations about Russia and President-elect Donald Trump.

Rather than join in demanding real evidence to support these claims, the mainstream media seems intent on simply channeling the Establishment’s contempt for both Russia and Trump. So, whatever is said – no matter how unlikely – merits front-page headlines.

The end result, however, is to push more and more Americans into a state of confusion regarding what to believe. While some citizens may seek out honest independent journalism to get what they’re missing, others will surely fall prey to fake news and conspiracy theories.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

45 comments:

  1. Nancy Sinatra Slams CNN, Congratulates Trump: ‘Why Do You Lie, CNN?’

    Daughter of Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, accused CNN of deliberately twisting a comment she made in reference to President Trump, before congratulating the 45th President of the United States on his inauguration.
    Responding to an article published by CNN originally entitled,

    “Nancy Sinatra not happy Trump using father’s song at inauguration,”
    the 76-year-old singer and actress replied,

    “That’s not true. I never said that. Why do you lie, CNN?”

    http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/01/20/nancy-sinatra-congrats-trump-slams-cnn-lie-cnn/

    ReplyDelete
  2. FAKE NEWS on Day One: Spicer Scolds Press for TIME Reporter’s False Martin Luther King Bust Story

    White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, scolded TIME magazine White House pool reporter Zeke Miller on Friday for falsely reporting that the Martin Luther King Jr. bust had been removed from the Oval Office after President Donald Trump moved in.
    Miller had initially tweeted Friday that the MLK Jr. bust, which then-President Obama put in the Oval Office after removing a bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 2009, had been removed from the Oval Office.

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/01/21/fake-news-day-one-spicer-scolds-press-time-reporters-false-mlk-bust-story/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Todd: Trump Still Has An ‘Asterisk’

    On Friday’s coverage of the Inauguration on NBC, host Chuck Todd said President Donald Trump has “missed some opportunities these last six to eight weeks to — and again, I’ll go to what — to just erase the asterisk.”

    Todd said Trump “needs to earn this honeymoon. I think he has an opportunity to earn it. But he’s, I’m sorry, I’ve said it before, he missed some opportunities these last six to eight weeks to — and again, I’ll go to what — to just erase the asterisk. Whatever you want to say about it, and I know some of his supporters will say,

    ‘Why do you say that?’ But, look, when you win an election this way, the split popular vote, you know it’s a divided country.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/01/20/todd-trump-still-has-an-asterisk/

    Verbal Hash presented as news. For pay.

    ReplyDelete
  4. .

    Perhaps, the biggest crime of the media is ignoring the big picture. They enable and act as cheerleaders when the establishment does things in the name of patriotism, of 'humanitarianism', of revenge, of 'our values', of the American Way, and all the other euphemisms and hypocrisy they use to rally the troops around what amounts to a raging imperialism unjustified by anything except making a buck with the big picture result being the deaths and suffering of millions both here and there.

    The obvious example is 9/11 and Bush's war against Iraq where the carnage was documented and huge. However, perhaps a better example of the media failing to see the big picture is in Afghanistan.

    Remember, there were about 3,000 Americans killed in on 9/11. The deaths of our troops and the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and the cost in treasure there has been documented but what hasn't received enough media attention is the fact that while the US currently goes through an unprecedented plague of drug related deaths with more people dying each year from heroin overdoses than died on 9/11 that since the US initiated the war in Afghanistan heroin production there has more than doubled. Since Afghanistan is one of the largest producers of heroin in the world its hard to believe that the growth in heroin deaths in this country isn't related.

    .




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    Replies
    1. No disagreement about the disaster in Afghanistan, but the cultivation of poppies south of the border has become a larger factor.

      Legalization of Pot and lower prices has resulted in a shift from Marijuana cultivation to Heroin production in Mexico.

      https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=heroin%20prices%20fall%20due%20to%20production%20in%20mexico

      Delete
    2. Wrong, doug-o.

      While there has been a marked decline in marijuana cultivation, the majority of those peons effected have not shifted to poppies.

      There had been, prior to any legalization of pot in the US, a move to cultivate poppies.
      There has also been an increase in the amount of heroin passing from Afghanistan to the US through Mexico. It was this increase in traffic that led to attempts by the Sinaloa Cartel to cultivate the poppies.

      Delete
    3. The articles linked do not agree.

