President Biden told US governors this week that there is no federal solution to the ongoing covid “crisis.” “It’s up to all of you,” he essentially told them. While it’s good news for people living in mostly free states like Florida and Texas, governors in New York and other authoritarian states and localities may use this as permission to crack down harder. But one thing is clear: with no more federal in the war on covid, there should be no more federal mandates in the war on covid. Done! Also today: Fauci suggests, then retreats from, a position that a vaccine pass should be required for domestic travel. Is Fauci’s “sell-by” date expired?
It is interesting how the propaganda “fact-checkers” who have NO medical background went into panic mode to claim that the CDC did not mean what they said and desperately tried to spin it around. Claiming the CDC did not mean what it plainly wrote that the COVID tests cannot distinguish between the Flu and COVID was clearly political. Look at all the lockdowns, people forced into home confinement all over tests that are not valid.
I previously wrote that I had a breathing problem so I did go to the ER in the hospital. They x-rayed my lungs and assumed I had COVID. They threw me into the COVID wing and then said it would take TWO COVID tests with negative results to get released. As I said, 5 tests later, all were negative. Yet based upon the x-rays, two doctors said that I had probably COVID and that the tests were INVALID.
Now the FDA admits that the Rapid COVID-19 antigen tests may be less effective at detecting Omicron than earlier strains on the virus. Indeed, the PCR test is meaningless because it has never been standardized and compared to an isolated virus. If you read the fine print of the PCR test by Roche, it clearly states: “This test is not to be used for diagnostic purposes.”
Kary Mullis, the inventor of the PCR test who was awarded a Nobel Chemistry Prize, said that “…with PCR, if you do it well, you can find almost anything in anybody.”
Anyone who has dared to repeat Mullis’ comments is classified as “misinformation” and a “conspiracy theory” all because COVID has become political. This is no longer about health. The fact-checkers spinning this to maintain the medical tyranny are doing so for a political agenda and they could care less about the health of society. Biden has even lifted the travel ban on South Africa and the doctors there say that Omicron is extremely mild.
Now even one British Court has ruled against the vaccines. We will NEVER know the truth until politics is banned from medicine. Video Player00:0000:40
Nevertheless, New York City has committed economic suicide. Broadway plays are folding like dominoes. Vaccine mandates have killed New York City. The New York governor’s mask mandate has caused confusion and protests. She never bothered to read the Washington Post’s report that masks were “useless” during the 1918 Spanish Flu. Indeed, when I told the doctors I did not know anyone with COVID, they said I could have got it by pumping gas into my car. So I said, then masks are useless, they said pretty much!
Hospitals that refuse to depart from the political agenda are highly dangerous and anyone should inquire about their policy BEFORE entering. It took a judge to order a hospital to administer COVID alternative medicines. David DeLuca of Sicklerville, New Jersey will never know if the Ivermectin prescribed by an out-of-state doctor for his wife would have saved her life. Colleen DeLuca, 62, died of COVID-19 on Oct. 10, at Jefferson Washington Township Hospital in Sewell, New Jersey, before he could get a court order to administer the drug. It is unimaginable that people have to go to court to force hospitals to administer Ivermectin all because this has become so political. Some doctors have abandoned their oath to first do no harm. Check their willingness to administer Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine and any doctor who refuses you should go elsewhere. The head of pulmonary at Tampa Hospital told me besides the fact that I probably had COVID despite the 5 negative tests, that Hydroxychloroquine was the ONLY thing they had to help severe patients.
Australia, which has returned to its historical roots of a penal colony imprisoning its citizens, would not even allow its own citizens to return home from overseas. That was just lifted. They stranded their own people overseas without any financial assistance to live outside the country in hotels. Only beginning November 1, did New South Wales open its borders to the fully-vaccinated Australians stranded overseas. Initially, only Australian citizens, residents, and their families were to be eligible for quarantine-free travel through Sydney. Then the abuse of politicians in Australia is leading the way to the top of the list of corruption.
It appears that many of these politicians have been “encouraged” by big Pharma to impose Draconian measures for a disease that has had a lethal impact of just 0.25% (only 800,000 out of 320 million). Yet they have terrorized the world population using invalid tests while destroying small businesses and changing the world economy forever. Whenever I went to a play on Broadway, most of the people there were foreign tourists. There will NEVER be a return to normal. They have changed the world permanently and politicians, as well as fact-checkers, will NEVER admit to ever making a mistake.
