WASHINGTON, D.C.—Legendary quarterback Tom Brady has announced his plan to retire from the NFL to spend more time carving little wooden toys for his grandkids. In response to the earth-shattering news, President Joe Biden has announced his commitment to replace the outgoing football star with a woman of color.
“Listen, folks, it’s time,” said Biden to the press. “In the hundred-year history of the NFL, not a single quarterback has ever been a woman of color. That’s racist! We all know that poor women are just as smart and powerful as white kids. As president, I will nominate a new quarterback to replace Tom Brady that reflects America’s diversity.”
When told he doesn’t have the authority to nominate quarterbacks to the NFL, Biden told his staff he would just sign the executive order and let the courts deal with it later.
“There’s no excuse,” said Biden. When I used to play Nine Pins with Jehoshaphat Jenkins and the townsfolk, we always used to let the black women play with us. I was a civil rights hero, darn it! It’s time for the rest of the world to catch up!”
So far, candidates being considered for the empty position include Michelle Obama, Tyler Perry, and Colin Kaepernick in a woman’s wig.
OTTAWA—As truckers continue to march on Canada’s capital to very politely ask for their human rights back, Trudeau is doubling down on his position. In a fiery speech this week, Trudeau demanded truckers follow his example and get vaccinated like he did, so they don’t catch COVID like he did.
“Listen, I have COVID right now, and trust me—you don’t want this,” said Trudeau in his classic Trudeau girly voice. “I know you all are all deplorable evil disgusting racists, and there’s no avoiding that. But if you would just get the jab like me, you could at least avoid COVID—something I was unable to do.”
With the COVID infection ravaging his thrice-vaccinated body, Trudeau will remain in quarantine, deep in a hole in the ground in an undisclosed location until he has fully recovered, or until the truckers all go home—whichever comes last.
“Be smart, trust the science, and get jabbed, you disgusting racists, it’s the right thing to do,” said Trudeau before coughing uncontrollably into his sleeve and crying.
Will the Canadian government decommission its new holiday? Will the people who jumped like savages on that John MacDonald statue apologize? Of course not. White people are, officially, the world’s worst people. That’s established fact, and what’s a little lying here and there in a good cause?
No other people in the history of the world have ever gloried in hating itself. And any people that keeps this up won’t survive.
We’re all used to phony hate crimes. The demand for white racism so exceeds the supply that hate hoaxes have to be ginned up to meet the need. Last year, the entire nation of Canada — and the whole world — fell for what must be one of the grandest hoaxes ever.
There is a young anthropology instructor at University of the Fraser Valley named Sarah Beaulieu who thinks her job is “to bring to light the stories of, and give voice to, the disenfranchised groups that have been overlooked in the historical record.”
On May 27 last year, she announced she had hit the jackpot.
She said she had used ground-penetrating radar to find evidence of a mass grave at a former boarding school for Canadian Indians run by Catholics. World media were thrilled. The very next day, the New York Times front page proclaimed: “ ‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada.”
It said the remains of 215 children had been found on the grounds of what was known as the Kamloops Residential Indian School, run by the Order of Mary Immaculate from 1893 to 1969, and by the Canadian government for a few years after that.
The worldwide assumption was that vicious nuns had either killed these children or let them die and covered the whole thing up.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau grieved over the “dark and shameful chapter” in Canadian history and ordered all national flags be flown at half-mast.
The flag over parliament in Ottawa stayed lowered for five months.
Mr. Trudeau demanded that the Pope come to Canada.
Naturally, Francis agreed.
That figure — so precise — of 215 dead children caught the imagination. The Vancouver Art Gallery laid out 215 pairs of children’s shoes as a memorial.
Similar collections appeared on the steps of churches and legislatures.
Canada Day was celebrated on July first, just one month after the discovery. The country was still in convulsions, so there was a movement to cancel Canada Day and “wear orange for our children” instead.
These people wanted to go one better and cancel Canada entirely.
Fashion magazine took a break from “style, beauty & grooming, and wellness” to explain that wearing orange “symbolizes solidarity with Indigenous communities who are currently grieving the loss of their children.”
Canada Day celebrations were scrubbed all over the country and the government website for the national holiday emphasized “the pain and shame of darker episodes of our history, the repercussions of which are still felt today.”
Instead of the usual festivities, some people paraded sentiments such as “No pride in genocide.”
The government went all out and proclaimed a brand-new national holiday.
Now and forever more, the nation will celebrate Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It will be “an opportunity to honor the lost children and Survivors (note the upper case) of residential schools.”
It’s another fun time to wear orange, just like these celebrants at a candle-light vigil in Calgary, mourning the lost 215.
Other people celebrated differently. A mob defaced and tore down the statue of Queen Victoria in Winnipeg.
Elizabeth II bit the dirt, too.
Hamilton, Ontario, used to have a statue of Canada’s first prime minister, John MacDonald. Not anymore. [[0:06 – 0:34 ]]
Dozens of churches were burned and many more vandalized. [[0:08 – 0:13]] That was the more than century-old St. Jean Baptiste Parish church in Morinville, Alberta. This is what it used to look like on the inside.
After a news story on June 30 about another church arson, Harsha Walia, executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, tweeted ‘Burn it all down.’
When she was criticized, a blue-check lawyer named Naomi Sayers who calls herself an Indigenous female elite tweeted: “I would help her burn it all down. And that would light our way forward.”
In less than 12 hours, Denmark turns into Florida.
No masks (except possibly in hospitals and nursing homes).
No vaccine passports.
Any person jabbed with ANY Covid shot can enter the country without a test; unvaccinated people can enter with a negative PCR test.
“We say goodbye to the restrictions and welcome the life we knew before,” the prime minister said last week.
Right on schedule, the bluecheck muppets popped up to explain that the Danes had won because they weren’t a bunch of unmasked Trump-loving mouth-breathers.
