Foreign AId

In VOX
This map should change the way you think about foreign aid
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on November 8, 2015, 8:00 a.m. ET
http://www.vox.com/2015/11/8/9684494/foreign-aid-map

Critics of foreign aid often argue that it's ineffective at generating sustainable economic development or truly helping the world's poor. But as this great map from the cost information website HowMuch.net reveals, one reason for that is that promoting development and helping the poor isn't actually what motivates a lot of America's foreign aid:

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Karma: The Executioner's Cat

I remember... that Saddam Hussein was executed in an orgy of disorder on December 30th.
It was recorded on iPhone videos.

The USA and the Provisional Authority washed their hands - more Pontii Pilati - and sent Barabbas to be hanged, this Barabbas whom they had embraced for years and to whom they had supplied arms and weapons.



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Of Dubious Value

Neo-Conservative Foreign Policy

Bloomberg:
Putin Thinks He's 'Vladimir the Great,' Condoleezza Rice Says
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-05/putin-thinks-he-s-vladimir-the-great-condoleezza-rice-says?cmpid=yhoo.headline&ref=yfp

As former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice knew Vladimir Putin up close. One thing he liked to remind her during her time in the Bush administration was how Russia had "only been great when it has been led by great men, like Alexander II and Peter the Great.”

Hearing him eulogize former tzars, there was a little voice in her head that wanted to suggest “and Vladimir the Great?,” Rice told a group of investors and bankers at an annual forum hosted by Fitch Ratings Ltd. in New York on Wednesday. As a diplomat she never did out of politeness, “but that is how he thinks.”

Her musings on Putin’s motivations seek to put Russia’s growing assertiveness on the world stage, from the annexation of Crimea to the bombing campaign in Syria, as part of a grander scheme to restore Russian influence to its heyday. International sanctions and its first recession since 2009 have done little to blunt Putin’s standing among Russians.

“He has decided that he will find a way to avenge what he considers the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, which is the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Rice, who served under President George W. Bush and was a diplomatic adviser to his father during the dissolution of the Soviet Union...

No mention of the 21st century's great tragedys.... like Yellow-Cake-Gate and the ensuing disasters in Iraq which befell us all, like a deadly, infernal line of dominoes, falling one after another.

Ms. Rice is reasoning by Analogy:
Oswald Spengler, The Decline Of The West

The means whereby to understand living forms is Analogy...

...Thus, in the case of Ranke, a master of artistic analogy, we find that his parallels of Cyarxes and Henry the Fowler... possess morphologically no significance, and his oft-quoted analogy between the Hellenic city-states and the Renaissance republics very little, while the deeper truth of his comparison of Alcibiades and Napoleon is accidental.

I can't find any Rice-ean analogies for the recently deceased Ahmad Chalabi, but throughout the period from 1991 - the first Iraq War - to the present, it is doubtful she ever said nor thought by any significant or deep analogies. (She may have envisged him as an Iraqi Patrick Henry, which would be consistent with the Cloud-Cuckoo-Land nature of Neoconservative foreign policy.)

Ahmad Chalabi (Image by © Patrick Robert/Corbis)

In Commentary two days ago, we read on the death of Chalabi:
Mourning Ahmad Chalabi
Michael Rubin / Nov. 3, 2015
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/iraq/mourning-ahmad-chalabi/

...The press also lazily accepted other false narratives and never actually conducting basic fact checking. Consider today’s obituary from the Washington Post, written by Loveday Morris. She writes, “After years in exile in the United States and Britain, Chalabi returned to Iraq after Saddam’s fall, becoming interim oil minister.”

This is false. Chalabi had a house in Beirut and London, but lived primarily inside Iraqi Kurdistan after the 1991 uprising freed the region from Saddam Hussein. When war broke out, he had been in Iraq for 12 years, and he was one of the few politicians to live exclusively outside the Green Zone in the wake of the war...

"This is false"?!
The nature, the essence of political Neoconservatism : to argue about whether their Man in Baghdad lived in Kurdistan or in London.

NO mention of the Falsehoods of yellow cake uranium; no mention of the falsehoods on Weapons of Mass Destruction, no mention of the myriad lies and subterfuges that committed us to this Trojan War which has no end.