      Delete
    4. Four years of reading Borderland Beat.com trumps the media messaging of the Establishment media sources in the US, doug-o

      The first two sources at your link, from 2014, are from the NYTimes and the WaPO.
      Their reporting is "fake news" in this case, the perfect example of the Establishment Media following the government meme.

      the most current link tells us it is not low marijuana prices that is causing the rise in poppy production...

      Farmers Switching from Coffee to Poppy in Mexico's Heroin Hub

      www.insightcrime.org/.../farmers-switching-from-coffee-to-poppy-in-mexico-heroin-...
      Sep 16, 2016 - Falling coffee production in Mexico's Guerrero state, in part due to a ... The subsequent drop in prices disincentivized coffee production, and ...

      Delete

    5. Guerrero is one of the most violent of the Mexican States, currently.
      Beheadings abound

      Borderland Beat, doug-o, they'll tell you more than you want to know

      Delete

    6. Remember Doc Mireles, doug-o, he is still in a Mexican prison.

      Delete
    7. While the extradition of "el Chapo" to New York is the main story there, 'real news' can still be ascertained.

      Guerrero: Woman and 2 Year Old Found Dismembered

      and

      Chilpancingo Guerrero: Six human heads left atop vehicle

      Police discovered six human heads left on top of a vehicle abandoned in the central region of Chilpancingo Guerrero.

      The discovering was made Monday, after police responded to a citizen’s call made to the emergency line, notifying authorities of human heads in black plastic being seen by the residents on Nicolas Bravo Street in colonia Progreso.

      In addition to the heads, police discovered six dismembered bodies within the vehicle, which had Guerrero license plates.

      A message was left with the grisly discovery, but authorities have not made its contents public.

      Delete
  5. .

    Just saw Trump's speech to the CIA.

    The man is an embarrassment. I have the feeling things will only get worse.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      Trump CIA Speech

      I doubt Trump went to the CIA because he wanted to but rather because he was told he needed to by advisors. Their rationale was likely that Trump had to build bridges to the ‘intelligence community’, a group we are told by the Dems and the media were insulted and ‘disheartened’ by Trump’s criticism, a charge I personally disagree with since I believe most of these people are adults and not as political as their current leaders or the press. They also realize that Trump was mainly talking about the political hacks that run these agencies and cherry-pick and put their spin on the info provided by the analysts.

      I might also say the CIA personnel in the room were not as defensive and insecure as Trump himself seems to be. IMO, Trump needs help. The man is a narcissist and seems to have a massive inferiority complex. It’s understandable when someone immediately defends himself over major attacks or slights. It’s another when he won’t let it drop, when he keeps going back to it. It’s also another when you sweat the small stuff and turn red in the face over trifles. IMO, a president needs to have more of a thick skin than most.

      Trump’s speech today was vintage Trump, a self-serving pep rally. He gave his usual condescending applause lines, ‘You guys are fantastic, the best. I love you guys more than anyone in history has loved you. I am going to give you guys so much support, you are going to say to me, Stop! We don’t need any more support.’ The man is a clown.

      It was a very short speech; yet, Trump spent more time whining about the media and the Interior Department, than he did speaking about the history and the achievements of the CIA. He gave the speech in front of the CIA’s memorial wall and never even mentioned the sacrifice the people memorialized there gave to the CIA and the nation.

      All through the speech, he kept talking about what a great acceptance speech HE gave yesterday, about what a huuuuuge crowd HE drew, about HIS great choice for CIA director, and about the things HE was going to do for the people in the room (all generalities, no specifics), blaming the media for causing his flap with the intelligence and downplaying his crowds, defending his tweets, all the time asking ‘Don’t you agree’ seeking affirmation from the 200 people who volunteered to come in on a Saturday. By the end of the speech, those 200 people had stopped clapping.

      .

      Delete
    2. .


      At some point, you have to cut the bullshit. Not sure that Trump is capable of doing that.


      .

      Delete

    3. An elitist New York snob who never thought he would really win the election...

      Now beset by problems that are well beyond his rhetorical skills.
      Hopefully the problems are not beyond his managerial abilities.

      But cutting the 'bullshit', no chance of that.
      Mr Trump is going to dance with them that brung him to the party.