—
The muppets are half right. Denmark is 90 percent-plus adult vaccinated, almost 70 percent boosted. Plus the Danes have that legendary “high trust in government,” so they do exactly what the public health authorities say, double-quick! Denmark is Dr. Anthony Fauci’s dream.
But here’s the thing.
Sars-Cov-2 could not care less about all that trust and all those jabs. Denmark is now right up there with Israel in seeing the highest rates of infections of any country – ever.
In the last two weeks, more than 10 percent of ALL Danes – the equivalent of 35 million Americans – have been infected with Covid (the number is probably considerably higher, because at some point testing becomes impossible).
As someone once said, virus gonna virus.
And though Omicron is milder than Delta, Covid deaths in Denmark are now higher than at any point except a couple weeks last January, and the rise shows no sign of slowing.
In fact, even if the Omicron wave suddenly turns around with the end of all restrictions (and wouldn’t that be ironic), deaths will almost certainly keep rising through most if not all of February. Deaths lag.
In reality Covid is far from done with Denmark.
But the Danes are done with Covid. I thought they had figured this out back in September, when they went through their first round of loosening restrictions. (I wrote about them then.)
But the fall wave spooked them – and convinced them to give boosters a try.
Now they have learned. Fool me twice, mRNA vaccines, shame on you. Even those legendarily trusting Danes were hardly going to line up for a fourth shot in a hurry.
Let’s just hope that they haven’t mucked up their chance at long-term immunity too much already. Time will tell. (It would be nice if the virologists and immunologists weren’t too scared to attack this question head-on, but Saint Fauci and the Bright Boys (free band name!) are going to do everything possible to keep anyone with a laboratory from asking.)
In any case, the vaccine fanatics – so wrong about so much so often – are right on one point. Small, rich, mostly homogenous countries like Denmark, with relatively stable political cultures, have a big edge right now. Their public health advocates and governments will have a far easier time admitting they were wrong than those in the United States.
The reason should be obvious.
Nobody risks getting fired – much less indicted – in Denmark for telling the truth.
One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion. – Thomas Paine
Monarchy History is replete with critiques of monarchy that could fill a million essays and still leave no room for the kind words, so I will try and focus on the good here. It was consistently proficient in being the dominant form of governance through most of post-antiquity. Despite methods employed, there must be something to be said for that, and perhaps it’s also in the willingness of subjects toward subjugation, something we’ve seen too frequently during the pandemic.
Monarchy gets a bad wrap from historians and democracy sycophants. It wasn’t so bad, so long as you were the monarch or were within the royal court, though you never wanted to be too close to the monarch, nor too distant. Somewhere between dutifully obedient and forgettable was a fine balance to keep your head. Literally.
Hereditary monarchs could be temperamental, cruel, abrasive, impulsive, demanding and indifferent, though many were well educated, thoughtful, wise and measured. The problem with monarchs is you never knew what you would get next. Perhaps with advances in DNA and medical technology we could try this again to make sure syphilitic princes never became kings, who over-taxed overseas colonies into revolt.
The more interesting question we should be compelled to ask given our recent suffered tyrannies is how would a monarch have behaved the past two years aside from complete self isolation and abandonment of his subjects? Would they have done any worse by not doing anything at all? Or worse than five dozen governors, presidents and prime ministers did in locking up healthy people who were never in any harm and forcing them to be injected to enrich corporations that owned them? Would the monarch have told Pfizer and Moderna executives and his health advisors, the minute he knew their products were a travesty and deadly for his subjects, to line up in the town squares across his land to be pelted to death with rocks? Maybe we should be rethinking this one.
Democracy The historical model for this form of government is Athens, Greece, and unlike Monarchy it often gets too much praise. It’s deficiencies are plenty, with the ‘tyranny of the majority’ the most obvious. Look around at public polling data about the pandemic lately and you’ll see this in action first hand. 81 million votes for Brandon Ice Cream Dementia? Even if it was true, which it’s likely not, this is the primo historical example of the tyranny of the majority in action. Elections have consequences and as those entrusted with counting the votes in elections know in Langley, it is only they who really matter.
The word democracy today is nothing more than a rhetorical political weapon to wield in justifying tyrannies whenever rulers need to gaslight their constituents. The assumption always being that whatever is a threat to their tyranny is a threat to democracy itself. It’s a protective shield to hide from the blowback of their own atrocious incompetency. Where the media lies, alternative media that dares tell the truth is “disinformation”. Where the media are stenographers for power, alternative media that exposes their corruption are a “threat to democracy.” This rhetoric can be weaponized for any ends today. Substack is the latest target du jour of the blue check managerial mid wits crying about the unwashed people seeking the truth from alternative sources. These cretins really detest the people, and only love one type of democracy, where the outcome can be arranged through algorithmic manipulation, censorship of the truth and mass coercion between corporate and state powers. This is called Sophisticated Democracy.
Republic The Roman republic was truly a masterful exercise in measured and balanced governance for the time and an example for many in the future to build upon, though like all forms, not without worthy criticisms. Plato’s version would never work today. The most wise among society are ostracized or outright ignored. Even if the most worthy of the role of ‘ruler’ knew it was he who should pursue the challenge, imagine all the compromises of conscience required to fundraise, ass kiss, simplify their thoughts for the commoners and debase their moral principals to participate in such a lowly system. Plato addresses the consequences of refusing this ‘duty’: “The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.” And so we are constantly ruled by the most corrupt, compromised and least worthy.
The most worthy are always kept so far from power that the idea of a thoughtful and wise ruler would be impossible to realize today. Picture a campaign rally, with thousands on their phones hardly able to focus on anything longer than a goldfish can, and they’re gathered before someone like a modern-day Abraham Lincoln giving his Peoria speech against slavery. Most people would be incapable of comprehending much of it, let alone focusing on content and taking it all in for…three hours.