If you want a reminder on how ignorant, clueless, and corrupt the Bush Administration was, go and re-read"
The New York Times
THE STRUGGLE FOR IRAQ: THE EXILE;
Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case To the White House
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
Published: May 29, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/29/us/struggle-for-iraq-exile-conservative-allies-take-chalabi-case-white-house.html

...Mr. Wolfowitz's spokesman, Charley Cooper, said in an e-mail message that Mr. Wolfowitz believed that Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress ''have provided valuable operational intelligence to our military forces in Iraq, which has helped save American lives.'' Mr. Cooper added in the message that ''Secretary Wolfowitz hopes that the events of the last few weeks haven't undermined that.''...

This was the Mr. Wolfowitz who - in his best George C. Scott imitation as General Buck Tirgidson in Dr. Strangelove -  said famously:

"This war will cost, ohhh, a billion dollars... TOPS!"

Nice to hear from you, Condoleezza.

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What Does Likud And Netanyahu Think Of The USA?

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon  (photo by REUTERS/Adnan Abidi)

In AL Monitor:
Israeli defense minister says Iran deal will set off nuclear arms race in region
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/israel-iran-nuke-deal-west-yaalon-interview-nuclear-race.html

By the afternoon of July 13, Jerusalem had come to terms with the fact that Iran and the superpowers had apparently reached an agreement. As far as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Minister of Strategic Affairs Yuval Steinitz are concerned, this is the moment of truth. The public debate will heat up intensely over the next few days, culminating in Netanyahu’s anticipated visit to the United States in September to attend the UN General Assembly meeting. He is planning a bitter battle on Capitol Hill as he treks from senator to senator in an immense, unprecedented effort to prevent Congress from approving the agreement and to override the president’s veto with a 67-senator majority.

[...]

Al-Monitor:  Why not step out of the box and try to believe that the Iranians can change their spots? Maybe becoming closer to the West through the current agreement could dull some of their sting and make them more like the responsible adult?

Ya’alon:  All anyone has to do is listen to the Iranians themselves. Did you hear [Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei two days ago? That’s the situation, and it’s not about to change. Khamenei admitted that he was forced to enter into these negotiations. He called it “drinking from this cup of poison,” and said that it showed heroic flexibility. He said that he had no choice but to go speak to the Great Satan, Kerry and the United States, but never once did he abandon the path, the revolution or the ideology. Anyone expecting McDonald’s to open a branch in Tehran tomorrow is sadly mistaken...

A McDonald's opening in Teheran...
The summit of our desires as citizens of the USA is a McDonald's opening in Teheran...

To put it into terms that the typical American can understand:  a McDonald's in Teheran.

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War WIth Iran Wednesday

Senator Tom Cotton wants war with Iran...
... saying Obama was refusing to admit that airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would only take "several days" and wouldn't require any longer-term military commitment to be effective. Obama, he said, was offering a "false choice" between the deal and war.

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2015/04/war-with-iran.html


All this led to a Country-Western lament on Radio Tehran by Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei:
(who not only looks like Burl Ives, but sounds like him!)

 Khamenei Singing With Hand Gestures

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Tom,

I'd have had that nuclear bomb:
Who was your daddy?  Who was your mom?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Tom?

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Tom,

I'd have had that nuclear bomb:
Who was your daddy?  Who was your mom?
Where did you come from, Cotton-Eye Tom?

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey...

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey... 

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War With Iran Tuesday

 Ol' Tom Cotton

A very good piece in VOX:

Here's what would really happen if the US bombed Iran
Updated by Zack Beauchamp on April 14, 2015, 10:30 a.m. ET
http://www.vox.com/2015/4/14/8389515/iran-war

Last week, Republican Senator Tom Cotton criticized President Obama's nuclear deal framework with Iran, saying Obama was refusing to admit that airstrikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would only take "several days" and wouldn't require any longer-term military commitment to be effective. Obama, he said, was offering a "false choice" between the deal and war...

You have to love Tom Cotton for having learned nothing from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only someone who is a bit out of touch with reality can think that such wars are simple, easy, and effective.