UnCommon Core: The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine Crisis John J. Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in Political Science and Co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, assesses the causes of the present Ukraine crisis, the best way to end it, and its consequences for all of the main actors. A key assumption is that in order to come up with the optimum plan for ending the crisis, it is essential to know what caused the crisis. Regarding the all-important question of causes, the key issue is whether Russia or the West bears primary responsibility.
The latest two states to legalize recreational cannabis are New York and New Jersey. However, if one believes governors and legislators in those states have finally adopted a more libertarian view of the topic, one will be severely disappointed. Legalization of recreational cannabis in both states is driven by the need for tax revenue—tax revenue to plug the holes in state budgets for social programs, holes in the state budget that were exasperated by the failed covid policies in both states. Politicians, clever as they are in hiding their true intentions for public policy changes, want the public to believe that legalization is mostly aimed at ending decades-long practices of racist cannabis enforcement, pointing to the disparities in drug enforcement. However, one will quickly realize that this is only a smokescreen to hide the true reason.
A good starting point is Colorado. In 2002, voters in Colorado passed Amendment 64 and legalized recreational cannabis. Over the last six years, Colorado has collected over $1.6 billion in cannabis taxes and fees at the state level alone. In 2014, Colorado collected just shy of $70 million in cannabis tax revenue, and by 2020 it collected close to $390 million. The State of Washington, probably the closest example to use in estimating the size of potential cannabis tax revenue for both New Jersey and New York, depending on how each state structures the taxes and fees imposed, collected in 2015 close to $65 million in cannabis taxes. By 2020, the number had increased to $470 million, an increase of $400 million in five years. While Colorado levies a 15 percent excise tax and a 15 percent sales tax on cannabis, Washington State levies a 37 percent retail tax on cannabis (for details, see the Tax Foundation). Even in Oklahoma, which created arguably the most free-market cannabis industry in the country, with no limits on how many business licenses can be issued, after voters approved Oklahoma State Question 788 in 2018, lawmakers are very candid about being motivated by dollar signs in times when states are facing a budget crisis. From June 2020 to 2021, Oklahoma collected almost $140 million in revenue from excise and license fees.
Colorado and Washington State have shown governors in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic how much potential revenue from the legalization of recreational cannabis has been slipping through their fingers. New Jersey and New York, both with projected budget shortfalls, are eager to take advantage of the new potential revenue source. The first state to act was New Jersey. In March 2021, New Jersey governor Philip D. Murphy signed into law three bills that effectively permit and regulate the use of recreational cannabis. At that point, New Jersey was the most populous state in the Northeast ahead of Massachusetts to fully legalize cannabis. While Governor Murphy and state lawmakers talk about ending disparities in drug enforcement and the problem of subsequent overcrowded prisons, behind the scenes lawmakers are already counting on a new source of revenue to continue their spending programs. The new legal cannabis industry in New Jersey is expected to generate about $126 million a year in revenue for the state. Not to be outdone by their smaller neighbor, New York state lawmakers, worried about losing out on significant tax revenue to New Jersey, in July 2021 approved a bill to legalize recreational cannabis. Facing a budget shortfall of more than $60 billion over the next four years, New York’s legalization of cannabis is estimated to generate about $300 to $400 million annually in tax revenue when the legal market is fully established. New York, by far the most populous state in the Northeast, may serve as a catalyst for the cannabis industry in the region. According to the New York Medical Cannabis Industry Association, the cannabis market in New York is estimated to be worth about $4.2 to $4.6 billion and projected to grow to about $5.8 billion in 2027. Pennsylvania, having the longest border with New York, may be forced to legalize recreational cannabis use in order to not lose out on tax revenue. Already a bipartisan bill legalizing recreational cannabis has been introduced in Pennsylvania. More and more states are realizing that legalizing recreational cannabis is the easiest new source of significant government revenue. In April, Virginia became the first state in the South to legalize recreational cannabis.
What is more telling about New York’s motivation to change its attitude towards legalization is the long-standing fight between the governor’s office and the legislature on how to distribute the enormous amount of potential tax revenue that will be generated by legalizing cannabis. Governor Cuomo and Democrats in the state legislature tried several times to legalize cannabis, but each effort unraveled under disagreements over how to regulate the industry. But more telling is the disagreement on how to distribute tax dollars from cannabis sales and distribution licenses.