When Netflix documentaries (grade A propaganda), Young Turks episodes and Joe Rogan podcasts are the “deepest” philosophical engagements of a minority of the people, while the majority dance on TikTok and try to “get in her DMs”, than the majority are ill equipped to identify the wisest and most competent in society, so where democracy fails in tyranny of the majority, Plato’s republic fails in incapacity of the majority. The arrogance of the thesis is only outdone by the ignorance of its antithesis, the wisdom of the ruler collapses at the feet of the ignorant ruled. In short, the people would fail to recognize the most worthy if she destroyed all the others on a debate stage in a white pantsuit while saying “Aloha”, or he dared to say that the invasion of Iraq constituted a war crime in 2008 AND had the title of Doctor.
That leaves the greatest constitutional Republic and the greatest founding governing document ever in limbo for at least a century. One could point to the Federal Reserve Act or Income Tax Act or National Security Act and Patriot Act and two dozen other nails in this republic’s coffin, a futile exercise in historical squabbling. All of it had such tremendous potential, and still carries so much promise for so many, if only it could ever be restored.
So, it’s time to serve notice that the game is over. The nation rejects the phantom president and the cabal behind the Covid-19 hustle, and all the Woke hustles that rode in with it.
The Canadian trucker rebellion, rolling east across the vast, frozen Canadian prairie, blew into the country’s Woked-up capital city, Ottawa, like the scalding wrath of history, forcing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to skulk off punkishly under cover of night — after bad-mouthing the big-rig invaders as “a fringe minority” in a nation of otherwise obedient hypnotics sleepwalking into Big Pharma’s spike-protein fun-factory of all-causes early death.
The news media is working super-hard to avoid reporting the event, of course. Canada’s leading paper, The Toronto Star, put up a peevish little item complaining that a protester hung an upside-down maple leaf flag on a statue of national hero Terry Fox (a cancer-stricken athlete who ran across most of the country on a prosthetic leg in 1981 to raise cancer-awareness). The paper also mentioned that “[a] discordant symphony of truck horns blared across downtown Ottawa as demonstrators geared up for their second full day on local streets.” Beyond that, the paper lost interest.
Canada under the Trudeau government has been more restrictive on Covid-19 than the Big Gorilla to its south, with the population compliantly following all the insane, economy-wrecking rules, until a recent mandate to vaxx-up every last trucker in the land finally sparked-off a revolt. Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party failed to win a parliamentary majority in last September’s federal election, and he heads a flimsy coalition potentially facing a no-confidence vote that would drive the PM out of office.
For now, the truckers seem determined to stick around and disrupt the Canadian capital. Their estimated 50,000 rigs could surround the city and create siege conditions, where food supplies and other goods won’t get in, starving the government into surrendering on its mandates and restrictions. So far, the local Ottawa police have stood by with a very light hand, and there are rumors that they are on the same page as the truckers against federal overreach.
Will Mr. Trudeau resort to using the military to break up the revolt? Good luck with that. Like virtually every other “advanced” nation, Canada depends on trucks and truckers to move everything needed for everyday life. The truckers can just say no… we don’t feel like working this month. No poutine or Cornish pasties for you, Ottawa! Then what? Throw them all in jail? How will that help move stuff from Point A to Point B? It kind of looks like they have Mr. T over a Molson barrel. For now, it’s a stand-off, but it looks to me like the Prime Minister must resign and whoever takes charge next will have to rapidly rethink the country’s entire Covid-19 policy in a not-insane direction.
The Canadian revolt appears to be inspiring similar operations in the US, where a movement has started for a massive trucker convoy from California to Washington, DC — the swampy pivot-point of Covid tyranny under the phantasm known as “Joe Biden” — as a very general way of saying we’ve had enough of being pushed around by political grifters and their bureaucratic subalterns.
The Covid-19 saga gets darker every day, while the official alibis, cover-stories, and disinfo ops bend ever deeper toward an arc of criminality. The US government has lied about every plot-line in the two-year horror show. In fact, a conscientious observer would have to conclude the following: That the government’s highest-paid employee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, led surreptitiously in the creation and release of a bioweapon; that he and his cohorts, along with the pharma companies, and other interested parties such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Health Organization, enabled the release of so-called “vaccines” (genetic treatments) that were at least as deadly as the disease itself; that as a result of the shots many people of all ages will die before their natural time; that the process is already underway as documented in the all-causes death data tallied by insurance companies; that the same government officials maliciously suppressed viable, inexpensive, FDA-approved treatments for Covid-19 in order to herd the populace into receiving dangerous “vaccines”; that said officials have worked strenuously to muddle and fake the statistics that would show who is actually dying of what; and that the entire fiasco appears to have been ginned up in order to systematically control the population in ways contrary to our natural rights while killing off a substantial number of us.
Let the trucks roll from Fresno to DC if they still want to play rough. Think the “Joe Biden” gang will try to divert attention by starting a war in Ukraine? They don’t dare. Think the financial markets will tank? Well, of course they will, no matter what, because the markets and the money are detached from reality. Face it: what America needs most of all is to reconnect with reality, and you can be sure that the process will be uncomfortable, having sojourned so far from it for so long. (“Let’s Go, Brandon!”) And Let’s go, Canadian truckers!
Perhaps, instead of adding new nations on whose behalf we will go to war with a great power like Russia, we consider reducing the roster of NATO and restricting the number of nations for whom we must fight to those nations that are vital to our security and bring added strength to the alliance.
Is the territorial integrity of Ukraine a cause worth America’s fighting a war with Russia?
No, it is not. And this is why President Joe Biden has declared that the U.S. will not become militarily involved should Russia invade Ukraine.
Biden is saying that, no matter our sentiments, our vital interests dictate staying out of a Russia-Ukraine war.
