Feb 20

Today’s News 20th February 2018

  • Why Washington Struck Russian Contractors In Syria

    Submitted by Nauman Sadiq,

    On February 7, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly killed and wounded dozens of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner group.

    In order to understand the reason why the US brazenly attacked the Russian contractors, we need to keep the backdrop of seven-year-long Syrian conflict in mind. Washington has failed to topple the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

    After the Russian intervention in Syria in September 2015, the momentum of battle has shifted in favor of Syrian government and Washington’s proxies are on the receiving end in the conflict. Washington’s policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government has given birth to the Islamic State and myriads of jihadist groups that have carried out audacious terror attacks in Europe during the last couple of years.

    Out of necessity, Washington had to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria. But on January 20, its NATO-ally Turkey mounted Operation Olive Branch against the Kurds in the northwestern Syrian canton of Afrin. In order to save its reputation as a global power, Washington could have confronted Turkey and pressured it to desist from invading Afrin. But it chose the easier path and vented its frustration on the Syrian government forces in Deir al-Zor which led to the casualties of scores of Russian military contractors hired by the Syrian government.

    Another reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria is that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – have reportedly handed over the control of some areas west of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and have relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of Turkish armed forces and allied Free Syria Army (FSA) militias.

    More significantly, an understanding between the Syrian government and the Kurdish leadership has recently been reached, according to which the government will deploy Syrian troops in the northwestern Kurdish enclave of Afrin in order to augment the defenses of the canton against the Turkish-led offensive.

    One of the main reasons why Washington bombed the pro-government forces, which included the Russian military contractors, on February 7 in Deir al-Zor was to preempt the likelihood of such an accord between the US-backed Kurdish forces and the Russia-backed Syrian government from materializing in the wake of Turkish-led Operation Olive Branch in Afrin on January 20.

    It’s worth noting here that the ethnic and sectarian conflict in Syria and Iraq is actually a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arabs, the Shi’a Arabs and the Kurds. Although after the declaration of war against a faction of Sunni Arab militants, the Islamic State, the US has also lent its support to the Shi’a-led government in Iraq, the Shi’a Arabs of Iraq are not the trustworthy allies of Washington because they are under the influence of Iran.

    Therefore, Washington was left with no other choice but to make the Kurds the centerpiece of its policy in Syria after a group of Sunni Arab jihadists overstepped their mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in early 2014, from where the United States had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

    The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are nothing more than Kurdish militias with a token presence of mercenary Arab tribesmen in order to make them appear more representative and inclusive in outlook.

    Regarding the Kurdish factor in the Syrian civil war, it would be pertinent to mention here that unlike the pro-US Iraqi Kurds led by the Barzani family, the Syrian PYD/YPG Kurds as well as the Syrian government have been ideologically aligned because both are socialists and have traditionally been in the Russian sphere of influence.

    Moreover, as I have already described that the Syrian civil war is a three-way conflict between the Sunni Arab militants, the Shi’a-led government and the Syrian Kurds, and the net beneficiaries of this conflict have been the Syrian Kurds who have expanded their areas of control by aligning themselves first with the Syrian government against the Sunni Arab militants since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to August 2014, when the US policy in Syria was “regime change” and the CIA was indiscriminately training and arming the Sunni Arab militants against the Shi’a-led government in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan with the help of Washington’s regional allies: Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, all of which belong to the Sunni denomination.

    In August 2014, however, the US declared a war against one faction of the Sunni Arab militants, the Islamic State, when the latter overran Mosul and Anbar in early 2014, and Washington made a volte-face on its previous “regime change” policy and started conducting air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Thus, shifting the goalposts in Syria from the impossible objective of “regime change” to the realizable goal of defeating the Islamic State.

    After that reversal of policy by Washington, the Syrian Kurds took advantage of the opportunity and struck an alliance with the US against the Islamic State at Masoud Barzani’s bidding, thus further buttressing their position against the Sunni Arab militants as well as the Syrian government.

    More to the point, for the first three years of the Syrian civil war from August 2011 to August 2014, an informal pact existed between the Syrian government and the Syrian Kurds against the onslaught of the Sunni Arab militants until the Kurds broke off that arrangement to become the centerpiece of Washington’s policy in the region.

    In accordance with the aforementioned pact, the Syrian government informally acknowledged Kurdish autonomy; and in return, the Kurdish militias jointly defended the areas in northeastern Syria, specifically al-Hasakah, alongside the Syrian government troops against the advancing Sunni Arab militant groups, particularly the Islamic State.

    Finally, in order to understand Washington’s objective that why it dared to bomb pro-government forces in Deir al-Zor on February 7 that included private Russian military contractors, bear in mind that it would be a nightmare scenario for Washington in Syria if its only trust-worthy allies, the Syrian Kurds, broke off their arrangement with Washington and once again entered a mutually beneficial alliance with Russia-backed Syrian government – a scenario which is quite likely after Washington’s NATO-ally Turkey’s repeated invasions of Kurdish-held areas in Syria, first the invasion of Jarabulus and Azaz in northern Syria during the Operation Euphrates Shield that lasted from August 2016 to last March, and now the military intervention in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin on January 20.

    Washington’s primary objective of bombing the pro-government troops on February 7 – that led to dozens of Russian casualties – was to create divisions between the US-backed Kurds and Russia-backed Syrian government. Clearly, one can’t negotiate and reach a defensive accord with a party whose backers are bombing you at the same time. But Russia has sagaciously downplayed the brazen atrocity and moved on with its efforts to reconcile the divergent interests of competing forces in the Syrian proxy war.

    *  *  *

    Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.

  • Anti-Immigrant AfD Now The Second Most Popular Party In Germany

    In a historic first, a poll published on Monday by German newspaper Bild put the anti-immigrant, Alternative for Germany (AfD) party at 16%, showing that they are currently the second most popular political organization in Germany and more popular than Germany’s Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel’s “Grand Coalition” allies. The poll, conducted by INSA put the AfD on 16%, just ahead of the SPD on 15.5%.