Paul Wolfowitz said that Iraq would be over in less than a year, and that it would cost a billion dollars...... TOPS!

Very, very, very Buck Turgidson:

 General Turgidson

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Yemen

Sa'dah, Yemen

Saudi Arabia and it allies launch an air campaign in Yemen against the Houthis rebels.

The US declares support for Saudi campaign.

Wikipedia sez:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthis

...The Houthi movement began as the Believing Youth (BY), which was founded in 1992 in Saada Governorate by either Houthi family member Muhammad al-Houthi, or his brother Hussein al-Houthi.

According to Ahmed Addaghashi, a professor at Sanaa University, the Houthis began as a theological movement that preached tolerance and peace that held a considerably broad-minded educational and cultural vision. Western sources report that BY established school clubs and summer camps in order to "promote a Zaidi revival" in Saada. By 1994–1995, 15–20,000 students had attended BY summer camps.

After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, BY-affiliated youth began chanting anti-American and anti-Jewish slogans in the Saleh Mosque in Sana'a after Friday prayers. This led to confrontations with the government, and 800 BY supporters were arrested in Sana'a in 2004. President Ali Abdullah Saleh then invited Hussein al-Houthi to a meeting in Sana'a, but Hussein declined. On 18 June 2004 Saleh sent government forces to arrest Hussein. Hussein responded by launching an insurgency against the government, but was killed on 10 September 2004. The insurgency continued intermittently until a ceasefire agreement was reached in 2010...

Could be another tolerant group made radical by the Lies of the Iraq Campaign of 2003.
We despise tolerant and peaceful groups. We aid killers.

I always said that we would paid for our support of the perfidious neo-conservatives and their Iraq War... You know, like Karma and its brothers... returning like prodigal sons of ill mien.

(Of course, it is sectarian: Shi'a versus Sunni.)


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note

I have to report that I met a nephew of Muhammad Al Houthi once. This was Abdu-l-llah al-'umari
who once laid claim to the Moon or Mars or some other item of the Solar System.

There was no fighting, no bombing, and no rioting. I think we were in Canada in some bar or tea shop. It's hard to tell. I was never on the front lines of conflicts, unlike other news people.

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Welcome To The Past

 Ibn Al Wahhab (second from right)

When I was very young, living in a USA that led the Free World, we were often frightened by stories of the Socialist trans-national Arab philosophies of Nasser and the United Arab Republic, of the Ba'ath ("resurrection") party with its desire to secularize and modernize Arab society.

We feared the secular socialists.

So we spent time and money.

Now the entire Middle East is sectarian, not socialist; it is parochial, not trans-Arab; it is rife with violence and destruction. The Afghanistan which was Communist and secular was destroyed in a war in which we supported Osama bin Laden as one of our surrogates against the USSR.

Having fought since the Second World War, we look around and see how we have spread our carpet of death, intolerance, and compulsion: any hope that the Middle East might benefit from Western thought - albeit in the heretical form of Marxism - has been utterly destroyed, and we have hoisted into place a new Ottoman Empire of group against group and neighbor against neighbor.

We have managed the Middle East back to a time when Ibn Al Wahhab first appeared in Arabia in the 18th century.

And it is the sign of the decay of empires that not only do they decay from within, but all the ecumene which is in touch with it goes extremely retrograde...

However, maybe this is but a cleansing breath as Islam readies itself for a future without the West.

من يعرف؟
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Caligula's Stalking Horse?

Mr. Margolis, writing in David Stockman's Corner,  has compared the US Congress' bizarre beatification of Mr. Netanyahu to the Roman Senate's clueless and cowardly embrace of Caligula's horse:
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/congress-groveling-before-bibi-worst-since-roman-senate-embraced-caligulas-horse/

Congress’ Groveling Before Bibi Worst Since Roman Senate Embraced Caligula’s Horse
by Eric Margolis • March 15, 2015

Be proud, America! You have the very best Congress that money can buy.

It’s no secret that many in the House and Senate have long been corrupted by money and special interests. The constant need to advertise on TV makes all politicians slaves of the money lenders and other big donors...