      Delete

  6. And for you, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson ...

    ISIS loses sizable chunk of territory in 2016


    ISIS-held territory decreased by nearly a quarter in 2016, according to an open-source intelligence report, which highlighted progress by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria and by government forces in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

    “The Islamic State suffered unprecedented territorial losses in 2016, including key areas vital for the group’s governance project,” said Columb Strack, senior analyst and head of the Information Handling Services (IHS) Conflict Monitor. “This is despite the opportunistic recapture of Palmyra in December from a Syrian government preoccupied at the time with Aleppo.”

    The commander of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism forces had declared “victory and liberation” in eastern Mosul on Wednesday afternoon.

    “We expect Iraqi government forces to recapture Mosul before the second half of the year,”

    Strack said. “After Mosul, the Iraqi government will probably focus its attention on the remaining pocket of resistance around Hawija, which the jihadists are using as a base for their campaign of sustained terrorist attacks in Baghdad.”

    Iraqi forces supported by Kurdish Peshmerga and coalition forces began operations to retake the country’s second-largest city and ISIS’s final foothold of Mosul last October.

    The report cited the Kurdish-dominated SDF for achieving significant advances in the northwestern Raqqa Province in Syria with the support of US-led coalition airstrikes and special forces advisers. Earlier this month, two axes of SDF joined forces in the village of Kurmanju and are attempting a crescent-shaped siege of the city of Raqqa, which ISIS claims to be its capital.

    “Raqqa represents the core of the Islamic State and they are unlikely to leave without a fight,” Strack said.

    “It would probably take a major ground intervention by one of the main external players, the US, Turkey, or Russian and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces, to expel the Islamic State from Raqqa in 2017.”

    Leaders, including Kurdistan Regional Government President Masoud Barzani, have said beating ISIS will require more than military efforts, but also defeating the social, economic and cultural aspects of ISIS.



    Only "Local Forces" will defeat the Islamic State, proof of that is that the US was in Iraq for a decade, and had to pay off the enemy, because the US would not take the steps required to defeat him, militarily.

    ReplyDelete

  7. Before Leaving White House Obama Bombs CIA-Vetted Syrian Rebels Embedded with Al-Qaeda

    If one event can symbolize the incoherence of the Obama administration's support for the so-called "vetted moderate" rebels in Syria, it would be one of Obama's last acts in his last full day in office.

    Friday the Pentagon reported that they had struck a terror training camp near Idlib, killing more than one hundred Al-Qaeda terrorists.

    The wrinkle is that several members of a group that had previously been backed by the CIA and received TOW missiles as part of an Obama administration program—and were at the camp and embedded with Al-Qaeda—were also killed.

    ... it quickly emerged that not only was this an al-Qaeda terror training camp, but one operated with a rebel group previously supported and "vetted" by the CIA, Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zenki:


    https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/01/21/before-leaving-white-house-obama-bombs-cia-vetted-syrian-rebels-embedded-with-al-qaeda/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. The CIA is not in the business of defeating Islamic Terrorism, in Syria.

      It's mission was to depose Mr Assad.
      It is what our Israeli 'allies' wanted.

      Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren told the Jerusalem Post that Israel so wanted Assad out and his Iranian backers weakened, that Israel would accept al-Qaeda operatives taking power in Syria.

      “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”
      Even if the other “bad guys” were affiliated with al-Qaeda.


      http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328.

      Delete
    2. Barrack Obama was President.

      Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

      Followed by Mr. Ketchup.

      Delete
    3. Sure enough, that, doug-o.

      And Petraeus ran the CIA, in Benghazi, while Colonel Q's weapons were being shipped to those CIA vetted Islamic radicals.

      John McCain, the one time GOP candidate for President, he was right there, side by side with Obama, Clinton, Mr Heinz and General Betrayus.

      It is an Establishment thing, doug-o, not a "Party" differential.

      Delete
  8. Not to be out done by the US, our Russian allies in the battle against the Islamic State sent some long range bombers into the theater


    Russian long-range bombers target ISIS positions in Deir ez-Zor Governorate, Syria


    Russia deployed six long-range supersonic Tupolev Tu-22M3 bombers from Russian territory to strike Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) targets in the Syrian governorate of Deir ez-Zor, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.


    https://www.rt.com/news/374565-russian-bombers-syria-isis/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. One thing certainly does seem perfectly clear ...

