The US Left: An Autopsy

James Schipper: Dear Robert There is a real left in the US, the Politically Correct Left. Their darlings are the sexually abnormal, except pedophiles of course, colored people, and immigrants. To promote equality at home and to oppose imperialism abroad, which is traditional Leftism, is not a priority for today’s Leftism. Instead, we have the pursuit of diversity at home and the promotion of human rights abroad. However, the pursuit of diversity is perfectly compatible with extreme inequality. If a CEO makes 200 times more than the companies lowest paid employee, but half of the CEO’s are female and 1/3 are non-white, then that is fine. As to the promotion of human rights abroad, it is the modern equivalent of the White man’s burden. In practice, it means that the West will tell the rest what to do.

This is probably about right. The Cultural Left is the Left in the US. My previous post discussed Daily Kos, ground central for the left wing of the Democratic Party. I talked about how awful they were on Venezuela, but they are just as bad on Syria and Russia. Sure, you can’t discuss the Israeli conflict, but you can sure support Israeli foreign policy in Syria. I am quite sure that Iran is hated too. Kos is somewhat sane on North Korea – they think that Trump threatening to attack a nuclear armed state is the height of insanity. Of course they will use their nuclear weapons if attacked. What do you expect them to do? Well, one thing is for sure, and that’s that the Daily Kos and liberal Democrats in general support the Cultural Left to the hilt. That’s one thing they are quite Left on – culture. There is no species of nonheterosexual orientation or nonbinary gender that they will not shout the praises of to the skies. And of course there is the continuous cheerleading for the dubious Black Lives Matter group and the Left’s favorite pets, the illegal immigrants. There is also a lot of promotion of radical or gender feminism. You don’t see a lot of White bashing or male bashing. Some Black, Brown, and feminist diarists write that sort of thing, but those diaries are not very popular, and the audience is mostly female or Black and Brown liberals. The male Kossacks generally stay off the hardline feminist diaries, and White Kossacks are not seen a lot on the radical Black and Brown diaries. After a while there, I decided that White liberal men were not as cucked as everyone says they are. They didn’t seem very interested in the male-bashing or White-bashing. There even used to be some liberals on Daily Kos who were very much against illegal immigration. They tended to get shouted down, but they did have a voice. I believe recently Kos made a new policy that opposing illegal immigration on the site would result in a ban. It’s sad. More liberals or more precisely those on the Left wing of US liberalism seem to have increasingly had it up to here with the Israelis. Even a number of liberal US Jews have finally had it with the Jewish state. Israel’s behavior gets more outrageous, belligerent and murderous by the day, and I would assume that as a liberal, even a Jewish liberal, it gets harder and harder to see these radical ethnic nationalists (the Jewish equivalent of Amrenners or Stormfronters) behave as violently and viciously as they do. Syria is so much of a tougher sell, as the US Left and US liberalism has been doubling down on overthrowing Assad and even supporting Al Qaeda and ISIS in the process from Day One. However, even on Daily Kos, there are a few commenters who go against the Official Narrative on Syria. Maybe 2 Even much of the actual US Left has been badly split on Syria. Alternet has been supporting overthrowing Assad, as has Pacifica radio and some authors on Counterpunch. On Alternet and Counterpunch, the readers are much more pro-Syria than the writers. Pacifica has faced a big backlash for its pro-intervention coverage. It’s more accurate to say that support for Assad’s regime has badly split the US Left than to say they have taken any coherent stand on the matter.

Hillary Is Still Worse Than Trump on Militarism

From a year ago, but instructive nevertheless. Sure, Trump is a horrifying hawk, and all of his promises about keeping us out of foreign wars have turned to crap. He has assembled one of the most hawkish cabinets one could imagine, including the terrifyingly insane John Bolton, the scariest man in America. Pompeo isn’t much better. Haley is catastrophic as UN ambassador. Trump has already been far worse than Obama on war, especially in Syria. He has been much more bellicose than Obama on North Korea and Iran and even on Venezuela, on which he has threatened to launch an attack. He has also been much more hawkish on Russia, sending lethal military aid to Ukraine and attacking Russian forces a number of times in Syria. His nominee for Secretary of State, Pompeo, recently bragged that the US had killed 200 Russians. It’s not true, and more about that later, but it’s a chilling thing to say. In addition, since Trump came in, the rebels have made a number of miraculously precise artillery attacks on Russian forces and the Russian Embassy. A number of Russian soldiers, including some high ranking officers and even a general, were killed. A number of these Russia-killing attacks were by ISIS, and US advisers were known to be in the direct vicinity at the time. In fact, ISIS forces had just driven a convoy past US forces, and US forces had not done anything. A lot of people are saying that there is no way the rebels could have pulled such accurate high profile attacks on Russians that they did, and that the US must have helped them target these Russians. So the US has already killed a number of Russians in Syria. Obama hadn’t killed one Russian. Trump, instead of being Putin’s pet, should instead by named The Russian Killer. Trump removed all of the Rules of Engagement that Obama had put in for air strikes against ISIS. These rules had been quite strict and reasonable, but they had resulted in a number of civilian casualties. After removing the ROI’s, civilian casualties due to US strikes rose by 5-10 times. Trump killed a lot of Syrian civilians for no good reason. However, Hillary’s comments about destroying Syria’s airfields go far beyond anything that Trump has even done so far, so as horrific as Trump has been on military matters, Hillary still probably would have been worse. War Psychosis runs deep in US society, infecting all US elites across the spectrum and much of the clinically insane US population. We are simply a people who love war and get off on killing as many people as possible. We are a nation of bloodthirsty killers.

Zionism, Anti-Zionism and the Monster of Dual Loyalty

Forced to choose between loyalty to the homeland and loyalty to the tribe, Jews have traditionally chosen treason. This is the poison pill of anti-Zionism, for it throws the Jews back into the Diaspora where they may revert back to their normal treacherous role. On the other hand, Zionism has not solved the problem of Jewish disloyalty and dual loyalty. In fact, it has worsened it by orders of magnitude. Whereas before Zionism Jews may have been mildly treasonous, afterwards Jewish treason went through the roof as Jews captured nation after nation throughout the West and turned one White country after another into a colony of Israel. All things considered, I think Jews would be much less treasonous without a Jewish state. So yes, the dismantling of Zionism would throw the Jews back into the Diaspora and bring back the boogeyman of Jewish dual loyalty. But Zionism has morphed the dual loyalty monster into a titan. All in all, I feel that Jewish dual loyalty would radically diminish if the Jews no longer had a state that they could use to drag generations of White Gentiles into fighting and dying for them in the endless Wars for the Jews we see playing out across the land, in Iraq, then in Libya, next in Yemen and now in Syria and soon to be Iran. Lebanon? Been there, done that. 323 Marines died in that War for the Jews.

Long Past Time to Destroy the Middle Eastern Plagues in Our Midst

It’s a (((tumorous growth))) at the heart of our very existence as a state. The only things you can do with a tumor are cut it out with a knife, radiate it or poison it. However you do it, you have to kill it one way or another. While we are at it, it is long past time to excise the Saudi and Gulf cancer in our midst. That’s almost worse than the Israeli one. And this notion that the Sick Man of Europe for many centuries, one of the worst countries on Earth, the resurgent Ottoman Empire formerly known as Turkey, is one of the US’ closest allies is going to drag us down like an anchor of death. You lie down with nations of dogs, you get up with an infestation of political bubonic plague on your shores, replaying the fated landings in Sicily of those deadly ships 3/4 of a millenia ago. It was 770 years ago, or it was next year. The plague came at night from Genoa, on ships of death, to the shores of Messina. It was dark as the sky above. The people waited but did not know. It was over before they knew what hit them. The people gathered to the shore that warm October night, cheering as the death ships slowly moved into port. The cheers were stopped dead in their throats when they soon realized that most of the sailors on board the ships were already dead. The rest were deathly ill and could not keep any food down. Worst of all, they were covered with pustulating wounds of oozing sores. The panicked authorities ordered the death ships back to sea, but it was too late. The sickness came from the South, the Mediterranean. Really it came from the East, where just a few years before it had blasted a trail from China to Palestine. Their Plague came from East, and so does ours. From the East, where life is cheap, blood is hot. and mercy is scarce and weak with the exile of the Church from its native soil. Within only seven years, the Dark Night had spread across all of Europe. It would not be before long 20 million humans, fully one third of Europe, lay dead. The plague-carrying ships of today carry our Middle Eastern allies and their noxious citizenry infected with blackened political death. The dark Middle Eastern buboes and their fellow travelers move slowly inwards to the heartland draped of black robes and carrying scythes. In the Flyover States, the reapers of the Near East are welcomed with cheering crowds. Little to they know that they raise and roar for their very own doom. Lie down with dogs, wake up with deadly fleas. Famous last words of ‘Murrica. United States of America 1776-2017. RIP.

We cannot allow our friends in the Middle East and Persian Gulf to play our hand for us, for it is all too often in their interests to have us come fight their wars, which are not necessarily our wars. The Israeli cancer, in the body of the United States, has spread so much that there are only two outcomes; 1. The patient will eventually become so corrupt that it will die a moral death, or 2. The cancer will be surgically removed. That means all ties to the cancerous state of Israel must be severed. We are fast approaching the first one and if we want to avoid this outcome, we the people, must rise and demand our gutless representatives to think of America first. Our leaders need to take care of the Americans first. We must stop our expansionist policies in the world. They need to ask questions of the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department, such as; why are we in Africa? what national interests do we have in that far away land. (49 of the 63 countries have American forces present). Why are we in the Middle East? Before the creation of the Zionist state of Israel, Arabs, Jews, and Christians lived in harmony. Since its creation, the British, the French, and now the United States has caused mayhem in those countries. Now, Muslims are fighting Muslims while Israel enjoys the freedom every individual must have. The Pentagon and the weapons industry have gone amok. The industry makes new weapons and the Pentagon is eager to try them out at the expense of innocent people. The Golden Rule that, “do unto others, what you want them do unto you” has been turned upside down. Now we “do unto others (Muslims) what we don’t want them do unto us.” If we don’t come to our senses, there is going to be a big payback someday. Mark my words.

We either kill this cancer or it kills us all. Doesn’t seem like much of a choice, does it?

US Foreign Policy: "Look, the Victim Is Hitting Us Back! Kill Him!"

Of course, bullies always say that the victim is attacking them, when it is really the other way around. Almost all bullies do this, and US foreign policy, which is almost exclusively about bullying and pushing around anyone in the world who won’t toe our line or be our slaves, is an expert at this. The victims of America’s bullying foreign policy are always portrayed in the US media and state as aggressors trying to attack the US and its allies. It’s almost always the other way around. The Arab nations are completely nuts on the subject of Iran. They insist that Iran is trying to conquer the Arab World. Talk to any Sunni Arab and he will swear up and down that Iran is determined to attack and conquer all of the Sunnis. It’s almost a regional psychosis. Of course, the Israeli scum have played this nonsense up, and despicably, the US has gone along.

The "Iranian Expansionism" Lie: How the US and UK Have Joined the Gulf Arab War against the Shia: The Case of Lebanon and Syria

It is about time the Gulf nations made alliance with Iran. Iran wants to have peaceful relations with the Sunni Arab world; it’s the Sunni Arabs who hate the Shia, the niggers of Islam and the niggers of the Arab World. It’s like the Jim Crow South with the Sunni Arabs as good old boy crackers enforcing Jim Crow against the poor Shia niggers. The modern version of this lie sees Shia taking power across the region as “Iran expanding its influence in the Arab World” and “Iranian expansionism.” It’s total crap. All of these are local conflicts and local political situations. In few Arab countries,  there are many Shia and the Shia have obtained quite a bit of power. This is due to the situation inside the nation, not some BS Iranian expansionism. Hezbollah is popular in Lebanon because the masses love them. They have 8 In Syria, yes, the Shia have been in power for decades, but the regime is aggressively secular and does not favor any confessional group. The Syrian business community is mostly Sunni. They’ve always run the businesses over there. Many Shia Alawi who are members of Assad’s sect are very poor because the only Alawis who have benefited from the regime are those with tribal and family ties to the regime. 7 Yet the vile Israelis and the US keep talking up this big lie about Syria as a “Shia supremacist state” where all the wealth, power and government is in the hands of the Shia and the Sunnis have nothing. The whole army is said to be Shia, as no Sunni would want to fight for the Shia government. The only reason they fight is because they have a gun to their backs. All of this is a huge lie as the government is secular and is not confessional or discriminatory in any way, shape or form. If the Shia are running a Shia supremacist state, why do the Sunnis have most of the money in the country as they run the business community? Why are the Christians wealthier than the average Syrian. I thought the  government was Shia supremacist and the non-Shia get nothing? Furthermore, the Shia sect that runs Syria is called Alawi and they are one of the most secular of the Muslim sects. They do not go to mass. They do not fast at Ramadan. They never go on hajj. They are very secular and most of the women do not wear the hijab. The religion is a strange mishmash of ancient pagan sects like Mandeanism, Christianity and a very secular version of Shia Islam. Alawi worship Jesus, celebrate Christmas and every Alawi household has a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall. Paganism is present in the Alawi believe that the stars represent the souls of dead humans. After we die, we ascend to the heavens and turn into stars. This is taken from the ancient Mandeanism sect, star worshipers who follow John the Baptist as their spiritual leader. There were a number  of them in Iraq, but many were killed as infidels in the recent  civil war. However, Saddam protected the Mandeans. There is a huge debate in Islam around whether or not the Alawi are even Muslims! Many Sunnis state emphatically that they are not Muslims and instead they are a heretical schismatic sect of apostates who must be killed. The case for this discrimination was first made by Syrian Ibn Taymiya centuries ago who could be said to be the father of the modern Salafi Islam of Al Qaeda, ISIS and the rest. Indeed, Salafis revere Taymiya and pore over his writings. The Alawi state that they are indeed Muslims, albeit an extremely secular variety of nearly New Age Muslims. Considering that this is one of the most secular sects in Islam, why would they be confessionalists? Why would they discriminate against other sects if they are barely even Muslims and not particularly religious in the first place? Religious discrimination in the Muslim world is tied to fundamentalism. The secular regimes have usually been much more nonprejudicial. So the Alwai have run Syria for 50 years, and Syria is hardly a case of Iranian expansionism. Please!