... One of the biggest outrages has been the way Wall Street money lenders swindled the public and wiped out the nation’s retirement savings – yet escaped all punishment thanks to their huge political contributions to Congress and the White House.

But then came the triumphant visit to Congress by Israel’s right wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Congress put on a truly revolting display of sycophancy, servility...  for Bibi that included 23 rapturous standing ovations.

This for a foreign leader who had come to insult and humiliate America’s president and drive the US into war with Iran.

Not since a groveling Roman Senate voted to approve Emperor Caligula’s favorite horse, Incitatus, as imperial consul has there been such a embarrassing spectacle...

I do not think he is comparing Mr. Netanyahu to a horse, nor his worth as a man to that of an animal; rather he is comparing the cravenness of Congress to the cravenness of the Roman Senate. (The Republicans in Congress are getting ready for their 2017 EOT [end-of-times].)
Furthermore, the Roman Senate merely approved the appointment of Caligula's horse, Incitatus, as a Consul.

What comes from the Congress in the way of settling the question of the Palestinian State?
Not much. Nothing, actually.
No one has yet told them what to think nor what to say.

If the West Bank remains occupied, if the Golan remains occupied, and if Netanyahu truly believes - as he has said recently - that ISIS is a real danger to the Palestinian Authority, thus preparing the way for a possible pre-emptive strike against that Authority for its own good...

then the lie of Democracy we may have lived since the late 1940s will be exposed.
Will we be able to live with it?

Secretary of State Clinton and Mr. Lieberman

Consider the following:
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-foreign-minister-calls-beheading-palestinians

... Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has taken his campaign of violent incitement against Palestinians to new extremes with a call for those disloyal to Israel to have their heads chopped off.

He also repeated his long-standing demands for expulsion of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“Anyone who’s with us should be given everything – up to half the kingdom. Anyone who’s against us, there’s nothing to do – we should raise an axe and cut off his head; otherwise we won’t survive here,” Lieberman said at an election event Sunday, in reference to Palestinian citizens of Israel...

The future is filled with some interesting possibilities. There are some very bizarre possible time lines, and the edge between the hum-drum, the dystopian, and the millenial is blurring as we jump back and forth  between the exigencies of life.
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Republican Foreign Policy

Representative Tom Cotton (right in camo) lectures a leftist State Department fop about the realities of the situation in the Middle East, and the true story about the Iranian government.

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The Corruption Of A Concept

Train-and-Equip: Fight for Pluralism in Syria
Posted by Matthew Barber on Monday, March 9th, 2015
written by Nicholas A. Heras
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/train-and-equip-fight-for-pluralism-in-syria/

(my comments are italicized in dark purple.)

This month, the United States and several of its Middle Eastern allies will begin training Syrian fighters through a revamped train-and-equip program that will form the core first class of Syria’s non-jihadist armed opposition. At this stage, the program will seek to identify, train, and support 5,000 Syrian rebel fighters a year for three years, and will likely involve the cooperation of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and could also include Jordan. Optimally, the end game of this reportedly more robust train-and-equip program will be a Syria that emerges from its civil war with a pluralistic government, the Assad regime removed, and the more ideologically radical elements of the Syrian rebel movement defeated and marginalized.

(From our experience over the last 40 years - going back to our support of rebels in Afghanistan fighting the Afghan government which was backed by the Soviet Union.
We have been fighting there since 2001.
We instituted regime change in Iraq, and have been fighting there since 2003.
We supported regime change in Libya, and there has been chaos ever since.

We do, however, keep warning ourselves of the dangers that come from these chaotic areas.)

The need for a competent rebel force on the ground is heightened by the reality that the large segment of the Syrian population that supports the uprising will continue to need protection and security, but will want it provided by an alternative to the Assad regime. (unproven assumption... are surveys being taken throughout the war zones of Syria? Or are these opinions held by the Syrian "Chalabis" who are living and lobbying in Washington?) This force will also need to be strong enough to secure the local areas in which it is located and to impede the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), currently the major policy objective driving the revamped program. As proposed today in a Foreign Policy article by former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, a refashioned rebel army with a unified command and control structure that can enforce discipline within the ranks will be vital, as will its need to appeal to Syria’s minority communities.
(Admirable technical discussion. Now all we need is a reference to "winning hearts and minds".)

