Apr 11

Today’s News 11th April 2017

  • "It's Not A War Crime" – EU Finance Chief Attempts To Defend His "Women & Booze" Outburst

    The head of eurozone finance chiefs has hit back following his recent comments on troubled European countries, telling the media “it looks like I committed a war crime.” He insists that all he wanted to express was the idea that “solidarity is not charity.”

    At the end of March, Jeroen Dijsselbloem had said that “I cannot spend all my money on liquor and women and then ask for your support,” referring to certain European nations asking for bailouts.

    And now, as RT reports, in comments published on Monday by De Volkskrant newspaper, the departing Dutch finance minister attempted to clarify his remarks, explaining that “fatigue may have played a role” in the wording of his initial comments as “it was three days after the [Dutch] election.”

    The official also said that the backlash he received was just “anger at eight years of crisis policy” sweeping the EU.

    “I would have rephrased it otherwise, probably. But it was my way of making clear that solidarity is not charity,” the official told the newspaper.

    Dijsselbloem’s initial comments had sparked a wave of outrage from numerous European politicians, as well as the public.

    In the latest interview, Dijsselbloem rejected the calls for his resignation, and urged the EU to pay more attention to real issues that the union is facing.

    "It's sad that we put so much time and energy into an interview while Greece is slipping into a new crisis," Dijsselbloem said to De Volkskrant.

     

    "[It’s] really annoying that so many people were so offended and angry. But the parliamentarians are trying to push me into a corner, as if I claimed that all Southern Europeans are big spenders. Nonsense!" he added.

     

  • Mac Slavo Warns Prepare For War: "It's Going To Obliterate The Global Financial System…"

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    You know what’s so tragic about America? Despite all of the wars our nation gets involved in, we’re secretly one of the most peaceful cultures on the planet. We voted for George Bush, because he promised us a non-interventionist foreign policy. We voted for Obama, because he promised to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. We voted for Trump, because he promised to end the nation building policies of his predecessor.

    And that’s the real tragedy. We’ve been voting for peace for nearly 20 years now, and all we get is war.

    That should really tell you something. It should tell you that our system doesn’t care about what the president stands for, or what the voters want. The system is never held accountable for anything, so there is nothing stopping it. One way or another, the deep state always gets its way. So if our government wants a war, then you can bet that we’re going to war.

    That was made abundantly clear last week when President Trump ordered the bombing of an air base in Syria. The attack was so provocative, that the Kremlin went so far as to say that the US is now “only one step from war” with Russia. The man who was supposed to buck the system and drain the swamp; the man who promised to restore our relationship with Russia and pull back from brinkmanship, seems to have finally submitted to the warmongers in our government. The deep state’s plan to drag us into a horrible conflagration was only temporarily derailed by Trump, and now it appears that their plans are back on track.

    But there’s a silver lining in all of this. Once you know that war is inevitable, and you accept that fact, you can have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next. You can finally take steps to prepare for it.

    syria-tomahawk-attack1

    As for what to expect next, you can bet the farm that our economy is not going to survive the next major war, especially if it involves a conflict with Russia or China. Even if this war doesn’t turn into a nuclear slugfest, it’s going to obliterate the global economy and financial system.

    For years Russia and China have been building an alternative to the dollar dominated financial system. They’ve built the BRICS financial bloc, they’ve been stocking up on gold, and they’ve been establishing trade agreements that don’t involve the dollar. When war breaks out, there’s going to be another system waiting in the wings to replace the dollar, which has been the world’s reserve currency for decades. The war will motivate China, Russia, and their allies, to pull the rug out from under the current economic paradigm.

    Obviously that’s going to significantly weaken the value of the dollar, but it will be just the beginning. The cost of fighting this war will be astronomical. To give you an idea of how costly it will be, World War Two pushed our nation into the highest debt to GDP ratio that we’ve ever been in; a level we haven’t come close to again until very recently. Think about that. We have almost the same debt to GDP ratio as we had when we fought the most expensive and destructive war in our history. As the Wealth Research Group has already pointed out, the dollar is practically on life support. Our government is buried in debt and practically broke as it is, and the cost of fighting another world war would put us over the edge. We’d be bankrupt in no time at all.

    When you consider all of this, one thing is absolutely clear. If Trump drags us into another major war, regardless of whether or not it is global in scope, the dollar is going to crash. It may not even survive in its current form. And when that happens, people are going to flee toward safe haven assets. You can rest assured that gold is going to make a comeback, the likes of which none of us have seen in our lifetimes.

    The heavy hitters in the investment community have been predicting a dramatic change in the gold market for some time now. And unlike the general public, they weren’t persuaded into thinking that someone like Trump was going to save our country from collapse. For instance, Doug Casey of Casey Research; perhaps one of the most well-respected economic prognosticators, told Future Money Trends the following:

    The one thing I feel very confident of is we’re going to have financial chaos in years to come and that’s going to drive people into gold and to a lesser degree into silver.

