Redpossum's Open Salon Blog

Lies About Syria

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:05:00 -0400

Let's be blunt here. The entire media narrative we are being fed about Syria is a reeking crock of shit. The whole song and dance about -
Evil Assad is murdering his people and the Syrian resistance are a group of high-minded freedom fighters struggling to liberate their nation from tyranny and establish a democratic Syrian state with freedom and equality for all.

All of that is BS. The ugly truth of the matter is that the Syrian resistance are, in large part, foreign mercenaries backed by Qatar, Saudia Arabia, and the USA, and that said resistance are acting as agents provocateurs in an attempt to justify military intervention by NATO, in order to bring about regime change in Syria and install a puppet government.

As evidence of this, the Houla massacre is being distorted and exploited by a media campaign which was obviously prepared well in advance. The statement by the chief of the UN’s observer mission to the effect that the killers were unknown and further investigation needed was ignored. The UN resolution immediately submitted called upon the Syrian Army to stop using heavy weapons against inhabited areas, despite the Houla victims having been killed with small arms; the eye witnesses described the attackers as "men in plain clothes.”

Out of one side of their mouth the UN talking heads say that Houla was caused by heavy bombardment with tanks and artillery. Out of the other side of their mouth, they say that “the majority of the victims were killed execution-style”. Well, which is it? The hasbara isn’t even internally consistent, let alone consistent with external reality.

And yet nation after nation has booted its Syrian diplomats, under this pretext, even France, to my utter disappointment. (Then again, Hollande may not be completely in charge. DGSE has often seemed to act independently, regardless of the wishes of France’s civilian government).

The people who run the nations of the West are indescribably evil, yes, but they are not stupid. It is inconceivable that these European nations are actually deceived by the hasbara. They must know the truth. Therefore, it logically follows that they find it to be in their own best interests to pretend to believe.

Then again, one of the greats of early science-fiction (Asimov perhaps?) once said something like – “Never postulate conspiracy to explain that which could be explained equally well by incompetence”. And incompetence, dear reader, is a condition which can afflict even the most intelligent of men and women.

I’m really quite puzzled by the international reaction to all of this. I can usually sort out, at least roughly, what is going on behind the scenes, if only via a process of triangulating all the various lies. But the response to recent events in Syria leaves me standing here scratching my head and muttering, “Uhhh, whiskey tango foxtrot, over?”

Breitbart - Obama was born in Kenya after all

Fri, 18 May 2012 14:05:00 -0400

Like most of you, I never placed any credence in the "birther" claims. Granted, there has been some wild inconsistency in the administration's responses to the claims. First they said there was no birth certificate, because he was born at home. Then they published a birth certificate. Erm, which is it, folks? You can't have it both ways.

None the less, I have always dismissed the birther claims as right-wing propaganda.

But now Breitbart has uncovered a pamphlet from 1991 in which Obama's publisher listed him as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii". Now, I don't know what to think.

Link to Breitbart report here

Claims like this are always suspect in an election year, and doubly so in the current election, but...

Another Billion Dollars For Israel

Tue, 8 May 2012 12:05:00 -0400

Sometimes, it's enough to make even a strong man cry, let alone a wimp like me.

The House of Representatives has just approved the new defense spending bill, totaling some 608 billion US dollars. Included in that bill is roughly a billion US dollars for Israel, to pay for Tel Aviv to build various missile systems.

We are told there's no money for a jobs program, we are told there's no money for extended unemployment benefits, there's no money for Food Stamps, there's no money for Medicare or Medicaid, there's no money for anything to help the long-term unemployed.

But hey, there's always money for the military, hundreds of billions of dollars, no problem. And of course, it's no problem to soak the US taxpayer in order to subsidize the brutally racist apartheid occupation state known as Israel. Of course. AIPAC has decreed that it must be so, and every elected official in Washington worships at the anus of AIPAC.