The "Iranian Expansionism" Lie: How the US and UK Have Joined the Gulf Arab War against the Shia: The Cases of Iraq and Yemen

Iraq

Iraq is the latest flash point. This is not a case of Iranian expansionism either. Saddam somewhat repressed the Shia, although millions of Shia were Baath Party members, and most of the army were Shia. When the US military rolled through the Shia cities of the South during the Gulf War, they expected a warm welcome. It was the other way around. A convoy would be driving down a street in Nasariyah with nary a problem in sight. They got halfway down the street when the whole street opened up on them with automatic weapons and RPG’s. Most of them were hiding on rooftops. These were Shia Baath Party people, Shia Iraqi military veterans and also a lot of Shia who were simply Iraqi nationalists who would rather live with Saddam than be conquered by foreign invaders. Of course, our criminal, Nazi-like war of aggression against the Iraqi people resulted in the overthrow of Sunni rule. With democracy, obviously a Shia government was elected, as 6 Of course the new Shia government has friendly ties with Iran. The Shia Alawi government of Syria also has close ties with Iran. The Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon has close ties with Iran. None of this is “Iranian expansionism” or “Iran conquering the Arab world.” Instead these are Shia populations in the Arab World who have formed a natural and normal confessional alliance with Shia Iran. Shia are going to ally with Shia. What do you expect them to do?

Yemen

In Yemen, the Shia are 4 A tribal group in the north called Houthis who are mostly Zaidi launched a very popular civil war from the north all the way to the south of the country, eventually overthrowing the government. The US- and Saudi-installed president, a man named Hadi, was airlifted out to Saudi Arabia where he continued to insist that he ran the country. Hadi was very unpopular, and frankly most Yemenis hated him. The Houthi revolt had the support of the majority of Yemenis. The Yemeni Army was loyal to a former president named Saleh, who was also a Houthi Shia. Most of the Yemeni Army, 70-8 The US went along with this folly and insisted that Hadi was still the real president of the country. Well, no he wasn’t. Ever heard of a revolution? When an armed revolution happens and overthrows the government, the new armed group is the new government. I would say they are even under international law. Revolutions have been a legitimate way to overthrow states forever now. Or do we now say that all revolutions are illegitimate? Would that apply to our own revolution then? That would have to be illegitimate too, right, because the US says that armed revolutions cannot install legitimate governments? The remaining 2 Since that time, the Saudis have been bombing all over the country. The Saudi and UAE militaries also invaded, but they did not get far. They set up a few garrisons, but they came under constant attack and suffered heavy casualties. The Saudi military is terrible and is not capable of fighting any war. The UAE military is about as bad. The US has been supplying intelligence and command and control facilities to the invaders from the beginning. At least 10,000 Yemenis are dead at the hands of the US and the UK in this sickening war. Whenever the Saudis start running low on bombs, we rush-deliver more bombs to them. Al Qaeda has a large presence in Yemen, and they quickly waged war against the Houthis and Saleh’s army. The Gulf states have been funneling supplies to Yemeni Al Qaeda ever since the invasion, using them to help overthrow the Shia Houthis. When the war started, Saudi Arabia and the UAE flew 300-400 ISIS and Al Qaeda jihadis from Syria down to Yemen to fight against the Houthi. The UAE and the Saudis continue to run jihadis into Yemen, typically by ship. The Saudis have never launched one attack against the Al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen, and the US has had a quite but not completely hands-off policy too, as the US and UK are using ISIS and Al Qaeda in Yemen to overthrow the Houthi. The Houthi takeover had nothing to do with “Iranian expansionism.” That’s a paranoid lie of a fever dream. The Shia are 4

ISIS Attacks Iran, and the "Qatar Shunned by Gulf as Sponsor of Terrorism" Lie

Here. This is part of ISIS’ endgame – unleashing total civil war in Iran with the goal of conquering the nation. This is one of the principal goals of the organization. That’s pretty serious. Bottom line is blame the Gulf Arab states for this attack. This is what the Saudis, Bahrainis, UAE and Kuwaitis want. It’s all about “get Iran.” The pitiful and laughable Trump tour of Saudi Arabia recently where he gained the support of the Gulf in the war on terrorism is a joke! The US then signed a deal to sell the malign Saudis billions more in weaponry. Oh and the deal was the the weaponry from US weapons manufacturers which was said to be made in the US was then shifted over to Saudi Arabia! So the weapons we are selling them won’t even create jobs in the US. Trump exported a huge amount of US jobs! Not a single word this pathological liar of a President says can be trusted. Then Trump tweeted about how Qatar is failing in the war on terrorism and how the Gulf countries are cutting off ties with Qatar due to Qatar’s ties with terrorism. This is laughable! Yes Qatar has ties to terrorism, but so does Kuwait, Bahrain and especially UAE and Saudi Arabia, two of the worst. So the Gulf nations are forming a “common front against terrorism” against Qatar and the US is going along with this phony, lying charade. Pitiful! And not one US MSM outlet will ever tell you the truth about what is going on over there. Since none will, I will do that right now. As I said, the other Gulf countries sponsor just as much terrorism as the Qataris. The reason for the “anti-terrorist: shunning of Qatar is because in recent days, Qatar has developed close ties with Iran. Now how this ties in with Qatar’s support of the Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda in Syria) and their war against the Shia, I have no idea.   Another problem is that Qatar is very friendly with the Ikhwan or Muslim Brotherhood. Yes this is a fundamentalist Islamic organization but it is a huge group with vast support across the Arab World. In the last Egyptian elections, the MB won 7 Hamas is actually the Palestinian branch of the MB, a fact that they try to keep on the down low because Palestinians are some of the most secular people in the Arab World and the MB has never been very popular there. The MB has significant support in Jordan where they are seen as a threat to the dictatorship. Much of Parliament is made up of MB people. The MB is frankly who is running the entire war in Syria against the Assad regime because the MB has always been the major opposition group in the land. The MB simply dissolved into countless jihadi groups which  have proliferated across the land during the civil war, including Al Nusra and ISIS, both of which have MB roots. The MB has also been a significant factor in the civil war in Iraq. Saddam repressed them to some extent, but after the US conquered Iraq and turned it into a US colony, the MB was legalized and had quite a bit of support. Al Qaeda itself was created by MB radical preachers exiled from Egypt and Syria who came to Saudi Arabia in the 1980’s on and mingled with the Wahhabis, who were largely quietist at that time. This toxic stew brewed for a long time under it cooked up a dish called Al Qaeda. In that sense, Al Qaeda definitely has MB roots. Although they share the same beliefs, the MB is very heavily repressed in Saudi Arabia and UAE and I am not sure of its status in Bahrain and Kuwait. The MB is very popular in Saudi Arabia, and the problem is more that the Saudis see them as a threat to Wahhabi power of the Royal Family.  There is a similar problem in UAE. On the other hand, Qatar has long been friendly to the MB. This is why Hamas for a long time had one of their major headquarters in Qatar. However, with the mess in Egypt with the MB winning elections followed by the military coup by General Sisi, the Gulf states have gotten a lot more worried about the MB.  Recently Hamas was forced to vacate their long held offices in Qatar due to pressure from the other Gulf states. However, Qatar continues to have friendly relations with the MB, so Qatar is now on the enemies’ list of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and Egypt because they fear and hate the MB. The MB does have terrorism ties but not in a formal sense. The MB itself renounced armed struggle and is sworn to take power peacefully. However, it is constantly producing radicals who spin out of the organization and take up arms to join the jihadi groups. At that time, they are not formal members of the MB anymore. And former jihadis spin back into the MB on a regular basis. So the MB is not a terrorist organization so much as an incubator for jihadis and terrorists. Hence, the shunning of Qatar for its close relationship with “the terrorist MB” was another one of the laughable, fake and lying  reasons for the shunning. This was reported with a straight face by the “free press” in the US. They’re lying to you. Every day. All day long. They’re lying to you. Get it in your heads. The US MSM is a formal propaganda system as effective or more so as the propaganda media systems in Communist countries.

"Iran: Socialism’s Ignored Success Story," by Ramin Mazaheri

Iran: Socialism’s Ignored Success Story

May 23, 2017

by Ramin Mazaheri

Iran just completed their presidential election, but this article will not discuss the candidates, the result or the political consequences. I work for Iran’s Press TV, which essentially makes me a civil servant, and I think it is correct for me to not reveal who I voted for in order to preserve my independence within the government. I’m quite happy to work for “the people” instead of “a person” – as in private media – and I will support which ever candidate the people choose. Why will I support Iran’s government, whoever is in charge? Truly, it is not for my paycheck. I support Iran because I support socialism where ever I can find it, and Iran has socialism in abundance. Iranian Socialism has been so successful at redistributing wealth to the average person; has safeguarded the nation’s security despite being ringed by US military bases and repeated threats; has grown the economy despite an international blockade; has produced a foreign policy motivated on political principles; and has fought against the divisive identity politics which undermine human solidarity. I have actually seen Iran over the decades, unlike 9 And I’m not even going to try to persuade you. This is not that article, either. This article is to lay out for left-wing readers and supporters of socialism what should be crystal clear: Iran is a socialist nation. Even more than that: Iran is a socialist success story. Iran, like all nations, has had its unique developmental history; of course we have been reading Marx just as long as anyone else, as well. But the most convincing and simplest way I can put it to non-Iranians is this: Europe came to socialism through industrialization, theory and war, but Iran came to socialism through its religious and moral beliefs. The ends are the same, and that is all that should matter to anyone who is truly trying to promote socialism for the benefits it brings to the average person.

The Problem Is Not Us, It Is You

I repeat: The problem is not us, it is you…when it comes to looking at Iran’s contributions to socialism. I believe that around 9 The greatest contribution of Middle East scholar Edward Said was that his book, “Orientalism”, definitively proved through historical scholarship that the West has never, ever, ever been favorable towards the Muslim world. Not in the 8th century, when Muslims were occupiers of the Iberian Peninsula, not in the following centuries when Islam was an ideological competitor to Christianity; not in the 15th century, when the Ottoman Empire occupied the Balkans; not in the 19th century, when the Europeans occupied the Middle East & North Africa; not in 1916, when they redrew the borders for the West’s benefit; not in 1945, when they bombed countries like Syria which had fought on their side against the Germans and the Italians; not in the 1960’s, when their reaction to independence was neocolonialism; not in 1979, when they created the forerunner of the Taliban; not during 2 wars in Iraq, a war in Syria today, etc. Said’s point was: Never has the West viewed or treated the Muslim world as equals, much less intellectual equals. Given this history, why should us Iranians expect the reality of our high-achieving modernity to be accepted and admired? LOL, believe me, I am over it! I write this to enlighten you, not me! I humbly hope that it works. I will address the elephant in the room, and quickly: Yes, I assume that a large part of this prejudice is religious. Some Christians cannot accept that Islam promotes the most recent prophet of the monotheism which they both share. Such religious prejudices are not my problem, and they do not blind my analysis of 2017 Iran. No socialist believes in a “clash of civilizations” or “religious war”, anyway. My point is not to criticize Europe for a lack of brotherhood with their fellow Abrahamic religion: My point is to criticize them in 2017 because most Westerners believe that that even the most leftist Iranian cannot even qualify as merely a “conservative social democrat”!

Can There Never Be a Muslim “Democrat” or an Iranian “Republican”?

The proof of this bias is the decades of Western support for the oppression of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Iranian Revolution and any Muslim attempt to allow their religion into their politics. This is even though Christian Democratic parties governed Europe for decades after WWII, and it is absurd to think that the Christian dogma is not upheld and promoted in European politics today. So, if Iranians cannot even be allowed to fulfill 19th century notions, why would the West accept that 2017 Iran can be even more truly leftist than the merely centrist ideology of European social democracy? Of course, the average European cannot accept this, and this is why Western Socialists are aghast at my idea that Iran is an “ignored Socialist success story”. The radical left of European Socialism, which seeks to destroy organized religion, is especially aghast, but they are a tiny minority and on the way out, thankfully. They do not realize that they have already been drastically tempered, if not ousted, in the still-Socialist countries they purportedly admire: Cuba is full of Santeria and Pope pictures, yin-yangy Confucianism is being promoted in China, etc. But these Western radicals are a minority who simply cannot accept that spirituality cannot be rubbed out, largely because they see it as a choice or a social conditioning instead of a part of many people’s intrinsic nature (if not theirs). A modern Socialist must accept that this fight has already been fought and decided. The capitalists certainly advance as we chase our tails…. Even if leftist detractors can get past religion, they immediately will talk about Iran’s human rights faults. I respond: Yawn yawn yawn African-Americans fill US jails; Muslims fill France’s jails; this is the Iran Checks All the Boxes as a Socialist Nation and as Revolutionary Socialist

What are the key components of socialism? Let’s clarify our terms. The first is leadership by an avant-garde party committed to defending the revolution: Iran certainly has this, and it crosses over Principlist/Reformist party lines. The second is central planning of the economy: Whoever had won, they would be largely implementing the 6th Five-year plan (2016-2021). And there is also the “Resistance Economy” approach promoted by many, which is certainly anti-globalization. The third is control over the media: This is mixed – I would say Iran does not really have this in the traditionally Socialist sense. Cuba has no private media, for example, while Iran has dozens of private newspapers and innumerable TV satellites. But Iran does have limitations, so let’s check this box. The fourth is support for foreign liberation movements: When the history of Palestinian liberation is finally written, just as a now-free South Africa thanks Cuba for sending troops to Angola, will not Palestinians do the same for Iran’s decades of support? The same with Lebanon and now Syria, correct? The fifth is democratically devolving as much democracy as possible in order to empower the average person: There is no doubt that Iran is the most vibrant democracy in the Middle East, and by a huge margin. The difference between Iran’s social-democratic procedures and guarantees in 2017 when compared with 1978 is obviously laughable. I write this from Paris, a nation in an 18-month state of emergency with no end in sight…. If your country has these five crucial components: Congratulations! You are in a socialist country! A little bit more on each for the naysayers….