     

    …

     

    There’s absolutely  no reason from  fundamental point of view for bonds and stocks to be as high as they are right now… We’re in for a huge political, financial, demographic and military upset… these people might start World War III or seem like they’re trying to with the Russians… It’s a very dangerous situation.

    He said that back in December, after Trump was elected but before he took office. Though he was optimistic about Trump, he clearly wasn’t convinced that he’d be able to prevent an economic collapse. Neither was Amir Adnani, the CEO of GoldMining Inc. Without even considering the possibility of war, he predicted that Trump’s policies would lead to a gold market rally.

    So this is really an exceptional window and opportunity for us. We built a war chest with over $21 million of cash on hand, the very large resource base that we have, and that serves as a key point of drawing more companies to us who want to be part of the platform that we’re building. So this is a very interesting window for us; I believe this is a temporary window as well, because there’s no doubt in my mind that the policies of President Trump will prove to be very inflationary. And these very inflationary policies will drive real interest rates into the negative territory, and I really do believe that the stage is set for higher gold prices, but of course, these things take time to develop and manifest themselves.

    But when you add war to the mix, it’s obvious that the dollar isn’t going to be able to maintain its current value. Our financial system is both fragile and under enormous pressure. It was already headed toward collapse, and the costs associated with another major war are going to expedite that process. When it happens, only the folks with real assets will be above water. Assets like land, weapons, food, and of course gold, will be the only things separating the haves from the have nots.

  • PIECZENIK EXPLODES: ISSUES WARNING TO TRUMP, MATTIS AND MCMASTER ABOUT GOING TO WAR IN SYRIA

    America’s foremost expert in international affairs, having served under 5 Presidents, instrumental in the Camp David accords, in addition to playing a key role in regime changes around the globe for decades, Dr. Steve Pieczenik exploded with rage on the Alex Jones show yesterday — warning Trump and his team that war crimes would follow if they pursued a neocon agenda of war in Syria, which the American people do not want.
     
    “This is a warning to our generals, Mcmaster, and others, who think they can do a regime change in Syria. Number one, that will not be possible, not with the military, not with all the forces you have and not with the quality of the soldiers you have, the generals. Any notion of a regime change through force is both absurd or criminal. The issue of Syria and Assad have no national security interests to us at all. This will be an incredible dereliction of duty if we go to war in Syria.”
     
    He then warned Mcmaster and Mattis directly, saying that he will “come forth, and be tried for criminal activity, as will Mathis.”

    “There is no reason to put our men and women in harm’s way for oil pipelines, or whatever nonsense that is military industrial complex thinks we need to do to get in the middle east. We have no interest in the middle east.”
     
    “There is no cause for war.”
     
    “Again, we’re going through the nonsense of the neocons.”

    Dr. Pieczenik made his first public appearance in more than 30 years during the Presidential elections, saying in no uncertain terms that he represented a faction of the American intelligence community that would not allow Hillary Clinton to become the next President. Moreover, he claimed to be part of an organization that released the Podesta emails to Wikileaks. Interestingly, the mainstream media continues to ignore the good Doctor — in spite of the fact that is resume is anything but conspiratorial. He is the real deal.
     
    At one point in the interview, he got so heated that Jones had to cut him off when he threatened legal action against the President.
     

    “If this goes any step further, this is a warning to our generals, to our President, and anyone involved. Once again, we will react quite vociferously and strongly. This is grounds for all types of legal action against the President.”

     
    He further elaborated on the situation in Syria as a war that is unwinnable, describing how the Assad family was firmly entrenched and could not be displaced by American forces, who have ‘no idea what they’re doing.’

    “The people I know in the military are increasing their force structures to the degree that there is no strategy whatsoever. If you have no strategy, and regime change isn’t a strategy, do not go to war.”
     
    “The President needs to understand, if he goes to war, that’s his problem and we will have a major blowback, domestically. Our military is not prepared for this type of war. Our generals have no idea what they’re doing.”

     
    A confused Jones, obviously caught off guard by the acrimonious tone of Dr. Pieczenik, asked what had changed from Friday to cause him to issues these warnings.
     
    Pieczenik described, from a psyops point of view, the things he learned over the weekend that caused him to worry.

    “But once I hear, and I understand there are more forces placed there over the weekend, there was artillery placed in there. And in fact, they are creating in the White House, what we call a dichotomy or two messages.”
     
    “You have a purposeful confusion.”
     
    “Do not go to war in Syria.”

     
    A must listen.

    Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

  • 1983 CIA Document Reveals Plan To Destroy Syria, Foreshadows Current Crisis

    Prophetically foreshadowing the current crisis (and apparent action plan), leaked CIA documents from the reign of Bashar al-Assad's father in the 1980s show a Washington Deep State plan coalescing to "bring real muscle to bear against Syria," toppling its leader (in favor of one amenable to US demands) , severing ties with Russia (its primary arms dealer), and paving the way for an oil and gas pipeline of Washington's choosing.

    As ActivistPost.com's Brandon Turbeville detailed (just a day before Trump unleashed his Tomahawks), as the Syrian crisis enters its sixth year, the Donald Trump administration is looking more and more like the Obama administration every day. With the Trump regime refusing to open useful dialogue with Russia regarding Syria, its obvious anti-Iran and pro-Israel positioning, and support for a very questionable “safe zone” plan for Syria, the odds of a rational U.S. policy in regards to Syria has lower and lower odds of existence as time progresses.

    Yet, despite the fact that the Trump administration is apparently poised to continue the Obama regime’s proxy war of aggression against the people of Syria, an example of seamless transition, it should also be remembered that the plan to destroy Syria did not begin with Obama but with the Bush administration.

    Even now, as the world awaits the continuation of the Syrian war through a Democratic and Republican administration, the genesis of that war goes back to the Republican Bush administration, demonstrating that there is indeed an overarching agenda and an overarching infrastructure of an oligarchical deep state intent on moving forward regardless of which party is seemingly in power.

    As journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his article, “The Redirection,”

    To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

    “Extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam” who are “hostile to America and sympathetic to al-Qaeda” are the definition of the so-called “rebels” turned loose on Syria in 2011. Likewise, the fact that both Iran and Hezbollah, who are natural enemies of al-Qaeda and such radical Sunni groups, are involved in the battle against ISIS and other related terrorist organizations in Syria proves the accuracy of the article on another level.

    Hersh also wrote,

    The new American policy, in its broad outlines, has been discussed publicly. In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is “a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,” separating “reformers” and “extremists”; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were “on the other side of that divide.” (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, “have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize.”

     

    Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said.

     

    . . . . . .

     

    This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”

     

    . . . . . .

     

    Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations. Syria is a major conduit of arms to Hezbollah.

     

    . . . . .

     

    In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, Prince Bandar flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet with Ali Larijani, the Iranians’ negotiator on nuclear issues. According to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar’s mission—which the ambassador said was endorsed by the White House—also aimed “to create problems between the Iranians and Syria.” There had been tensions between the two countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the Saudis’ goal was to encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said, “It did not work. Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other. Bandar’s approach is very unlikely to succeed.”

     

    . . . . . .

     

    The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, a branch of a radical Sunni movement founded in Egypt in 1928, engaged in more than a decade of violent opposition to the regime of Hafez Assad, Bashir’s father. In 1982, the Brotherhood took control of the city of Hama; Assad bombarded the city for a week, killing between six thousand and twenty thousand people. Membership in the Brotherhood is punishable by death in Syria. The Brotherhood is also an avowed enemy of the U.S. and of Israel. Nevertheless, Jumblatt said, “We told Cheney that the basic link between Iran and Lebanon is Syria—and to weaken Iran you need to open the door to effective Syrian opposition.”

     

    . . . . .

     

    There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.” He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front’s members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.

    Hersh also spoke with Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Shi’ite Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. In relation to the Western strategy against Syria, he reported,

    Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.” Nasrallah told me that he suspected that one aim of the Israeli bombing of Lebanon last summer was “the destruction of Shiite areas and the displacement of Shiites from Lebanon. The idea was to have the Shiites of Lebanon and Syria flee to southern Iraq,” which is dominated by Shiites. “I am not sure, but I smell this,” he told me.

     

    Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”

    Yet, while even the connections between the plans to destroy Syria and the Bush administration are generally unknown, what is even less well-known is the fact that there existed a plan to destroy Syria as far back as 1983.

    Documents contained in the U.S. National Archives and drawn up by the CIA reveal a plan to destroy the Syrian government going back decades. One such document entitled, “Bringing Real Muscle To Bear In Syria,” written by CIA officer Graham Fuller, is particularly illuminating. In this document, Fuller wrote,

    Syria at present has a hammerlock on US interests both in Lebanon and in the Gulf — through closure of Iraq’s pipeline thereby threatening Iraqi internationalization of the [Iran-Iraq] war. The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey.

