TOKYO MASTER BANNER

MINISTRY OF TOKYO
US-ANGLO CAPITALISMEU-NATO IMPERIALISM
Illegitimate Transfer of Inalienable European Rights via Convention(s) & Supranational Bodies
Establishment of Sovereignty-Usurping Supranational Body Dictatorships
Enduring Program of DEMOGRAPHICS WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR on Europeans
Enduring Program of European Displacement, Dismemberment, Dispossession, & Dissolution
No wars or conditions abroad (& no domestic or global economic pretexts) justify government policy facilitating the invasion of ancestral European homelands, the rape of European women, the destruction of European societies, & the genocide of Europeans.
U.S. RULING OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR TO SALVAGE HEGEMONY
[LINK | Article]

*U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR* | U.S. Empire's Casino Unsustainable | Destabilised U.S. Monetary & Financial System | U.S. Defaults Twice A Year | Causes for Global Financial Crisis of 2008 Remain | Financial Pyramids Composed of Derivatives & National Debt Are Growing | *U.S. OLIGARCHY WAGES HYBRID WAR*

Who's preaching world democracy, democracy, democracy? —Who wants to make free people free?
[info from Craig Murray video appearance, follows]  US-Anglo Alliance DELIBERATELY STOKING ANTI-RUSSIAN FEELING & RAMPING UP TENSION BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE & RUSSIA.  British military/government feeding media PROPAGANDA.  Media choosing to PUBLISH government PROPAGANDA.  US naval aggression against Russia:  Baltic Sea — US naval aggression against China:  South China Sea.  Continued NATO pressure on Russia:  US missile systems moving into Eastern Europe.     [info from John Pilger interview follows]  War Hawk:  Hillary Clinton — embodiment of seamless aggressive American imperialist post-WWII system.  USA in frenzy of preparation for a conflict.  Greatest US-led build-up of forces since WWII gathered in Eastern Europe and in Baltic states.  US expansion & military preparation HAS NOT BEEN REPORTED IN THE WEST.  Since US paid for & controlled US coup, UKRAINE has become an American preserve and CIA Theme Park, on Russia's borderland, through which Germans invaded in the 1940s, costing 27 million Russian lives.  Imagine equivalent occurring on US borders in Canada or Mexico.  US military preparations against RUSSIA and against CHINA have NOT been reported by MEDIA.  US has sent guided missile ships to diputed zone in South China Sea.  DANGER OF US PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES.  China is on HIGH NUCLEAR ALERT.  US spy plane intercepted by Chinese fighter jets.  Public is primed to accept so-called 'aggressive' moves by China, when these are in fact defensive moves:  US 400 major bases encircling China; Okinawa has 32 American military installations; Japan has 130 American military bases in all.  WARNING PENTAGON MILITARY THINKING DOMINATES WASHINGTON. ⟴  

December 04, 2015

fuck you. twitter.

fuck you.
twitter














---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------


COMMENT

Above are a bunch of insignificant re-tweets that have been censored by the originator of the tweet, presumably on the basis of (a) inane comment chosen or (b) the hashtags selected.
I'm going with the 'censored' option, because there is simply no way that this number of blanked out re-tweets is the result of some widespread typo editing compulsion (and I would have noticed typos).
Twitter as a messaging platform is rendered senseless if the re-tweets can be censored by deleting the originating post.

What kind of lame programming permits this to happen?

It is a DISINCENTIVE to push anything along (save for maybe cat photos), as anything you send along, any remark (however innocuous), and any tag keyed in, is SUBJECT to CENSORSHIP on whim from the originator of the message.

Once the object is sent/tweeted, that should be the end of it:  it should be a FIXED OBJECT and the only opportunity to delete the object should be BEFORE  anybody else has handled the object.

No matter how inane my 'lol' remarks, comments, or hashtags, it pisses me off no end to see dead space where something I had remarked on or tagged belongs.