    The poll marks the lowest support ever achieved by the SPD, traditionally one of the two major parties of German politics.

    According to the poll Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are the most popular party in the country and would secure 32 percent of the vote were elections to be held tomorrow.

    Environmentalists can take heart from the poll too, as it confirms a trend of blooming support for the Green party. The Greens won 8.9 percent of the vote in September’s election but are now polling at 13 percent.

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    The popularity of the right-wing AfD has been creeping up in recent weeks, with polls consistently putting them on 14% or above.

    They entered the Bundestag for the first time in September after winning 12.6% of the vote. The party was set up in 2013 and fought the election of that year on an anti-Euro platform, but failed to make it over the five percent hurdle needed to make it into parliament. Last year they ran a campaign fiercely critical of the government’s refugee policy, which had led to over a million people applying for asylum in Germany since 2015.

    According to The Local, the leadership of the AfD rejects the label of “far-right”, preferring to describe themselves as conservative. However, they remain highly controversial due to various statements by senior party members which have challenged a political consensus concerning how Germany treats its Nazi past.


    AfD federal chairman Jörg Meuthen

    Björn Höcke, the AfD leader in Thuringia, has lambasted Germany’s culture of remembrance of the Holocaust, labeling the Holocaust Memorial in central Berlin a “memorial of shame.”

    Party leader Alexander Gauland, meanwhile, said during election campaigning last year that Germany should be proud of the service of its soldiers in two world wars.

    On the other hand the popularity of the SPD has plummeted as they look set to join a third grand coalition with Merkel as a junior partner. Germany‘s oldest party – around the late 19th century – scored their worst post-war result in 2017 at 20.5% and have only seen their support crumble since then.

  • The Three Global Super-Powers & The End Of M.A.D.

    Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    There are currently three global super-powers, three nations that lead the world: China, Russia, and US.

    After World War II, until recently, the US clearly dominated the world, not only culturally, with more influence over the world’s other cultures than any other single nation possessed, but also economically, with product-dominance throughout the world, and also militarily tied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and, then, after the Cold War, still possessing such military dominance, so that in 2006, America’s billionaires — as represented by the most-prestigious two agencies that represent their collective interests against the public, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University — were actively promoting, broadly amongst foreign-policy academics, the idea that the US should seek to occupy a position of such extreme military superiority over Russia, so that since 2006 the concept of “Nuclear Primacy” is reflected, by America’s power-centers, as being the correct goal for America, going forward, replacing the prior nuclear-strategic paradigm (since the 1950s) of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or “M.A.D.,” in which nuclear weapons were (and, by Russia, still are) seen as purely defensive strategic military assets between the two nuclear superpowers, weapons whose only actual purpose, for either country, is to ward off a WW III — no usefulness at all in an actual aggressive military context.

    Thus, M.A.D. became replaced in America by Nuclear Primacy, nuclear weapons that are put in place to serve not only to ward off a nuclear attack, but also, ultimately, to win a nuclear war against the other nuclear super-power, Russia — nukes as aggressive weapons, by which the US will (it has been expected, ever since 2006) soon be able to demand, and to receive, Russia’s capitulation, surrender, or else Russia will be destroyed by a US nuclear first-strike, while US casualties, from any presumably few Russian weapons that might make it through this ABM-BMD shield, will be kept to an “acceptably low” level, by virtue of that then-functioning ABM-BMD system, combined with increases in US nuclear striking-power. This nuclear-primacy paradigm aims for America (its billionaires) to take over the entire world, including ultimately the world’s largest land-mass: Russia. 

    But, now, twelve years later, America’s presumed early lead in such ‘defensive’ strategic weaponry has become, instead, ever more clearly, just a figment of America’s military-industrial complex’s (MIC’s) fervid marketing-campaign for the development and sale of such weapons, ever since US President Ronald Reagan’s promised “Star Wars” program during the 1980s got the effort, toward a winnable nuclear war, started, as an alleged ‘defensive’ measure — not yet overtly the end of M.A.D. 

    Soon after Reagan, the Soviet Union, and its communism, and its Warsaw Pact counter to America’s NATO military alliance, all simultaneously ended, in 1991, as a consequence of which, the US military-industrial complex (MIC), and especially the large US manufacturers of nuclear-weapons systems, the companies that dominate the MIC, were becoming stranded, because the market for their costliest wares was now in limbo. Though elimination of the Cold War wouldn’t have been an existential threat to these manufacturers, an end to the Cold War on the US side would have threatened the market-values of those US companies, which are controlled by US billionaires, who have lots of clout in Congress. Thus, though the Cold War ended in 1991 on the Russian side, it secretly continued on the US side (that is, amongst America’s super-wealthy, the people who control the US Government — the main market for the MIC); and America’s strategic switch, away from M.A.D. to Nuclear Primacy (so as to unshackle their market from the prior politically imposed demand to maintain a nuclear balance between the two sides), has been a significant part of this secret continuation, by America, of the Cold War, while Russia’s Government continued instead to think in terms of the M.A.D. paradigm. (Russia’s weapons-manufacturers are still owned by the Government — socialized — so, there’s no need to grow their ‘market value’.)

    In a strictly capitalist country, weapons-manufacturing is a major area of investment for billionaires, whose fortunes there rise to the extent that governments are buying their planes and bombs and missiles, especially those of the most sophisticated types, which are strategic weaponry, such as nuclear systems, which are the most profitable ones of all. Growth-at-all-costs has meant (and means) that the MIC is a cancer upon the entire world. (Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, on 17 January 1961, understated the problem.) Either the entire military will be a public entity, or else there will be (because of its privatized weapons-manufacturing) a tendency for the military to destroy everything else in order to continue to grow, like investors expect and demand — grow like cancer.