    Even as far back as 1983, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, was viewed as a gadfly to the plans of Western imperialists seeking to weaken both the Iraqis and the Iranians and extend hegemony over the Middle East and Persia. The document shows that Assad and hence Syria represented a resistance to Western imperialism, a threat to Israel, and that Assad himself was well aware of the game the United States, Israel, and other members of the Western imperialist coalition were trying to play against him. The report reads,

    Syria continues to maintain a hammerlock on two key U.S. interests in the Middle East:

     

    — Syrian refusal to withdraw its troops from Lebanon ensures Israeli occupation in the south;

     

    — Syrian closure of the Iraqi pipeline has been a key factor in bringing Iraq to its financial knees, impelling it towards dangerous internationalization of the war in the Gulf

     

    Diplomatic initiatives to date have had little effect on Assad who has so far correctly calculated the play of forces in the area and concluded that they are only weakly arrayed against him. If the U.S. is to rein in Syria’s spoiling role, it can only do so through exertion of real muscle which will pose a vital threat to Assad’s position and power.

    The author then presents a plan that sounds eerily similar to those now being discussed publicly by Western and specifically American corporate-financier think tanks and private non-governmental organizations who unofficially craft American policy. Fuller writes,

    The US should consider sharply escalating the pressures against Assad [Sr.] through covertly orchestrating simultaneous military threats against Syria from three border states hostile to Syria: Iraq, Israel and Turkey. Iraq, perceived to be increasingly desperate in the Gulf war, would undertake limited military (air) operations against Syria with the sole goal of opening the pipeline. Although opening war on a second front against Syria poses considerable risk to Iraq, Syria would also face a two-front war since it is already heavily engaged in the Bekaa, on the Golan and in maintaining control over a hostile and restive population inside Syria.

     

    Israel would simultaneously raise tensions along Syria’s Lebanon front without actually going to war. Turkey, angered by Syrian support to Armenian terrorism, to Iraqi Kurds on Turkey’s Kurdish border areas and to Turkish terrorists operating out of northern Syria, has often considered launching unilateral military operations against terrorist camps in northern Syria. Virtually all Arab states would have sympathy for Iraq.

     

    Faced with three belligerent fronts, Assad would probably be forced to abandon his policy of closure of the pipeline. Such a concession would relieve the economic pressure on Iraq, and perhaps force Iran to reconsider bringing the war to an end. It would be a sharpening blow to Syria’s prestige and could effect the equation of forces in Lebanon.

    Thus, Fuller outlines that not only would Syria be forced to reopen the pipeline of interest at the time, but that it would be a regional shockwave effecting the makeup of forces in and around Lebanon, weakening the prestige of the Syrian state and, presumably, the psychological state of the Syrian President and the Syrian people, as well as a message to Iran.

    The document continues,

    Such a threat must be primarily military in nature. At present there are three relatively hostile elements around Syria’s borders: Israel, Iraq and Turkey. Consideration must be given to orchestrating a credible military threat against Syria in order to induce at least some moderate change in its policies.

    This paper proposes serious examination of the use of all three states – acting independently – to exert the necessary threat. Use of any one state in isolation cannot create such a credible threat.

    The strategy proposed here by the CIA is virtually identical to the one being discussed by deep state establishment think tanks like the Brookings Institution today. For instance, in the Brookings document “Middle East Memo #21: Saving Syria: Assessing Options For Regime Change,” it says,

    Turkey’s participation would be vital for success, and Washington would have to encourage the Turks to play a more helpful role than they have so far. While Ankara has lost all patience with Damascus, it has taken few concrete steps that would increase the pressure on Asad (and thereby antagonize Tehran). Turkish policy toward the Syrian opposition has actually worked at cross-purposes with American efforts to foster a broad, unified national organization. With an eye to its own domestic Kurdish dilemmas, Ankara has frustrated efforts to integrate the Syrian Kurds into a broader opposition framework. In addition, it has overtly favored the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood over all other opposition groups. Washington must impress upon Turkey the need to be more accommodating of legitimate Kurdish political and cultural demands in a post-Asad Syria, and to be less insistent on the primacy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

     

    Some voices in Washington and Jerusalem are exploring whether Israel could contribute to coercing Syrian elites to remove Asad. The Israelis have the region’s most formidable military, impressive intelligence services, and keen interests in Syria. In addition, Israel’s intelligence services have a strong knowledge of Syria, as well as assets within the Syrian regime that could be used to subvert the regime’s power base and press for Asad’s removal. Israel could posture forces on or near the Golan Heights and, in so doing, might divert regime forces from suppressing the opposition. This posture may conjure fears in the Asad regime of a multi-front war, particularly if Turkey is willing to do the same on its border and if the Syrian opposition is being fed a steady diet of arms and training. Such a mobilization could perhaps persuade Syria’s military leadership to oust Asad in order to preserve itself. Advocates argue this additional pressure could tip the balance against Asad inside Syria, if other forces were aligned properly.

    While Syria is not in conflict with Iraq today, after being destroyed by the United States in 2003, Western Iraq now houses the mysteriously-funded Islamic State on the border between Iraq and Syria.