Assh*les deleting their crap because of some innocuous 'lol' or tag they didn't approve of is an infinitely more heinous offence than assh*les deleting their posts because they actually want to censor something of material significance.  
With the latter type of censor, you can anticipate it and screen-capture.
If there was a torture button on the keyboard to zap the tweet deletion offenders at the other end, I'd be using it joyfully on those that mess with my tweets.  
I'm so jacked off, I've blocked the lot of them, save for Radek ...
RADEK
Permitting censorship renders the platform entirely unworkable, unless the aim is just to tweet out a bunch of solo messages off some list, as if it were some commercial broadcasting task.


Twitter's censored my Radek 'bl*wjob' leaked tape (entry from maybe a year ago).

F*ck you, again, Twitter.






December 03, 2015

Israel's Role in Syria Destruction

Article
SOURCE
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-supports-isis/5492807




Israel Supports ISIS

By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, December 02, 2015


Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon admitted Israeli support for ISIS and other takfiri terrorists,  calling them Syrian rebels – failing to explain they’re  imported from scores of countriesThere are no so-called “moderates” among them.

Since Obama waged war on Syria in March 2011, Israel bombed government targets multiple times.  It continues supplying terrorist elements with weapons, munitions and other support.

Over 1,000 of their wounded fighters were treated in Israeli hospitals, helping them recover to resume waging terror on Syria.

Ya’alon claiming Israeli policy excludes “getting involved in the Syrian war” is a lie.

Israel’s long-range goal is unchallenged regional hegemony, independent governments eliminated in Syria, Iran and Lebanon, area nations balkanized into mini-states for easier control, undeclared Israeli borders expanded to incorporate territory of neighboring states.

On November 24, The Voltaire Network said journalist Sharri Markson got firsthand accounts from wounded jihadist terrorists receiving treatment at Israel’s Ziv Medical Centre, “specialising in war traumology…government-run and linked to the Israeli Defence Forces.”

Their recovery is aided to help them “continue the jihad in Syria.” Israeli security forces detained and interrogated her in a “heavy-handed” way for exposing what they want kept secret.

In September 2014, a photo of Netanyahu and Ya’alon visiting terrorists receiving care in an Israeli hospital went viral online – Netanyahu seen shaking a terrorist’s hand.

According to the al-Araby al-Jadeed newspaper, “Israel has in one way or another become the main marketer of ISIS oil. Without them, most ISIS-produced oil would have remained going between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. Even the three companies would not receive the oil if they did not have a buyer in Israel.

In October, Iraqi security forces captured an Israeli colonel, Yuri Oulen Shahak, working directly with ISIS terrorists. He explained Netanyahu’s criminality during interrogation, one more example of Zionist evil.

He directly “participated in the ISIL group’s terrorist operations,” according to Iraqi authorities.
---------------------------

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.


---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

SMH

Journalist Sharri Markson detained on Israeli visit
Date
November 23, 2015
A prominent Australian journalist was detained by Israeli security officials in tense scenes last week for breaching protocol during a visit to a hospital treating victims of the Syrian civil war.

Sharri Markson, a senior writer at The Australian, was detained for questioning by security officials at the Ziv Medical Centre in northern Israel on Thursday.

Markson was travelling with other Australian journalists on a week-long study tour organised by the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council.
...

Over 500 Syrians – including wounded fighters battling the Assad regime – have been treated at the Ziv Medical Centre in Safed, near the Syrian border.

In a briefing before the tour began, hospital staff told the journalists that the patients could be at risk upon their return to Syria if it became known they had sought treatment in Israel. The hospital uses elaborate methods to secretly transfer the patients in and out of Syria.

The eight journalists were instructed not to record the names of the patients or to take photos that could identify them.

CONTINUED
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/journalist-sharri-markson-detained-on-israeli-visit-20151122-gl4xtf.html


COMMENT

It was all good until I got to the bit about the Israeli colonel. 

I'm pretty sure that Times of Israel published an article denying the 'colonel capture' story. 