But why then does Secretary of State Antony Blinken continue to insist there is an “open door” for Ukraine to NATO membership — when that would require us to do what U.S. vital interests dictate we not do: fight a war with Russia for Ukraine?
NATO’s “open door policy” is based on Article 10, which declares that NATO members, “may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State … to accede to this Treaty.”
Moreover, membership is open to “any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”
Note that NATO admission requires “unanimous” consent of all 30 present members.
Blinken has often stated this as U.S. policy: “From our prospective, NATO’s door is open and remains open, and that is our commitment.”
What Blinken is saying is this: While America will not fight for Ukraine today, America remains open to Ukraine’s accession to NATO, in which event we would have to fight for Ukraine tomorrow, were it attacked by Russia.
What the U.S. needs to do is to say with clarity that while Ukraine is free to apply to NATO, NATO is free to veto that application, and the enlargement of NATO beyond its present eastern frontiers is over, done.
In this crisis, we need to recall how and why NATO was created.
In 1949, the year China fell to Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin exploded an atom bomb, we formed NATO as a defensive alliance to prevent a Russian drive west, from the Elbe to the Rhine to the Channel.
Of the original 12 members of NATO, the U.S. and Canada were on the western side of the Atlantic. Iceland and the U.K. were islands in the Atlantic. France and Portugal were on the Atlantic’s eastern shore.
Denmark, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg were astride the avenue of attack the Red Army would have to take to reach the Channel.
Norway was the lone original NATO nation that shared a border with the USSR itself. Italy was the 12th member.
Clearly, this was a defensive alliance to prevent a Soviet invasion of Western Europe such as Hitler had executed in the spring of 1940, when Nazi Germany overran Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France, and threw the British off the continent at Dunkirk.
Nations that joined NATO during the Cold War were Greece and Turkey in 1952, Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982.
But, with the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the overthrow of Soviet Communism, and the breakup of the USSR into 15 nations by 1991, NATO, its goal — the defense of Central and Western Europe — achieved, its job done, did not go out of business.
Instead, NATO added 14 new members and moved almost 1,000 miles east, into Russia’s front yard and then onto Russia’s front porch.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined in 1999. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia became NATO nations in 2004. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017, and North Macedonia in 2020.
Understandably, Russian President Vladimir Putin asked himself: To what end, and for what beneficent purpose, was this doubling in size of an alliance that was formed to contain us, and, if necessary, fight a war against Mother Russia?
Alliances, which involve war guarantees, commitments to fight in defense of the allied nations, invariably carry costs and risks as well as rewards and benefits in terms of strengthened security.
But when we brought Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia into NATO, what benefits in added strength did we receive to justify the provocation this would be to Russia, and the risk it might entail if Moscow objected and, one fine day, walked back into these Baltic states?
If we will not fight for the independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine, the second largest nation in Europe with a population of over 40 million people, why would we go to war with a nuclear-armed Russia over Estonia, a tiny and almost indefensible nation with a population of 1.3 million?
Besides Ukraine, two nations have been considering membership in NATO: Finland and Georgia. Accession of either would put NATO on yet another border of Russia, with the usual U.S. bases and forces.
While this would enrage Russia, how would it make us stronger?
Perhaps, instead of adding new nations on whose behalf we will go to war with a great power like Russia, we consider reducing the roster of NATO and restricting the number of nations for whom we must fight to those nations that are vital to our security and bring added strength to the alliance.
We should therefore remember that it was US planners, with help from their regional allies, that first “pulled the trigger” in what became a ten-year imperialist dirty war on Syria that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, destroyed large segments of the country, created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, and led to untold human suffering.
“I have been a refugee for 37 years due to my political engagement against the ruling Baath party. I cannot go back to Syria without being punished. But I see what the western countries, Turkey, and the Gulf states are now trying to do to my country. It has nothing to do with human rights or democracy. They want to divide the country and get rid of an opponent to the US´ plans for the region.”- Saliba Mourad
Introduction
Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, President Bashar al-Assad has claimed that Syria was the victim of a plot by Western imperialist powers seeking to effect regime in the country. Such a view has been widely ridiculed by opponents of the Syrian government, who argue that US and allied intelligence agencies played no role in sparking the anti-government protests that erupted in Syria in March 2011 as part of the so-called Arab Spring. Instead, as described by the New York Times, “Syrians, like other peoples across the region, rose up peacefully against their authoritarian government. Mr. Assad cracked down violently. Communities took up arms to defend themselves, then fought back in what became a civil war. Some soldiers joined the rebels, but not enough to win.”
According to this view, those pointing to the role of US and allied intelligence agencies in sparking the protests are conspiracy theorists who deny the agency of Syrians to determine their own fate. For example, pro-opposition activists and authors Robbin Yassin-Kassab and Leila al-Shami argue that considering the role of US and allied intelligence agencies in sparking the protests necessarily “leads some ever deeper into conspiracism. For such people, not only the Syrian revolution but the whole Arab Spring was a foreign plot, the English-language slogans at Kafranbel are proof of a CIA presence,” while efforts to blame the conflict on the Western imperialist powers, “remove the agency of the peoples concerned,” casting Syrians, “as innocents pleased to suffer poverty, torture and humiliation until some devilishly clever Westerner whispers in their ears.”
Such a view suggests further that if the Western powers deserve any blame, it is not for manufacturing the conflict in Syria, but for their supposed inaction and refusal to intervene in the war against the Syrian government and on behalf of the Syrian people.
However, as I have shown elsewhere, claims of US inaction in the Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 are a myth. The CIA did intervene massively in the conflict, by covertly pumping billions of dollars of weapons to Salafist armed groups, both directly and via allied regional intelligence agencies, in what is now acknowledged as the costliest covert program in the agency’s history.