    That being said, this plan is not merely being discussed, it is being implemented as one can clearly see by the fact that Israel routinely launches airstrikes against the Syrian military, Turkey continues to funnel ISIS and related terrorists into Syria through its own territory, and ISIS continues to present itself as an Eastern front militarily. As a result, the “multi-front” war envisioned and written about by the CIA in 1983 and discussed by Brookings in 2012 has come to fruition and is in full swing today.

    *  *  *

    Full Document below:

    *  *  *

    Then three years later, another CIA report (found recently in CREST database by Wikileaks) confirms much of the above, raising once again the goal of reducing Russian influence, and toppling any Syrian leadership that was inclined to escalate tensions with Israel…

    Under most circumstances Moscow's position in Syria should remain strong, but should Syria suffer another devastating military defeat at the hands of Israel new leaders might decide to look elsewhere for military equipment.

     

    A shift to a Western arms supplier also could prompt parallel efforts to seek Western financial advice and support.

    Best case scenario for Washington…

    We judge that US interests in Syria probably would be best served by a Sunni regime as it might well include relative moderates interested in securing Western aid and investment.

     

    Such a regime probably would be less inclined to escalate tensions with Israel.

    Russian relations…

    Syria is the centerpiece of Moscow's influence in the Middle East. Moscow thus has a vested interest in major policy shifts or changes in Syrian leadership. The Soviet Union and its East European allies provide virtually all of Syria's arms, and the Soviets deliver more weapons to Syria than to any other Third World client.

     

    We believe Moscow's interests would be seriously jeopardized if Sunnis came to power through a civil war. Many Sunnis resent the Soviets because they are closely identified with Alawi dominance, and Sunnis would be especially hostile toward the Soviets if they had supported Alawis with military equipment and advisors in a civil war.

    SCENARIOS OF DRAMATIC POLITICAL CHANGE

    US biggest fear was series of coups over succession of Bashar al-Assad's father… That did not come to be.

    Civil war (similar to what is very evident now)…

    Sunni dissidence has been minimal since Assad crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1980s, but deep-seated tensions remain–keeping alive the potential for minor incidents to grow into major flareups of communal violence. For example, disgruntlement over price hikes, altercations between Sunni citizens and security forces, or anger at privileges accorded to Alawis at the expense of Sunnis could foster small-scale protests. Excessive government force in quelling such disturbances might be seen by Sunnis as evidence of a government vendetta against all Sunnis, precipitating even larger protests by other Sunni groups.

    Best case scenario…

    In our view, US interests would be best served by a Sunni regime controlled by business-oriented moderates. Business moderates would see a strong need for Western aid and investment to build Syria's private economy, thus opening the way for stronger ties to Western governments. Although we believe such a government would give some support–or at least pay strong lipservice–to Arab causes, this group's preoccupation with economic development and its desire to limit the role of the military would give Sunnis an incentive to avoid a war with Israel.

    However…

    We believe Washington's gains would be mitigated, however, if Sunni fundamentalists assumed power. Although Syria's secular traditions would make it extremely difficult for religious zealots to establish an Islamic Republic, should they succeed they would likely deepen hostilities with Israel and provide support and sanctuary to terrorist groups.

    It's a little late for that Islamic State genie to go back in the bottle now.

    As Brandon Turbeville concludes, the trail of documentation and the manner in which the overarching agenda of world hegemony on the behalf of corporate-financier interests have continued apace regardless of party and seamlessly through Republican and Democrat administrations serves to prove that changing parties and personalities do nothing to stop the onslaught of imperialism, war, and destruction being waged across the world today and in earnest ever since 2001. Indeed, such changes only make adjustments to the appearance and presentation of a much larger Communo-Fascist system that is entrenching itself by the day.

  • Doctor Dragged From United Plane After Computer "Solves" Overbooking Problem

    A man was violently dragged off of a United Airlines flight Sunday evening after it was apparently overbooked, according to passengers who were on the plane.

    As The Courier Journal reports, a United spokesperson confirmed in an email Sunday night that a passenger had been taken off a flight in Chicago.

    “Flight 3411 from Chicago to Louisville was overbooked,” the spokesperson said. “After our team looked for volunteers, one customer refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily and law enforcement was asked to come to the gate.

     

    “We apologize for the overbook situation. Further details on the removed customer should be directed to authorities.”

    Passengers were told at the gate that the flight was overbooked and United, offering $400 and a hotel stay, was looking for one volunteer to take another flight to Louisville at 3 p.m. Monday. Passengers were allowed to board the flight, Bridges said, and once the flight was filled those on the plane were told that four people needed to give up their seats to stand-by United employees that needed to be in Louisville on Monday for a flight. Passengers were told that the flight would not take off until the United crew had seats, Bridges said, and the offer was increased to $800, but no one volunteered.