I don't know enough about the oil trade to work out if Israel is involved.  But after seeing the article about the Australian journalist's (Markson's) visit to the Israeli hospital that's treating those attacking Syria, I'd believe just about anything.

And, yes, there was a photo of Netanyahu visiting what I guess are jihadists in an Israeli hospital.

The part about Balkanising the Middle East for easier control makes sense.
Note also:
  • Israel bombed government targets multiple times
  • Israel continues supplying or weapons, munitions & other
How is this even OK?

Syria is being destroyed and Israel is patching up those that are attacking the government of a sovereign adjoining nation.

Why isn't this declared terrorism?

 

State Crimes, Secrecy, Lies & Whistleblowers

Article
SOURCE

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/02/global-angst-over-us-secrecy-fetish/

Global Angst over US Secrecy Fetish
December 2, 2015
With the reach of U.S. surveillance now global – and with the U.S. military deployed all over the world – anger at President Obama’s unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers who disclose the U.S. government’s abuses and crimes has gone international, as this Norwegian opinion piece by Victor Wallis shows.
By Victor Wallis

The more extreme the crimes of state, the more the state seeks to shroud them in secrecy. The greater the secrecy and the accompanying lies, the more vital becomes the role of whistleblowers – and the more vindictive becomes the state in its pursuit of them.

Whistleblowers are people who start out as loyal servants of the state. Their illusions about the state’s supposed moral agenda – and the wholeheartedness of their own patriotic commitment – make them all the more shocked when they discover evidence of the state’s wrongdoing.
Given the extreme concentration of weaponry (as well as surveillance capabilities) in the hands of the state, and given the disposition of the state to apply such resources even against nonviolent mass movements, the type of defection practiced by whistleblowers – an option available to military and intelligence operatives at all levels – is crucial to any eventual triumph of popular forces over the ruling class.

Whistleblowers thus not only embarrass the government, disrupt its policies, and (assuming adequate diffusion) educate the citizenry; they also are harbingers of a broader crumbling of the capitalist state and the order it defends. Acting largely in isolation and at great risk to themselves, they embody the conviction – or at least the hope – that basic decency has a more universal grounding than does any possible scheme of oppression.

Whistleblowing’s principal near-term function is educational. It demonstrates the undemocratic character of the regime whose secrets it lets out; it is thus an essential redient of investigative journalism. The documents it brings to light reach the public through those who practice such journalism, whom the government then threatens with prosecution unless they disclose their sources.

The novelty of Wikileaks is that it provided a new form of protection for the anonymity of sources. This, together with the facility of electronic transmission, has made the potential for disclosure greater than ever before. It accounts for the extraordinary fact that the U.S. government has been pursuing draconian charges against someone who not merely is only the recipient rather than the “leaker” of sensitive information, but someone who is not even a citizen or resident of the United States – Julian Assange.

Disclosure is particularly embarrassing when it documents the fact that government officials have lied. The Director of Central Intelligence lied under oath to the U.S. Congress – a felony for which he was never prosecuted – when he denied that the National Security Agency monitors the communications of the entire U.S. population.

This lie was the culminating event in Edward Snowden’s decision to blow the whistle. As we all know, of course, it is Snowden who was then criminalized by the government. This parallels the experience of John Kiriakou, who publicly confirmed, on the basis of his first-hand knowledge, that the CIA practiced torture by waterboarding. Kiriakou then became the only government official to be prosecuted and imprisoned in connection with CIA and military practices of torture.

The debate over whistleblowers reached tens of millions of viewers when the presidential candidates of the Democratic Party were asked (on Oct. 13) their views about Snowden. Hillary Clinton falsely asserted that he could have used established channels to transmit his disclosures of excessive surveillance, presumably at no risk to himself.

This claim is refuted by the experience of previous whistleblowers who had taken just that approach. One of them, Thomas Drake, retold his story two days later, at a news conference ignored by most of the corporate media (video), which was organized on behalf of yet another whistleblower, Jeffrey Sterling, who recently began a 42-month prison term on a conviction of “espionage.”