More importantly, there is clear evidence that US planners not only intervened in the Syrian conflict after it erupted, but that they covertly sparked the conflict itself. US planners prepared for years to ignite a sectarian civil war in Syria resembling that in neighboring Iraq, and successfully engineered the anti-government protests that erupted in March 2011 for this purpose. They then used these protests as cover to simultaneously launch an al-Qaeda led insurgency that quickly enveloped the country. It was hoped that this would spark a sectarian civil war that would pave the way for the fall of the Baath-led Syrian government and possibly even direct US military occupation of the country.
Any honest effort to understand the origins of the Syrian conflict must take account of this covert role played by US planners. Suggesting that any discussion of the US role amounts to promoting conspiracy theories, or denies the agency of Syrians, is not meant to shed light on the origins of the conflict but is meant to deliberately obscure them. For this reason, it is unsurprising that Robin Yassin-Kassab has been a vocal advocate of Western-backed regime change not only in Syria, but everywhere the Western powers have sought to intervene in recent years. As author Nu’man Abd al-Wahid observes, “Robin Yassin-Kassab has distinguished himself as one of Britain’s leading regime-change propagandists. Whether it’s Libya, Syria or Venezuela, Mr. Yassin-Kassab can be handsomely relied upon to supply the clever and poetic armoury to push forward narratives to facilitate Western imperialism militarily overhauling a nation-state not to its predisposition. For most of the last decade, Syria was his favoured target for spewing regime-change propaganda.”
Sadly, propaganda of the sort peddled by Yassin-Kassab and others in the service of Western imperialism is to be expected, as such propaganda accompanies every war. As Arthur Ponsonby observed in the wake of World War I, “Falsehood is a recognized and extremely useful weapon in warfare, and every country uses it quite deliberately to deceive its own people, to attract neutrals, and to mislead the enemy. The ignorant and innocent masses in each country are unaware at the time that they are being misled, and when it is all over only here and there are the falsehoods discovered and exposed.”
Almost a decade after the start of the Syria war, the role played by U.S. planners in launching it is still rarely recognized. In the remainder of this essay, I detail the efforts of U.S. planners to engineer the anti-government demonstrations that erupted in Syria in March 2011 as part of the so-called Arab Spring.
Early Experiments in Covert Action
The role of US planners in sparking the conflict in Syria in March 2011 was not immediately apparent to outside observers because it was covert and deliberately hidden. As philosopher and cultural critic Gabriel Rockhill observes, intelligence services such as the CIA “want to remain beneath the radar of history. They do not want to participate in or be identified as the heroes of history. But in a very paradoxical and quite pernicious way, they are often precisely those that are most powerful in the constitution of the visible histories we have and in the legacies that have been left.”
Covert US efforts to destabilize Syria in 2011 should not be surprising, as such efforts stretch back over 70 years. Attorney and international law expert Ernesto Sanchez observed that “During the Cold War’s early years, the United States tried to overthrow the Syrian government in one of the most sustained covert-operations campaigns ever conducted,” while historian Douglas Little explained that “This newly independent Arab republic was an important staging ground for the CIA’s earliest experiments in covert action.”
It is important to emphasize what motivated US planners to intervene in Syria during this early period. Historian William Blum notes that according to declassified National Security Council (NSC) documents, US planners were responding to the “popular leftward trend” in the Syrian government, which was allowing “continuous and increasing Communist activities,” while rejecting US military aid, which would have obligated Syria to support US efforts to “encourage the efforts of other free nations … to foster private initiative and competition [i.e., capitalism].”
As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. details, “The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949—barely a year after the agency’s creation,” in a coup directed against Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri al-Quwatli, after he “hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria.”
The coup installed General Husni al-Za’im in power, who US officials viewed as a “Banana Republic dictator type” with a “strong anti-Soviet attitude.” This led a State Department political officer in Damascus, Deane Hinton, to admit that the successful 1949 coup was, “the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we’ve started a series of these things that will never end.”
The American Project
The roots of the most recent US intervention in Syrian affairs can be traced to the George W. Bush administration. In his 2005 book, “Inheriting Syria,” Flynt Leverett, former senior Middle East analyst at the CIA and senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council explained why US planners wished to effect regime change in Syria during this period. Leverett noted that Syria is a “swing state” in the Middle East, and that since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970, US policy toward Syria has been motivated by an interest in bringing Syria into the pro-US camp and therefore “tipping the regional balance of power against more radical or revisionist actors,” in particular against Iran. Leverett complained that the US has “had to cope with Syrian resistance on a variety of fronts” since 1970, which resistance includes opposition to US support for Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, Syria’s “largely successful campaign to repulse Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon,” and Syria’s “inauguration of a strategic alliance with Iran” which “ran against American moves throughout the 1980’s to bolster [Saddam’s] Iraq as a bulwark against the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary influence.” Leverett noted further that “As the Bush administration launched its military campaign against Saddam’s regime in 2003, Bashar [al-Assad] not only opposed the war but authorized actions that worked against the US pursuit of its objectives in Iraq.” Leverett also discusses Syrian support for Palestinian resistance groups (PFLP-GC, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad) and the fact that Syria “has for many years been the principal conduit for Iranian military supplies going to Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.” Leverett then wondered whether the best course for “changing problematic Syrian behaviors” should entail US efforts to “ratchet up economic, political, rhetorical pressure on Damascus,” on the one hand, or “coercive regime change” on the other.
In short, as Syria expert David Lesch observed, Syria “did not give in to what, in the region during the Bush years, was often called the ‘American project.’”
Cleaning up the Middle East
Such threats were not new. According to former NATO supreme military commander Wesley Clark, then US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Paul Wolfowitz, told him after the First Gulf War in 1991 that “We didn’t get rid of Saddam Hussein and we should have. . . We’ve only got five or ten years to clean up the middle east. These old soviet surrogate regimes like Syria and Iraq, get rid of them before the next superpower comes along to challenge us.” According to Clark, the efforts of Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives in the Bush administration to aggressively use force to change regimes “appeared full blown after 9-11.”
