“Islamic State” Repeating The Biggest Mistake Hitler Made

Namely biting off more than they can chew.

Hitler sealed his own doom, and Germany's defeat, by simultaneously picking fights with Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Arranging an overwhelmingly superior coalition of forces to fight against you in war seems like a dumb idea.

“Islamic State” is replicating that insanely overconfident strategy in spades. Not content to be battling Kurdish peshmerga, Iraqi militias, and the U.S. Air Force, it responded to Russia's air campaign in Syria (mostly directed against “moderate” rebels favored by the U.S.) by bombing a Russian civilian airliner over the Sinai desert in Egypt. It followed up with a terrorist rampage in Paris on November 13^th, turning the tepid French contribution against IS into stepped-up bombing. Jordan's ruling king accused IS was waging “world war against humanity.” The boss of the Roman Catholic Church, the “Pope,” sees a possible “third world war.” Numerous national rulers verbally attacked IS. It is beginning to seem as if that “65-national coalition” that top U.S. officials brayed about might actually amount to something at last.

The security chief of Iraqi Kurdistan, a man named Barzani, opined in a broadcast interview that if that coalition got serious, IS could be defeated in “months” or even “weeks.” Surely IS-controlled territory could be retaken. IS is despised and feared by most of the populace under its heel, and it only has a few tens of thousands of armed men.

I predict the terrorist attacks in Paris on the 13^th marks the beginning of the end for IS. (And I can hardly wait to say Good Riddance.)

But that won't be the end of the problem of Islamofascism. IS was preceded by Al-Qaeda, and may well be followed by another cancerous growth of murderous fanaticism motivated by religious zealotry (and a lust for power). IS is a symptom. The disease is spread from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. So far, the U.S. has only been trying to treat symptoms, not the cause of the disease.

Neocon James Woolsey Called For Ed Snowden to be "Hanged" in 2013

R. James Woolsey Jr., a made member of the permanent reactionary faction of the U.S. power structure, had this to say about the courageous whistleblower Edward Snowden, (whom he now blames for the Islamic State attack in Paris), on Rupert Murdoch's agitpropaganda TV channel Fox "News" on December 17, 2013: "He should be prosecuted for treason. If convicted by a jury of his peers, he should be hanged by his neck until he is dead." ["If" he is convicted, indeed. That's just keeping up the pretense of "fair" trials in a U.S. kangaroo court in a political case.]

But Woolsey is far more sympathetic to the convicted spy Jonathan Jay Pollard, whom the U.S. has just announced is to be freed from prison. Pollard is the American Jew and Zionist fanatic who stole large quantities of highly classified military information and delivered it to his Israeli handlers. Woolsey attributes Pollard's long imprisonment to "anti-Semitism." [1]

Pollard of course acted in secret to aid a foreign power.  He committed espionage. Edward Snowden gave his information to the entire world through media outlets, which chose what to publish. Snowden acted as an altruist and patriot. [2]

Woolsey's "pro-Semitism" is nicely balanced by his hostility against Muslims. He is an actor in the demagogic, inflammatory attacks on Muslims generally. For example, he campaigned for the 2010 Oklahoma ban on "Sharia law," contributing a recorded agitprop message that thousands of Oklahomans were subjected to. He's a key figure in various Muslim Threat-mongering organizations. One of these propaganda mill/political pressure outfits, the so-called "Center for Security Policy," put out a book by Woolsey, fellow permanent member of the reactionary power constellation Frank Gaffney, Jr, and the notorious violent extremist Lt. General William Boykin, luridly titled Shariah: The Threat to America. [3]

Notice; not "Jihad," or "Islamic Terrorism." Sharia. Which is a code of conduct for Muslims, religious "law." These guys sure seem like Crusaders. I guess they want a Christian vs. Muslim war. That'll end up well!

Just to give you the flavor of this reactionary rabble-rousing rant, here's a quote: "Most mosques in the United States already have been radicalized, that most Muslim social organizations are fronts for violent jihadists and that Muslims who practice sharia law seek to impose it in this country," (my emphases). Considering the long list of their activities, these arch-reactionaries probably had their underlings ghostwrite this extended political pamphlet in the guise of a book, but obviously they reviewed and approved it. It reflects their mentality and ideology.