    A major source of America’s decline was US President George W. Bush, who came into office in 2001 when the Cold War could no longer excite the American public as being a threat (since the Soviet Union and its communism and its military alliance were now long gone), and a new demon thus needed to be brought before the American people, as warranting increased ‘defense’ expenditures. 9/11 came along just in time to fill this interim lack of a cause de guerre, to attack now Al Qaeda and other (as today’s US President famously tags it) “radical Islamic terrorists.”However, America’s spending on strategic weaponry requires instead focus against the other nuclear super-power as being the ‘enemy’, and this is what the end of M.A.D. and the start of Nuclear Primacy (which is manna from heaven for the ‘Defense’ contractors) have been all about: re-defining ‘the enemy’, from being a country with which peace must be maintained (M.A.D.), to becoming instead a country that should be outright conquered. And, amongst the lies which are necessary in order to sustain this switch (from M.A.D. to Nuclear Primacy), is the lie that ABMs have no aggressive function, but are ‘purely for defense’. This lie will enable the public to accept the spending of trillions of dollars of federal money on weapons whose sole real use will be conquering Russia — or, at least, the attempt to do so. 

    Nobody makes public the identities of the individuals, in the US and in its allied countries, who comprise the suddenly booming market for luxurious nuclear-proof deep-underground bunkers. But whomever these owners are, three things about them are obvious: they’ve got lots of money; they think that the prospect of a nuclear war is very real — worth their pre-paying for suitably luxurious long-term temporary accommodations deep underground; and they aren’t themselves one of the high government officials for whom the government’s taxpayers have already built such bunkers. (Or, perhaps, some of them do belong to the last of those three categories, but they’ve got so much extra money that they can easily afford to pay for more luxurious quarters than the taxpayers have already supplied them with.)

    Quite similar to Donald Trump, but far more overtly faith-based than the hyper-secular former Miss Universe Pageant owner, George W. Bush had a confidence like the Taliban and Al Qaeda do, that “God is on our side”, and so Bush acted as if he had no reason to test-out America’s ABM weapons before ordering and buying them (at the public taxpayer’s expense, and private billionaires’ profits, of course). Or, perhaps alternatively, Bush didn’t even care whether these weapons would work, but only whether the owners of the companies that would be manufacturing them would be satisfied with their profits, from the decisions that he was making, which so powerfully affected their profits. In any case, Bush’s focus on rushing forward with a US ABM system demonstrated his strong commitment to the replacement of M.A.D., by Nuclear Primacy. The whole idea of Nuclear Primacy rests upon there being an effective US ABM system installed so as to make the enemy’s retaliatory weapons ineffective. Bush pushed the ABM into production even before there was any indication that it would work. He did this even before the very concept of “Nuclear Primacy” was publicly introduced by the two chief agents for America’s aristocracy in 2006. What Harvard and the CFR promoted, was already the Government’s policy. While there were criticisms of Bush’s execution of the plan, there was no significant scholarly opposition against the Nuclear Primacy concept itself.

    All subject-areas of expertise (and this refers to scientists, not to scholars) despised the religious faith-based President George W. Bush, much like they despise the secular faith-based President Donald Trump. For example, everyone knows that Trump has great difficulty finding experts who are willing to serve in his Administration. Similarly, in the October 2004 “Poll of Academic Economists” by the Economist, 59% of them answered “no” when asked “If you had a chance to work in a policy job in Washington, would you take it?” And when queried “For whom would you rather work?” Bush or his then electoral opponent Senator John Kerry, 81% chose Kerry — notwithstanding that, as a predominantly conservative lot, the economists did like one thing about George W. Bush: “Outsourcing of jobs overseas,” which 86% of them rated to be either good or very good. (Of course, Trump claims to oppose that; so, in this regard, he’s even less acceptable to economists than Bush was.)

    Under Bush, experts were even trying, with no success, to inform this conservative faith-based President about areas in the federal budget where substantial funds were being simply wasted, but his blind faith caused him to ignore such scientific warnings, and enormous federal waste resulted. For example, the science reporter William Broad headlined in The New York Times on 24 September 2003, “Report Sees Risks in Push for Missile Defense”, and opened, “The Bush administration’s push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads, Congressional investigators said yesterday. The General Accounting Office, in a 40-page report, said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task [and subsequently the same thing happened in order to produce the scandalously overpriced and insanely multi-functional F-35 jets], often described as trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.” The article quoted a former Pentagon weapons testing chief, who said that to deploy such an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system just a year hence as planned, would be to deploy “no more than a scarecrow, not a real defense” — in other words, a system that would almost certainly fail in any actual use — because so many parts of the system wouldn’t have been tested sufficiently to be designed functionally that soon. The prior (Bill Clinton) Administration, more attentive to such concerns, had established a schedule for testing the various parts of this complex system prior to any possible deployment. However, one of G.W. Bush’s first actions coming into office was to deploy an ABM system, even if it might not work, and to do the testing afterward. Bush, it seems, possessed the faith that if science were to fail to supply the system’s functionality, then God would certainly do so, for the benefit of “God’s People.” 

    Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post thus headlined on 26 April 2004, “Dubious Threat, Expensive Defense” and closed: “Bush would spend twice as much on missile defense as on customs and border protection,” yet gain only “a rudimentary and uncertain defense against an unlikely long-range missile attack.” Diehl opined that, despite the transformed defense needs after 9/11, “The president who never admits error will stay the course.” 

    Bush did stay the course: by the time of 14 February 2005, as The New York Times reported the next day, “The nation’s fledgling missile defense system suffered its third straight test failure.” Commented one scientist there, “It’s as if Henry Ford started up his automobile production line and began selling cars without ever taking one for a test drive.” But not quite: Bush had now taken his third ‘test drive’ — and all three failed. 

    On 4 April 2005, the AP reported, “Congress is weighing how much to invest in the fledgling ballistic missile defense system, which has suffered setbacks and whose cost could easily top the $150 billion partial price tag the Bush administration has estimated.” Some congressional proponents of the ABM system were even quoted as saying that it had to be deployed in order to prevent future terrorist attacks, such as had occurred on 9/11. Of course, that allegation is absurd — 9/11 couldn’t have been stopped by an anti-missile defense system. But members of Congress aren’s so stupid as not to know this. That allegation was probably just a marketing-ploy sponsored in back-rooms by corporations such as Lockheed Martin, who might reflect their satisfaction with the statement, by donating to the ‘appropriate’ PACS.