An Avant-Garde Party

Iran is a one-party system – that party defends the 1979 Revolution. China is a one-party system – promoting Chinese communism. Many would say that the US is a one-party system – promoting imperialist capitalism. The difference between Iran & China and the US is that in the former their one-party systems are formalized, explicit and well-known; in the US it is informal, but just as strong, and maybe even stronger. I don’t think this needs much further explanation but, for example, you cannot propose to end the Iranian Revolution and run for office. In France a presidential candidate in their recent election (Jean-Luc Melenchon) won 2 Like all socialist countries, Iran is criticized for not having democracy but they do: it is simply within their own particular structure. Just as in the USSR, there was lively debate about how to advance their own system – should we following the right-wing model of socialism of Bukharin/Khrushchev or the left-wing model socialism of Lenin/Trotsky? – but there was no debate about deviating from their chosen national system, i.e. communism. When they did allow such debates under Gorbachev, Soviet Socialism was almost immediately subverted by capitalist reactionaries and consigned to oblivion. Again, please examine the repression of communism in the US, South Korea, Greece, Italy, Chile, etc. for historical examples of capitalist “one-party systems”, which are definitely NOT avant-garde and promoting socialism…. The idea that Iran has no avant-garde party but is some sort of totalitarian structure governed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is only expressed by those who are supremely ignorant about Iran. For the second presidential election in a row Hassan Rouhani won despite not seeming to be Khamenei’s preferred candidate, after all.

Central Planning of the Economy

I think I can illustrate Iran’s state of economic socialism with this anecdote: Back in 2013 all 8 presidential candidates were pushing for more privatization…not to promote capitalism, but because everything has already been nationalized for so long, LOL! So Iran has already done the nationalizing, and maybe they need to do more? However, socialist countries have increasingly agreed that some revenue-producing businesses are needed to meet some of the basic needs of their people: North Korea has the Kaesong Industrial area, Cuba’s Port Mariel is giving some space to completely foreign-owned businesses, Vietnam and China have plenty of state-run capitalist enterprises, etc. The reality is that even producing things as simple as soap need some expertise, and very often only capitalist corporations can have that expertise. That’s why the Iranian government went on a spending spree in 2016, but it was decidedly not your typical capitalism. (I do not want to appear to credit only the Rouhani administration because economic policy is produced by the entire government in 5-year development plans, as already noted.) Iran was feted like a king in places like France and Italy because they were prepared to spend dozens of billions of euros. But what pleased me was how Iran spent: They demanded equal partnerships, joint ventures and technology transfers. These are the ways in which foreign investment can be mutually beneficial and not exploitative – this was good for France too. I am not a dogmatic person who is absolutely against all capitalism, but I am against all exploitative capitalism. My point is: It was a socialist spending spree, not a capitalist one. Iran did not just give money away; they did not waste money on vanity projects; this was not one billionaire dealing with another for their own benefit; they invested in Iran via long-term central planning, i.e. the socialist view of economic management. This is not like France’s ruling “Socialist Party” recently selling off national industrial jewel Alstom to the United States’ General Electric: The French people got nothing for that. That was capitalism; that was globalization Iran is not in favor of globalization – they are not even a member of the World Trade Organization, unlike 164 other countries. Some will say this is solely due to the opposition of the United States, but it is not: As many in Iran said during the election: membership in the WTO is against Iran’s principles…and these are socialist principles regarding the economy – there is nothing about the WTO in the Koran.

Control over the Media

It’s true you can’t have Charlie Hebdo in Iran – hardly a major loss –but Iran is certainly no Cuba. Iran’s refusal to crack down on TV satellites which permit reactionary, anti-revolutionary channels like BBC Persian and VOA Persian (UK and US government-funded respectively) appears to be a dangerous fire which Havana will not tolerate. This tolerance does give Iran “human rights” credibility with the West – well it doesn’t, but it should! I would suggest that Iran is simply confident that foreign propaganda cannot overwhelm the obvious successes of the 1979 Revolution. I imagine that Cuba feels that they cannot take chances, being just 100 kilometers from the USA. Of course, Cubans simply laugh at Western propaganda channels like the US government’s pathetic Radio Marti. Cubans are supremely intelligent politically and, after all, their education programs are decades older than Iran’s. Iran, like Cuba and China, bans pornography. I note that such respect for sexuality and for women is a very basic tenet of Socialism. If your utopia includes unfettered access to porn I suggest that you are a libertarian, and not a socialist. I remind again that the media glasnost implemented by Gorbachev was a major driver in the catastrophic implosion of the Russian Revolution. To privatize media means, necessarily, that you are giving those few people rich enough to actually start newspapers the chance to promote their obviously capitalist worldviews. I, for one, am not about to cry over the lack of published capitalist, imperialist, sexist, racist, regressive anti-revolutionary nonsense, and neither are most Iranians. As sad as the Dutch may be about it – Iran is not Amsterdam!

Support of Foreign Liberation Movements

Some will say that Palestine is just a “distraction” from Iran’s own problems. Nonsense – this is a point of pride to all Iranians. This is a point of admiration for Iran from the entire Muslim world, just as it is a negative point for much of the Western world. This is another way Iran is revolutionary Socialist country: they support oppressed countries on the basis of ideology. Perhaps Iran is not the “Mecca of Revolutionaries” which Algeria was in the 1960’s, but let’s agree that the rate and scope of revolutionary movements worldwide are at a much lower level today, sadly. Russia may support Syria, for example, but it appears more for Moscow’s self-interest and the idea of national sovereignty – which is the idea of national self-interest – rather than a moral-based ideology. Call Iran the same as Russia – no insult there – but you cannot deny that Iran supports Palestine for reasons which are clearly to the detriment of their own success, i.e., they do it out of solidarity and morality. Were Iran to recognize Israel they would surely have the international dogs called off them…but Iran is a revolutionary Socialist society, as you are hopefully agreeing with by now. Iran is also an anti-racist society, like all modern socialist societies. They constitutionally protect minorities, with parliamentary seats for Armenians, Assyrians, Christians and Jews, despite their small numbers. Iran may not promote them, but their tolerance of local languages like Azeri and Kurdish far exceeds that of many minorities in Western Europe. Iran accommodates the 5th-largest number of refugees in the world, while French authorities put up gates and even ‘’anti-migrant boulders’’ to deny refugees even the barest shelter. When it comes to religion they are extremely tolerant of ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism and all of the pre-Prophet Muhammad Abrahamic religions. Any religion after Prophet Muhammad? Well…it is an “Islamic” Revolution, after all. This is perhaps a pedantic point but an important one on a verbal, Foucauldian level: Has there been any “revolution” in the world since WWI which was not “socialist”? I can’t think of any, because without a socialism component it cannot be a revolution – it can only be a continuation of the capitalist/feudalist/bourgeois status quo, or a military coup.

Empowering People

The two fundamental tenets of socialism are redistribution of wealth and empowering the average person so that they can reach their full potential. Dismantling the social roadblocks thrown up by capitalism against the non-wealthy has clearly been a major goal of the Islamic Revolution, and I can quite easily prove it has been achieved with a tremendous amount of real-world success. Since 1990 – when the West’s attack dog of Iraq was beaten off – no country’s Human Development Index has improved more than Iran’s, with the lone exception of South Korea. Everyone should take notice, especially Socialists, as it is we anti-capitalists who prize human development – not economic development – above all. That’s why I’m going to leave the Human Development Index as the only proof of success. For me, I have so many other econometrics, anecdotes and personal reflections to prove that Iran has succeeded in creating a new, better, modern society that to do so is quite boring. Bottom line: It is obvious that I do not have to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Despite the tremendous amount of opposition, violence and propaganda, Iran has advanced the most in the past 3+ decades. I say “the most” because, unlike South Korea, Iran has done this without 30,000 US troops currently on its soil; it was not preceded by decades of brutal dictatorship which slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people (mainly leftists); and they did not collaborate with the Americans in the division of their nation which currently causes the greatest possibility of thermonuclear war. Iran didn’t get to #1 as many others did: by capitalism and imperialism. Iran’s recent election had a 7 The hardest thing to get people to do when it comes to socialism (or Iran) is to think realistically: Nobody can achieve “perfect” socialism. No country has 10 But for Iran you have add on another layer of misconception: Many of the “restrictions” in Iranian society predate 1979 by centuries: women were largely wearing the hejab before then; unmarried people, especially young women, also lived at home before 1979; alcohol could send you to prison then and now. My point is: Iran is a culturally conservative nation, and it was like that long, long before 1979. You will have to simply trust me that Iranians don’t need a government to make them want to live in a society which appears conservative to modern Western standards. Again, Iran is not Amsterdam, LOL! Maybe you can talk about the royal court in Shiraz in the 14th century as being a hotbed of drunken poetic reveling, but this is does not reflect the reality of life for the average person. Only an Iranian will agree quickly with this statement and move on: Take away the 1979 Revolution and you would still have many of the same rules in place – they would just be enforced informally. I will, lastly, put it this way: Take away the mullahs, and you still have to deal with my grandmother!!!!! But to believe that the government has not empowered people since 1979…well, back then the average woman had 7 children, was illiterate 7 Today, the birthrate is 1.7 children per woman, the overall literacy rate is 9 All in 30+ years…and have you thought it was capitalism that did it?!

Socialists Who Ignore Iran Are Not Really Socialists At All

Do you still want to think that Iran is a country solely motivated by religious radicalism and not the ideals of socialism? Well, then I place you on the right and the left, and that is the point of this article. It is bad enough that the right (capitalists, imperialists) not only co-opt Socialist ideas as their own (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, affirmative action programs, welfare, free schooling, free nurseries, etc.), but it is laughable when the left refuses to see the leftism in Iran because it does not fit with their preconceived, totally inflexible notions. Any true Socialist/Communist should realize that attacking Iran is doing a capitalist’s job for them. And how can someone who proclaims to be a “leftist” have the exact same interpretation of Iran as a right-wing capitalist does? Again, it is simply laughable that Iran is “not” what it really is. But this is what always happens: Chinese communism “is not really communism”…despite having 1-party rule, a state-run economy, control over the media, support for Vietnam and North Korea, and the 2nd highest HDI improvement from 1970-2010. North Korean communism is just a “cult of personality”…despite expelling the Japanese, resisting the Americans, maintaining their independence, security and high-level of education. Cuba is just the Castro dictatorship and, again, not communism. This is all anti-socialist propaganda – for capitalism there can never be ANY “Socialist success story”. You remain adamant that you do not want to implement all the principles of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in your country? Fine, it is your country to decide for as you like. Like I wrote, no worries – Iran hasn’t invaded in 300 years and it sure seems like our military is necessarily focused on defense. But just because you disagree with some aspects of the 1979 Revolution I encourage you not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I remind you that I needed only one fact to prove that Iran has been improving at a rate which is essentially the best in the world over the last 3 decades – how far below Iran does your country rank, hmm? I write this article because practically no media in the English language will ever pursue the links between Iran and socialism. We leftists know this not just anti-Iran bias, but a much larger anti-Socialist bias. However, it is truly suicidal to ignore the left-wing successes in Iran because, even if you reject some of them, Iran has clearly found MANY modern solutions to our MANY modern problems: surely some of them can be of use to you, right? Is Iran ALL wrong? Of course not – only Satan can be all wrong. Therefore, I advise those fighting against capitalism and imperialism: Please afford Iran a bit more respect and interest than you would afford Satan!

And Now I Take Our Victory lap

I can only laugh at those who say Iran’s revolution has failed! “Oh really? Who was the puppet that was installed? Who was the king that was restored? What is the name of the popular democratic revolution which replaced the peoples’ one of 1979, because I have not heard of it and I still see many familiar faces from 1979?” The revolution has succeeded, and I am not sorry to say so. Not that I care about your opinion – this is for YOUR own benefit: YOU will not win socialism, anti-capitalism or anti-imperialism in your country if you cannot learn from the successes of others. But sadly, your inability to recognize socialism in Iran imperils all of us, because the people worldwide cannot win in the long term if even like-minded leftists cannot stick together to work against fascism, capitalism and racism. But Iran, Cuba, China, etc. – we can win enough of these things for ourselves, at least. We are doing just fine – steady as she goes, eh? All thanks to central planning, as the capitalists veer from crisis to crisis, with the For the non-Western readers: I know that the vast majority of you already support Iran. I have talked with too many of you over my life – I know better. I also know that for us “field slaves” we have to give that impression in order to survive, sometimes, or at least to avoid annoyances. Anyway, many Westerners appear to misunderstand Socialism completely: they don’t realize it is intrinsically a global idea; they think the Franco-German-Russian (European) variety is the only one. More Eurocentrism blinding them to reality, and necessarily limiting them…. But I look across the West and I see nothing but leftist failure after leftist failure: The fall of communism in Russia, the breakup of Yugoslavia, the obvious absorption of “left” parties into the dominant right-wing parties, the rise of austerity, the advance of globalization at the expense of national interests…. So the next time you look at Iran, you should applaud it as a rare socialist success. Iranians will certainly keep living their path of creating modern socialism, Inshallah. Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

No Conservatives Allowed on This Website!