I guess it makes sense that Woolsey has a soft spot for Pollard. Woolsey by his actions is very much aligned with the Likud and even farther rightwing Israeli elements. In their view, it serves Israeli interests to whip up American Christians against Muslims. Too bad it doesn't serve American interests, or world interests. (Or even, ultimately, Israeli interests.)

I'm an atheist. So I realize that all religion is guff. However, creating permanent hostility between billions of these fool "believers" who "believe" different things. (Although ironically Christianity is basically a mutation of Judaism, and Islam is just a knock-off of Judeo-Christianity; but that doesn't stop them killing each other, even within Islam and Christianity- recall the numerous wars in Europe between Catholics and Protestants.) I also think it is necessary to fight the Islamofascists. However, just fighting ISIS or Al-Qaeda or whoever is treating the symptoms of a disease without treating the cause. Thus it is no cure. The root of the disease continues to be spread by Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabist evangelizing worldwide, and by the Pakistani military's support for its various Frankenstein monster terrorists aimed at India and at "exerting influence in Afghanistan," as Pakistan's apologists like former CIA officers Bruce Riedel and Michael Scheuer have it.

I should mention; Woolsey, predictably, is a defender of CIA torturers. What did you expect?

1] Letter from Woolsey published in rabidly rightwing Wall Street Journal (owned by Murdoch), on July 5, 2012.

A useful synopsis of facts about Woolsey and his "career" is at Wikipedia.

2] A naive patriot, however. I think opposition to the U.S, mega-police state should be based on human rights. American guff about freedom and democracy and rights is just that, guff. I'm an anti-nationalist. No human "owes" any loyalty to any nation-state, which are artificial political constructions run for the benefit of their rulers and rich citizens. (Well,maybe there could be exceptions for Scandinavian countries and such, where the politicians have been forced to run things to benefit the citizens generally.  But there the state serves the people, not vice versa as in places like the U.S., China, Russia, Iran, the UK, etc.)

3] Boykin is a fundamentalist Christian and latter-day Crusader who explicitly sees the "war on terror" as a religious war. He was appointed to top positions overseeing death-squad-type units in the military and CIA, a terrifying commentary on the fascistic fanatics who staff the U.S.' instruments of violence. Scroll down to the "Controversies" section of his Wikipedia entry to start your education on this lethally violent, dangerous zealot.

Former U.S. Secret Police Boss Blames Edward Snowden for Paris Massacre

R. James Woolsey, Jr., CIA director for the first two years of Bill Clinton's reign, and an arch-reactionary and career imperialist apparatchik, says that "Snowden has blood on his hands." These were his last words yesterday (Sunday) afternoon on the U.S. government radio propaganda network "news" program "All [sic] Things Considered." NPR brought him on to tell us what to think about the Paris rampage in Paris by the reputed Islamic State terrorists on Friday November 13th. The NPR female co-host of the program (Audie N. Cornish) conducting the interview didn't ask for an explanation of this preposterous, demagogic libel, much less take issue with it.

NPR, like the corporate media, relentlessly dredges up various reactionaries to indoctrinate the public in how to view the world. 

Woolsey, born in the extremely rightwing state of Oklahoma, was identified as the chair of something called the "Leadership Council" at the hard-rightwing pressure group/propaganda mill "Center For the Defense of Democracies," which specializes in Islam-bashing these days.

In similar if more oblique and subtle vein, the boss of the New York City Police Department, a department with a global reach, William Bratton, expressed great interest in how the terrorists communicated and why their communications weren't intercepted. This is part of an ongoing campaign by U.S. and UK police chiefs and secret police bosses to attack the idea that there should be any protection of privacy in communications or any encryption of the people's communications. 

Since the terrorists were already known to the French secret police, a better line of inquiry would be why are they incompetent to foil such attacks. Another question is whether the French secret police and police deliberately allowed the attack to proceed. Police did not arrive at the rock concert where most of the deaths (80 of 129, with hundreds more wounded) occured, for 45 minutes. The targets were all in a neighborhood of young, liberal-minded people. So the victims were predominantly people that reactionary police loathe to begin with. Plus, this shakes the anti-war leanings of such people. So the reactionary power establishment wins two ways.