    Meanwhile, the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress were financially shortchanging many of the nation’s authentic anti-terrorist needs. This $150 billion+ could have gone a long way toward achieving real protection (and/or toward serving non-defense needs), if it had been scientifically allocated. 

    Were Al Qaeda to have been voting directly in the US Congress, the ABM system would have had an easier time passing unchanged, exactly as Bush wanted. Al Qaeda would have been fervent Republicans — they were just as religious, and just as faith-obsessed, though in a different ‘inerrant Scripture’. If Donald Trump has faith in any ‘inerrant Scripture’, nobody knows what it is. But, he seems to have lots of faith in himself, even if experts in the respective subject-fields don’t.

    By the present time, the failure of America’s entire ABM-BMD gamble — which was started under Reagan, begun being operationalized under G.W. Bush, and finally being installed by Barack Obama and now under Trump — is painfully clear. But success was never its actual goal: restoring the government’s growth in ‘defense’ spending (even while cutting now the government’s non-‘defense’ spending) is its real purpose. Those billionaires and centi-millionaires must be served, or else Congress-members will lose their seats to well-funded competitors in their own Party’s next primary. The system succeeds marvelously at doing what it’s intended to do: to serve the people who buy the Government — to serve the actual patrons of this ‘democracy’. Instead of being a democracy, it’s a government that’s bought and sold.

    While America thus spends itself into becoming increasingly a third-world country, China and Russia pursue different objectives. Specifically in the case of Russia, its military spending is one-tenth of America’s, but, because Russia cannot afford to allow billionaires’ demands for private profit to constitute the incentive-system that drives the Russian Government’s military decisions, Russia has gone militarily from strength to strength, while post-WW-II America (spending ten times as much) has gone from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria, and yet America’s ‘news’-media have cheered all of these evil billionaires’ invasions of those countries we wrecked, as if companies such as General Dynamics owned companies such as the Washington Post, and thus (with all that propaganda) the American public continue to respect America’s military higher than any other US institution — despite such a long string of military failures by this country, despite spending ten times what Russia does on its military, and despite America’s military being the most corrupt part of the US federal Government.

    But, actually, America’s military spending is probably much higher than just ten times Russia’s, because America’s official figures — what SIPRI and others use, which is just the ‘Defense’ Department — excludes much of America’s military expenses, as a consequence of which, America’s official $617.1 billion FY 2019 expenditure for the Department of ‘Defense’ masks an actual annual military expense of $1,135.7 billion. That’s $1.36 trillion per year, to do things such as destroy Afghanistan, destroy Iraq, destroy Syria, destroy Libya, perpetrate coups such as in Ukraine, assist coups such as in Honduras, etc. But even that’s not the total ‘defense’ expenditure which taxpayers have bought for the billionaires, because, throughout its existence, the US CIA has been getting unrecorded off-the-books billions from the international narcotics trade, starting in 1948, when it perpetrated a coup in Thailand and installed there a brutal regime that helped establish the CIA’s off-the-books funding-system, as I had mentioned in a prior article, where I discussed US relations with Syria, in broader histrical context,

    starting in 1949, when the US CIA, under President Harry S. Truman, did its second coup d’etat, overthrowing a democratically elected progressive Government (the first having been Thailand 1948, where the CIA had installed an extremely barbaric dictator replacing the democratically elected government that had been headed by a staunch anti-fascist, and simultaneously set up the CIA’s off-the-books supplementary funding mechanism from the international narcotics-trade — a CIA practice which has continued till perhaps the present; and, furthermore, the infamous Nugan-Hand affair, which involved Thailand, definitely involved the CIA’s Michael Hand and William Colby; so, clearly, the CIA is funded off-the-books from the narcotics business, and America’s anti-narcotics laws thus are actually keeping narcotics-drug prices and resultant burglaries and CIA profits artificially high, funneling that illicit money into CIA coffers; and any method to defund the CIA down to its core intelligence-gathering function and to eliminate its coup-function, which is the function that took control in Thailand and Syria and then Iran and many more, would need to regulate — instead of to continue outlawing — drugs, which might be the main reason why it hasn’t yet been done: illegal drugs provide wealth to the CIA and other gang-lords, including some US Government officials).

    Another significant milestone in the development of the American elite’s plan to conquer Russia has been the overwhelming — more than 90% of the votes in both the US Senate and House — support for the imposition in 2012 of economic sanctions against Russia, to punish the Russian Government for the alleged 2009 murder of one alleged anti-corruption whistleblower in a Russian prison, Sergei Magnitsky — the Magnitsky Act was passed, and was the first set of economic sanctions against Russia. (The evidence that Magnitsky had been a ‘whistleblower’, and the evidence that he was ‘tortured’ in prison, and the evidence that he wasn’t instead the American Bill Browder’s tax-accountant who had helped Browder in a complex tax-evasion scheme that had defrauded the Russian Government of $232 million, are all themselves fraudulent, and even are easily verified as being fraudulent, but both the US Government, and the EU, ignored and continue to ignore all of it.) In order to have a ‘justification’ to attack Russia, an excuse is needed; and, since the ideological one — communism — ended in 1991, Russia needs to be at least a ‘dictatorship’; so, something such as the Magnitsky Act was necessary in order to get the military-industrial complex’s (MIC’s) PR ball rolling toward even-higher annual US ’defense’ spending. However, that excuse, being a ‘dictatorship’ (with elections that are at least as honest as America’s are), isn’t enough. Russia also needs to be officially declared to be an ‘aggressor’ — an aggressive dictatorship — such as to have grabbed portions of its adjoining country, Ukraine. So, America’s Obama regime secretly started in 2011 planning, and then in February 2014 it carried out, a coup against and overthrowing the democratically elected and Russia-friendly Government of Ukraine, and installed there a fascist regime to replace the one that had received 75% of the vote in the Crimean region of Ukraine, and 90% of the vote in the Donbass region of Ukraine, so that both regions refused to be ruled by the Obama-installed rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainian regime, and Russia helped both of those two separatist regions on its borders, and even protected and accepted Crimea’s referendum-vote of over 90% to rejoin Russia, of which Crimea had historically been a part until the Soviet dictator in 1954 arbitrarily transferred it to Ukraine. So, now, the US MIC has the excuses it wants, in order to place — and thus did place — its weapons and troops onto and near Russia’s borders, just a ten-minute missile flight-time to Moscow. 