      The Russians WILL NOT accept al-Qeada operatives taking power in Syria.

      Mr Putin is siding with the Christians and Alawites in Syria, not the Islamic radicals.

      Delete
  9. As for you, ratasshole and Dead Beat Dad and Self Confessed War Criminal, your 'prediction' did not come even close to being right and you, as usual, made a MASSIVE FOOL of yourself, and continue to do so by continuing to associate yourself with it.

    Rufus had better sense and got out of Dodge.

    I do hope he is well.

    Your better move is to get back to work on the massive defense project you are doing with CIA, Defense, National Security down there off the coasts of Panama to keep all Americans safe.

    You best move of all is to seek immediate psychological help, as everyone here urged you to do months and months ago.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson ... come, come ...

      You want me to post all the predictions of yours that fell flat?

      The timing of my prediction may have been off, but the outcome ...

      That was preordained. Never a doubt of the FINAL outcome.

      If you wish to post any FACTUAL information concerning what I have ever written, post a copy of it and I will explain the meaning of it to you.

      Other than that, all I have to say is ...

      A hundred years before the advent of Hitler, the German-Jewish poet, Heinrich Heine, had declared:
      "Wherever books are burned, human beings are destined to be burned too."

      On the night of May 10, 1933, an event unseen in Europe since the Middle Ages occurred as German students from universities once regarded as among the finest in the world, gathered in Berlin to burn books with "unGerman" ideas.
      …. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-bookburn.htm

      May 20, 2008 - Orthodox Jews burn hundreds of New Testaments in latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in Israel. ... The Maariv newspaper reported Tuesday that hundreds of students took part in the book-burning. . . .

      https://www.google.com/search?q=israel+book+burning&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

      You support those that burn the New Testament, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson.
      Both in Israel and Syria.

      Delete
    2. bobal Sat Sep 06, 09:22:00 PM EDT

      If cousin Sally dies, I'll joyfully let ya all know.


      Delete
  10. Top 10 Ways Obama Violated The Constitution During His Presidency

    The Obama administration has been the most lawless in U.S. history. Here are just a few examples to prove it.

    http://thefederalist.com/2017/01/19/10-ways-obama-violated-constitution-presidency/

    We will, at least, be getting back to a more Constitutional way of doing things.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As the WaPO reports, the first day of a Trump administration and ...

      Just moments after President Trump took the oath of office Friday, the official White House website was transformed into a set of policy pledges -- and absence of them -- that offered the broad contours of the Trump administration's top priorities, ...
      ... a notable lack of any directives involving former president Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.


      Changed a web-site and not much else ...

      What makes you believe that Mr Trump, like both Mr Reagan and Mr Bush, will not utilize Executive Orders more than Mr Obama did?

      Delete

    2. bob Mon Nov 16, 04:13:00 PM EST (2009)

      I have the feeling we're going to get hit again, and soon, and hard.

      Delete
    3. There you go, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, one of you shortest and MOST egregious of predictions, not only were we not hit again, it did not happen any time near 2009 and if you want to trot out some simpleton criminal activity as part of the Islamic War, well, it certainly has not been "hard".

      You are an easy mark, Boobie.

      Delete

  11. While in real world of governance.

    GOP waiting to hear from Trump on ObamaCare

    While a Congresswoman from AZ says NO ONE will lose their medical coverage ....
    If they do, she won't get reelected in two years, she doesn't represent Sun City, the "Federal Welfare Capital of Arizona"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. I have many people in my district who have healthcare now because of Medicaid expansion or subsidies. So I think they need to realize repeal doesn’t mean taking healthcare away and that there is no option for you to get any,” said Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), who represents a swing district.

      “The point is there is a better way for us to get healthcare for individuals who didn’t have it and also to bring the cost of healthcare down that also doesn’t increase taxes by a trillion dollars,” she continued.

      “It’s a different model to get to the same result.”

      Delete

    2. I mean, after eight years, why don't the Republicans have their plan ready?
      Are thy really so inept, or they just incompetent to govern?

      They control the Senate, but Mr Trumps designated Cabinet nominees wait in the wings...
      Not many confirmation votes scheduled.

      Indicating they are both inept and incompetent, which must be why Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson is so enthralled by them.




      One House Republican told The Hill it would have been easier for lawmakers to defend ObamaCare repeal to constituents if party leaders already had put forth a replacement plan.