R. James Woolsey, Jr.,nasty apparatchik.

 

Terrorist Organization Attacked By Terrorists In Terrorist Bombings

In a Beirut suburb inhabited largely by Shiites and dominated by Hezbollah, two suicide bombers blew themselves up, having been brainwashed into believing that this act of mass murder would result in their own immortality and eternal reward in paradise, kept company by 76 virgins. (Although I would think that after a few centuries or millennia, even 76 virgins- ex-virgins after awhile- would get boring. In any event, it sure would be nice if Saudi Arabia would stop paying to brainwash boys in “madrassas” into believing such shit.)

In addition to eliminating themselves from the realm of the actually living, they ended the lives of 41 people (so far), and wounded at least 239, some of whom will likely die, others who will be maimed for life.

Islamic State did its usual little victory dance, publicly braying that they did it. We can believe their boast.

Islamic State believes that the proper response to forces that fight them is to “retaliate” by attacking civilians. Having just been driven back from a Syrian airbase they had besieged for two years, by a combination of Hezbollah “fighters,” Iranian forces, and Russian airpower, what better way to “avenge” their own military defeat than by blowing up as many random Lebanese citizens they can?

One of the suicide bombers attempted to get to a mosque. The very very religious Islamic State likes targeting mosques of the “wrong” brand of Islam, the Shia. Their precursors in Iraq, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda that gave Osama bin Laden heartburn with their atrocities aimed at other Muslims, showed a similar proclivity.

It's been barely a week since Islamic State expressed their displeasure with Russia's intervention in Syria by apparently blowing up a Russian civilian airliner over Egypt, carrying vacationers back to St. Petersburg.

Hezbollah of course is designated as "terrorist" by Israel, the U.S, and the European Union that habitually sings form the U.S. political choirbook. So terrorists bombed terrorists.

Of course, the Western media won't describe it that way. That would beg too many questions.

Nor is this bombing a “terrorist” bombing. It's just a “bombing.” That is also the stylebook assiduously followed by Western media when there's a terrorist bombing in Pakistan, or Iraq, or Yemen. Political bombings by terrorists are only “terrorist” bombings when they target “Western interests.”

Or white people.

Also, this bombing is being viewed as if through a telescope, something far away. Contrast that with the emotional rending of garments that occurs on the extremely rare occasions that a "white" nation gets hit, such as the Boston Marathon bombing, in which 3 three whole people were killed. Three! Oh, the humanity! (There were several hundred wounded, a few of whom lost legs.) This latest terrorist bombing "over there" will be forgotten by Western media in a day or two. (If not hours.)

Some of this relative indifference can be chalked up to parochialism. Except that the U.S. and European medias sure are obsessed with the Middle East.  

“The” media never offers any explanation for any of this. They just assume no one notices.

This is part and parcel of arrogantly imposing their own ideological presumptions as Objective Reality. No need to explain.

Israeli Death Squad Raids Palestinian Hospital in Hebron

A squad of Shin Bet (also known as Shabak,the so-called Israeli Security Agency) secret police agents snuck into a Palestinian hospital at 3 am, with an agent pretending to be a pregnant Palestinian woman to kidnap a wounded Palestinian man accused of being involved in a stabbing attack two weeks prior. The man's cousin entered the hospital room and was shot five times, killing him. (Israeli secret police and military assassins seem to love impersonating Palestinians on their murder missions, something often boasted about in accounts of their "daring exploits.")

Compared with the bombings of Doctors Without Borders hospitals by Israel's allies the U.S. and Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan and Yemen respectively, this violation of international law and civilized norms looks relatively minor. It certainly isn't worthy of much note by the U.S. media, nor complaint by the complicit U.S. government, which shares the guilt for all Israeli crimes, being the crucial enabler of those crimes.

Netanyahu Demands $5 Billion From Obama For Kneecapping Him

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin "Podium Pounder" Netanyahu just came to the U.S. to meet with U.S. President Barack "Waffler" Obama, allegedly to "mend fences," as the very pro-Israeli U.S. establishment media claims, after former House Speaker and Republican reactionary John Boehner invited him to address the U.S. Congress behind Obama's back to fulminate against prospective deal with Iran for that country to largely dismantle its nuclear program. Netanyahu had for months been working frenetically to sabotage the deal with constant public attacks (and hidden maneuverings and manipulations and the pulling of the various cords that Israel has attached to levers of U.S. power).