    This plan is moving forward, but nobody can yet say whether, or even when, the US regime will invade. However, the US regime and its NATO allies now also have the excuses that Russia has been holding ‘aggressive’ military exercises near its borders ‘threatening’ NATO countries on its border that might invade Russia, and Western ‘news’media have alarmed their publics against Russia’s ‘aggressive’ moves after its having ‘stolen’ Crimea and ‘attacked’ Ukraine in Donbass. And then there is yet more Russian ‘aggression’ when Syria requested and received Russia’s military assistance against the US-backed jihadists who, since 2012, have poured, by the tens of thousands, from around the world, into Syria, to be led by the US-backed Al Qaeda there, to overthrow the Syrian Government, which is allied with Russia. So, that too (the Syrian war) could produce a war between the US and Russia; it could start over Syrian territory, where the US insists on regime-change, but claims only to be ‘fighting terrorists’ there. Of course, regardless of whether the invader of Syria (the US), or else the defender of Syria (Russia), wins, the loser in Syria, especially if it turns out to be the US invader (i.e., if Syria remains one country instead of breaking apart, and if Assad becomes re-elected as President there), could then use that superpower-defeat in Syria, as constituting an excuse to invade the winning superpower there.

    This would be WW III, starting in Syria, instead of in Ukraine. The US regime has set up those two scenarios. 

    1984 has come in the real world, but the declining and former leading superpower, America (“Oceania” in George Orwell’s uncannily prophetic description of the future that he prematurely set to occur in 1984), is apparently determined to stay ‘on top’, even if it’s the last thing that anybody does.

    Can it really be that if the world of the future won’t be led by America’s billionaires, then it won’t exist at all? Do they really demand “My way, or the highway” — really? Are America’s billionaires (despite any ‘humanitarian’ pretenses they individually so often hypocritically express, both in the fictionalized and in the real version) so stunningly united in their actual psychopathy (likewise in both versions — “Big Brother,” and today’s reality)? Thus far, it seems that they are. None of them — not a one of these people who have the financial resources to bring the world’s most pressing issue honestly to the American public — is speaking out against the others on it, and devoting major funds to exposing the others for their pumping lies against Russia, and to exposing the truths about such things as ABMs and the MIC. And collectively they’ve got the American public fooled into admiring the MIC (“the Military”) above all other US institutions. But whether America’s billionaires will carry their collective evil to the extreme, isn’t yet clear. They are the actual decision-makers regarding US Government policy, but they are playing their cards — as usual — privately and secretly, until their game (whatever it may turn out to be) will already be finished.

    Meanwhile, Russia and China each proceeds forward on its own priorities, which aren’t necessarily similar to those of the conquest-obsessed American Government.

  • The Flu Is Ravaging America This Year

    The U.S. has been gripped by its worst flu season in years.

    Experts have been surprised by the intensity of the current outbreak, which Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, with the infection rate around eight percent, is as bad as the swine flu epidemic from 2009. During that season, 60.8 million people contracted the virus with 274,304 hospitalized and 12,469 dying.

    Even though that outbreak was bad with President Obama declaring it a national emergency, the 2014-2015 flu season was far more lethal. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 710,000 people were hospitalized that season with 56,000 deaths recorded.

    Infographic: The Flu Is Ravaging The U.S. This Year | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    The current situation is alarming with the hospitalization rate per 100,000 people already hitting 59.9 after 18 weeks, according to the CDC.

    It took 25 weeks for the hospitalization rate to reach that point during the deadly 2014-2015 season. During a mild year, an average of 12,000 Americans die due to the flu and judging by the current trend, 2017-18 is on course to surpass 2014-15 in lethality. More than 80 percent of flu deaths usually occur among the elderly and people with underlying health problems.

    This year, seemingly healthy individuals are being infected and hospitalized at higher rates than the historical average. The CDC has reported that 63 children have already died during the current season.

  • Paul Craig Roberts Sums Up The Result Of Mueller's Investigation: "Nothing!"

    Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

    Robert Mueller discredited himself and his orchestrated Russiagate investigation last week (Friday, February 16, 2018) with his charges that 13 Russians and 3 Russian companies plotted to use social media to influence the 2016 election. Their intent, Mueller says, was to “sow discord in the US political system.”

    What pathetic results to come from a 9 month investigation!

    Note that the hyped Russian hacking of Hillary’s emails that we have heard about every day is nowhere to be found in Mueller’s charges. In its place there is “use of social media to sow discord.” I mean, really! Even if the charge were correct, considering the massive discord present in the last presidential election, with the Democrats calling Trump voters racist, sexist, homophobic white trash deplorables, how much discord could a measly 13 Russians add via social media?

    Note also that the Trump/Putin conspiracy is also not present in Mueller’s charges. Mueller’s charges say that the Russians’ plan to sow discord began in 2014, before there was any notion that Trump would run for president in 2017. The link of the plot to Putin is reduced to the allegation that the plot was financed by a St. Petersburg restaurateur whose connection to Putin is that his business once catered official dinners between Russian officials and foreign dignitaries.

    Finally, note that Mueller’s release of his charges in the face of dead news weekend means that Mueller knows that he has nothing to justify the massive propaganda onslaught against Trump for conspiring with Putin with which the presstitutes have regaled us. If the charges amounted to anything, they would have been released on Monday morning, and the presstitutes would have been handed by the FBI and CIA the news stories to file with their papers.