As Samer Arabi observes, neoconservatives from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) demanded at this time that “Iran and Syria immediately cease all military, financial, and political support for Hezbollah and its operations.” They threatened that, “Should Iran and Syria refuse to comply, the [Bush] administration should consider appropriate measures of retaliation against these known state sponsors of terrorism,” even though none of these countries played any role in the 9/11 attacks.
In March 2003, US planners launched the illegal US invasion and occupation of Iraq, a country which also played no role in the 9/11 attacks. Wesley Clark famously revealed as well that the Iraq invasion was part of a larger plan developed by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s office “to take out seven countries in five years,” including Iran, Libya, and Syria. As academic Piers Robinson notes, Clark’s claims were confirmed by then Secretary of Defense Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, as well as by documents released by the UK Chilcot Inquiry showing British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George Bush planning a possible attack on Syria in the same context.
Syrian planners understood this threat well. David Lesch notes that “in the fresh glow of the Bush administration’s ‘mission accomplished’ in 2003, several implicit threats were directed at Damascus – threats that Syrian officials took very seriously: Syria could be next on the Bush doctrine’s hit list. [emphasis in the original].”
Not only Syrian planners, but also average Syrians were aware of these threats. Journalist and former US Marine Brad Hoff notes that during a lengthy stay in Damascus in 2005, many of his Syrian acquaintances expressed the view that “A war on Syria is coming. The Americans are coming here – whether in a few years or more, they will target Damascus.”
A Clean Break
The threat of regime change was reinforced in October 2005 by CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour during an interview with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. She warned Assad that US planners were actively seeking to depose him, stating that, “Mr. President, you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the United States. They are actively looking for a new Syrian leader. They’re granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians. They’re talking about isolating you diplomatically and, perhaps, a coup d’etat or your regime crumbling. What are you thinking about that?” As Brad Hoff observed, Amanpour was married to former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, who later advised both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Amanpour was therefore not likely speculating, but instead appeared to be delivering a direct threat on behalf of US planners.
In December 2005, the Wall Street Journalreported that within US government circles, the “Pressure for regime change in Damascus is rising,” and that according to prominent neoconservative and architect of the US invasion of Iraq, Richard Perle, “Assad has never been weaker, and we should take advantage of that.” Perle, a member of the US Defense Policy Board, made his comments in the context of a US-sponsored effort to blame the Syrian government for the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Perle’s advocacy for regime change in Syria stretched back at least a decade and was articulated in a 1996 policy document produced by a study group he led. Entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” the document recommended to then incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel “shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right, as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions [emphasis mine].”
The text of the document was primarily authored by David Wurmser, a colleague of Perle’s at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Wurmser elsewhere argued that the US and Israel should “expedite the demise of Baathism in Syria,” and of secular Arab nationalism generally, to create new states in the region on based instead on “tribal/clan/familial alliances.”
Wurmser’s views were themselves reminiscent of the 1982 “Yinon Plan,” which viewed the break-up of the Baathist-led Syrian and Iraqi governments into weak, sectarian mini-states as beneficial for Israeli interests. In an article titled “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties,” former Israeli foreign ministry official Oded Yinon wrote that, “The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.”
CIA and NSC official Flynt Leverett notes that because both Perle and Wurmser obtained influential positions in the Bush administration (with Wurmser becoming Middle East advisor to Vice President Cheney’s staff) it was, “thus not surprising that the Office of the Secretary of Defense became the principal agent advocating coercive regime change strategy toward Damascus, supported by the office of the Office of the Vice President.”
Creative Chaos
Part of the neoconservative effort to impose regime change in Syria was the creation of the Syria Reform Party (SRF), led by Farid Ghadry, shortly after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ghadry had left Syria with his family for Lebanon at a young age before emigrating to the United States. He attended the American University in Washington DC and became a successful businessman. Ghadry enjoyed support from Richard Perle and other neoconservatives centered around then Vice President Dick Cheney’s office. Ghadry viewed Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi’s role in promoting the neoconservative-planned US invasion of Iraq as a positive model. Ghadry told the Wall Street Journal that “Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria.” In an indication of how deeply Ghadry reflected the interests of his neoconservative US sponsors, and how little popularity he would ever enjoy among Syrians, Ghadry became a member of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful Israel lobby in Washington, and wrote a column on his website titled “Why I Admire Israel.”
According to Syrian journalist Salim Abraham, Ghadry claimed to want “regime change by any means,” including a direct US invasion and occupation of the country. Ghadry also hoped to dismantle Syria’s largely socialist economy and replace it with a completely free market system. Abraham reports further that in November 2005, Ghadry met with both Perle and Chalabi in Washington where they discussed “the next steps in Syria” for regime change. Ghadry later described his plan to gather all Syrian opposition groups to create a government in exile, and “Then, take people to [the] streets. Some people get killed. The international community gets further angry at the regime. Then, have NATO forces protect a safe zone in northern Syria,” on the border with Turkey, after which “we will move right away into Syria.” Ghadry explained further that, “There will be some revenge killings, unfortunately. There will be a fight among opposition groups. . . . But the U.S. and France will be like traffic cops, who would organize and ensure” a peaceful transition.
The regime-change desired by Ghadry and his American handlers depended not only on an Iraq-style invasion and occupation, but also on inciting a sectarian civil war of the sort also raging in Iraq at the time. In reviewing an essay written by Ghadry, Syria expert and academic Joshua Landis observed, “Ghadry stipulates that by opening up a sectarian war inside Syria, the regime will fall. He encourages Washington to facilitate this and to — ‘stir trouble amongst the Sunnis of Syria’ — with the goal of causing the collapse of the Asad regime, preferably by a coup.” Landis notes further that Ghadry “takes the neocon policy of ‘creative chaos’ to its logical conclusion, which is to fan the flames of the sectarian war being waged in Iraq to bring down the neighboring regimes and break the Middle East wide open. He presumes that Washington will end up siding with the Sunnis in Iraq against the Shiites and harness Saudi Arabia to this task.”