We have had a few conservatives posting here in the past few days. These are US-style conservatives, which are the worst kind of all. US-style conservatives are absolutely banned from posting here in any way, shape or form. Conservatism means different things in different countries, so conservatives from much of the rest of the world (except Latin America and the UK) can continue to post. Even Canadian conservatives can continue to post, as I do not mind them. It’s not conservatism itself that is so awful. Almost every country on Earth has people who call themselves conservatives, and there are conservative parties in almost every country on Earth. But being a conservative just about anywhere outside of the Americas is more or less an acceptable position for me. I probably won’t like their politics much, but I could at least look at them and say that this is an opposition I could live with. US conservatives and their brethren in the UK, Latin America, the Philippines, Nepal and and Indonesia are quite a different beast. I have to think hard about conservatives in Eastern Europe, especially Estonia, Latvia and the Czech Republic. These fools had such a bad experience with Communism that they went 180 degrees in the other direction. I would have to see the positions of these conservative parties in those countries to see whether they would be OK or not. Just to give you an example, Vladimir Putin is considered to be a right-winger, and his party United Russia advocates a politics called Russian Conservatism. Looking at the party’s platform, this is not only a conservatism that I could live with but one I might even vote for! Conservatives in South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and most other places in Asia are acceptable. The conservatives in the Stans, Georgia, Ukraine, and Armenia can be rather awful, particularly in the nationalist sense, but I will not ban them. I dislike Indian conservatives, but I will not ban them. Conservatives from the Muslim World are all acceptable. In the Muslim World, conservatism just means religious and sometimes nationalist. I can live with that. Even the ones in Iran are orders of magnitude better than the US type. Conservatives in the Arab World are acceptable. They are mostly just religious people. Turkish conservatives are awful, but I will not ban them. They are just religious and a particularly awful type of nationalist. African conservatives are OK. Conservatives in Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany,  the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Italy, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Greece, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania are sometimes good, sometimes pretty bad, but they are all acceptable here. Conservatism in Europe mostly means nationalism. I am actually rather fond of the conservative running Hungary, Orban. LePen conservatives leave something to be desired, but they are acceptable. They’re mostly just nationalists. Hell, I might even vote for Marine LePen! If it was down to LePen versus Macron, I would absolutely support LePen! Conservatives from Indonesia, Nepal and Philippines are not OK. These are an “everything for the rich elite, nothing for anybody else” type of conservative. Some of them even hide under the labels of Socialist or even Communist. The word conservative has no real inherent meaning. It means whatever people say it means. Anyway, the conservatives in the US are pure garbage and recently they have become out and out fascists after moving in that direction for a long time. And a particularly horrible type of fascist at that, a Latin American/Filipino/Indonesian style fascist. I will not allow any US conservatives to post on this board. You all are lucky I even let you lurk here. That’s an idle threat as I can’t ban lurkers, but if they all stopped lurking, I would not mind frankly. You all really ought to go back to the gutters you crawled out of. PS This especially applies to Libertarians, the very worst of all the US conservative vermin. We shoot Libertarians on sight here, so you better watch out. *This applies only to economic conservatives. If you are not an economic conservative, and your conservatism is only of the social variety or you are only conservative on race, religion, guns, law and order, respect for tradition, American nationalism, the military, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity issues, you can stay. I’m not crazy about some social conservatives, but I can live with them. I will probably even let patriotards post as long as they are not economic conservatives. I am an American nationalist myself. I just don’t like patriotards. Of course, I very much dislike and even hate the country as it is right now, but I sure don’t want to make it worse! I have to live here too you now, and it might as well be as pleasant as possible as long I stay here. I want what’s best for my country. I don’t want to harm this country or screw it over. That will be bad for me! And believe it or not, most US patriotards do not want what is best for the country! I have dreams of a greater and better America. It’s not impossible, but we will have to undergo some serious cultural changes. One of the reasons I am so against illegal immigration is because it is ruining my country and making this place even worse. Also illegal immigration is terrible for US workers and I am for the workers. I am against H-1B visas for the same reason – they are wrecking my country. IT workers are workers too, so they are my comrades. I want what is best for America and American workers. I cannot live with economic conservatives. I like cancer way more than I like US conservatives. Cancer is much more decent and respectable.

Race and Phenotype of the Early Aryans

Devrat writes:

So called Aryans were not white. The most elevated of all gods, Lord Krishna, is described as the black one in the Vedas, and in the Upanishads, he’s known as “Shyam,” meaning the dark one. Aryan is not even a race or group of people. The word Arya is more of an adjective than a noun. So called Dravidians – in the Ramayana the King of Lanka, that is Southern India, Dravida is addressed as Arya by his wife. Arya means noble, wise, Lord, a sign of respect like the Japanese use -san at the end of name while addressing a person. Get over it White people. Everything’s not White created.

30-4 Did they suddenly get much darker in the ensuing 2,000 years? I tend to doubt it. And actually the caste system they set up was very much race-based with the lightest folks at the top descending to the darkest Shudras and Dalits at the very bottom. It very nearly resembled other colorist systems such as the Jim Crow South, Apartheid South Africa, and Casta in New Spain. The Aryans were practically proto-Nazis and proto-crackers.

US Seeks “Safe Havens” in Eastern Syria

From Global Research. The Americans are getting more and more insane by the day over there in Syria, and it looks like the neocon dream is starting to come true. What is going on here is that the US’s pals, ISIS, Al Qaeda and all of the other groups who more more less share their same philosophy, are starting to get badly beaten on the battlefield. In particular, the situation in Aleppo looks very bad. That is why John Kerry, Turkey,Saudi Arabia and Qatar just poured weapons into Al Qaeda’s hands and assembled 10-15,000 fighters to flood into Eastern Aleppo. Every day, more and more Al Qaeda type jihadis come in from Turkey. Not long ago, the Saudis flooded Syria with 3,500 Al Qaeda type jihadis from Turkey. A similar large force of Al Qaeda types is in the Jordanian border where they have been moved from their training camps in Jordan. It is at these camps that US military advisors train Al Qaeda type jihadis for war on Syria. The weapons come from Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US. The weapons from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are given to them by the US, whereupon they are then flooded into the Syrian battlefield. So ISIS and the Al Qaeda type groups are all using US weaponry. In addition, the CIA runs large quantities of weapons in via Turkey to its favorite jihadists. It doesn’t really matter who the CIA gives the weapons to. The weapons all end up in something that amounts to an arms bazaar inside Syria where they are distributed to any group that has the money to buy them. It is in this way that the CIA supplies Al Qaeda and ISIS with much of their weapons. So our Al Qaeda pals are getting beaten on the battlefield by Syria, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. The US is panicking because its Al Qaeda buddies are losing the war. If Aleppo falls to the Syrian regime, the war may be nearly over for the rebels. Nevertheless, it will probably continue on for as long as the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar continue to pour men and weaponry into the conflict. They can feed this thing for many years.

US Seeks “Safe Havens” in Eastern Syria

By The New Atlas Global Research, August 22, 2016 The New Atlas 22 August 2016

Region: Theme: In-depth Report: US-Syria Tensions amid Syria’s conflict has escalated with warnings by the United States that it would use force against Syrian aircraft operating over their own territory. The US claims to have aircraft operating over Syrian territory and ground forces below, mainly in and around northeastern Syria near the city of Al-Hasakah.  CNN in its article, “Top US commander warns Russia, Syria,” would report that:

In the most direct public warning to Moscow and Damascus to date, the new US commander of American troops in Iraq and Syria is vowing to defend US special operations forces in northern Syria if regime warplanes and artillery again attack in areas where troops are located.

Unlike Russian and Iranian forces operating in Syria, US forces have not been authorized by Damascus to enter Syrian territory. US operations in Syria violate Syria’s territorial integrity and constitutes as violation of international law. And while US military and political leaders attempt to portray this most recent confrontation as a matter of US self defense, in reality it is the fulfillment of longstanding US policy papers that have called for the establishment of so-called safe havens and no-fly-zones (NFZ’s) over parts of Syria as an intermediary step toward regime change, the stated objective of the US government in Syria. In 2012, the following year of the Syrian conflict’s beginning, a Brookings Institution paper titled, “Assessing Options for Regime Change,” would state:

An alternative is for diplomatic efforts to focus first on how to end the violence and how to gain humanitarian access, as is being done under [Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s] leadership. This may lead to the creation of safe-havens and humanitarian corridors, which would have to be backed by limited military power. This would, of course, fall short of U.S. goals for Syria and could preserve Asad in power. From that starting point, however, it is possible that a broad coalition with the appropriate international mandate could add further coercive action to its efforts.

Here, US policymakers are admitting that the use of “humanitarian” concerns is a cynical steppingstone toward more direct military intervention. The unfortunately reality of this strategy, as seen in Libya, is that US “humanitarian wars” end up costing a vastly larger toll in innocent human life than the alleged abuses cited to initiate the war in the first place. This plan of using humanitarian concerns to incrementally establish a foothold in Syrian territory through safe-havens and NFZ’s would constantly evolve, be updated and revisited throughout the entire duration of the Syrian conflict. America’s True Intentions in Syria  More recently, The Brookings Institution’s “Order From Chaos” blog published a post titled, “What to do when containing the Syrian crisis has failed.” Brookings policymakers discuss in it once again the prospects of establishing what would effectively be NFZ’s:

We must also be clever about employing various options for no-fly zones: We cannot shoot down an airplane without knowing if it’s Russian or Syrian, but we can identify those aircraft after the fact and destroy Syrian planes on the ground if they were found to have barrel-bombed a neighborhood, for example. These kinds of operations are complicated, no doubt, and especially with Russian aircraft in the area—but I think we have made a mistake in tying ourselves in knots over the issue, since there are options we can pursue.

Brookings  policymakers also revisit the notion of establishing “safe-havens” claiming:

…we should push the debate about what creating safe havens really means. I don’t think we should start declaring safe havens, but rather try to help them emerge. The Kurds are making gains in Syria’s northeast, for instance, as are some forces on the southern front—so, if the United States, in cooperation with its allies, accelerates and intensifies its involvement on the ground in those areas, safe havens can essentially emerge. An important advantage of this approach is that it doesn’t require putting American credibility on the line, but does help local allies build up and reinforces successes on the ground.

Here, Brookings specifically mentions Syria’s northeast. It should be noted that none of this is being discussed by US policymakers in the context of fighting terrorist organizations like the self-titled Islamic State or listed terrorist organization Jubhat Al-Nusra. Instead, it is clearly within the context of seizing Syrian territory toward the end goal of regime change, with the Islamic State and Al-Nusra merely pretexts for US forces entering and operating within Syrian territory. Similar attempts to create such safe-havens are in motion in Syria’s south, with British special forces now allegedly operating on the ground to incrementally “accelerate and intensify” Western involvement on the ground. It is the literal fulfillment of the plans recently laid out by Brookings policymakers. Displacing US Forces from the Game Board  With US-supported militants being pushed back in and around Syria’s northern city of Aleppo and prospects of Western-backed militants succeeding elsewhere throughout the country increasingly unlikely, the creation of safe-havens and NFZ’s over parts of Syria directly by Western forces remains a last but desperate option. Displacing US and British forces on the battlefield with an expansion of forces from among Syria’s allies could finally see these last game pieces in play by the West pushed off the board entirely. Diplomatic efforts appear to be underway with Syria’s Kurds in particular to encourage them away from what will be a self-destructive geopolitical move made only to Washington’s benefit. Providing alternatives to Western training and support for Kurds and other local forces in the northeast in a genuine fight against the Islamic State and other foreign-backed militant groups operating in Syria could also help eliminate clashes the US may use to cynically escalate the conflict into a direct confrontation with either Syria or Russia (or both). US strategy in Syria is based on 5 year old plans that even 5 years ago were difficult if not impossible to implement, fraught with risk and even should they succeed, left a long and difficult road ahead of US ambitions in Syria and throughout the region. 5 years later, however, these difficulties and risks have only increased. That the US is still exploring this last and poorest option indicates a bankrupt foreign policy wielded by an increasingly unbalanced world power. Careful diplomacy and expert strategic maneuvering by Syria and its allies will be required to avert Syria’s conflict from plunging deeper into tragedy, and ironically, may also help the US from tilting over further out of balance. The New Atlas is a media platform providing geopolitical analysis and op-eds. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. The original source of this article is The New Atlas Copyright © The New Atlas, The New Atlas, 2016

The Basque-Caucasian Hypothesis

I have gotten a lot of crap from my enemies for being on the Academia.edu site in the first place, but really anyone can join. The following was posted by one of the reviewers in an Academia session by one of the leading lights of the Basque-Caucasian theory. As you can see, the mythological and multiple lines of genetic evidence are starting to pile up pretty nicely too. This is neat stuff if you are interested in the Basque-Caucasian link in addition to work going on into the remains of the Neolithic Farmers who were subsumed in the Indo-European waves. It turns out there is quite a bit left in different parts of Europe, especially in terms of Neolithic Farmer mythology. From a discussion among academics and independent scholars on a paper on the Basque-Caucasian Theory in Historical Linguistics during a session in on Academia:

I am not a linguist but interested in the topic as it proposes a linguistic correlation between Caucasic languages and Basque, as it parallels my own current research on reconstructing European Paleolithic mythologies using ethnographic analogies constrained by on archaeogenetics and language macrofamily correlations. Tuite (2006, 2004, 1998, 1997) has pointed out the hunter-gatherer beliefs and myth motifs shared across a ‘macro-Caucasic’ area to the Hindu Kush and into Western Europe. Basque deities Mari, Sugaar, and Ama Lurra and their associated mythologems have striking similarities to the macro-Caucasic hunter mythologies (not found in Finno-Ugric or Middle Eastern ancient mythologies.) I am currently writing a paper identifying many examples of Southern/Western Gravettian art in Italy, Spain, southern France that appear to depict imagery only explicable by analogy to Macro-Caucasic religious myth and ritual. With respect to mtDNA fossil genetics, three skeleton samples are from Paglicci Cave, Italy, ~25 cal BP: one is macro-N-mtDNA (homeland Caucasus/Caspian/Iran; currently highest frequencies Caucasus, Arabia), and two skeletons, RO/HV-mtDNA (homeland northern Middle East; currently highest frequencies, Basque, Syria, Gilaki, Daghestan). During the later Magdalenian another diffusion occurs apparently by a similar route: HV4-mtDNA emerges in Belarus-Ukraine (~14±2 ka) and under Late Glacial Maximum HV4a (~13.5 ka) moves south and splits in the three refugia: southern Italy, southern Russia (HV4a1, ~10 ka), the Middle East (HV4a2, ~9 ka), and Basque area (HV4a1a, ~5 ka, suggesting full emergence of distinct Basque culture and language), (Gómez-Carballa, Olivieri et al 2012). These studies further support the existence of a Macro-Basque-Caucasic mythological stratum as well as shared language substrate.