    How did the 13 Russians go about sowing discord? Are you ready for this?

    They held political rallies posing as Americans and they paid one person (unidentified) to build a cage aboard a flatbed pickup truck and another person to wear a costume portraying Hillary in prison clothes.

    How much money was lavished on this plot.

    A monthly budget of $1.2 million, a sum far too small to be seen in the $2.65 billion spent by Hillary and Trump and the $6.8 billion spent by all candidates for federal elective offices in the last election.

    Mueller claims to have emails from some of the 13 Russians. If the emails are authentic, they sound like a few kids pretending to friends that they are doing big things. One of the emails brags that the FBI got after them so they got busy covering up their tracks.

    House Speaker Paul Ryan has fallen for Mueller’s ruse.

    Remember what William Binney, the person who designed the NSA spy program, said: If any such Russiagate plot existed, NSA would have the evidence. No investigation would be necessary.

    One can conclude that Mueller and Rosenstein are fighting for their lives now that it is known that their spy requests for FISA court approval were based on deception. Mueller has produced this silly indictment of individuals who are not the Russian government in the hope that it will keep the attention off the FBI’s deception of the FISA court.

    As a special prosecutor Mueller has demonstrated the same lack of integrity that he demonstrated as FBI director.

  • Munich Conference: "For The First Time In Decades We Are Facing Threat Of Nuclear Conflict"

    Over the past fifty years, the Munich Security Conference (MSC) has traditionally reflected the current state of world military affairs. Each February, more than 450 senior decision-makers from around the globe descend into Munich, Germany, to discuss current and future security challenges.

    And while there have been times in recent years when the MSC demonstrated signs of hope and optimism, none of that was evident this year. This year’s motto “To the Brink – and Back?”- which seems to be an accurate portrayal of the current geopolitical situations in most regions. After several days of senior decision-makers bickering back and forth, the negativity in the atmosphere only means one thing: A global conflict between nuclear superpowers is lingering.

    “I was hoping when I opened this conference on Friday that, in concluding the conference, I would be able to say we can delete the question mark. In other words: ‘We are back from the brink,’” former German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger said in closing remarks of the MSC. “I’m actually not sure we can say that,” he added.

    The dangers of nuclear proliferation and talk of a “dire” global security situation dominated the security conference: from the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine, to U.S. allegations of Russia’s election-meddling, to territorial disputes between ex-Soviet republics, and even discussions about the escalating tensions between Israel and Iran: geopolitical doom and gloom was not short in all conversations during the meeting.

    And, in the latest escalation, Bloomberg reports that the most fiery subject of the conference were the tensions surrounding Russia and the U.S over nuclear arms controls.

    Addressing a conference hall in Munich packed with dignitaries, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of the risks emanating from North Korea’s nuclear activities, which have ratcheted up tensions between Pyongyang and Washington.

    “For the first time since the end of the Cold War, we are now facing a nuclear threat, a threat of a nuclear conflict,” Guterres told the gathering in the southern Bavarian city.

    Conference Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger opened the event by warning that the world has moved too close to a “major interstate conflict” and faces a “dire reality.”

    “We have too many unresolved crises, instabilities, and conflicts,” Ischinger warned.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov fired a shot at President Trump’s new 74-page nuclear doctrine calling for a modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal.

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    U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster shot back at Lavrov’s statements defending the U.S. nuclear posture, which calls for more low-yield atomic bombs and outlines explicitly Russia and China are the primary sources of security concern for the Pentagon.

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    “We will not allow Russia any of the power to hold the populations of Europe hostage,” he declared Saturday in Munich, appearing on stage minutes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov sounded the alarm on the U.S. military-industrial complex expansion since the collapse of Communism.

    While the two countries have fulfilled the terms of another landmark nuclear weapons reduction treaty, New START, that accord expires in 2021 and there’s political pressure on President Donald Trump to let it expire because of the alleged Russian non-compliance with the INF treaty. Moscow in turn accuses Washington of itself breaking the intermediate-range pact.  So far, no formal negotiations are taking place on either issue.

    And as the world devolves to another potential nuclear arms race, Javier Solana, NATO’s former secretary-general, and Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s acting foreign minister, expressed alarm: “The most likely theater for nuclear conflicts would once again be here, in the center of Europe,” Gabriel told the conference.

    Meanwhile Graham Allison, a Pentagon adviser under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan when the two superpowers were negotiating arms control, said he’s skeptical momentum will be found to revive START and the INF.

    Arms control was developed primarily to prevent the “insane” possibility that Russia and the U.S. would annihilate each other due to miscalculation or accident, despite not even wanting to go to war, said Allison, now a professor of government at Harvard University. “Those risks remain today.”

    Needless to say, a return to the nuclear arms race is the worst possible outcome:”according to Sergei Karaganov, a former Kremlin foreign policy adviser, the situation could get “much more dangerous” than during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war.”

    Under New START, which followed from the 1991 START treaty and was signed in 2010, the Russian and U.S. arsenals are restricted to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers.

    And, if that long-range missile pact isn’t prolonged and the INF collapses, “you have a situation where there are no limits on Russian and American nuclear forces,” said Steven Pifer, a former top State Department official and arms control expert, quoted by Bloomberg. In addition, Russia and the U.S. would stop exchanging data on each other’s nuclear arsenals and permitting regular inspections. “It would be less predictable, less secure, less stable,” Pifer said.

    Russia would then likely respond to any U.S. move to station land-based intermediate-range missiles in Europe by deploying similar missiles to target “all the bases where these weapons will be,” said Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade in Moscow.

    “And the U.S. can’t stay safe over the ocean – we’ll create the same risk for the U.S. as they do for us in Europe,” he said.

    In short: a full blown nuclear arms race coupled with Cold War 2.0.

    * * *

    Some experts,  such as Thomas Graham, ex-White House adviser under George W. Bush, remain optimistic, and believe Russia and the U.S. will blink when faced with the prospect of stepping into a void without the security of arms control.