What Sterling had done was report to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about a counterproductive CIA attempt (in 2000) to feed misleading technological data to Iranian scientists. What he was prosecuted for was his subsequent conversations with New York Times journalist James Risen, although no evidence was available as to the content of those conversations, since Risen refused to testify.

Sterling’s story is recounted in a letter from his wife, seeking presidential clemency from Obama. Sterling had been fired from the CIA in 2002 after filing a complaint against the agency for racial discrimination (an episode on which Risen wrote a news story). After Risen’s book State of War (2006) came out, the FBI raided Sterling’s home, but it was not until more than four years later – under President Obama – that he was arrested (2011).

The latest whistleblower, who documents the “normalization of assassination” via drone warfare, is wisely seeking to remain anonymous. The U.S. government will surely take all possible steps to track him down.

The work of whistleblowers, as well as their personal safety, is obviously an issue that cuts across national borders. Support for U.S. whistleblowers will need to be as global as the reach of the policies and the weapons that they expose.

Victor Wallis is managing editor of the journal Socialism and Democracy. [This is the original text of a column (written on Oct. 20) posted on the Norwegian website radikalportal.no.]

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/12/02/global-angst-over-us-secrecy-fetish/
---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------
COMMENT
A Canadian archive:
http://www.cjfe.org/snowden
contains published Snowden documents.
Archive also contains US government published documents, as an aid to understanding the leaked documents.
It's an archive of approximately 400 documents, which figure presumably also includes the accompanying USG documents, intended as explanatory information.
That would be 400 released documents or less, out of an estimated 50,000 documents that were reportedly turned over by whistleblower Snowden.

Sitting on almost 50,000 'freed' documents that ought to be in the public domain, seems more like minding an archive of protected (and closed to the public) information  than whistleblower publishing.
The 'leaked' information middleman dole-out approach doesn't appeal to me at all.

RT News

Despite calls from Congress to fire Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for lying under oath, United States President Barack Obama says that the spy chief should have just been a little more careful with his words.

Clapper, the 72-year-old retired Air Force lieutenant general in charge of the nation's intelligence departments, caused a commotion last year when he was caught lying during sworn testimony delivered to the Senate.

... Clapper claimed that the National Security Agency does “not wittingly” collect and store data on American people. When former contractor Edward Snowden proved him wrong through leaked NSA documents weeks later, though, Clapper was forced to take back his words.

CONTINUED
https://www.rt.com/usa/obama-dni-clapper-lie-485/


While on the subject of surveillance etc, I thought this commenter had a point:

The Age
Paradoxically, if governments weren't illegally monitoring law-abiding citizens then there'd probably be no serious market for encryption - why bother hiding when nobody's looking (at your personal data?)

Other than those committing cyber crimes perhaps, who would therefore stand out like the proverbial canine testicles.

'mutt'
December 02, 2015, 6:25AM
TheAge - here

Totalitarian American Domestic Surveillance

Article
SOURCE
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/12/02/the-spies-who-ruin-us/
December 2, 2015
By Judge Andrew Napolitano


'The Spies Who Ruin Us'

SUMMARY
Post 9/11 intelligence failure to protect:
--> principle target 4th Amendment right to privacy
-->  Patriot Act 2001

Unread & undebated legislation
-->  US Congress unaware re liberties they were sacrificing
--> US domestic spying unleashed

USG secret mass data gathering
+ warrants not based on probable cause

Lapsed law ... but:
USA telecoms + Internet service providers to retain records for five (5) years
--> NSA instant access.

Patriot Act
+ USA Freedom Act:
unconstitutionally do away with probable cause requirement for warrants

USA Freedom Act warrants:
unconstitutionally do away with probable cause requirement
-->  based on standard of “govt'l needs”

Reality:
 “governmental needs”
= no standard whatsoever, as USG will always claim that it needs what it wants.