The cutting-edge liberal theory is that Basque (and some other odd far-flung languages) is part of the Caucasian language family. In other words, at one time, the Basques and the peoples of the Caucasus like Chechens were all one people. What this probably represents is the ancient Neolithic farmers who covered Europe before the Indo-European invasion replaced almost all of the languages of Europe. All that is left is Basque and the peoples of the Caucasus. Everything in between got taken by IE except for some late movements by Uralic and Turkic speakers. Up in the north, the Lapp Uralic speakers are, like Basques, the last remains of the Neolithic farmers. The Sardinians also an ancient remaining group of these people, but their language has been surmounted recently by a Latinate tongue. As it turns out, the Basques and Caucasians also share a number of cultural similarities. There are also some similar placenames. And there is some good genetic evidence connecting the Basques with the Caucasian speakers. It’s all there, but the conservatives are balking, to put it mildly, about linking Basque with the Caucasian languages. I have long believed in this theory. I read a book over 20 years ago comparing Basque to the Caucasian languages and a few other distant tongues and thought the case was proved even via overkill by the book. And recent work is so super that one wonders why the conservatives are still winning. I feel that the link between Basque and the Caucasus languages is now proven to an obvious and detailed degree.

The Larger Context of the Al Qaeda Attack on Aleppo

Great new post from Global Research about what’s going on in Syria these days. The scoop is that the US and its allies have just finished rebranding Al Qaeda as “moderate rebels,” Al Qaeda is armed mostly with US weapons Wonder where those came from? Kerry has been desperately trying to protect al Qaeda from being attacked by Russian and Syrian forces. The US wants al Qaeda included as “moderate rebels” who are subject to the fake truce the US and Russia hammered out in March. Now that the war has turned decisively in favor of the Syrian government and the rebels are looking to be in rather bad shape, the US is getting desperate. The focus of all of this excitement is Aleppo. Currently the government occupies the west half of the city, and the rebels have the eastern half. However, the government has the rebels completely surrounded on the east side of the city. That is a desperate situation for the US, as their al Qaeda buddies are now surrounded, and the government may conquer one of Syria’s largest cities. If al Qaeda is defeated in Aleppo, that will be a huge victory for the government. So al Qaeda is now attacking government-held Southwestern Aleppo with a huge force of 5-10,000 men. It is a serious situation. The Syrian government is seriously short on manpower and the jihadis are often suicidal fanatics. The US and Israel are panicking due to the desperate situation for its al Qaeda allies. The Jewish Lobby is advocating that the US wage military attacks on the Syrian government. You can see these articles authored by Jews out of WINEP (AIPAC). Hopefully this will not happen, but there is risk. There are elements in the CIA, State Department and Pentagon who want to wage war on the Syrian government. They are mostly being held at bay right now by Obama. The US is also responding to the failure of its regime change plans by advocating splitting Syria up into more than one country. Of course this is a longstanding Israeli goal as documented in the Yinon Plan from 1980. All the states in the region oppose breaking up Syria, so it probably won’t happen, but there is always a risk with sociopaths like Kerry running the show. Russia is at a crossroads and must make the tough decision of whether to pull out of Syria or escalate. Iran may also now be ready to escalate its involvement. Iran says that the nuclear agreement with the US is worthless because the lifting of the sanctions and access to international banks that the US promised never materialized. We are still holding $300 billion of Iranian funds in our banks. We have basically stolen this money from Iran. It’s highway robbery. The money was supposed to be released after the deal, but the US never did it. Iran was supposed to have access to international banks again after the deal, but the US is not allowing this to happen and is threatening any bank that tries to do business with Iran. Everything you read below is 10

The Larger Context of the Al Qaeda Attack on Aleppo

By Moon of Alabama Global Research, August 2, 2016 Moon of Alabama August 1, 2016

Al-Qaeda in Syria and associated forces are currently driving a large scale attack from the south-west into Aleppo city. Their aim is to create a new corridor between the Idlib/Aleppo rural areas they occupy and the besieged al-Qaeda controlled areas in east-Aleppo. Between 5,000 and 10,000 al-Qaeda fighters, using U.S. supplied equipment, are taking part in the battle. Formally some of the fighters are “moderates,” but in reality all these groups are by now committed to implement Sharia law and to thereby suppress all minorities. They made some initial progress against government forces but are under fierce attack from the Syrian and Russian air forces. The Russian General Staff has warned since April that al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra aka Fateh al Sham) and the various attached jihadi groups were planing a large scale attack on Aleppo. An al-Qaeda commander confirmed such long term planning in a pep-talk to his fighters before the current attack. This shines a new light on the protracted talks Secretary of State Kerry has had for month with his Russian colleague. The U.S. tried to exempt al-Qaeda from Russian and Syrian attacks even as UN Security Council Resolutions demanded that al-Qaeda and ISIS areas be eradicated. Then the U.S. tried to make an “offer” to Russia to collectively fight al-Qaeda should Russia put its own and Syrian forces under U.S. control. We called this offer deceptive nonsense. All this, it now seems, was delaying talk to allow al-Qaeda to prepare for the now launched attack. Another step in the delaying, though a failed one, was the re-branding of Jabhat al-Nusra as Fateh al-Sham. Some “Western” media called that a split from al-Qaeda, but in reality it was a merging of al-Qaeda Central and Nusra/al-Qaeda in Syria under a disguising new label. Al-Qaeda’s Qatari sponsors had demanded the re-branding so al-Qaeda in Syria could publicly be sold to “Western” governments and their public as “moderate rebels.” But the sham failed. It was too obvious a fake to be taken seriously. The “Western” support for al-Qaeda will have to continue secretly and in limited form. The current attack on Aleppo is serious. The Syrian army lacks ground forces. Significant professional ground forces from Iran were promised but never arrived. Iran was still dreaming of an accord with the U.S. and therefore holding back on its engagement in Syria. The Afghan farmer battalions Iran recruited are not an alternative for professional troops. Defending against an enemy that is using lots of suicide vehicle bombs to breach fortifications and death-seeking jihadis to storm field positions is difficult. It demands diligent preparation and excellent command and control. If this attack can be defeated, the huge losses al-Qaeda will have to take might end its open military-style war. If al-Qaeda succeeds with the attack, the Syrian army will need very significant additional ground forces to regain the initiative. But no matter how that battle goes, strategically the U.S. is sniffing defeat in its regime change endeavor. It is now proposing to split Syria. Syria and all its neighbors are against this. It will, in the end, not happen, but the damage Washington will create until it acknowledges that fact could be serious. Russia can and should prevent such U.S. attempts of large scale social engineering. Russia on the other side has now to decide if it wants to escalate enough to create more than the current stalemate. Over time, a stalemate becomes expansive, and it may at any time suddenly turn into defeat. The U.S. negotiation positions so far were obviously not serious. The U.S. delayed to allow for further large attacks on the Syrian government. The alternative for Russia is to either leave Syria completely or to escalate enough to decisively defeat the jihadis. That is not an easy decision. Today some jihadis shot down another Russian helicopter over Syria. The bloody body of the dead pilot was dragged through the mud by some local nuts and the video thereof proudly presented. If the Russian government needs some public pretext to go back into Syria, it now has it. Also today the Islamic State threatened to attack Russia within its borders. Another good reason to return to Syria in force. Of note is that Russia is already extremely pissed over the unreasonable hostile climate towards it in Washington DC. It will have consequences. The Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei today acknowledged that the nuclear agreement with the U.S. is a failure. The U.S. did not deliver on its end. Iranian money is still blocked in U.S.-controlled accounts, and no international bank wants to do business with Iran because the U.S. is threatening to penalize them. The conclusion, Khamenei says, is that no deal with U.S. over any local issue in the Middle East is possible and that all negotiations with it are a waste of time. This new public position may finally free the limits the Rouhani government of Iran had put on Iranian deployments to Syria. Why bother with any self-limitation if the U.S. won’t honor it? How the situation in Syria will develop from here on depends to a large part on Turkey. Turkey is changing its foreign policy and turning towards Russia, Iran and China. But how far that turn away from the “West” will go and if it will also include a complete turnaround on Syria is not yet clear. Should Turkey really block its borders and all supplies to the jihadis, the war on Syria could be over within a year or two. Should (secret) supplies continue, the war may continue for many more years. In both cases, more allied troops and support for the Syrian government would significantly cut the time (and damage) the war will still take. That alone would be well worth additional efforts by Syria’s allies. Will Tehran and Moscow agree with that conclusion? The original source of this article is Moon of Alabama Copyright © Moon of Alabama, 2016

Munich Shooting Not Terrorism and Had Nothing To Do With Islam

Cyrus writes:

Mr. Lindsay, an update on certain aspects of this article might just be in order, perhaps? It appears to be much more interesting from a psychological standpoint than we had originally been led on to believe. “The teen gunman who killed nine people in a shooting rampage in Munich on Friday was a mentally troubled individual who had extensively researched spree killings and had no apparent links to ISIS, police said.”

Yes this had nothing to do with Islam. It has about as much to do with Islam as the Cho and James Holmes shootings did. This is like the Aurora shooting. Was that about Islam? Neither was this. Also he was a Shia Iranian. Iranians are not involved in the global jihad “kill the infidels” thing. That is exclusively Sunni. At least at this moment, the Shia do not believe in aggressive jihad to conquer non-Muslim lands and make them Muslim. Also the Shia have no connection to ISIS or Al Qaeda or any of these groups carrying out terror attacks on the infidels. In fact, the Shia are the victims of the global jihad types, as these types kill and persecute the Shia everywhere they find them. Furthermore, he wasn’t even He’s just another “school shooter” type.

The Lowdown on the Venezuelan Oil Industry, Pre-Chavez and Post-Chavez

William writes:

I had the impression that the Chavistas had nationalized the Oil industry; I.E. it was essentially a form of revenue for the government, run by the government, etc. Profits went towards social programs, etc. But that does not equate to “full socialism”…

Venezuela nationalized their oil industry long ago, in 1976. However, it was a patronage aspect of the state, and the workers and management of the state oil company grabbed most all of the oil money, leaving little else for anyone else or certainly for state projects. The state oil company went on strike and shut down production all over the country in an earlier attempt to ruin the economy a few years into Chavez rule. This latest “make the economy scream” project was not the first – there were a few others before which all failed. Chavez broke the strike by firing all of the striking management and any workers who supported the strike. A lot of the regular workers were kept on. He replaced fired workers with Chavistas, who were all quite qualified. Chavez then turned the state oil company, formerly a vehicle for nothing but patronage and corruption of an upper middle class light skinned elite, into a state oil company the purpose of which was to provide a vehicle for mass wealth redistribution down to the poorer classes via massive government spending projects. So there’s your Venezuelan socialism: using the state oil company to mass distribute money down to the people in the form of government spending and social spending projects. But this is pretty much what Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya under Ghaddafi, Russia under Putin, Norway and oil producing countries have done though, so it is bizarre that we flipped out when Chavez did the same thing. The Chavistas engaged in a lot talk about building socialism, but honestly as a socialist, they never got around to it. Incidentally, the US-supported strikers caused major damage to the oil industry during this strike via mass sabotage. There was so much equipment destruction that it took years to get the oil industry back online. So another one of their ways to get rid of Chavez was to try to destroy the state oil company through mass sabotage of its equipment. Incidentally, the US government was massively in on the strike and the sabotage. You can see that the opposition has tried every tactic they can think of, legal and illegal, to take down Chavez. The only difference now is that they seem to have finally succeeded in making the economy scream. The oil industry management had gotten hugely wealthy off of what amounted to theft from the state oil industry, and after Chavez fired all of them, these formerly well do to people all lost their very lucrative jobs with nothing to replace them with. So this was one very pissed off group of people who are frankly furious that their huge unearned privileges in Venezuelan society had been revoked. Former state oil company employees are one of the major players in the Venezuelan Opposition.

What Caused the Oil Price Crash?

William writes:

I suppose embargoes on the oil (now owned by the government, now a big source of revenue) is what caused this to a large degree?

There are no embargoes on Venezuelan oil. I know this sounds insane, but the US has not embargoed Venezuelan oil, and in fact we buy a tremendous amount of oil from what Washington calls the enemy state of Venezuela. The oil price collapsed, and this in part caused this horrible problem in Venezuela for a variety of reasons. Venezuela is not alone. All oil producing states are suffering from the oil price crash, and furthermore all of Latin America is in a bad recession. Incidentally the oil price crash itself was engineered by John Kerry and Joe Biden along with the Saudi royalty as a project to radically ramp up Saudi oil production in order to crash the world oil price as a way to destroy:

  • Russia – Paybacks for Russia out of US fury over the Ukraine situation.
  • Iran – Mostly a Saudi concern. The Saudis have always considered Iran to be their worst enemy, but the feeling is not mutual. I think the Iranians would just like to get along with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.
  • Venezuela – Regime change Venezuela is a long term US project.

I am not sure what we offered the Saudis in return, I think maybe helping them with the Syrian regime change project. Also I think we might have given them a lot of weaponry. The Saudis had their own reasons for doing this. They not only have huge oil reserves, but at the time, they were sitting on a huge pile of cash reserves in their Treasury. They figured they could ride out the price crash via dipping into cash reserves, which incidentally will be totally depleted in a couple of years. However, the Saudis had a devious project in mind. Even though the plan was hatched with the Americans, bear in mind that capitalist countries generally have no allies, as the remainder of the paragraph will demonstrate. A major Saudi project was to crash the price of oil and hence ruin the US oil shale or fracking industry, which the Saudis see as serious competition. Fracked oil costs a lot to produce, and the Saudis have some of the lowest production costs in the world. By crashing the oil price, the Saudis could effectively bankrupt the US fracking industry, which is exactly what it happening right  now. The Saudis are morons though for doing that, as their own economy is getting screwed hard by the oil price crash.