Ghadry’s strategy to use sectarianism to destabilize the Syrian government likely did not originate with him, but with his American handlers such as Richard Perle. US planners had long viewed inciting sectarian tensions in Syria that would culminate in civil war as beneficial. This strategy was articulated in a 1986 CIA memo entitled, “Syria: Scenarios of Dramatic Political Change,” and is worth quoting at length due to the emphasis the document places on inciting anti-government protests in Syria of the kind seen in 2011. The memo explains that, “We believe that a renewal of communal violence between Alawis and Sunnis could inspire Sunnis in the military to turn against the regime. . . . disgruntlement over price hikes, altercations between citizens and security forces, or anger at privileges accorded to Alawis at the expense of Sunnis could foster small-scale protests. Excessive government force in quelling such disturbances might be seen by Sunnis as evidence of a government vendetta against all Sunnis, precipitating even larger protests by other Sunni groups. . . . Regime efforts to restore order would founder if government violence against protestors inspired broad-based communal violence between Alawis and Sunnis. A general campaign of Alawi violence against Sunnis might push even moderate Sunnis to join the opposition. Remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood, some returning from exile in Iraq, could provide a core of leadership for the movement. Although the regime has the resources to crush such a venture, we believe brutal attacks on Sunni civilians might prompt large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or stage mutinies in support of dissidents, and Iraq might supply them with sufficient weapons to launch a civil war.”
Watching the Carnage in Iraq
According to a December 2006 US State Department cable leaked by Wikileaks, US embassy officials in Damascus similarly suggested that the US should use sectarianism to destabilize the Syrian government, in this case by playing “on Sunni fears of Iranian influence.” The cable explains that “There are fears in Syria that the Iranians are active in both Shia proselytizing and conversion of, mostly poor, Sunnis. Though often exaggerated, such fears reflect an element of the Sunni community in Syria that is increasingly upset by and focused on the spread of Iranian influence in their country through activities ranging from mosque construction to business. Both the local Egyptian and Saudi missions here, (as well as prominent Syrian Sunni religious leaders), are giving increasing attention to the matter and we should coordinate more closely with their governments on ways to better publicize and focus regional attention on the issue.”
As Robert Naiman observed, “This [December 2006 State Department] cable was written at the height of the sectarian Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq. . . . No one working for the US government on foreign policy at the time could have been unaware of the implications of promoting Sunni-Shia sectarianism.”
US planners realized that the anti-Shia sectarianism of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was killed by US forces in June 2006) could be beneficial for US and Israeli interests in neighboring Syria. A leaked email to Hillary Clinton from her advisor Sidney Blumenthal explained that “the fall of the House of Assad could well ignite a sectarian war between the Shiites and the majority Sunnis of the region drawing in Iran, which, in the view of Israeli commanders would not be a bad thing for Israel and its Western allies,” because it “would distract and might obstruct Iran from its nuclear activities for a good deal of time,” and possibly “even prove to be a factor in the eventual fall of the current government of Iran.”
As noted in the State department cable above, US planners sought to coordinate closely with the Saudi government to publicize the alleged threat of Shiite and Iranian influence in Syria. In his book, “The last decade in the history of Syria: the dialectic of stagnation and reform,” Syrian sociologist Muhammad Jamal Barout, notes as a result that during early anti-government demonstrations in Syria in 2011, the slogan, “No to Iran! No to Hezbollah!” became common. Barout writes that, “The merging of hostility for the [Syrian] regime and Hezbollah was the result of the Salafi propaganda campaign originating from the Gulf countries which targeted Shiites generally, and which focused on the concept of the Shiite-Nusayri [Alawite] alliance, as expressed in the writings of Muhammad Sarour Zein al-Abbedine.” Muhammad Sarour was a prominent Syrian Salafi cleric living in exile who was famous for writing a book (under a pseudonym), titled “Then Came the Turn of the Majus,” which inspired al-Zarqawi to call for genocide against Iraq’s Shia population. As I have discussed elsewhere, Sarour and his followers later played a prominent, though often unacknowledged, role in the early protest movement that erupted in Syria in 2011, including in Deraa.
Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-owned satellite news channel, played a key role in promoting the Salafi propaganda campaign originating from the Gulf countries as well, in accordance with US interests. As Iraqi-British author Sami Ramadani notes, Qatar’s rulers “saw in Al Jazeera a vehicle for spreading their political influence,” just as “Qatar became the headquarters of US military operations throughout the Middle East. Al Jazeera remains one of the root sources of constant scares about a supposed sectarian threat from Iranian and ‘Shia’ influence in the region.”
It should further be noted that US planners were not promoting this Salafist propaganda campaign to topple Assad because he was unpopular with Syrians. As Syria analyst Camille Otrakji observed, “Had President Assad been so unpopular with ‘the Sunnis’ … why did America’s embassy need to manufacture Sunni anger?” US planners were aware that although President Assad did not come to power via democratic elections, he was nevertheless extremely popular. Washington Post reporter David Ignatius, who enjoys access to many US military and intelligence sources, wrote in November 2005 for example that, “It’s hard to find a Syrian who doesn’t want Assad to remain at least as a figurehead. He’s a symbol of stability for a country nervously watching the carnage in Iraq. Sami Moubayed, a Syrian analyst, is probably right when he tells me that ‘the president would win in a landslide if there was an election.’” Nevertheless, US planners were willing to spark a sectarian war in the country to depose Assad’s government.