Ford referred to the current train-and-equip program as “too little, too late,” and he makes a compelling argument for the administration’s need to either “undertake a major effort or walk away.” But while a target of 15,000 fighters trained over three years may sound insufficient to fundamentally shift the conflict, the effort can have great impact if it serves as a standard-bearing “train-the-trainer” model that builds up over time, from community to community.
(Good. There is a model:  "train-the-trainer". Now I feel that I can see the "light at the end of the tunnel.)

From the outset, however, the train-and-equip program will have to answer questions about how its objective for the state will be an improvement over the current Syrian republic which encompasses diverse sectarian and ethnic backgrounds, despite the authoritarian power of the Assad family, the corrupt Ba’ath syndicate deep state, and its brutal security system. (The use of perjorative descriptions - authoritarian, corrupt, etc. - is an example of politicking and rhetoric, not any kind of intelligent analysis.)  Nevertheless, the current Syrian republic, its advocates point out, has a longer and more practiced history of relative pluralism than that of the Syrian opposition, which has largely been splintered by factionalism and its armed groups heavily influenced by militant Islamist ideology. These are valid points, and the United States and its allies will need to address them in order to build up the capacity of the opposition to participate in a transition from the Assad regime.

Thus, United States’ strategic objective for guiding the train-and-equip program should be to build into the training a firm ideological component that seeks a pluralistic and democratic order in Syria, promoting the equal rights of all of Syrians. This will be a challenge, as the U.S.-led effort must reconcile the previous influence of its participating partners, particularly Qatar and Turkey, who have much-criticized records of influencing the armed opposition toward a more militantly Islamist ideological position. It will also need to respect and incorporate, but also moderate, the conviction of many Syrian rebel fighters that they are on a religious mission to fight a corrupt regime. Achieving the right balance in this ideological model, and making it stick for the entirety of the rest of the conflict to follow, would be an accomplishment with potentially exponential effects on the course of the war and its aftermath...
(This paragraph has admirably described a situation which present policy makers have no idea how to go about achieving, other than civil war and hope for the best.)

Is it, or is it not, a corruption of the very concept of Democracy to spread chaos under the guise of well reasoned  campaigns of violence?

Is it not a diseased notion of Democracy to establish regimes of perpetual instability, to flood the population of refugees and displaced persons, and to condemn generations to lives of bare subsistence?

All the logic of the Best and the Brightest brought us to disaster in Vietnam, and it seeks to do so ever and ever again.

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To Speech Or Not To Speech 4

Peace!

A little peace for West Bank,
A little peace for Golan;

A little peace for Gaza,
and to all a bisl shalom!


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note:
bisl shalom is how I would yiddishly say "a little peace", and pronounce "bisel SHA-lum" with emphasis on the first syllable, pronouncing the "a" as in "father",  and a short ending syllable

If anyone asks, the only people on my mind are Bibi and Mel Brooks.

To Speech Or Not To Speech 3

Peace!

A little peace for West Bank,
A little peace for Golan...

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To Speech Or Not To Speech 2

Peace!

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To Speech Or Not To Speech 1

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50 Shades Of ISIS

Sylvia Plath:

Every woman adores a fascist
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.


Our governments fund civil wars and rebels, some of whom turn against us, and have done so for years and years.

Then our media forces us to sit down to the sadomasochistic videos of ISIS on the evening news, and enforces and re-enforces our masochistic powerlessness...

We have no safe-word to scream...

Yet we do nothing.

We have spent trillions fighting people who have not harmed us, and only spent billions fighting our avowed enemies. We did not support military action against Libya until its dictator has rehabilitated himself. That was his kiss of death: to embrace stability and peace.

If we did not have ISIS, we would have to create it.

In a sense we did create ISIS. Now we ask whether we knowingly created it.
If we did, then our gift of democracy has become a viper.

The Founding Fathers supported democracy around the world, but they did not establish an agency like the CIA which actively funded and sought to de-stabilize countries, and let their societies lapse into chaos.

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Charlton Ogburn, Jr.

Charlton Ogburn, Jr. writing of his army life in World War II:

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganised. Presumably the plans for our employment were being changed.