USG using same basis for warrants as British colonialists for raids that provoked Revolution & 4th Amendment.

propaganda that NSA have been shut down is false
/ operate remotely --> telecoms & ISPs
s.702 FISA & EO is valid

s.702 FISA & Bush EO
both bypass US Constitution
& continue to permit mass #surveillance data collection

s.702 FISA
--> permits warrantless surveillance of Americans speaking to foreigners.
--> FISA court issues warrants / intercept

FISA court:
--> issue warrants to intercept calls of third parties (to Americans speaking to foreigners) ... encompasses all.

Bush Executive Order (EO)
to military intelligence (NSA is one of more)
--> to intercept calls of anyone - NO WARRANT.

Andrew Napolitano
asserts that secret USA spying:
produces too much material for the government to evaluate
/ Paris failure eg.

General warrants:
hallmark of totalitarian government
{article US example}
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2015/12/02/the-spies-who-ruin-us/
---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

COMMENT

Good overview.
As Napolitano said, with all of France's surveillance capabilities (and infringements of civil liberties that accompany these capabilities), both France and America, who spy on France, missed the opportunity to prevent the Paris attacks -- because they are not conducting target-specific surveillance, and their manpower is bound up in blanket surveillance of entire populations.
What goes on in the US pretty much goes on elsewhere.  The same principles apply, save for the lack of constitutional protections that are supposed to be in place for Americans.

The mention of British colonialists raiding homes on basis of warrantless searches ahead of the American Revolution, is an interesting detail I wasn't aware of.  Ironically, what led to revolution and Fourth Amendment rights being enshrined in the American Constitution, is present day state totalitarianism being repeated by those that exercise behind-the-scenes control of the usurped American state.



GIF - London's Bastillle


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ASSANGE

Britain's Bastille

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ꕤ COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER
Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.
---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------
 
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Simon Wood - Open Letter to Supporters of Syria Airstrike

Article
SOURCE
Simon Wood 
http://99998271.blogspot.jp/2015/12/open-letter-to-supporters-of-syria.html



Open Letter to Supporters of Syria Airstrike

“They were so determined to take down Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad — except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world." - US Vice President Joe Biden in a 2014 speech at Harvard University


CONTINUE
http://99998271.blogspot.jp/2015/12/open-letter-to-supporters-of-syria.html

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December 02, 2015

Western Energy Vultures Hover Over Syria - Cameron's Deceit re Syria & Criminal Negligence - Russia Reveails ISIS-Turkey Oil Smuggling

Article
SOURCE
as marked

Western firms plan to cash in on Syria’s oil and gas ‘frontier’

by Nafeez Ahmed

US, British, French, Israeli and other energy interests could be prime beneficiaries of military operations in Iraq and Syria designed to rollback the power of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS) and, potentially, the Bashar al-Assad regime.

A study for a global oil services company backed by the French government and linked to Britain’s Tory-led administration, published during the height of the Arab Spring, hailed the significant “hydrocarbon potential” of Syria’s offshore resources.

The 2011 study was printed in GeoArabia, a petroleum industry journal published by a Bahrain-based consultancy, GulfPetroLink, which is sponsored by some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Total, and BP.
CONTINUED
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/western-firms-plan-to-cash-in-on-syria-s-oil-and-gas-frontier-6c5fa4a72a92#.48jn1q8wq



'Britain is on the verge of entering into a long war in Syria based on wishful thinking and poor information...'
Patrick Cockburn was invited by Jeremy Corbyn to brief MPs on the facts about today’s Common’s vote on air strikes in Syria. This is his briefing to you
    Patrick Cockburn
    @indyworld
    31 minutes  ago
Britain is on the verge of entering a conflict in Syria in which its political and military strategy is based on wishful thinking and poor information. British air strikes in Syria will be too few to make much difference to Isis, but are important because they signal Britain’s entry into what may be a long war.