What always proceeds gun confiscation historically? A Registry.A Registry of guns and gun owners is a tool that the federal government, the DOJ, and the ATF have had on their wish list for decades now. Anti-gun politicians and lobbyists have sold a registry as a tool for stopping crime, enforcing universal background checks, and ensuring public safety.
In reality, a Registry guarantees that large-scale confiscation will happen at some point. That’s why the ATF is forbidden explicitly from keeping a searchable database by law.Today, Gun Owners of America announced that the ATF has nearly 1 Billion records of firearm purchases, with over 850 million of those records in digital format. These records contain all sorts of personal information on gun owners in addition to the gun they’ve purchased. Important personal information, including their names, addresses, place of birth, sometimes even social security numbers, can all be found on these records.The firearm transaction records that the ATF is referring to is the ATF Form 4473. Federal law currently states that a firearms dealer can destroy 4473 forms after 20 years. If a firearms dealer goes out of business or closes before those 20 years, federal law says dealers must hand over those forms to the ATF.ATF Form 4473So the ATF currently is in possession of nearly 1 Billion of these records. Here’s the direct quote attributed to the ATF from GOA: “In total, ATF manages 920,664,765 OBR as of November 2021. This includes digital and an estimated number of hard copy records that are awaiting image conversion. It is currently estimated that 865,787,086 of those records are in a digitalized format.”So over 850 million of those records are in digital format, making them easier to search. GOA claims this constitutes a “partially complete database of guns and gun owners.”So how does the ATF justify this massive privacy invasion of gun owners? They claim that “the vast majority of criminal firearms traces are done for state and local law enforcement agencies pertaining to active investigations.” But interestingly, in true Federal Government style, they also mention that they have no idea how effective this system is and if any of the information leads to the successful prosecution of gun crimes. This lack of information is especially interesting considering that the Biden DOJ wants to change the regulation on firearms dealers so that they can never destroy gun transaction records. It should be exceedingly obvious that their goal is, of course, a complete registry of all firearms in the United States. What we are witnessing are small steps towards that goal. We here at TMGN have been warning people about this change back in 2020 when the ATF changed form 4473 to include both firearm & personal information on the front page. I felt that the only reason for this change was data collection and the ease of digitizing a paper form, but now it’s exceedingly evident that theory was correct. This is why it is crucial for gun owners to get involved and make sure they’re calling their members of Congress, getting out and making their voices heard, or even donating to a group that will fight on their behalf. If we don’t push back on these infringements, the ATF will track gun owners down the road and move to confiscate our firearms.This database is especially worrying with the current situation with the ATF classifying Rare Breed Firearms’ Forced Reset Triggers as machine guns and working to confiscate them from dealers and citizens alike. Keep in mind that with the push to regulate semi-automatic firearms as machine guns, a registry would be a handy tool for confiscation. When you consider that confiscation of firearms is the end goal, it’s no wonder the ATF is pushing so hard to keep a database of gun owners.We explain more about today’s startling developments here:
Dr. Mobeen finally reveals his wife and niece were both vaccine injured. On the flip side, the NIH reveals that they stopped talking to the vaccine injured.
Yesterday, on YouTube, Dr. Mobeen Syed announced that his wife had Bell’s palsy and was severely injured from the vaccine. So was his 23 year old niece who couldn’t function. Although the injuries happened months ago, he hasn’t been allowed to talk about it until now. This is rare in that most people who have vaccine injuries never talk about them for fear of public ridicule. I appreciate that Dr. Mobeen is finally speaking out and hope that it will lead to others speaking out as well.
2. Bruce Patterson who specializes in treating the vaccine injured said these reactions are not rare.
3. Dr. Mobeen doesn’t believe people should be boosted after 2 doses of Moderna and then recovered from COVID like what just happened to him.
4. Dr. Patterson uses Fluvoxamine for active COVID as a favorite drug for treating the vaccine injured as well as COVID long-haulers. I was involved in funding the research that led to fluvoxamine being proven in COVID. Despite success in trials and in treating injured patients, the NIH will not recognize fluvoxamine as a COVID treatment, even after a proven 12X death benefit.
The NIH stopped paying attention to the vaccine injured in late 2021
The NIH stopped paying attention to the vaccine injured by late 2021 when they discovered that there was nothing they could do to cure them. If you are vaccine injured, don’t expect any help from the NIH. This article has the details.
As time passed, however, the patients say the NIH scientists pulled back. A September visit Brianne Dressen had scheduled for additional neurologic testing was converted to a telemedicine appointment. In December, Nath asked her to stop sending patients his way. “It is best for such patients to receive care from their local physicians,” he wrote to her.
For patients, the silence from NIH was distressing, especially as they struggled to find care elsewhere. The scientists “took the data and left us hanging,” says a person who traveled to NIH in the spring of 2021. “I have no treatment, I have no idea what’s happening to my body.” Physicians, several patients said, had nothing to offer and sometimes even declared the symptoms imagined.
Nath told Science NIH facilities are not equipped to treat large numbers of patients long-term. Says the health care worker of the effort: “It’s too much for two people at the NIH to do.”
…
Other researchers note the scientific community is uneasy about studying such effects. “Everyone is tiptoeing around it,” Pretorius says. “I’ve talked to a lot of clinicians and researchers at various universities, and they don’t want to touch it.”
Summary
The US government and local governments are mandating that people get vaccinated. At the same time, they are washing their hands of all liability if something goes wrong and leaving the vaccine injured high and dry with no support, not medically and not monetarily. And if that’s not bad enough, Facebook removes the vaccine injured support groups.
The HHS agencies along with members of Congress (with the exception of Senator Ron Johnson) think that all of that is OK. They aren’t saying a word.
by Tyler DurdenMonday, Jan 31, 2022 – 09:40 PM
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