I was to learn later in life that, perhaps because we are so good at organising, we tend as a nation to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization.

Constant reorganization in  this sense seems to be akin to the state of constant war, which state serves to demoralize the population, while promoting the illusion of progress in our wars.

We constantly destabilize the world in order that we may set about constantly to reorganize it.
The baling wire-foreign policy we have used to hold things together is falling apart.

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The Playing Fields Of Terrorism

I remember the time when NATO attacked Ghaddafi, and I wondered why now? Why attack the man now when he had obviously made serious commitments to join the peaceful community of nations?

Why?
Did we imagine ourselves the agents of karma? Surely not, for it is impossible that we believe in karma. 

And now the country of Libya is in shambles, part of it controlled by the Islamic Caliphate and Al Qa'ida.

Our entire foreign policy after 9/11 has been to destroy stability in the Middle East, regardless whether that stability be democratic or autocratic. Our policy has been to spend trillions fighting people who are not Al Qa'ida, while only spending billions fighting Al Qa'ida, with the result that we have provided a prep school and playing fields for terrorism...  Iraq, Syria, Libya.

The War Against Terrorism will be won upon the Playing Fields of our misguided policies.

 Soccer Field In Gaza In Need Of Repair

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First, Second, And Third Impressions

Seth McFarlane and Bill Maher

I never actually liked Bill Maher, and I counted it one of the random benefits of life that he was on a premium cable channel, and only available to the really important minds of the universe.
He was reserved to the "movers" and "shakers" of reality, and Montag the Obscure need not be troubled by the mind-boggling mix of politics, morality, religion, philosophy, satire, sarcasm and comedy.

I just noticed that Bill Maher has "Man in the Glass Booth" eyes!

Just draw some spectacles on the photo, and see whether he doesn't.

He looks as if he's waiting to go on trial in front of some vastly important tribunal.

I just read Michael Moore's (Yay, Flint, Michigan!) defense of Bill Maher  -  http://www.alternet.org/media/michael-moores-defense-bill-maher-over-his-controversial-comments   -  and it strikes me that the logic Mr. Moore uses leads to such conclusions as odd or as natural as the following:

"This Wounded Knee business proves that American Capitalism is genocidal, and it must be destroyed."

Although the premises are ghastly, the conclusion goes too far, as if the logical deduction can be forced to greater issue by the heinousness of the situation.


The only problem I have with people talking about "Islamist threats" is the demonstrated fact that all of our wealth and war effort will be expended on Non-Threats

such as:

1)  Iraq under Saddam Hussein  (non-Al Qa'ida),

2)  Afghanistan under the Taliban  (non-Al Qa'ida),

3)  Libya in 2011  (non-Al Qa'ida... but we had it in for Qaddafi, and Libya has been a mess ever since).


The only political will that exists in the USA is the will to settle petty grievances with blood and arms. The true dangers are shoved to the side and have been for a long, long time.

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Murderous Quixotes

The murderers in France were closely linked to Al Qa'ida.

For over 13 years we have been fighting, but whom have we been fighting?

We have been in Afghanistan since October, 2001, fighting the Taliban, who are:
(1) not Al Qa'ida,
(2) had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

We invaded Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Saddam Hussein was:
(1) not Al Qa'ida,
(2) had no role in the 9/11 attacks.

We have supported civil war in Syria by supporting insurgents, a great portion of which has become the Islamic State. We did this to remove Bashar Al Assad from power, and he is:
(1) not Al Qa'ida,
(2) had no role in the 9/11 attacks.


An ominous pattern takes shape. No Enigma Code here. It is quite obvious.

It is as if every politician in Washington D.C., every member of the Likud, every blow-hard right-wing media mouthpiece was handed a "wish list" soon after 9/11, whereon they could mark down whom we should spend trillions of $ fighting wars against.

Peop-le have spoken for years about focus, and we hear them again, but it is so much easier and rewarding to use the martial ardor of the populace to go crusades like some dim-witted Quixotes of murderous intent.


Oh, and we did kill Osama bin Laden, who was:
(1) indeed Al Qa'ida,
(2) had a major role in the 9/11 attacks.

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