In one crucial respect, David Cameron’s approach is similar to that which saw Britain fight two small but unsuccessful wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, in both cases without an effective local partner on the ground. Similarly in Syria, Britain will be at the mercy of events which are being shaped by the numerous other players in the conflict, all of whom have their own highly contradictory agendas.

Much of the debate around the feasibility of the British strategy has focused on Mr Cameron’s statement that we do indeed have a partner, of whose existence few were previously aware. He said that there are 70,000 “Syrian opposition fighters on the ground who do not belong to extremist groups”. The impression given is that there is a “third force” in Syria which will provide a powerful ally for the US, France and Britain.

This would be very convenient but, unfortunately, its existence is very debatable. “The notion that there are 70,000 moderate fighters is an attempt to show that you can fight Isis and [President Bashar al] Assad at the same time,” says Professor Joshua Landis, the director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and an expert on Syrian politics. But he is dismissive of the idea that such a potential army exists, though he says there might be 70,000 Syrians with a gun who are fighting for their local clan, tribe, warlord or village. “The problem is that they hate the village down the road just as much they hate Isis and Assad,” he said.

The armed opposition to President Assad is dominated by Isis, the al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra and the ideologically similar Ahrar al-Sham. Some of the smaller groups, once estimated by the CIA to number 1,500, might be labelled as moderate, but only operate under license from the extreme jihadists. Aymenn al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum and an authority on the Syrian armed opposition, says that these groups commonly exaggerate their numbers, are very fragmented and have failed to unite, despite years of war.

He recalls that one group he met during a recent visit to Latakia province in north-west Syria claimed to have 2,000 fighters, but probably numbered only 500.

He warns that they pretend to the outside world that they are more moderate than they really are, speaking of “the equality of all Syrians before the law” when they are outside Syria or communicating with people who have never been to the country, but express “hatred for Shia and Allawites” on all other occasions. 

Mr Tamimi says that the smaller armed groups, which sometimes have good weapons supplied by the Americans, had acted as auxiliaries to Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham when they captured Idlib City in fierce fighting with the Syrian army in May.

Even if such groups are not extreme Islamists, they do not have the strength to refuse to cooperate. This will make any ceasefire very difficult to arrange because such moderate fighters as there are who might be willing to accept a truce, are intermingled with powerful Nusra forces which will not do so.

Moreover, radical Islamic ideology has been gaining ground in all parts of the Syrian opposition. James Harkin, the author of Hunting Season about the kidnapping of foreigners in Syria and a frequent visitor to opposition-held areas, says that it is important to grasp that “none of these people [the armed opposition inside Syria] like us”.

They see the US, Britain and France as enemies. This  includes the non-jihadists, whom the West hopes to enlist, who suspect they will be used as cannon fodder and then discarded.

The one group that has some claim to be non-sectarian, secular and a powerful fighting force is the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) who claim to number 50,000, but probably total half that. It has been the most effective anti-Isis ground force and, heavily supported by US air strikes, its territory now stretches across northern Syria between the Tigris and Euphrates.

It claims to be non-sectarian and that it does not persecute Sunni Arabs, but sectarian fear and hatred is today so deep in Syria – partly but not entirely because of the atrocities of Isis – that people flee the attack of every other sectarian or ethnic group different from themselves. The Sunni population in Raqqa, Isis’s Syrian capital, or in Mosul in Iraq, may dislike Isis, but they are even more terrified of the Kurds or the Shia militias.

Britain is entering a war against the self-declared “Islamic State”, probably the most dangerous and violent organisation in the world, but without a realistic policy to win that war. Mr Cameron stresses the limited nature of the engagement, but Britain will be fighting a state that is also a ferocious sect, does not negotiate and may well retaliate with some atrocity similar to Paris. This is not an argument for rejecting military action against Isis, but it is one for thinking very carefully what we are doing because the only exit strategy will be military victory.