(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

Sometimes, dear reader, sometimes, the utter wretched injustice of it all is simply overwhelming. There are roughly 10 million of us 99ers out here, people who have worked all their lives, paid their taxes, voted their conscience, done their best to be good citizens. And now, when we have reached late middle age, we find ourselves unemployed and unable to find any work, at any wage. So how does the government deal with this crisis? How do they react to the fact that 75% of the 99ers are over fifty years of age, how do they respond to the blatant age discrimination to which this indisputably attests? They deny that we exist. They say that we are "no longer looking for work", and don't even include us in the unemployment figures. Because of they did, if the USA figured unemployment rates by the same standard that Europe uses, Obama would have to own up to the actual unemployment rate of over 20%.

And, of course, that would ruin Obama's chances of re-election.

So, Mr President, after you've spent the last 4 years raping us up the ass, we're supposed to vote for you again? After the NDAA, and the extension of the bitterly mis-named Patriot Act, after all the other atrocities you have perpetrated upon those of us who were naive enough to believe your lies and vote for you, after you've killed Habeas Corpus, and presided over the gutting of the Bill of Rights, we are supposed to vote for another 4 years of this crap? When your best argument is that you defrosted the frozen body of OBL, (who never had anything to do with 9/11), and peddled a bullshit story about having gunned him down, and a year later that's the best thing you can come up with, you expect us to vote for you again? Just how stupid do you think we are?

If I was that much of an idiot, (or that much of an asshole), I'd be a Conservative.

Chemical Weapons

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:04:00 -0400

Today, April 29th, has been recognised by the United Nations as the first annual day of remembrance for the victims of chemical warfare. Iran, as the target of the largest campaign of chemical warfare ever waged, has hosted a conference to commemorate this occasion.

In 1980, the newly declared Islamic Republic of Iran was invaded by Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Most observers accept that the United States, which was then an important ally of Iraq, urged the attack in an attempt to topple the new and still uncertain Iranian government. Certainly the US government supplied Saddam Hussein with some of the chemical weapons which were used against Iran; the remainder of the chemical weapons were purchased from France and Germany, which also supplied the Iraqi military with tanks, aircraft, and other conventional weapon systems

Iraq declared that during the last 5 years of the war it used against the Iranians roughly 1800 tons of Mustard gas and 750 tons of nerve gas. Note that this is the only documented use of nerve gas which has ever been committed. Let it also be clearly understood that these chemical weapons were not simply used against military units, but primarily against civilian population centers in five Iranian border provinces. During the course of the eight year war with Iraq, over one million Iranians were attacked with chemical weapons. To this day, 100,000 Iranians are suffering the after-effects of these chemical attacks.

So, dear reader, the next time you're being subjected to another increment in the ongoing barrage of warmongering anti-Iranian propaganda which is inflicted upon us by the Zionist media machine, stop and consider the past for a moment. Think about those untold thousands of dead Iranians, killed with chemical weapons supplied to Iraq by the USA, France, and Germany. And then ask yourself, do you think the Iranians perhaps have some reason for their mistrust?

(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)

Agonies of Shame

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:04:00 -0400

A response to this article in Desertpeace.

"He said, 'tell them your tax money is killing us.' That’s the bottom line. You have a responsibility here in the US."

In terms of abstract moral responsibility, yes, absolutely - no argument, no excuses.

But in purely pragmatic terms, you should understand that the US government has become totally unresponsive to the will of the people. The USA is not a democracy. The USA is an oligarchy, a plutocracy, a kleptocracy, choose whatever term pleases you best, but "We, The People" no longer have any control over "our" government. None, zero, zip, nada.

Peaceful protest isn't going to change that. Peaceful reform is impossible, because the powers-that-be have systematically corrupted the very organs of government upon which peaceful reform depends. They control everything except our minds, and with some of my fellow citizens, I wonder about even that.

So tell me I'm responsible, and I agree. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But what, by the 999 names of God, do you expect me to do about it? Yes, I boycott Israeli products. Yes, I encourage others to do the same. And that counts for what, maybe 1% of the moral responsibility?

Do not misunderstand me. I am not rejecting responsibility, I am not evading it. In truth I am writhing in agonies of shame. I am just pointing out that in purely practical terms, there is sweet Fanny Adams I can do about it.