Having failed in that endeavor, Netanyahu now demands of Obama a whopping increase of two-thirds in the annual supply of free armaments and ordnance the U.S. gives to Israel to kill Palestinians and dominate the region with. Obama in effect is expected to reward Netanyahu for his assaults on the U.S. president and on the attempts to cut a deal with Iran by upping the annual reward to Israel from $3 billion a year (already the most foreign aid any nation gets from the U.S., and none of it loans) to $5 billion.

Needless to say, U.S. power elites will not react with outrage and take offense at this brazen demand, a demand for a reward for bad behavior. Because U.S. elites are political and psychological captives of Israel.

Weird, but true.

Pick Your Poison: In Syria, U.S. Will Have to Decide Who It Hates More

In Syria, a victory today highlights a conundrum for the U.S.

The victory was over ISIS, Devil Number One in current U.S. political eschatology. For two years, ISIS has besieged an Assad regime airbase. Now the siege has been broken by a combination of Russian air power, Iranian troops, and Hezbollah “fighters” (“terrorists” to the U.S., Israel, and the Euroducks that habitually line up behind those first two).

Notice that all the victorious allied forces that beat back ISIS are on the U.S. Enemies List. (And not entirely coincidentally, on the Israeli Enemy List also.)

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin “Pummeler of Palestinians” Netanyahu right now is in the U.S., where he once again inveighed against Iranian “aggressions.” U.S. imperialist officials from Barack Obama on down have repeatedly excoriated Iranian “bad behavior” and “destabilization” and other alleged misdeeds. And Russia is in the doghouse for its “aggression” and “destabilization” [sic!] in Ukraine, among other things displeasing to the master of the world, “the indispensable nation,” the U.S.

The Russians have proven cunning in dealing with the Syrian civil war. Remember when Syrian butcher Bashar “Barrel Bomb” al-Assad crossed Barack “Hamlet” Obama's red line and used chemical weapons (nerve agent, [1] at least twice) against the populations in rebel-held areas? Obama suddenly was caught like a deer in headlights, his bluff being called. Putin came to his rescue, proposing that Assad hand over his chemical weapons. (After some footdragging, he mostly did. That is, if you don't count chlorine as a chemical weapon, which it very definitely is when you bombard people with it, as Assad has been doing ever since.)

Last month Russia has outmaneuvered the U.S. yet again in Syria, sending in warplanes to fight “terrorists.” The U.S. griped that Russia was mostly bombing the “good” rebels, the “moderates” the U.S. dribbles out inadequate aid to.

Now with this drive against ISIS, the U.S.' mouth is shut when it comes to whining that Russia isn't really fighting ISIS- or at least, the next time the U.S. opens its yap and spouts that complaint again, Russia has a killer retort.

Donald Trump actually blurted out something sensible when he said it doesn't bother him if Russia fights ISIS.

Unfortunately that isn't all Russia is doing in Syria. It's also propping up an extremely loathsome regime and dictator.

1] The term nerve gas is misleading, as the chemicals in question, invented by the Nazis, are actually liquids. It is “delivered” to its “targets” (victims) in bombs or artillery shells. Israel is one of the few countries that still has an arsenal of such weapons. Dispersed as droplets, one droplet has the potential to kill if it lands on your skin. So don't let any land on you, okay?

Russia Outdoes U.S. Five-Fold In Bombing Hospitals

Russia is smoking hot in the war crimes category! In just a few days they've already managed to bomb five-  count 'em, five!-  hospitals in Syria in order to keep Bashar "Barrel Bomb" al-Assad in power. That's five times more hospitals than the U.S. has bombed this year. The U.S. has merely bombed one hospital year- to-date, the trauma center run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) in Kunduz, Afghanistan. So the U.S. has some catching-up to do. (Although if you go back to the record books, the U.S. bombed hospitals in Vietnam, "North" Vietnam in particular. And of course plenty of hospitals were caught in area bombing of cities in World War II. But that was just "collateral damage." No harm, no foul, using U.S. military accounting standards.) [1]

But Putin looks positively like a punk compared to Assad himself. The hospital Russia most recently bombed, in Idlib, Syria, has previously been bombed seventeen times by Assad the Sadistic Slayer. And Assad would be slacking off if that were the only hospital he bombed. But to be fair, Assad has been at it for over four years, so Russia shouldn't be counted out yet. It still has a shot at closing the gap and coming from behind to"win." [2]