It is not only in Syria that Britain lacks a powerful local partner. In Iraq, its ally will be the Iraqi government and army, neither of which has recovered from their defeats by Isis over the past two years. “Syria is a nightmare and Iraq is becoming a nightmare,” said the Iraqi political scientist and activist Ghassan al-Attiyah. If the present government of Haider al-Abadi falls it is likely to be replaced by one closer to the Iranian-backed Shia militias that are more numerous and better armed than the Iraqi army.

The US-led air campaign has already launched around 8,300 air strikes against Isis which have slowed up its advance, but without bringing it to its knees. Professor Landis says that the difficulty is that the three powers in Syria capable of winning the war are Isis, a Jabhat al-Nusra led alliance or Mr Assad but “the US doesn’t want any of these to win”. He cites three attempts by the US to create a moderate armed opposition which have humiliatingly failed and, on each occasion, extreme jihadists have captured quantities of modern American weapons.

The British Government has shared in a widespread but ill-founded belief over the past four years that the Assad government was about to collapse. But of the 22 million Syrian population, 4 million have fled abroad and are refugees, and about 12 million are in government-controlled areas. Though exhausted and after suffering heavy casualties, including 47,000 dead, the Syrian army is still the largest military force in the country. It now has the support of the Russian air force and is not going to lose the war, though it is not strong enough to win it.

This is the terrible conflict in which Britain is about to engage, but with only limited understanding of the dangers that lie ahead.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-is-on-the-verge-of-entering-into-a-long-war-in-syria-based-on-wishful-thinking-and-poor-a6756476.html



PETER FORD
Former
UK ambassador to Syria
David Cameron Syria spin
described as deceitful
& promoting a course
amounting to criminal negligence 








Russian Military Reveals
ISIS-Turkey Oil Smuggling Details





---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

Mass media briefing “Russian Federation Armed Forces fighting against international terrorism. New data”








---------------------- ꕤ ----------------------

COMMENT


US  isn't bombing ISIS; it's dropping weapons.

I had no idea that there were so many killed in Syria -- 47k dead.

It's frustrating seeing this happening and being unable to do anything but watch what happens next.

What the West has done is disgusting.  A functioning state has been overrun by terrorists armed and backed by the West, a country has been ripped to bits, 47,000 people are dead -- and it looks like the Shia and Allawite populations will be slaughtered if Assad and Russia don't prevail.

The West doesn't care what happens.  The more destruction the more profitable it will be rebuilding the place and they probably figure that whoever eventually prevails will be desperate and ready to cooperate with Western interests.

This is unbelievable. 

---------------

It took me forever doing my own lame notes about the video.  

Tired so I kind of zoned out here and there.

It's funny how I didn't really connect the oil with the terrorism.  I think it was mentioned in the news, but it didn't mean anything to me.  It was just like, yeah, that's what they do.  

But it's mind-blowing knowing that Turkey, Syria's neighbour, is actually responsible for financing terrorism and that the European Union (who would be aware of Turkey's terrorist sponsoring activities, seeing both the US and Germany spy on Turkey) has given Turkey $3.2 billion to supposedly keep Middle Eastern invasion/immigration at bay.

So what's going on here?  Why not walls and military response instead?  Is the EU laundering money via Turkey to fund Middle Eastern terrorism?

Although I'm forever looking at news, until Turkey shot the Russian bomber down, I wasn't aware how messed up Turkey is.  I thought their messed up is limited to imprisoning journalists (wholesale), and killing Kurds.  

Turkey:

imprisons journalists
oppresses Kurdish minority
bombs Kurds (who are fighting ISIS)
likely killed Serena Shim, journalist
shot down Russia bomber & killed Russian pilot
has armed, trained & supported jihadists in Syria 
has trained the chemical attackers in Ghouta, Syria
buys stolen oil
finances international terrorism (via buying stolen oil)
is rewarded by the EU @ $3.2-billion


PS -  I was inclined to believe ISIS was fake (Hollywood, US-CIA production), until the Russians confirmed they're real & terrorism is real.