    Then, she said, a manager came aboard the plane and said a computer would select four people to be taken off the flight. One couple was selected first and left the airplane, she said, before the man in the video was confronted.

    Bridges said the man became “very upset” and said that he was a doctor who needed to see patients at a hospital in the morning. The manager told him that security would be called if he did not leave willingly, Bridges said, and the man said he was calling his lawyer. One security official came and spoke with him, and then another security officer came when he still refused. Then, she said, a third security official came on the plane and threw the passenger against the armrest before dragging him out of the plane.

    “Everyone was shocked and appalled,” Bridges said. “There were several children on the flight as well that were very upset.”

  • Postal Service Suspended In Swedish "No-Go" Zone Because It's "Not Safe"

    Last night we noted that, rather than help police arresting a suspect in Friday’s horrendous terrorist attack in Stockholm, migrant residents of the suburb of Rinkeby apparently decided instead to pelt the arresting officers with rocks.  Of course, the incident was just one more example of the unintended consequences of Sweden’s ‘open border’ policies and a direct contradiction of arguments from senior Swedish officials that would suggest that the influx of migrants hasn’t made towns like Rinkeby any less safe. 

    That said, less than 24 hours later, the Swedish postal service has been forced to suspend service to Rinkeby after declaring the area “unsafe” for workers.  So if the no-go zones in Sweden are simply ‘fake news’, as the mainstream media would suggest, perhaps they should give the ‘all clear’ to Rinkeby’s postal workers who are refusing to even go outside. 

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    Here is more on the situation from MITTI:

    The reason is that it is not considered safe for postal staff to deliver the mail at some locations in the area.

     

    It’s been messy in the area and therefore a protective stop to ensure the safety of our staff, says Maria Ibsen, press officer at PostNord.

     

    She says that they currently do not know how long the protective stop will continue. But the dialogue with several parties and hope to be able to solve.

     

    Björn Schenholm, property manager at Einar Mattsson, who manage the properties in Hjulsta, estimates that about 120 households affected by the stoppage.

    Of course, we don’t suspect you’ll read about this service interruption from any MSM outlets as they’re too busy fulfilling their obligations to suppress ‘inconvenient’ facts that may hinder their pro-globalist agendas.

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    That said, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven did tell a Swedish news agency that he was “frustrated” by the news that last week’s terrorist attack was carried out by a migrant who wasn’t even supposed to be in the country.  It’s a small admission but the first step is admitting you have a problem. 

  • Mike Krieger Explains His Strategy For Confronting And Defeating The Status Quo

    Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

    There’s one main reason the vast majority of Americans continue to lose and suffer, while a very small percentage of people continue to win and prosper, and it can be summed up with one word, unity.

    I know this sounds corny and cliché, but that doesn’t make it untrue. There’s a reason a small group of vested parties are able to run this country in their interests alone while the general public gets scraps, and it’s not simply money. A big part of the problem lies in ourselves and our inability to form mass movements that cross political lines on issues of tremendous importance. The “elite” don’t suffer from such divisiveness, which is how they are able to hold on to power despite repeated failures spanning decades.

    A perfect example of how the status quo comes together when their collective interests are threatened was on full display during the 2016 election. Many of us stood in shock with our mouths open in horror as corporate Democrats, neoconservative Republicans and the corporate media formed a total alliance in opposition to Donald Trump. Those of us who pay attention to the world knew this had nothing to do with Trump’s comments about Mexicans or Muslims. All of that was merely a smokescreen for what really concerned them. What really got them terrified was the prospect that Trump would reverse course on the reckless late-stage imperial foreign policy that has been relentlessly pursued since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

    To see what I mean, watch the following video of General Wesley Clark describing the days after 9/11:

    I’m sure you noticed Syria mentioned in that clip. The plan to overthrow Syria was already laid out over 15 years ago. As you can see, they’re a bit behind schedule, which is why we witnessed complete panic when Trump won the Presidency. While I was always convinced Trump would be a ruthless corporatist at home and all his commentary against Wall Street was a lie, I held out a small degree of hope he might chart a more reasonable course on foreign policy. This is clearly not the case, and Trump has now been trapped and played by the foreign policy establishment. He is now their puppet.

    With his bombing of Syria, Trump has been successfully manipulated into a distinct foreign policy from what he promised during the campaign and adamantly warned against in 2013 when Obama was threatening military intervention in Syria. Trump was played by neocons in the Republican Party (principally John McCain and Lindsey Graham), Russia conspiracy theorists in the Democratic Party (led by Adam Schiff), and the always war-mongering corporate media. It was this unified stance by powerful interest groups ostensibly residing on conflicting sides of the political spectrum that won this fight and flipped Trump. The status quo stood together on an issue they care deeply about (provocation with Russia and war in Syria) and they are getting what they wanted.