Legal sales of cannabis are a few years away in both New Jersey and New York. In Massachusetts, it was two years from the time voters approved nonmedical cannabis to the launch of the state’s first dispensaries. Politicians and lawmakers are already injecting into the legalization effort measures that have little to do with creating a regulatory environment conducive to a growing industry. For example, lawmakers are talking about reserving sizable portions of business licenses for minority business owners, disabled veterans, and distressed farmers. If the Paycheck Protection Program and the Restaurant Revitalization Fund are any indication of the success of such initiative, more money will be wasted on social engineering programs that have nothing to do with supporting small businesses. It is very clear that states’ legalization of recreational and medical cannabis is motivated by a need to tap into a new large revenue stream to balance budgets in addition to ending racist cannabis enforcement. Author:
Next time you read about a politically connected big wig buying a failing newspaper, ask yourself, “Does Warren Buffett really need that failing newspaper in his portfolio to make money?” “Does Jeff Bezos really care about a more truthful media?” The media does not exist to tell the truth, it exists to get you to pay attention and to get you to believe a narrative. The narrative now is “Give up.”
I want to take a moment to thank you the readers at LRC, the writers at LRC, as well as Lew Rockwell, and all who contribute to the running of this site for being such a wonderful part of this year. I give to that effort and encourage you to as well. I do that because the existence of LRC means so much to me. These past two years may have looked very different for me without it. It is a website and community that must be nurtured long into the future, especially because we have some bad dudes in the world with some bad plans for our future. More importantly, it is a place where lions gather and where sleeping lions are woken up. Such gathering places and news outlets are so vital at a time like this.
This past year has been a challenge that a select few have risen to.
The readers of these pages, in their correspondences and conversations with me, have shown themselves to be true lions that I am grateful to associate with.
I want to thank you if that describes you. And if you are anything like me, no matter how fierce of a lion you are being, you know that you can do better. I take this time of year to reflect on this and to make commitments to improve myself. If you are not already doing so, I would like to encourage the same of you as we enter into a new year.
2020 and 2021 have seen our country and the globe largely led by the most atrocious voices imaginable. I look forward to 2022 being a time that the lions increasingly move into positions of influence — in their own lives, in their own homes, in their own communities, and beyond. So much of my latest work has focussed on that.
As I prepare for the year ahead, these past two weeks, I have been asking three questions about everything in my life that I can think of:
Yet, if we base our thinking on the natural urge of the individual to better his circumstances and widen his horizon, operating always under the natural law of parsimony (the most gain for the least effort), we are compelled to the conclusion that effort which does not add to the abundance of the marketplace is useless effort.
Wherever two boys swap tops for marbles, that is the marketplace. The simple barter, in terms of human happiness, is no different from a trade transaction involving banking operations, insurance, ships, railroads, wholesale and retail establishments; for in any case the effect and purpose of trade is to make up a lack of satisfactions. The boy with a pocketful of marbles is handicapped in the enjoyment of life by his lack of tops, while the other is similarly discomfited by his need for marbles; both have a better time of it after the swap.
In like manner, the Detroit worker who has helped to pile up a heap of automobiles in the warehouse is none the better off for his efforts until the product has been shipped to Brazil in exchange for his morning cup of coffee. Trade is nothing but the release of what one has in abundance to obtain some other thing one wants. It is as pertinent for the buyer to say “thank you” as for the seller.
The marketplace is not necessarily a specific site, although every trade must take place somewhere. It is more exactly a system of channeling goods or services from one worker to another, from fabricator to consumer, from where a superfluity exists to where there is a need. It is a method devised by man in his pursuit of happiness to diffuse satisfactions, and operating only by the human instinct of value. Its function is not only to transfer ownership from one person to another, but also to direct the current of human exertion; for the price indicator on the chart of the marketplace registers the desires of people, and the intensity of these desires, so that other people (looking to their own profit) may know how best to employ themselves.
Living without trade may be possible, but it would hardly be living; at best it would be mere existence. Until the marketplace appears, men are reduced to getting by with what they can find in nature in the way of food and raiment; nothing more. But the will to live is not merely a craving for existence; it is rather an urge to reach out in all directions for a fuller enjoyment of life, and it is by trade that this inner drive achieves some measure of fulfillment. The greater the volume and fluidity of marketplace transactions the higher the wage level of Society; and, insofar as things and services make for happiness, the higher the wage level the greater the fund of happiness.