    Russia has proposed a 5-year extension to New START, to 2026, though it’s tying that to fixing complaints about the way the U.S. has complied with the treaty, the Interfax news service reported Feb. 16.

    Others are not: “The chances are diminishing every day,’’ said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian upper house of parliament.

    Ian Bremmer, the founder of the Eurasia Group told Handelsblatt that, “We’re in trouble, because, you know, pretty much every geopolitical conflict out there is escalating, none of them are getting fixed, and no one has any solutions. This was not a good meeting.”

  • "Their Objective Is To Create Fear…"

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    The Social Justice trend has appeared in recent years, and has rapidly gained momentum.

    It appeared first on college campuses, where students accused a professor or, indeed, another student, of making a statement or using a word that was deemed socially unacceptable. The premise by the accuser was that a campus must be a safe space, where people should not be exposed to comments that may possibly make anyone feel demeaned or uncomfortable.

    The accusers have earned the name “snowflakes,” as they tend to melt down at the slightest provocation. However, the Social Justice trend has given snowflakes considerable power, a power that’s often used recklessly.

    Importantly, whether the offensive comment is correct or incorrect is not an issue. The “offense” is that the speaker has stated something that should not ever be mentioned, as it might upset the listener in some way. The “justice” that takes place is that one or more people file a formal complaint with a person or body that holds power over the speaker and demand that he be punished for his “wrongdoing.”

    This has led to teachers and professors being warned, suspended, or fired from their positions, based merely on the existence of a complaint. In addition, “offending” students have been warned, suspended, or expelled, again, without what might be regarded as due process.

    A related form of Social Justice is the vigilantism seeking to destroy those who are prominent. Former Miss Americas demanded that the entire board of the Miss America Pageant be dismissed for making disparaging remarks about pageant contestants. Several have been forced to resign in disgrace.

    And, of course, we’re seeing the rise of complaints against actors, politicians, and other prominent individuals regarding alleged sexual denigration of women, even if it’s merely verbal. In each case, witnesses are “bravely coming forward,” en masse, although they often were silent for decades (if, indeed, the individual incidents ever occurred at all).

    Whether a given individual has actually committed a crime or not seems immaterial in the new Social Justice trend. The focus is on vehement condemnation of an individual, usually by a host of others. Importantly, regardless of what process is used to prosecute (or persecute) those accused, a general assumption of the Social Justice trend is that, once someone is accused, he’s guilty and punishment must take place.

    But, in fact, this trend is not new. Rabid groups of accusers appear throughout history, generally during times of existing social tension.

    The Salem Witch Trials: 1692-1693

    In 1692, several young girls claimed to be possessed by witches and group hysteria ensued. Some 150 men, women and children were ultimately accused and nineteen were hanged. Governor William Phips ordered that an end be put to the show trials in 1693. In the process, his wife was accused of being a witch.

    The Nazi Sondergerichte: 1933-1945

    In Nazi Germany, kangaroo courts were held for those deemed to have committed “political crimes,” resulting in 12,000 deaths. Germans were encouraged to report on each other. (If your neighbor annoyed you, a good recompense was to report him as being disloyal.) The persecution only ended when Nazi Germany was defeated.

    The Great Soviet Purge: 1936-1938

    Joseph Stalin ran many successful purges against clergymen, wealthy peasants, and oppositionists, but the foremost of them was the Great Purge, which included anyone with a perceived stain on his record. Denunciation was encouraged. The purge was highly successful and, although the show trials ended in 1938, the threat of accusation remained until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

    The Red Scare – McCarthyism: 1947-1956

    US Senator McCarthy accused countless people in Hollywood of being communists. Thousands lost their jobs. McCarthyism ended when he accused the Protestant Church as being a communist support group. He also attacked the US Army as having communists within it. The Army lashed back, exposing McCarthy as cruel, manipulative, and reckless and the public fervor against communists subsided.

    The Spanish Inquisition: 1478-1834

    The Spanish Inquisition lasted for over 350 years. It was originally conceived by King Ferdinand II as a way to expose and punish heretics and suppress religious dissent.

    It was preceded by the French Inquisition and spread to other countries in Europe. At its height, it investigated, prosecuted, and sometimes burned alive some 150,000 people. The last execution was in 1826 – for teaching deist principles (deism, not Christianity, was the predominant religious belief of America’s founding fathers).

    Crimes committed included blasphemy, witchcraft, immorality, and behavior unbecoming to a woman. (A woman’s role was seen as being limited to raising a family.) False denunciations were frequent and defendants were only rarely acquitted. The auto-da-fé, or public punishment, including groups of people being burned alive, provided an effective demonstration and satisfied the public’s desire for spectacle.

    The inquisition finally ended when King Ferdinand VII and others came to regard the church’s power as being a threat to the government’s power and abolished it.

    Others that used the Social Justice approach to great effect were China, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Egypt (as recently as 2014), and Turkey (as recently as 2016).

    And there are many more examples, far too numerous to mention.

    In 1970, Monty Python did a series of sketches in which Michael Palin plays a cleric, saying, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.”

    And, of course, this is true. The Spanish Inquisition, the Salem witch trials, the McCarthy hearings, and the present Social Justice trend, are so over-the-top that their very existence is clearly absurd.

    However, historically, whether it be a political leader like Stalin or Hitler, or a religious organisation, like the Catholic Church, or the present-day, self-styled “Social Justice Warriors,” such campaigns begin through the desire for power over others. What they have in common is that anyone can be targeted, group accusations carry greater weight than individual accusations, and the punishment invariably exceeds the level of the offense, if, indeed, there is any unlawful offense at all.

    The objective is to create fear. The initiative begins with finger-pointing and mild punishment, such as the loss of a job. But it evolves into a circus that often grows to include more serious punishment, sometimes including execution.

    Vigilantism grows out of troubled periods when frustrations and resentment run high. Because it’s emotionally driven, not logic-driven, it almost invariably morphs into irrational victimisation… and is always destructive in nature.