Letter from a Shia Muslim

Yahya writes:

You are spot on about the lack of Offensive Jihad in Shia Islam. While conquest began under Muhammad, primarily in the Levant, much of the territorial acquisition occurred under the Rashidun and Umayyads. Ali was too caught up in suppressing the Kharwaji to engage in conquest, and apparently (in a Shia Hadith) criticized the previous three caliphs for their oppression of Dhimmis. It is also worth noting that Shia have a much more nuanced view of traditions and narrations. They don’t assign near the weight to narrations that Sunnis do, believing that with the passage of time comes alterations or downright fabrications (they accuse the Umayyads of issuing fabricated Hadiths to diminish or insult Ali). In Sunni Islam, most of the barbarism is to found in the books of Hadith, and by taking up a cynical view of these books, one can circumvent a great deal of stupidity, which may or may not have been authentic. There are two further principles which make Shia Islam more capable of conforming to modernity: Firstly, Shia are encouraged to refrain from that which gives Islam a bad image. This is generally agreed to include prescriptions found in Hadith but not in the Quran. For example, the punishment of stoning adulterers is only found in narrations, and thus Iran has found it within their liberty to temporarily suspend the use of such punishments. Secondly, the Usuli (the mainstream school of Shia Islam) are much like Jews in that they stress that while the laws remain the same, their interpretation and circumstances surrounding them change. However in some ways, Shia Islam undoubtedly more extreme. For example in the case of apostasy, the Sunni schools believe that only the state can try and execute apostates, but in Shia Islam, the duty can fall upon civilians as well (the same is true of blasphemy ). This causes a great many problems for obvious reasons. And whereas in Sunni Islam, no differentiation is made between those apostates born to a Muslim father (Murtad Fitri) and one who converts and then apostasizes (Murtad Milli): both are asked to rejoin Islam, with a potential waiting period. In Shia Islam the former is killed regardless of their repentance, and the latter is given one opportunity and no waiting period. The predictions in the post are fairly accurate, although I wouldn’t call Syria a failed state. I am certainly committed to the idea that the future of Islam is interred in the West. – An agnostic Shia

Interesting comment.

Ali was too caught up in suppressing the Kharwaji to engage in conquest…

The Kwarwaji were like today’s takfiris and to a lesser extent the Wahhabis.

…and apparently (in a Shia Hadith), Ali criticized the previous three caliphs for their oppression of Dhimmis.

This is interesting. I wonder how exactly he criticized their treatment. I know that Iran does treat most religious minorities fairly well compared to how they are treated in a lot of Sunni states with the except of the Bahai, whom they view as heretics.

The predictions in the post are fairly accurate, although I wouldn’t call Syria a failed state.

I fretted about that myself. I suppose the state is still quite powerful in Syria.  The state might even be stronger in Syria than it is in Iraq.This despite the fact that Syria has lost a lot of territory. The USSR lost a lot of territory in WW2, but it never became a failed state. It did become a warzone though. Syria is more like a warzone.

Tolerance for Male Homosexuality in the Muslim World

Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Gulf countries tolerate it well, and it is said to be epidemic in places like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There is also quite of bit of it in Syria, Egypt and Morocco. It is not tolerated at all in Iran, Iraq, or Shia Lebanon, as Shia Islam is much more condemning of male homosexuality than Sunni Islam. It is not that Sunni Islam necessarily is more tolerant of male homosexuality but that there is more variation in the Sunni world. Palestine is not tolerant of male homosexuality at all, as gay men are frequently killed there. They are also commonly killed in Iraq and Iran. Syria used to be relatively more tolerant, but the parts of Syria taken over Islamists are very intolerant of gay men to the point where they are murdering them. I have no data on male homosexuality in Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan or Sunni Lebanon. I also know nothing about it in the Muslim Sahel, Horn of Africa and West Africa. I know nothing about male homosexuality in Muslim Europe such as Bosnia and Albania, although I assume it is more tolerated there than elsewhere. Turkey is a mixed bag, as there is said to be a lot of male homosexuality, but it is also officially not tolerated. Sort of a don’t ask, don’t tell thing. I know nothing of male homosexuality in the Caucasus, Muslim Russia, the Stans, India and Xinjiang. I do not know what it was like before, but a lot of gay men are being murdered now in Bangladesh. I think there have been 30-40 such murders in the past couple of years. Gay rights advocates rather than gay men in general have been targeted. I also know nothing about male homosexuality in Muslim Thailand, Muslim Burma, Muslim Cambodia, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Southern Philippines. Male homosexuality is pretty well tolerated in Thailand and the Philippines, but I am not sure how ok it is in the Muslim parts of those nations. Admittedly I am not the best person to ask about the situation for male homosexuality and gay men in the Muslim World. Any further information would be interesting.

Watching ISIS Videos

That’s what I have been doing a lot of these days. I do not like the execution videos, and I have seen enough executions anyway. But there are a lot of really cool combat videos, and those are really cool to look at. Basically firefights with automatic weapons, RPG’s, machine guns, technical vehicles with guns, various types of mortars, rockets, and antiaircraft guns. There is a fair amount of night fighting, which is a trip. It’s just guys shooting at each other and blowing stuff up, so you hardly see any gore in the battle videos. However, at the end, sometimes they go to the position that they overran, and among all of the other things present at the camp there are typically the dead bodies of some of the folks that ISIS is fighting. They also have really cool music in the background. There are interviews with ISIS fighters, but I have no idea what they are saying. The worst ISIS of all seem to be in Iraq. They look like a bunch of very, very pissed off guys. Boy are they mad! The one thing that shines right through their rage and hatred is one word…revenge. ISIS in Iraq seems to be out for revenge. For what I am not sure, but 3 I have heard that the many of the people in back of ISIS at the very top are Baath Party people and former Iraqi military. Obviously they are out for revenge for the last 13 years. They want paybacks, and paybacks are a bitch. The ISIS in Syria and Afghanistan don’t seem to be as pissed off, but I have not watched a lot of their videos out of Syria. There’s nothing to be worried about watching these videos. I am sure that hundreds of thousands if not millions of people watch at least some of those videos. I know that the site I found the videos on is a US site, and almost all of the commenters have a savage hatred of ISIS. So the idea that watching ISIS videos means you’re a terrorist is crap. I would say far more ISIS haters watch their videos than ISIS supporters. Just for the record, I utterly hate these scumbuckets, and if it ever comes down to it, I will grab an automatic weapon myself and try to kill them.  I am very much afraid of death, but dying fighting for your homeland and lifestyle against these hellions would actually be worth it. I would rather die fighting them than live under their rule, let’s put it that way, ok?

Khameini Is Dead

Unconfirmed reports. He has has been very ill with cancer for a long time. No Islamists are all that great, but they are what they are, and the Muslim religion is what it is. It’s never  going to be this groovy Western  human rights and democracy religion that we want it to be. It’s just not that kind of a religion and Muslim civilization is just not that kind of a civilization. Trying to force this human rights and democracy and globalized neoliberalism on the Muslims is, to overuse a metaphor, like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole. There’s another metaphor I like better. Stalin said that trying to force Communism on the Poles was like trying to put a saddle on a cow. Let’s get real. Sure, most of the West hates Muslims. But which ones do we hate? We hate the Muslims who are being real Muslims and who are being true to their religion. The perfect Muslim country for the West is a secular country, but that right there goes against Islam, and most Muslims do not want to live in secular countries. Islamism is just Islam. Islamists are just Muslims. If we hate Islamism and Islamists, then we simply hate Islam and Muslims. There’s no other way to slice this cake. That said, Khameini was orders of magnitude better than Khomeini, the original ayatollah. The Iranians have made great strides towards moving in the direction of a more humanist Islamism. They have  the advantage of Shiism. Like Catholicism, Shiism sees Islam as a moving target to be continuously reinterpreted in accordance with the times. Sort of like the living Constitutionalists. The Vatican is much the same way. These high priests see themselves as the interpreters and re-interpreters of religion, and the Shia clergy and in fact very similar to the high priests of the Vatican. Hardly anyone in the West can see Khameini as a good man. But for an Islamist, he was very good of kind. And that’s about all we can expect from this religion of low expectations.

Letter from India

Hassan writes:

Hello Robert. Thanks for writing good blogs about India and its incredibly inhumane and barbaric culture. I have read your other articles on India, and you are 10 Actually it’s not only India, it’s all of South Asia which is a hell hole. The caste system is a South Asian phenomenon, and Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists of Subcontinent practice it in social forms although in a much less ugly way than the Hindus do. All of Subcontinent’s cultures are backward as Hell and are anti-weak, anti-poor, anti-women, anti-rationality and superstitious as hell. I personally identify myself with Indo-Persian culture (as I am a South Asian Muslim) which is heavily Persianized and historically much more civilized and egalitarian than low-end Indian cultures, but it does not mean that South Asian Muslims are any better than their backward Hindu counterparts. But at least Islam saves us from much of the evils of Hinduism. India’s claims of becoming the next superpower are hilarious; they can’t even build toilets for their people. Thanks for speaking the truth about that place. Keep up the good work.

In case you are wondering, I get emails and comments like this all the time on here. It’s quite clear that this is the truth about India and the whole region. If I was lying about it, why would so many Indians come here to tell me I am 10 He makes a good point that all of the cultures of South Asia are all crappy in exactly the same ways. They all practice caste, hate the poor, the weak, women (notice the connection?) and rationality and are extremely superstitious. The Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists all practice too, though a less vicious version of it. As I pointed out, the reason the whole region is sucks is that it has been Indianized and Hinduized. Even Pakistan and Bangladesh are very Indianized and Hinduized cultures, although they are Muslim. Buddhist Sri Lanka strikes me as incredibly Indianized and Hinduized. And he is correct, Persia is and was more egalitarian and civilized than India ever was.

“Ayatollah Khamenei: ‘Westerners Mourning French Tragedy Should Pause for a Moment,” by Eric Walberg

Great piece by Eric Walberg on Ayatollah Khamenei’s latest speech. Khamenei is a very wise man, and he doesn’t support terrorism against the West. He’s not a Salafi Jihadi. He’s Shia, and the radical Sunnis think that the Shia are infidel heretics who need to be killed. I enjoy his speeches, and I also enjoy those of the leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah.

Shia Muslims are generally a lot easier to get along with than Sunni Muslims. For one thing. they have been persecuted themselves by Sunnis for centuries, so they have an idea of what it means to be a persecuted on the basis of one’s religion.

In Hezbollah controlled areas of Southern Lebanon, the Shia leave the Christians completely alone. There are many Christian villages there, and Hezbollah lets them do whatever they want. They are not subject to Sharia or Muslim dress codes, and Hezbollah doesn’t enforce Sharia anymore even on the Muslims it controls. Shia Muslim women in Hezbollah controlled areas are not even obliged to wear a headscarf.

There are also Sunni, Christian and Druze members of Hezbollah, and the non-Shia Hezbollah members experience no discrimination.

You can go into Hezbollah-controlled areas of Southern Lebanon and walk into a bar and order a beer. It’s not a problem at all.

The Shia have always been the more progressive Muslim sect as, like Catholics, they believe that Islam is a living religion that must be continuously interpreted to keep up with the times. Hence, Islam is continuously being interpreted by Ayatollahs as Catholicism is constantly being interpreted by Popes to be relevant with the times in which Shia Muslims are living.

This leads to a lot interesting thinking and rulings. Iran’s Ayatollahs have decided that transsexualism is compatible with Islam, and one of the highest ranking Iranian clerics is a transwoman or a man who has now turned into a woman.

Prostitution is also quite common in Iran, and the Ayatollahs see prostitutes are more of a persecuted group of women who need protection than carriers of vice. Recently there has been a lot of talk among the Iranian leadership about making prostitution legal and housing prostitutes in houses with madams overseeing them.

This would be done under the rubric of temporary marriage, a Shia custom that allows Shia to have sex even outside of marriage.

In fact, in the extremely religious city of Qom, the headquarters of the religious clergy, there is a thriving prostitution scene, and the male religious students studying there regularly buy prostitutes. There are many prostitutes plying their trade in Qom.

This also is done under the rubric of temporary marriage. The male religious student simply selects a prostitute, and the two of them go to one of the many religious clergy in town and say they want to have a temporary marriage. The clergyman then grants them a temporary marriage lasting usually about three days.

The student and the prostitute then go somewhere to have sex. Somewhere often means one of the large local cemeteries where believe it or not, prostitutes ply their trade in the underground tombs! The three day marriage often lasts more like a couple of hours, as the two do the deed and then part.

A high ranking woman in the Iranian government has made use of temporary marriage to have sex with ~50 male clerics over the years. She has been quite outspoken about her religiously sanctioned promiscuity, and apparently the Ayatollahs are just fine with it too.

When it comes to Islam, the Shia are clearly a different bird altogether.

Ayatollah Khamenei: “Westerners Mourning French Tragedy Should Pause for a Moment”

by Eric Walberg

The leader of the Islamic Revolution has once again addressed Western youth who either for the most part are misinformed about Islam because of the bias in media and society in favor of Israel and Zionism, or are Muslim but living in a climate of Islamophobia and in desperation have drifted to the militant jihadist movement which began in Afghanistan in 1979 with US blessing and is now a permanent feature of world politics. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls on them to “reconsider the threat of terrorism in the world, its roots and to find a deep insight into Islam.”

The tone of the Ayatollah’s reflections is calm and friendly, the content intelligent and at the same time heartfelt. You can feel his spirit of universal love and his anguish at the suffering that terrorism brings. It is sad to note that Western media and politicians have an obsession against Iran despite Iran’s constant reaching out and attempts to help the West fight terrorism. The reasons, of course, are Iran’s staunch support for Palestine and its refusal to submit to the dictates of imperialism. Both unforgivable ‘sins’.

These are not rational reasons. Following 9/11, Iranian intelligence shared information with US intelligence – until President Bush found out and put a stop to it. Iran made intelligent proposals to resolve the nuclear energy stand-off for the past decade, all rejected by the US. The world is blessed by Iran’s support for Palestine, as the Arab states are just not up to the task.

Like his earlier appeal, once again the Ayatollah calls for dialogue on the most painful matters to “create the grounds for finding solutions and mutual consultation”, or the situations will continue to spin out of control.

For the Ayatollah, each life is important and each unnatural death is a tragedy. “The sight of a child losing his life in the presence of his loved ones, a mother whose joy for her family turns into mourning, a husband who is rushing the lifeless body of his spouse to some place, and the spectator who does not know whether he will be seeing the final scene of life – these are scenes that rouse the emotions and feelings of any human being…whether they occur in France or in Palestine or Iraq or Lebanon or Syria. The Muslim world shares these feelings and are revolted by the perpetrators”.

The supreme leader explained that Muslims have suffered far more than anyone else due to colonial occupation and the trauma that Israel inflicts daily on Palestinians. Westerners mourning the French tragedy should pause for a moment.

“If the people of Europe have now taken refuge in their homes for a few days and refrain from being present in busy places – it is decades that a Palestinian family is not secure even in its own home from the Zionist regime’s death and destruction machinery. What kind of atrocious violence today is comparable to that of the settlement constructions of the Zionist regime?