The importance of the marketplace to the enjoyment of life is illustrated by a custom recorded by Franz Oppenheimer in The State. In ancient times, on days designated as holy, the marketplace and its approaches were held inviolable even by professional robbers; in fact, stepping out of character, these robbers acted as policemen for the trade routes, seeing to it that merchants and caravans were not molested. Why? Because they had accumulated a superfluity of loot of one kind, more than they could consume, and the easiest way of transmuting it into other satisfactions was through trade. Too much of anything is too much.
The marketplace serves not only to diffuse the abundances that human specialization makes possible, but it is also a distributor of the munificences of nature. For, in her inscrutable way, nature has spread the raw materials by which humans live over the face of the globe; unless some way were devised for distributing these raw materials, they would serve no human purpose. Thus, through the conduit of trade the fish of the sea reach the miner’s table and fuel from the inland mine or well reaches the boiler of the fishing boat; tropical fruits are made available to northerners, whose iron mines, translated into tools, make production easier in the tropics. It is by trade that the far-flung warehouses of nature are made accessible to all the peoples of the world and life on this planet becomes that much more enjoyable.
We think of trade as the barter of tangible things simply because that is obvious. But a correlative of the exchange of things is the exchange of ideas, of the knowledge and cultural accumulations of the parties to the transaction. In fact, embodied in the goods is the intelligence of the producers; the excellent woolens imported from England carry evidence of thought that has been given to the art of weaving, and Japanese silks arouse curiosity as to the ideas that went into their fabrication. We acquire knowledge of people through the goods we get from them. Aside from that correlative of trade, there is the fact that trading involves human contacts; and when humans meet, either physically or by means of communication, ideas are exchanged. “Visiting” is the oil that lubricates every marketplace operation.
Alas, expedient speedball fixes to systemic problems only create new instabilities while fueling the instabilities of the problems left unsolved. Sleepwalking in a fantasy-dream of free money forever, free energy forever and endlessly expanding asset bubbles of “wealth” will take us to the edge of the clioff and then into the abyss.
What would be truly optimistic would be to surrender our dependence on asset bubbles and malinvested debt to prop up an unstable delusion of effortless “wealth.”
The most sacred liturgy of American culture is to always be positive and optimistic. The greatest taboo is breaking this sacred duty to say something upbeat and optimistic; it is acceptable (barely) to make awkwardly negative observations, but only if you immediately follow up the negative comments with a treacly, double-serving of sugary optimism: for example, inflation is transitory, the economy is growing strongly, wages are rising, etc.
And so we sleepwalk into 2022, ill-prepared to deal with reality which most annoyingly continues responding to systemic dynamics no matter how much sugary optimism is spread around.
The endless servings of sugary optimism serve several purposes:
1. They create an appealing illusion that systemic problems can be solved without materially changing the status quo or demanding any sacrifices.
2. They mask the inconvenient reality that the status quo is incapable of solving systemic problems because doing so would demand sacrifices of those skimming the vast majority of the benefits of the status quo, i.e. the wealthy and powerful.
3. They mask the eqnormous sacrifices being imposed on the bottom 90% to keep the status quo unchanged, i.e. benefiting the few at the expense of the many.
4. The demand to always be sugar-high optimistic is a handy tool to bludgeon critics who point out the systemic failure of the status quo as alarmists, doom-and-gloomers, etc.
In other words, you’re only allowed to point out a critical systemic flaw if you also parrot a completely unrealistic, impractical “solution” that fits the sugar-high optimism requirement: fusion: unlimited energy for everyone forever! Modern Monetary Theory: free money for everyone forever! And so on, in an endless gush of detached-from-reality “solutions” that all magically solve all problems without changing anything in the power structure of who benefits from the existing arrangement or demanding any reduction in our waste is growthLandfill Economy.
We no longer solve the hard problems because they require changing a system that benefits the wealthy and powerful to the exclusion of everyone else. Only the debt-serfs and tax-donkeys suffer, but since they’re passive and powerless, who cares?
The sugary optimism also masks the destructive nature of the easy fixes that are so beloved by the political class: debt, inflation and narrative control. All are politically and economically painless at first, and but the systemic consequences eventually erode the entire status quo, which collapses in a putrid heap of lies, artifice, fakery, profiteering, delusion and deception.