    *  *  *

    Fortunately, there are practical ways to escape the fallout of dangerous groupthink. Doug Casey has turned it into an art form. Find out more in Doug’s special report, Getting Out of Dodge.

  • Chinese Official Tackled By US Secret Service Agent In Nuclear Football Scuffle

    A Chinese security official was tackled by a US Secret Service agent in an incident involving the U.S. “nuclear football” during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last year, according to a Sunday report by Axios.

    The “football” or “president’s emergency satchel” is an 45-lb aluminum-framed Zero Halliburton briefcase inside a black leather “jacket,” in which a plastic card with the nuclear launch codes called the “nuclear biscuit” can be found. It also contains the procedures for the Emergency Broadcast System, a “black book” with a “menu” of pre-planned strike options, and a book of classified bunkers where the President can be sheltered. The football is always carried by a military aide who is required to remain nearby the President at all times.

    Five people familiar with the matter described what went down to Axios’s Jonathan Swan:

    • When the U.S. military aide carrying the nuclear football entered the Great Hall, Chinese security officials blocked his entry.
    • A U.S. official hurried into the adjoining room and told Kelly what was happening. Kelly rushed over and told the U.S. officials to keep walking — “We’re moving in,” he said — and the Americans all started moving.
    • Then there was a commotion. A Chinese security official grabbed Kelly, and Kelly shoved the man’s hand off of his body. Then a U.S. Secret Service agent grabbed the Chinese security official and tackled him to the ground.

    The whole incident was reportedly over in a flash, and U.S. officials were told to keep quiet about it (good job guys). 

    Trump’s team reportedly conducted a routine security briefing with the Chinese prior to their visit to Beijing, so there was either a breakdown in communications on the Chinese end, or the scuffle was intentional.

    At no point did the Chinese take possession of the nuclear football, nor even touch the briefcase – and the head of the Chinese security detail is said to have apologized to the Americans following the incident.

  • Florida's 'Teacher Of The Year' Bluntly Explains Why School Violence Is Out Of Control

    Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,

    Kelly Guthrie Raley has been teaching for 20 years and currently educates kids at Eustis Middle School in Lake County, Florida. Just last month she was named the 2017-2018 Teacher of the Year.

    The day after the horrific shooting that took place at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, she posted a rant on Facebook that has since gone viral. In the post, she talked about parental responsibility, compassion, and respect…and more than 823,000 people have “liked” the post and agreed with it, while more than 649,000 have shared it with others.

    Here’s what Mrs. Raley had to say.

    Okay, I’ll be the bad guy and say what no one else is brave enough to say, but wants to say. I’ll take all the criticism and attacks from everyone because you know what? I’m a TEACHER. I live this life daily. And I wouldn’t do anything else! But I also know daily I could end up in an active shooter situation.

    Until we, as a country, are willing to get serious and talk about mental health issues, lack of available care for the mental health issues, lack of discipline in the home, horrendous lack of parental support when the schools are trying to control horrible behavior at school (oh no! Not MY KID. What did YOU do to cause my kid to react that way?), lack of moral values, and yes, I’ll say it-violent video games that take away all sensitivity to ANY compassion for others’ lives, as well as reality TV that makes it commonplace for people to constantly scream up in each others’ faces and not value any other person but themselves, we will have a gun problem in school. Our kids don’t understand the permanency of death anymore!!!

    I grew up with guns. Everyone knows that. But you know what? My parents NEVER supported any bad behavior from me. I was terrified of doing something bad at school, as I would have not had a life until I corrected the problem and straightened my ass out. My parents invaded my life. They knew where I was ALL the time. They made me have a curfew. They made me wake them up when I got home. They made me respect their rules. They had full control of their house, and at any time could and would go through every inch of my bedroom, backpack, pockets, anything! Parents: it’s time to STEP UP! Be the parent that actually gives a crap! Be the annoying mom that pries and knows what your kid is doing. STOP being their friend. They have enough “friends” at school. Be their parent. Being the “cool mom” means not a damn thing when either your kid is dead or your kid kills other people because they were allowed to have their space and privacy in YOUR HOME. I’ll say it again. My home was filled with guns growing up. For God’s sake, my daddy was an 82nd Airborne Ranger who lost half his face serving our country. But you know what? I never dreamed of shooting anyone with his guns. I never dreamed of taking one! I was taught respect for human life, compassion, rules, common decency, and most of all, I was taught that until I moved out, my life and bedroom wasn’t mine…it was theirs. And they were going to know what was happening because they loved me and wanted the best for me.

    There. Say that I’m a horrible person. I didn’t bring up gun control, and I will refuse to debate it with anyone. This post wasn’t about gun control. This was me, loving the crap out of people and wanting the best for them. This was about my school babies and knowing that God created each one for greatness, and just wanting them to reach their futures. It’s about 20 years ago this year I started my teaching career. Violence was not this bad 20 years ago. Lack of compassion wasn’t this bad 20 years ago. And God knows 20 years ago that I wasn’t afraid daily to call a parent because I KNEW that 9 out of 10 would cuss me out, tell me to go to Hell, call the news on me, call the school board on me, or post all over FaceBook about me because I called to let them know what their child chose to do at school…because they are a NORMAL kid!!!!!

    Those 17 lives mattered. When are we going to take our own responsibility seriously?

    What do you think?

    I would have loved for my children to have been in Mrs. Raley’s class because not only is it obvious that she really cares, but also that she has an abundance of common sense, something that has been notably absent in our politically correct school systems.

    I raised my kids in much the same way Mrs. Raley refers to having grown up: with rules, curfews, and consequences for their actions. My girls weren’t totally sheltered – they saw violence on television and in movies – but we discussed it. I taught them empathy for other human beings and all creatures. They too, have had access to guns, and know how to use them, but I’ve never once been worried that they’d use them on another human being for any other reason than self-defense in a life-or-death situation.

    Like every other parent, I now worry every time my daughters walk out to door to attend their college classes. Because, honestly, it can happen anywhere.

    But I sincerely agree with Mrs. Raley.

    Guns aren’t the problem. The current culture is the problem.

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