The Russian warplanes used a classic "double-tap" attack, bombing the hospital twice, the strikes hitting ten minutes apart. This is the same technique French navy frogmen used when they planted two bombs on the hull of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in the harbor of Auckland, New Zealand, to keep Greenpeace from interfering with a French nuclear bomb "test" in the Pacific Ocean. The second explosion sealed the doom of Fernando Pereira, a Portuguese photographer and father of young children. The CIA did the same in a murderous attack on a ship moored in the Havana, Cuba, harbor. And the U.S. routinely does it in drone attacks in Pakistan, for example, waiting for rescue workers and neighbors to start digging out the rubble to blow them up too. [3]

Today we learned there's a new contestant in the Who Can Bomb The Most Hospitals Sweepstakes: Saudi Arabia. They just demolished a hospital in Yemen. And the icing on the cake is that it was another Médecins Sans Frontières hospital! How exciting is that! That's worth Bonus Points. Apparently the Saudis took inspiration from the U.S. attack on the MSF trauma center in Kunduz, Afghanistan, at the beginning of October. [4]

This follows the Saudi bombing of two wedding parties in less than a week, killing over 160 people. And numerous aerial attacks on mosques, marketplaces, apartment buildings and homes, all designed to reinstall the ousted "president" and successor to long-time dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh, on the seat of government. (If Yemen can even be said to have a government, which is doubtful.)

The U.S. and Western governments and media generally have been supportive or neutral about the Saudi crimes, with no outrage at all, whereas they have waxed indignant over Russian airstrikes killing Syrian civilians (dozens so far vs. several thousand Yemenis killed by the Saudis with their U.S.-bought aircraft and cluster bombs). I guess I'm going to sound like a broken record (you're not too young to know what a "record" is, or what happens when they "skip," are you?) but here goes: Man, the U.S. and its lackeys sure are hypocritical, criticizing others for doing what they do, applying double-standards and bloviating in trumped-up "moral outrage."

There, I said it. Just for the record.

1] The hospital the U.S. bombed on October 3rd, the Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) facility in Kunduz, Afghanistan, was the only trauma center in that entire region of Afghanistan. Now, thanks to an hour long assault on it by a U.S. aerial gunship, it is closed. Thus is the U.S. "nation-building" in Afghanistan. See my four previous essays on the matter between October 5th and October 9th, below.

2] According to an interview with a doctor at the Idlib hospital this morning on the U.S. government domestic radio propaganda network NPR, on the program "Morning Edition," the Idlib hospital has now been bombed a total of eighteen times. I'm presuming for now the person really was a doctor from the hospital, not an actor or liar. Given the long history of U.S. government and media deceptions, and media complicity with CIA disinformation, perhaps there should be an asterisk here. On the other hand, the nature and practices of the Assad regime give great credence to the story.

Here's something you probably forgot. When the protests first started, one of the first victims of Assad's regime was a teenager seized for painting anti-regime graffiti. He was tortured for a week or so, including having holes drilled in his kneecaps and his penis hacked off. When his mutilated corpse was returned to his family, they were warned to keep it secret, or else. But they defied the terror regime.

We also know that drilling holes in people's bones is a favorite technique of the torturers employed by Assad the Sadistic Slayer.

3] Last month the commander of the French state terrorist team that blew up the Rainbow Warrior "apologized" for murdering Pereira, which he insists, against all the evidence, was an "accident." Now he expects to be forgiven by his victim's family, to whom he addressed his "apology" through a media interview. (Not "man" enough to speak to them directly, it seems, or even write a letter. Classy, Bub.)

The terrorist, Jean-Luc Kister, said “I have the blood of an innocent man on my conscience, and that weighs on me.” On the other hand, he still justifies his terrorist attack 30 years later: “We had to obey orders, we were soldiers.” (Ever hear of a Nazi murderer who didn't say the same?)

Unsurprisingly selfish, he seeks absolution from his victims so his conscience will stop bothering him. Dishonestly, he's still pretending there was no lethal intent- even though the boat was full of people as the French well knew when they bombed it. The Greenpeace people rejected his "apology."