      Delete
    3. http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/315403-gop-waiting-to-hear-from-trump-on-obamacare

      Delete
  12. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, you need psychological help right now, ratasshole. You needed psychological help long ago, when everyone was urging you to get it.

      Your prediction wouldn't be so hilariously laughable, except that you pumped up your own deflated balloon so with all the b.s. about what a knowledgeable warrior you claim to be, one that knows all the tactics about taking terrain, taking cities, quickly and effectively.........it was all bull shit and everyone here could see it except you.....you even named a tactic used all over the world from before you were born after yourself.....


      Hahahahahahahaha

      You made yourself out to be a total idiotic.

      But what else could you do, being, always having been, a total idiotic ?

      I got to drive in and get the mail.

      Cheers !

      Delete

    2. Bye, bye, Draft Dodger Peterson.

      You confirm that you are no intellectual, a man of no weight.

      Delete
    3. One must wonder though, Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson, why you no longer advocate for US troops entering the fray, in Iraq.

      Could it be that those clit clipping Kurds you are so enamored with, they were able to defend themselves. As was said, by me, time and again...

      But you insisted that US troops had to bleed in the sand to defend one set of clit clippers from another.

      The discovery of widespread FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan suggests the assumption to be incorrect that FGM is primarily an African phenomenon with only marginal occurrence in the eastern Islamic world. FGM is practiced at a rate of nearly 60 percent by Iraqi Kurds, then how prevalent is the practice in neighboring Syria where living conditions and cultural and religious practices are comparable?

      Why should a single US soldier die to protect this horrid cultural practice?

      You never did provide US an answer for that Robert "Draft Dodger" Peterson

      Delete
    4. .

      FGM is a cultural and ethnic practice rather than a religious one as some here have suggested. It's been around long before Islam as indicated in Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's practiced by individual Christian, Jewish, Muslim and animistic groups mainly in Africa, the ME and Indonesia. The biggest practitioners of it in Iraq are the Kurds.

      The practice is based on ignorance, tradition, and millennia of misogyny; however, those pushing it most these days are the women within those societies that practice it.

      .

      Delete
  13. .

    But cutting the 'bullshit', no chance of that.
    Mr Trump is going to dance with them that brung him to the party.



    Trump seems to appreciate the loyalty of those that support him; however, I haven't really seen any indication that he feels the needs to reciprocate.

    At events like his meeting with the CIA today, he would do himself a favor by hiring a good speech writer, having the speech put on a teleprompter, and most importantly sticking to the script. His self-serving bander, complaints, and 'humor' makes him appear an uneducated buffoon.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ex-CIA director John Brennan: 'Trump should be ashamed of himself' over CIA remarks

      ===

      John Brennan voted for Gus Hall in 1976.




      Delete
  14. .

    Ironic Nit of the Day

    All day today, people have been commenting on the size of the worldwide marches held today in support of women's rights. Parade routes had to be changed in D.C. and Boston to accommodate crowds that were bigger than expected. Estimates are that worldwide there might have been p to 2.5 million people marching today.

    The irony is that when the Cubs won the world series, way more, possibly twice as many people attended the celebration in Chicago.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 5 million Chicagoans celebrated ??

      Delete
    2. .


      Well, I understand there was one old geezer from Hamilton, Ontario that travelled there to celebrate too.

      .

      Delete
    3. .

      CBC article...

      City officials said an estimated five million people attended the celebration — a count that included everyone who lined the parade route and the crowd at Grant Park.

      Miriam Santiago, 51, said she carried holy water, her rosary and a bright green lucky baseball with her during the playoffs. On Friday, she brought a goat mask with dynamite in its mouth and let other fans pose for photos wearing it outside Wrigley Field. She said she believes her lucky charms helped reverse the Curse of the Billy Goat, the story of a Chicago tavern owner who supposedly put a hex on the Cubs after the team refused to let his pet goat into Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series.

      Earlier in the day, throngs of young and old blue-clad fans roared as the motorcade of open-roofed buses carrying the players cruised along Lake Shore Drive. The mood was jubilant, bolstered by an unseasonably warm...


      https://www.bing.com/search?q=an+estimated+five+million+participated+in+the+cups+world+series+victory+in+chicago&FORM=EDGNNC

      .
      .

      Delete