“This regime…every day demolishes the homes of Palestinians and destroys their orchards and farms. This is done without even giving them time to gather their belongings or agricultural products and usually it is done in front of the terrified and tear-filled eyes of women and children who witness the brutal beatings of their family members.

Shooting down a woman in the middle of the street for the crime of protesting against a soldier who is armed to the teeth – if this is not terrorism, what is? This barbarism, just because it is being done by the armed forces of an occupying government, is it not extremism? Or maybe only because these scenes have been seen repeatedly on television screens for sixty years, they no longer stir our consciences.”

The Ayatollah laments the ongoing invasions and violation of the Muslim World by the West, “another example of the contradictory logic of the West. The assaulted countries, in addition to the human damage caused, have lost their economic and industrial infrastructure. Their movement towards growth and development has been thrown back decades.”

The Ayatollah looks to the youth of today, who he hopes will be educated to understand the beauty of Islam, and its compatibility with both Christianity and Judaism, its long history of peaceful relations, its rejection of imperialism and colonialism. They must “discover new means for building the future and be barriers on the misguided path that has brought the West to its current impasse.”

The Iranian leader optimistically assumes that people in the West mostly understand of the true nature of modern politics. That Westerners understand the role of the US in “creating, nurturing and arming al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their inauspicious successors, [that] these forces behind terrorism are allies of the West, while the most pioneering, brightest and most dynamic democrats in the region are suppressed mercilessly.”

I wish his words reflected the reality that I see around me in Canada. People are willfully ignorant about these matters, not wanting to see their governments as guilty of nurturing terrorism. My goal in writing is to inform people in these matters, but it is hard to get the message out. It is primarily time-servers who are welcomed by the mainstream media to ‘inform’ citizens.

I admire the Iranian leader’s honesty in pointing out that it is Western ‘culture’ that promotes “aggression and moral promiscuity”, and tries to destroy other cultures. “The western world with the use of advanced tools is insisting on the cloning and replication of its culture on a global scale. I consider the imposition of Western culture upon other peoples and the trivialization of independent cultures as a form of silent violence and extreme harmfulness.”

He does “not deny the importance and value of cultural interaction, but warns against “inharmonious interactions”. That conjures up the image of Westernized youth sneaking into a Russian Orthodox cathedral or a Tehran public place and loudly promoting a Western ‘human rights’ agenda with Western photojournalists on hand, waiting to send some distorted image out on the internet. The upshot is either Russophobia or Islamophobia, whereas the real violation is of national dignity.

This shows that Western culture is in fact non-culture, and promotes apathy, decadence, or nihilism which oppresses us all today. But, disillusioned as I am with Western media and its brainwashing, I was heartened after the Paris bombings to hear sensible Canadians reject the jihadists’ plan to promote Islamophobia, forcing Muslims to join them in their will-o’-the-wisp Caliphate.

There are many Muslims in Canada now – eleven of them are members of Parliament in the ruling Liberal Party. A 30-year-old Afghan woman Maryam Monsef is Minister of Democratic Institutions. Muslims are first rate Canadians – hard working, quiet, educated, devout. They are slowly transforming Canada for the better, including acting as examples of what Islam can do to benefit society.

I am also encouraged by the election of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, ousting the ultra-Zionist Iranophobe Stephen Harper. Muslim Canadians voted for Trudeau en masse. All eleven Muslim MP’s are Liberals. He has a silver bullet against terrorism: the only way to fight ISIS responsibly is to ‘do the right thing’, and expose their policy of violence as bad for Muslims, bad for everyone. Already thousands of communities across the country have pledged to sponsor Syrian families and are busy hosting fundraisers.

Terry Nelson, Grand Chief of the Southern Chiefs Organization, says Manitoba’s plans to bring refugees in from other countries should not be impacted by events in Europe. “There’s been an invitation for 2,500 Syrian people to be here in Winnipeg,” he said. “They should not be judged by a small minority of people that are terrorists. We live in the greatest country in the world. The most peaceful country in the world. We are blessed.”

The Ayatollah’s message is here.

“Problems” and “Solutions”

Discuss Severaid’s quote and my examples given below, agreeing, disagreeing or expanding on the notion.

The chief cause of problems is solutions

– Eric Sevareid

I think this guy is onto something.

Examples:

War on Terror – Solution was all out war on “terrorism” – really just disobedient Muslim states and some international guerrilla/terrorist groups.

The “solution” did not solve the problem at all, and in fact it made it much worse and introduced quite a few new problems.

The “solution” to the “Muslim terrorism problem” did nothing to alleviate the problem, and the problem only expanded massively, in the process destroying much of the secular Muslim world and replacing it with ultra-radical, armed and ultraviolent fundamentalists. Several new failed states were created out of functioning but authoritarian secular regimes.

A wild Sunni-Shia war took off with no end in sight. A new Saudi-Iran conflict expanded to include all of the Sunni world against Iran and some Shia groups.

The policy was incoherent – in places (Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Libya) secular nationalists were overthrown and replaced with radical fundamentalist regimes (Iraq, Palestine) or failed states teeming with armed fundamentalist actors (Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Mali). In other places, fundamentalist regimes were overthrown and secular nationalists were put in (Egypt).

We alternately attacked and supported radical groups such as Al Qaeda and ISIS. An awful Russia-Turkey conflict took off on the Middle east with the US and NATO siding with Al Qaeda and ISIS supporting Turks. The US attacked and armed fundamentalists to attack Shia Iranian, Hezbollah and Houthi armies waging all out war on Al Qaeda and ISIS. In Yemen we actively attacked the Shia who were fighting Al Qaeda while supporting Al Qaeda and fundamentalist Sunnis with intel and weaponry.

Some Kurds were called terrorists and support was given to those attacking them. Other Kurds were supported in their fight against ISIS. In actuality, all of these Kurd represented the same entity. There really is no difference between the PKK, the YPG and the rulers of the Kurdish region. Meanwhile, Kurds fighting for independence were supported in Iran and Syria and attacked in Turkey though they were all the same entity.

Billions of US dollars and thousands of US lives were wasted for essentially no reason with no results or actually a worsened situation. Russia, one of the most effective actors in the war against Al Qaeda and ISIS, was declared an enemy and attacks on them by our allies were cheered on.

A horrible refugee crisis was created in Europe.

Muslim populations in the West were substantially radicalized.

Instead of ending Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorist, conventional and guerrilla attacks absolutely exploded in the Middle East and to a lesser extent in Europe, Canada, Australia and the US. It also exploded in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Thailand, the Philippines and of course Syria and Iraq. There was considerable fighting and terrorism in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco and Jordan. The Palestinians ended up much better armed than before and the conflict exploded into all out war on a few occasions.

Terrorism and guerrilla war exploded in Mali, Nigeria, Cameroon, Somalia and Kenya with some new attacks in Niger, Mauritania, Chad and Uganda. Somalia took a turn for the worse as a huge Al Qaeda force set up shop there and the country turned into the worst failed state ever with nothing even resembling a state left and the nation furthermore split off into three separate de facto nations.

The “solution” failed completely and simply ended up creating a whole new set of problems that were vastly worse than the original problem for the which the solution was directed.

Technology: Technology itself could be regarded as a lousy fix to many problems.

US Endgame in Syria

US strategy in Syria is not to allow Islamists to come to power, but to use them to force a political settlement – one in which Assad steps down and relinquishes power to actors who are keen to turn Syria into a western puppet state.

Pretty much sums it all up right there. Why do we keep saying Assad must go? Because as long as he is in power, we cannot put in our US puppet state.

Why is NATO supporting crazed Islamists like ISIS and Al Qaeda?

They are simply a convenient tool to use to get rid of Assad. We don’t really want them to take power. We think we can use them to get rid of Assad and then abandon them once we put our puppet regime in.

Even if we cannot put our puppets in power, just getting rid of Assad should be enough. Getting rid of Assad without replacing him with anything of similar gravitas would result in a failed state similar to Iraq, Afghanistan and especially Libya. The West would love to turn Syria into another Libya. Gaddafi is gone and with him the powerful anti-Western secular nationalist leader who was a threat to Israel and limiting the profits of oil commits in addition to mounting a serious threat on the dollar’s role as world reserve currency.  Now there is effectively no state in Libya, which is better than a powerful anti-Western state. Libya is no threat to US oil and economic interests, nor is it a threat to Israel.

Mission accomplished.

Some of the end goals of removing Assad:

  • If a failed state results, a Syrian failed state is no longer a powerful chain in the Iranian influenced Shia crescent of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah.
  • One of the last remaining threats to Israel, a powerful Syrian state, is gone. The resulting chaos is of little threat to the Israelis. Israel fears strong state actors, not disparate terrorist groups, and Israel thinks they can deal with Al Qaeda and ISIS. At any rate, Israel would much prefer even ISIS or Al Qaeda in power in Syria than Assad.
  •  A US puppet may even make a sort of cold peace with Israel similar to what almost the entire Sunni Arab Wold has done. The only real opposition to Israel in the world now at state level is Syria, Iran and the pseudo-state called Hezbollah. When it comes to Israel, almost all of the remaining Sunnis states are now US allies and have made a sort of cold peace with Israel.
  • The gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey to Europe can now go forward, although actually this is much more likely under the puppet state scenario. Qatar and the West want this pipeline very badly because of the wealth it will bring to Qatar and Western interests and because it will offer Europeans an alternative to Europe’s dependence on Russia for gas supplies, a dependence that is very annoying to the West. Furthermore, Russia will lose a lot of business with the completion of the Qatar-Turkish pipeline. The pipeline is already in the works, but Assad said no to running the pipeline through his country. Some people think this is the major reason for the war right there. Keep in mind that most wars are ultimately about economics under capitalism and especially capitalism-imperialism.
  • Hezbollah would be set adrift and lose its major funder and supplier. As it is, Iran runs weapons and funds to Hezbollah via its ally Syria. Syria is the middle link in the Iran-Hezbollah supply chain. A major enemy of Israel and the West is left without supplies or weapons.
  • The Shia crescent of Iran – Iraq – Syria – Hezbollah now has a huge gaping hole in it.
  • Removal of Assad is a huge blow to Iran because the resulting government, either Islamist or US puppets, will be Sunnis who dislike both Iran and Hezbollah. Iran would lose a huge ally and and a major source of influence in the Arab World.
  • Turkey removers a major thorn in its side. Turkey would like a puppet Sunni Islamist state in Syria ultimately.
  • A US puppet would crack down on the Kurds in eastern Syria.
  • A US puppet would open up Syria’s oil, gas and other resources to Western exploitation

“The Dirty War on Syria: The Basics,” by Prof. Tim Anderson

The Dirty War on Syria: The Basics

By Prof. Tim Anderson

Global Research, November 23, 2015

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All you need to know about Syria. Everything here is 10

“France’s Response to Paris Attacks Encourages ISIS’s Caliphate Fantasy,” by Eric Walberg

Eric is a personal friend of mine and he published this on Academia.edu so that usually means anyone can grab it as long as you credit them. Lately, Eric writes for the Iranian media, presumably for money. I believe Kieth Preston is also writing for the Iranians these days.

I am putting this up mostly to provoke discussion.

France’s Response to Paris Attacks Encourages ISIS’s Caliphate Fantasy

Eric Walberg

France’s emotional response to the recent tragedy, devoid of reason and ignoring history, just makes matters worse.

 

The death toll in the November 13 attacks in Paris stands at 127. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sent a message to his French counterpart Francois Hollande condemning the attacks. “In the name of the Iranian nation, itself a victim of the evil scourge of terrorism, I strongly condemn these inhumane crimes and condole with the bereaved French nation and government.”

In contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened his weekly Cabinet meeting by calling on world leaders to condemn terror against … Israel. He began by addressing the killing of two Israelis, ignoring the 81 Palestinians who have died in protests this month. “The time has come for the nations of the world to condemn terrorism against us as much as they condemn terrorism anywhere else in the world.” He pledged Israeli intelligence assistance to France, adding “An attack on any of us needs to be seen as an attack on all of us.”

Translate: France’s tragedy is a wake-up call for solidarity with … Israel.

France’s Colonial Legacy

Until 2012, France was spared serious terrorist attacks, but its enduring colonial mentality continues to stoke anger. Most evident recently was the official defense of anti-Muslim hate literature published by the magazine Charlie Hebdo. Rather than persecuting the Islamophobes, which would have prevented blowback by enraged Muslims, the French insistence on freedom led to an attack in January on the Paris offices of the magazine, killing 12 people and wounding 11 others.

Worse yet, the new Socialist President Hollande pushed ahead with a return to outright colonial invasion, with air strikes and arms to Syrian rebels in opposition to both the Syrian government and ISIS supporters. This confused policy only makes sense if the intent is to dismantle the Syrian state and refashion a Syrian puppet government, harking back to France’s invasion of Syria-Lebanon following WWI in collusion with Britain, when they destroyed the Ottoman state and set up puppet regimes across the Middle East.

France was slow to adjust to post-WWII decolonization, and stubbornly maintained its military presence not only in Vietnam but in the Middle East. Along with Britain, now both humiliated bankrupt powers, it was in no position to enforce its will, and it handed over its colonial possessions to the US either directly or via the new world order institutions. Plus, of course, intrigue where a glimmer of independence appeared, as in Iran in 1953 or Egypt 1956.

Worst of all was the horror France inflicted for more than a century in Algeria. Algeria had to suffer a long, brutal war of liberation in which a million Algerians died before France finally left in 1962. French meddling in Algeria since has only compounded the animosity, especially the support given the military coup in 1992 in which 200,000 Algerians died.

France’s current return to openly colonial policies, first in Afghanistan, then Libya, Mali and now Syria, are guaranteed to have dire consequences. To its credit, France did not support the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, but there are now 3,200 French troops there.

France and US Support the Terrorists

France and the US have played a dangerous and foolish hand in their great games of asserting world power, at times using jihadists (1980s in Afghanistan) and at other times attacking them (1990s+ in Afghanistan), sometimes both at the same time (2011+ in Syria).