The French secret police planted a spy in Greenpeace's New Zealand office ahead of the terrorist attack. See "The Bombing of the Rainbow Warrior," by Greenpeace. Greenpeace says the bombs were plastic explosives wrapped in plastic, whereas Wikipedia says limpet mines, which are magnetic anti-ship mines. The Wikipedia article is more detailed than the Greenpeace description, with many footnotes and links. Read the Greenpeace description first, to get the general picture. There are also more details by Greenpeace at "The crew then and now." For details of the terrorists and French secret police infiltrators, see "A beret, a bottle of Beaujolais and a baguette," Greenpeace.

The second explosion came 7 minutes after the first. Naturally, the crew didn't think there would be a second bomb, so they didn't immediately evacuate after the first blast. 

Here's a fact that proves the French had lethal intent: If the French didn't want anyone to be hurt, the way to go would be to call in a warning that bombs on the hull were going off in ten minutes. That's what people who truly want to avoid injuring people do, like the despised Weather Underground and other demonized left-wing groups did.

But then, people motivated by values of fighting injustice and oppression operate by different principles than professional killers do.

4] The BBC reported the Saudi atrocity this morning. Tactfully omitted by the BBC were the facts that the Saudis used their U.S.-made warplanes and their U.S.-made bombs in the attack. And that the U.S. is backing the 6-month-long Saudi aerial terror campaign against Yemen, the poorest country in the region. But the "United Kingdom" always goes easy on Saudi atrocities- and backs the U.S. too of course. They've been loyal lackeys of the U.S. since World War II. And as for Saudi Arabia, there's oil under that sand, Guv'nor!

 Murderer Francois Mitterrand, former French president and international gangster, ordered the terrorist bombing of the Rainbow Warrior. (He was also a bigamist, with a "secret" second family the French press was forbidden by law from mentioning. Just saying...)

 A Real Man Ain't Afraid to BOMB A Hospital or Two!

 Him too.

Fernando Pereira and his daughter, Marelle, 

when both were still alive, and happy.

 

 

Assad Takes Time Off From Slaughtering Syrians To Visit His Savior Putin

Bashar "Barrel Bomb" al-Assad, the "president" (hereditary dictator) of Syria, found time in his busy schedule of auto-genocide and national destruction to pay a visit to his now-leading patron, fellow autocrat Vladimir Putin of Russia. Putin greeted Assad at the Kremlin, the long-time seat of power in Moscow going back to the era of the Tsars. The two tyrants contorted their faces into simulacra of smiles for the official photos, and shook hands.

U.S. government officials from Obama and Kerry on down, and the blatherariat, have been in a tizzy the last few weeks over Russia's bombing campaign in Syria designed to shore up the Assad regime. Especially vexing to the U.S. is that the main Russian targets seem to be the "moderate" Syrian rebels, namely the ones the U.S. supports in a half-assed way.  The U.S. has finally gotten around to giving them some anti-tank weapons, but no anti-aircraft ones, which they sorely need.

The Obama regime is paranoid that such a weapon might fall into the hands of terrorists who would use it to shoot down a Western civilian airliner. So what if that did happen? Why are the lives of a few hundred Westerners worth more than those of 200,000 Syrians who have already died? It's cowardly, chauvinistic, and racist to refuse to supply portable anti-aircraft weaponry to the rebels.

Since the U.S. refuses to allow the besieged Syrian people to defend themselves, the U.S. should have destroyed Assad's air force. The U.S. has had over four years to take out Assad's air force, and several fine opportunities, like after the chemical attacks. Nor would it impose a no-fly zone. Now the U.S. is bent out of shape because Assad's allies (Russia and Iran) are intervening decisively for their man.

I'm pretty sure Putin isn't much impressed with the carping and whining coming from the West over his intervention. A pretty pathetic display, all in all. And U.S. fecklessness has cost many Syrian lives.

To top it off, the Europeans force Syrian refugees to risk their lives in the hands of smugglers, trying to sneak into Europe. Just shameful. (And then there's that cur Donald Trump, who brayed in front of a mob of racist white reactionaries that he'd send "back" the measly 10,000 Syrians Obama claimed he'd let into the U.S. in the next two years- notice that Obama's presidency ends in little more than one year. "They're going back" the loathsome lout exclaimed over and over in his trademark demagogic style, to lusty cheers. What a heartless piece of insect shit. And for what? What does he gain? A moment of approbation from fellow anti-human louts.)