    To see just how united the corporate press is on this issue, take a look at these tweets from Adam Johnson.

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    Meanwhile, let’s see how Trump’s new neocon best friends are thanking him for his reckless bombing.

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    Well yeah, Wesley Clark already told us all about that.

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    Meanwhile, Graham is calling for 5,000-6,000 U.S. ground forces in Syria, so there’s that. The neocons smell blood and weakness and are now going for the jugular. Well done, Donald Trump.

    The bottom line here is we need to learn lessons from our adversaries in order to defeat them. The “elite,” or status quo, isn’t a uniform blob which maintains conformity with one another on every political issue. That said, there are some issues so important to establishment players that they will put aside all other concerns in order to defend them. Imperial wars of domination is one of these issues, which is why rather than accept defeat after the election, the truly powerful in America united like never before to paint Trump as a Putin puppet so that he’d be backed into a corner and then manipulated into doing their bidding at the appropriate moment. This is exactly what happened.

    The “elite” are very good at unifying when their key interests are threatened, while average American citizens are terrible at it. We’ve been completely divided and conquered. We’ve self-separated into ideological tribes where we support and celebrate only those thinkers who agree with us on a vast majority of issues. As such, when something like a crazy neocon war abroad becomes a reality we are totally incapable of crossing tribal lines to unite on an issue of tremendous importance. The elite have no such qualms, which is why they win and we lose.

    Going forward, we must totally dismiss the notion that movements should be centered around individual politicians, and center them around principles.  It wasn’t “getting the right person elected” that changed anything in the civil rights movement, rather it was mass popular movements by average citizens who pressured politicians. It’s never the politicians, it’s always the people. This is how it’s always been and how it must be today. I think activism has completely lost its way and until it finds strategic understanding, will continue to fail. There’s power in numbers, and we have the numbers on all sorts of issues if we can only get out of our little tribal comfort zones and accept people as allies in struggles of particular importance even if you disagree with them on a host of other issues.

    While there are a large number of issues I care deeply about, I’ve come to the conclusion that we need to pick one big issue and then build a huge tent around it. I think Trump’s recent escalation of hostilities in Syria means interventionist wars in the Middle East should be the first issue we unify to challenge. It’s high profile, extremely dangerous and the sort of thing that can generate unity amongst a huge percentage of the population.

    If war in Syria will be our first order of business, where do things stand as we speak? For one thing, I got a lot out of a recent poll highlighted by The Hill. Here’s what we learned:

    About half of Americans support the Trump administration’s decision last week to launch a missile strike on a Syrian air base, according to a new poll.

     

    A HuffPost/YouGov survey finds 51 percent of Americans support the president’s decision to order the airstrikes in retaliation for a chemical attack last week that killed civilians in northern Syrian.

     

    Thirty-two percent of Americans are opposed to the strikes and 17 percent are uncertain.

    Your immediate reaction to this may be that it’s disturbing and discouraging that 51% of Americans support the strike, and I understand that sentiment. However, given the total unified propaganda front from the tripartisan elite (corporate media and the Republican and Democratic establishment), the number is actually pretty low. Moreover, the following is encouraging.

    Slightly more than one-third of respondents think the president should not take additional military action, compared to 20 percent who believe Trump should. Another 45 percent were unsure of what the president should do regarding future military action.

    Only 20% of Americans want more strikes, but we know what McCain, Graham and Kristol want. Which makes you wonder, how will the neocons shape public opinion and get their expanded war? The corporate media, of course. This is the media’s true role in the American oligarchy. It must mold the opinions of the 45% who “aren’t sure what to do next” and convince them that more war is necessary. Be on the look out for that, because it’s coming.

    Moreover, we learned some additional information in a different poll, also highlighted by The Hill:

    Pollsters also found that 70 percent believe Trump requires authorization from Congress before pursuing additional action in Syria.

     

    Few Americans desire U.S. military involvement in Syria beyond airstrikes, however, with 18 percent supporting the use of ground troops.

    It’s very clear Americans don’t want a ground presence in Syria, but as we learned, Lindsey Graham is calling for exactly that to the tune of 5,000-6,000 troops. Again, the only way for the neocons to boost this number from 18% to something more acceptable is the corporate press. The above tells us that something to the tune of 200 million American adults may be against a ground war in Syria. If that’s right, where are the anti-war protests? Where’s the mass movement against more interventionism? Where did all the vagina hats go?

    The movement is nowhere to be seen largely because the 80% of Americans against an escalation of this war are divided and bickering on a laundry list of other issues. The public has been totally divided and conquered and remains entirely unable to come together to stop something as important as war despite agreeing with one another on the subject. This absence of unity leaves the public vulnerable to manipulation by the corporate media and politicians who want more war, which is exactly what’s going to happen if we don’t wise up.