“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN in January 2014. Is McCain not aware that two of the most successful factions fighting Syrian President Assad’s forces are Islamist extremist groups Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS, and that their success is due to the support they have received from Qatar and Saudi Arabia? A senior Qatari official told The Atlantic journalist Steve Clemons that “he can identify al-Nusra commanders by the blocks they control in various Syrian cities. But ISIS is another matter. As one senior Qatari official stated, ‘ISIS has been a Saudi project.’”

France doesn’t have a wild card like McCain, but, like the US, supports Islamic fundamentalists in Syria and elsewhere through its ties with the Saudi and Qatari regimes and its actions in Syria. Even after it became obvious to everyone that the regime change project in Syria has led to an expansion of terrorism, Hollande was still pursuing it.

But then this hypocrisy goes for all the western nations, in the first place Canada, which has been bombing Syrian rebels and, at the same time, just signed a $14.8b arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The largest arms exports contract in Canadian history will be remembered as going to one of the worst human rights violators in the world and a funder of ISIS-related groups in Syria and Iraq.

In fact, Canada’s record on bombing Muslims in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, on restricting burqas and promoting ‘free speech’ defaming Islam, mirrors France, and led to a shooting last year that penetrated the parliament buildings in Ottawa and had Prime Minister Harper cowering in his closet.

Harper’s answer, when he had stopped shaking, was the same as Hollande’s: he insisted that “Canada will not be intimidated” by acts of violence and remained committed to Canada’s efforts “to work with our allies around the world and fight against the terrorist organizations … who bring their savagery to our shores.” He did admit that “we’re all aware and deeply troubled that both attacks were carried out by Canadian citizens, by young men born and raised in this peaceful country,” but, like Hollande today, failed to draw the logical conclusion.

Powder Keg

France has the largest Muslim population in Europe at 4m. Despite its claims of “liberty, equality and brotherhood”, it is considered the most racist country in Europe. French-Algerian communities still live on impoverished housing estates, go to bad schools, and have few opportunities for social advancement.

Discrimination in everything from jobs to housing is routine. There are few French-Algerians in politics, the law, the media or any other profession, though the prisons are full. Hollande refuses to reverse measures like the burqa ban and has highlighted his opposition to halal meat and praying in the street because of a lack of mosques.

Populist rightwing politicians like Nicolas Sarkozy and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen routinely portray alienated migrant communities as France’s enemy within. Le Pen garnered 2

In their communique, the perpetrators of the recent attacks listed France’s crimes as leading a “new crusade” in Syria, as well as defending Charlie Hebdo magazine, and just because of general French decadence and racism. They claimed their targets were well chose ― a football match between ‘crusaders’ France and Germany attended by Hollande, and the Bataclan exhibition where “hundreds of pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice” (the California group Eagles of Death Metal).

“This is for Syria,” were the last words of one of the Paris attackers. But he could have said it was for Mali, or Libya, or Iraq. France is very proactive against Islamists worldwide, especially in the face of what is frequently seen as British and American retreat. Over 10,000 French troops are currently deployed abroad. In addition to Iraq, there are over 5,000 troops in western and central Africa. Last week Hollande announced that France will deploy an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf to assist the fight against ISIS.

As with Osama Bin Laden’s strategy of promoting dramatic terrorist attacks in the West to provoke a crackdown and to radicalize Muslims, the strategy behind the current attacks is to generate a French crackdown to encourage Muslims to follow ISIS’s caliphate fantasy. It has worked all too well so far, and Hollande’s vow to be “ruthless” in his response leads him and France in the wrong direction.

In his address on recent events, Iran’s Leader Imam Khameini acknowledged that “there are voices of criticism in the West about its colonial past. But they only criticize the distant past. Why should the revision of collective conscience apply to the distant past and not to the current problems?”

Originally published here.

Robert Stark Interviews Keith Preston about the Iran Deal, Russia’s role in the Mideast, & the US Elections

I listened to this whole thing. I agreed with every single thing he said. If you really want to try to figure out what is going on the world in domestic politics and US foreign policy, this podcast is a must listen. I also think that everything he says here would be compatible with my view of the Alternative Left

Topics include:

The Iran Deal and the myths about it. Why the US Establishment is divided over the Iran deal. US Jews Shifting Their Views on Israel and Iran. Why the neoconservatives oppose an independent Iran that has emerged as the leader of the Resistance Bloc. How the US has supported Islamic fundamentalist against secular regimes in the Middle East. Why the US is concerned over and wants to prevent Russia from having influence in Mideast. The refugee crisis in Europe and how it’s largely a product of Western intervention in the Middle East. Why the Gulf states are not letting Syrian refugees in and how they bear much of the guilt over the crisis in Syria. Sanders v. Klein on Immigration: The Old Left Against the Adolescent Left. Bernie Sanders and his Enemies to the Left. How the plutocracy and Democratic establishment co-opted the Cultural Left. Trump’s incoherent foreign policy. How Donald Trump and Ross Perot are similar in the sense that their wealth enables them to be outspoken, and they are in favor of Economic nationalism over supply side economics. How ironically a Trump versus Sanders race could lead to an even more polarized America, because those candidates represent positions closer to those of their supporters as opposed to those of special interests.

France, Zionism and US Imperialism

Julian Hochscritt writes:

The all-Zionist turn in our foreign policy is fairly recent. It harks back to Sarkozy in 2007 bringing France into NATO’s integrated military command. He waged a war to replace the Ivory Coast President by a puppet. Then killed his campaign sponsor Qaddafi and 50,000 of his people. Supported the uprisings in Syria.

Finally, Hollande and Valls, the latter one being particularly Zionist (Freemason, Jewish spouse, Philosemitism-driven), got closer to the Sunni fundamentalists, like a US puppet. “We”? We know it. But we can’t do much. We are in a quasi-dictatorship. The regime is crumbling. France feels like a People’s Democracy in the 1980’s.

Every media is a a Pravda with journalists vilifying ‘deviants’. Politics are a one-party state (with two factions). The Nomenklatura justifies its power with dogmas it doesn’t apply to itself, namely anti-racism (they’re sending their children to all-White schools, and they’re tied to Israel), anti-sexism (they’re wealthy families and they’re Masons), and anti-pollution (they’re the airports’ hyperclass and they’re calling for more immigrants). And of course, the Euro, the EU, the LGBT, which are codewords for finance worship, US worship, Antichrist worship.

Last time in January, the movement of grief was channeled to crack down even more on free speech: ISIS propaganda relies heavily on the Internet much like the Alt Right, and they know it. Again this time they used the shock wave to finalize our cultural genocide – they managed to get the Charlies and the United Morons think the attacks were caused by an ‘apartheid’ that could only be corrected by a ‘repopulation plan’ where mayors are forced to accept housing schemes. It’s crazy.

Perhaps the third attack will see people disconnecting with the government? For as of now, the 129 corpses are a huge Hollande win.

Julian writes an excellent rundown on the madness that seems to have seized the French. It almost seems that France has turned into another USA, as has the UK recently. Canada started implementing its “Little America” plan under Harper.

One thing I notice is that there is seems to be little difference between the French “Left” and the French “Right” anymore. What on Earth is the differences between Sarkozy and Hollande for God’s sake? I can’t see a thing! Sarkozy is Hollande is Sarkozy is Hollande. Where does one end and the other begin? It’s like a snake eating its tail. On economics? The same. On foreign policy? The same. It’s like the difference between the US Democratic and Republican Parties. There’s really not much there. Just two wings of Deep State Party of the Multinationals and the rich.

We did seem to see a strong pro-Israel turn under Sarky. I noticed that. Apparently he was Jewish?

I am not so sure that France has gone pro-Zionist, but the anti-Iran madness that opposes Hezbollah, Iran, Syria, and the Houthis benefits only Israel. Sure, these entities carry out overseas actions – against Israelis and sometimes Jews! What does that have to do with the US, France or the UK? Can someone please tell me how Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis are dangerous to the US or the West? I am still trying to figure this out. When was the last time they attacked us? Lebanon? Saudi Arabia? Iraq? And whose fault was that?

The West’s lunatic anti-Shia jihad that has thrown it into bed with ISIS, Al Qaeda and the endless similar salafi jihadi factions can only be for Israel or for our Sunni allies in the Gulf, Jordan or Turkey. Of course the Gulf states, Jordan and Turkey want to kill all the Shia. We have known that for years now. But why on Earth would the West get in on the Sunni anti-Shia jihad?

The best evidence from Seymour Hersch’s work is that the West is not siding with the Sunni fanatic states’ Shia Holocaust Plan but is instead using them to smash Iran and roll back Iranian influence in the region. But why should Iranian or Shia influence in the region matter to the US? Is the US a Sunni Arab country? Do we want to genocide the Shia because they are heretics and infidels?

No, instead of backing the Sunnis mad exterminationism, we are simply using the Sunni states as a tool to “smash Iran and Iranian influence.” But why should Iran and Iranian influence in the region matter to the West? Unless the Jews have actually succeeded in the multiyear campaign of screaming at us and whispering in the Kings’ ears that Iran is the real enemy, that is.

Have the Israelis convinced the West that the enemies of Israel are the enemies of the West? Or is this Western anti-Shia campaign simply for Israel and for no one else? After 2001, we were tasked with destroying all of Israel’s enemies. We quickly took out Iraq. Then we tried to take out Lebanon and Hezbollah with the March 14 Color Revolution. Then we took out Libya. Now we are trying to take out Syria.

The only enemy of Israel left is Iran. All of the Sunni states surrendered to Israel long ago, and most of them now work hand in hand with the Israelis. The Saudis in particular are very close to Tel Aviv. For a long time, Qatar was a holdout. It even housed the main offices of Hamas. However, they came under extreme pressure from someone (Who? The US?), and they booted Hamas out a while ago.

If the Western anti-Shia and anti-Iran campaign is all about Israel, one wonders if NATO and the West have gone seriously over to the Israelis side in recent years.

Tony Blair set the Brits’ part in motion by invading Iraq.

Since 2007, the French have joined the “get Iran” Coalition.

NATO is spearheading the “Get Iran” campaign. Has NATO gone seriously over to Israel recently? Why don’t they just make Israel a member of NATO? Has NATO always been so strongly in favor of Israel?

Another possibility is that instead of making a strong turn towards Israel, France, the UK, and NATO are simply lining up slavishly behind US foreign policy. This perhaps makes the most sense of all. The British and French have simply tied their ship to America. The British have been American slaves for a very long time. British foreign policy can be summed up for a long time now as supporting the US in every single one of its foreign policy endeavors.

This blind “follow the Yanks” policy goes way back and is related to something called Atlanticism. Atlanticism is a foreign policy doctrine that suggests that the UK (and other northern European countries) and the US have very special and unique ties by history and blood to each other. Hence the foreign policy of the US and Northern Europe should be coordinated as much as possible. In practice this tends to boil down to “Follow the Yank Pied Piper.” Other Atlanticist countries (that I know of) are the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway.

So has France recently become an Atlanticist country? It seems that since 2007, they are as Atlanticist as the UK.

Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You

In 2007, NATO, in particular the US, the UK, France, Germany and Turkey all decided to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad for uncertain reasons. In general, the reason for this was given as roll back Iran, defeat Iran, destroy Iran, etc.The targets at the time were:

  • Iran
  • Syria
  • Hezbollah
  • Hamas (sponsored, armed and trained by Iran and Hezbollah)

Later enemies included the Yemeni Houthi, falsely accused of being Iranian proxies. The Iraqi Shia were left out of this anti-Shia jihad for tactical reasons although the Iraqi state is quite close to Iran.

Seymour Hersch’s article called The Redirect describes this change in policy using CIA sources. The US and the rest of the West decided to change focus and take on the Shia states and movements instead of the Sunnis. The reason for doing this is unclear, as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and the Houthis are no threat at all to the US or the rest of the West.

They are a threat to the Jews – to Israel. For a very long time now, the Jews have been yelling at the US when they are not whispering in our ear that Iran and its allies are the biggest threat to the US and the West in the Middle East. It’s all a gigantic lie of course, and it’s part of a project to make the enemies of Israel into the enemies of the US, which has been very successful by the way.

For whatever reason, the US and the rest of the West, especially France and the UK, have decided that Iran and its allies are the worst enemies of the West in the Middle East. This has been official NATO policy since 2007 – Iran and its allies are NATO’S enemy #1 in the Middle East. Other than the fact that NATO has decided that the enemies of Israel are the enemies of NATO, it hard to see the logic of this.

For the US at least, one reason may be paybacks. The US is still furious at Iran for the Embassy takeover, and we have never forgiven them. The US Deep State are like the Jews – their motto is “never forgive, never forget,” and so is ours. This is one more way that the US is a “Jewish” country of Judaized Gentiles. America never forgives any attack or slight done to it, and we stay in revenge mode forever until the target of our enmity is destroyed, just like the Jews.

We still refuse to pay Vietnam for the tremendous war damage we did. We won’t even help them clean the place up! This “never forgive, never forget, never back down” mindset is the reason why we will not cooperating with them. We are still furious that the Vietnamese forced us to withdraw from Vietnam while our South Vietnam puppet was overthrown in a severe defeat for America. I do not think we will ever forgive them for that, as America never forgives.

And similar to Vietnam, Iran will always remain a US enemy due to the Embassy takeover until we make them say uncle or regime change them at some point.

By the same token, the US is still furious at Hezbollah for the bombing of the US Marine base in Lebanon in 1983 in which over 300 US Marines died and for the execution of a CIA agent in Beirut several years later.

But this probably not done by Hezbollah. It would be more accurate to say it was done by Iran.

There was also some sort of a Hezbollah plane hijacking that I am not up on. For some reason, this made us very angry.

Also Hezbollah probably set off the bomb at the Jewish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, killing ~80 Jews and wounding many more. The group also probably set off a suicide bomb on a bus in Bulgaria, killing ~17 Israeli tourists. Both of these incidents where Jews and Israelis were killed really infuriated the US, which doesn’t seem to make sense, as it was Argentines and Israelis, not Americans, who were killed in both places. But if the US is a in effect a Jewish country filled with 310 million Jews or Judaized Gentiles, and if the enemies of the Jews and Israel really are the enemies of America, then it seems to make a lot more sense.

As such, the West has declared war on much of the Shia of the Middle East because they were aligned with Iran. But it is a mystery why the West feels so threatened by Iran and its allies.

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