The U.S. has been quick to note the few dozen civilians killed so far by Russian bombs.  (This from a nation that has killed millions in aerial bombing campaigns over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, North Korea, Germany, Japan, Italy, and we can toss in some thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan.) But here's what makes the hypocrisy especially jarring. Saudi Arabia has been waging an aerial terror war over Yemen for over six months now. They and their Arabian Peninsula lackey states have killed several thousand civilians- and the victims weren't "collateral damage," but rather the intended targets. The Saudis, using their American-supplied warplanes and their American-supplied cluster bombs and other munitions, have deliberately targeted markets, mosques, apartment buildings, and even two wedding within a single week that alone killed close to 200 people. (One wedding involved the family of a Houthi tribal leader who the Saudis don't like.) So far several thousand civilians have died in this Nazi-style (or U.S. or British or Israeli-style, for that matter) aerial terror campaign. Plus, half the children of Yemen are now said by the UN to be at risk of starvation, thanks to the Saudi blockade. (The U.S. is selli And ng the Saudis warships to help them.) The U.S. of course, being an accomplice, is thus culpable in Saudi war crimes in Yemen.

And here's how totally cynical the U.S. is: the U.S. government and media don't even believe the Saudi excuse that the Iranians are taking over Yemen via the Houthis!

One more thing. A BBC correspondent reported this morning that an official in the Russian war ministry told her the reason the Russians went in to Syria is because they determined that the Assad regime was two weeks away from falling. (Shades of their ill-fated Afghanistan intervention!) Even allowing for an overly-pessimistic Russian estimate, that tells us two things: First, that the U.S. blew another opportunity to get rid of Assad, which it keeps claiming it requires (a claim belied by its actions of refusing to adequately help the rebels, and by the stricture it placed on its now defunct Syrian force that those recruits only fight ISIS and NOT the Assad regime forces); and Second, that once again American rightists are proven to be paranoid freaks. They insist that everything Russia does is somehow aimed at the U.S. So Russia didn't go into Ukraine to defend its own vital interests, it did it to restart the Cold War and make America look weak. And it's not going into Syria to prop up a long time client, the only nation in the Middle East that Russia can count as friendly, it did it to spite the U.S., to retaliate for economic sanctions imposed on it, etc.

Nor is this solipsistic mentality limited to the rightwing of the nomenklatura and blatherariat.  Just today, one of the young dweebs that NPR staffs its horrid radio programs with, informed the American public that Russia's move into Syria was "a slap in the face" to the U.S. Talk about self-centered! Of course, during the Cold War- which the U.S. is apparently intent on restarting, since it enjoyed winning the last one so much- everything the Soviet Union did was seen as part of an anti-U.S. ploy. And every attempt by oppressed people to throw off U.S.-backed dictatorships was seen as Soviet subversion. [1]

American elites have the attitude that they're at the center of the universe. They've been drunk on power for so long they don't even realize they're inebriated. It distorts their judgment. And the flip side of thinking you're the center of the universe is paranoia- everything revolves around you, so everything that happens is somehow aimed at you.

And there are certainly plenty of examples of the U.S. behaving self-destructively. (But then again, the U.S. isn't unique in that regard. The Axis powers practically behaved as if they had a death wish.)

What was it the ancient Greeks said about Hubris leading to Nemesis?

1] The show is some propaganda named "Here and Now," and the young punk feeding us the party line was one Jeremy Hobson.

Hey look! They even wiped the blood off their hands before shaking! That's how polite they are!

 Best of friends. (Unless Assad becomes expendable later.)

Notice they never get too close.

[For insight into the vicious terror state the Assad regime imposes on Syrians, and the hazardous odyssies Syrians trying to escape its malign clutches endure, I recommend "Ten Borders: One refugee's epic escape from Syria," The New Yorker, October 26, 2016 issue.]

Production of "Hamlet" Starring Joseph Biden Closes

To run for president, or not to run for president; that is the question. Whether it is nobler to feed my ego and shove aside Hillary in a dash for the nomination, or dangle the tantalizing possibility of my candidacy before the media blatherariat.

Alas, box office was punk, there was no groundswell (outside of political apparatchiks and the aforementioned bloviators), and so the months of dithering and teasing and hint-dropping must sadly come to an end. But I swear to thee, I coulda been a contender...