    So how do we achieve this unity I’m calling for? It’s not going to be easy, but I think the first step is for all of us to get out of our tribes start listening to people outside our comfort zones. I try to do this here at Liberty Bltizkrieg with my posts. For example, one day you may see a video of Ron Paul and the next an interview with Chris Hedges. I don’t agree with either one on all issues, but they both have integrity and are against unethical destructive wars abroad. If people who like Ron Paul can cross over and shake hands with people who prefer Chris Hedges and agree to fight imperial war together, we can build the popular movements that will be necessary to turn this country around. If not, we will continue to lose.

    The choice is ours.

  • Tomahawks Have Been The US Weapon Of Choice For Years

    Late last week, two U.S. warships fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian airbase in response to a suspected chemical weapon attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun. As Statista's Nial McCarthy details, the Tomahawk cruise missile has been at the very tip of America's spear in every major military intervention since 1991.

    Infographic: Tomahawks have been the US weapon of choice for years | Statista

    You will find more statistics at Statista

    In the Gulf War, 288 of the missiles were fired at targets in Iraq and this increased to 415 when Operation Desert Fox took place in the country seven years later. During Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya in 2011, at least 112 Tomahawks were fired over the course of the conflict.

    Read more about the history of the weapons system in the Independent where the above infographic was featured.

  • Millennials: A Menacing Metamorphosis To The Status Quo

    Submitted by Stock Board Asset Management

    Last week, Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith discussed in an interview of the current generational shift occurring in the United States. The interview is called Called Millennials: A Menacing Metamporsis. To note, both Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith understand their baby boomer generation is the status quo, and is currently being uprooted by the millennials, who are slated to take the reins in the next 8 years. In my opinion, this should be coined the ‘clash of generations’, where ultimately the millennials will be stitching their beliefs and ideas on the American fabric. As expressed in the interview, the status quo is underestimating the serious ramifications of this generational shift.

    General shifts in America are completely normal and have produced serious economic and or social consequences through time.  One of the best blueprints and guides of generational shifts is the Strauss–Howe generational theory explaining the four cycles of with-in a full-generation (80-100 years). In fact, starting in the 2007/2008 period,  Strauss–Howe generational theory explains how the United States started the generation shift called the Fourth Turning where the old older is destroyed giving light to the new order i.e. Millennials: A Menacing Metamporsis. 

    The interview touches on 10 important points of how the millennial beliefs and ideas will change the American landscape in the next 8 years. Changes that we see today include household formation, retail trends, transportation trends, and the shift to urbanization.

    During the US Presidential Election, the most noticeable idea that the millennial generation was underestimated by the status quo was the unanimous support for Bernie Sanders rather than the status quo Hillary Clinton.

    When peaking into Bernie Sanders’s platform, it understood as far-left leaning, which could highlight the core belief system of the millennials. This may serve as a guide in the direction America is headed.

    Millennials are virtually split when it comes to Socialism or Capitalism. This is a much different view than the status quo, which alludes to serious economic adjustments are on the horizon.

    As of 2017, millennials are 36% of the workforce and in 8 years are projected to be 75% of the workforce.

    The millennial generation has a much different composition of demographics verse the prior generation. Leads to social adjustments…

    Here is 1-4 changes of how the millennial generation is different from the past. Economic stagnation has shaped the millennial generation in to who they’re today.

    Student debt levels are a defining point of the millennials generation. No other generation has ever taken on this much student debt despite being the most educated.

    Millennials are currently making economic decisions based on the burdensome of student loan debt.

    A major shift in real estate as millennials demand urban centers, which is a complete flip from prior generations pushing out to suburbia.

    Millennials will have a profound change in the transportation industry. Technology and crowd sharing has pushed millennials to Uber and Lyft. This will be challenging for the auto industry to maintain auto sales, along with energy producers of crude products.

    Millennials are already having a drastic change in the retail space. The technology millennials are adapting is contributing to the retail apocalypse.

    The millennial generation has been subjected to fear and war in their entire lifespan. This generation has witnessed the negative effects of globalism hallowing out the middle class around them. Millennials search for security, which may explain why Bernie Sanders was the best platform of choice, because he offered ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.

    More social ramifications for the US economy are the millennials thought of various forms of debt should be forgiven. The old order has produced a debt ball and chain.

    Last but not least, Gordon T. Long and Charles Hugh Smith forgive the millennials and blame the educational system for why the millennials think the way they do.

    For the next 8 years one should sit down, strap in, and hold-on. The generational rollercoaster will involve chills and thrills, but it’s completely normal. All we say is just be on the right side of history.

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