Making everyone feel warm and fuzzy by borrowing and distributing “free money” works wonders more or less like a sugar-cocaine speedball. The cost of the new debt is spread over years in the future, and a Federal Reserve beholden to those reaping the profits from debt (banks, financiers, the wealthy) is always ready to lower interest rates to ease the pain of servicing debt as a means of enabling ever-greater borrowing going forward.
What could be better? Borrow and spend now, pay in installments stretching far into the future. Alas, the advance of time is inexorable, and the future soon becomes the present. And despite the declining rate of interest, all that rapidly expanding debt is now sucking the income well dry, leaving insufficient income to borrow more or spend more.
Oops. Don’t you hate it when the system works so well and then it suddenly implodes due to its self-reinforcing, self-destructive structural incoherence? A system dependent on debt for “growth” is self-liquidating, meaning that the debt eats the system alive by siphoning off income while malinvestment, waste and speculative gambling destroys the “capital” funded by the debt.
Inflation is equally beloved by the political class for the same reasons: it’s painless at the start and everyone loves the illusion that assets are rising without anyone actually creating any additional value or productivity–it’s all magic. Just print a few trillion dollars and pump the “free money” into stock buybacks and speculative bets, and voila, everyone who already owns assets gets richer without doing anything but being a genius.
All the fun stuff eventually generates real-world inflation and inflates assets into insane bubbles that eventually pop at the least opportune time, right when everyone watching their wealth swell like clockwork starts beleiving not just in their own genius but in the perpetual-motion machine of Fed-printing and rapidly expanding debt.
Those expecting assets to bubble higher forever and real-world costs to deflate have it backward: it’s the assets which have inflated that will deflate back to starting levels of valuation and it’s real-world inflation that will gather momentum and shred the economy and political structure.
Those depending on earned income will see the purchasing power of their earnings drop precipitously while those who were counting on their vastly enlarged unearned “wealth” in asset bubbles to fund their lifestyle and lavish retirement will experience 80% declines in the “wealth” they presumed was permanent.
It will be a great shock to the political class, but controlling the narrative to protect your interests won’t actually stop the systemic momentum careening over the cliff. Demanding that everyone disavow problems doesn’t actually solve the problems.
Alas, expedient speedball fixes to systemic problems only create new instabilities while fueling the instabilities of the problems left unsolved. Sleepwalking in a fantasy-dream of free money forever, free energy forever and endlessly expanding asset bubbles of “wealth” will take us to the edge of the clioff and then into the abyss.
What would be truly optimistic would be to surrender our dependence on asset bubbles and malinvested debt to prop up an unstable delusion of effortless “wealth” and an unsustainable waste is growthLandfill Economy.
Further, the al-Qaeda-led insurgency was sparked as a result of the efforts of U.S. planners, who worked with their British, Saudi and Lebanese allies to unleash these groups in Syria. They did so in the hope of triggering a sectarian civil war that would topple the Syrian government, destroy Syria’s delicate religious co-existence, and open the way for U.S. military intervention in the country. Tragically, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died, and millions become refugees or displaced during the more than 10-year conflict their actions sparked.
In the mainstream view, al-Qaeda did not play a role in the Syria conflict until Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched his deputy, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, to Syria in August 2011 to establish a wing of the group there, called Jabhat al-Nusra, or the Nusra Front. Additionally, al-Qaeda allegedly did not carry out any military operations until December 2011 and did not announce its establishment until January 2012.
However, there is evidence that al-Qaeda affiliated militants were involved in the Syrian conflict much earlier. Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, former Syrian Vice President Abd al-Halim Khaddam, and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri all played key roles in dispatching al-Qaeda affiliated militants to Syria in the early stages of the conflict. They did so at the direction of U.S. and UK planners, who hoped to spark a sectarian civil war that would lead to regime change in Damascus.
Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) were dispatched to Syria from neighboring Iraq starting in late 2010. Starting in March 2011, they began attacking Syrian security forces, police, and soldiers under the cover of anti-government protests. Militants from Fatah al-Islam were dispatched from Lebanon to Syria for the same purpose as early as April 2011. Militants from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) began fighting in Syria in October 2011, after successfully toppling the Libyan government under the cover of NATO airpower. Additionally, there is evidence that the first protestors killed in Deraa on March 18, 2011 were killed by Salafist militants as part of a false flag attack, rather than by Syrian government security forces, as is commonly assumed.
In this essay, I review U.S. and UK efforts to partner with al-Qaeda affiliated groups to topple the Syrian government, and the role played by such militants in the first weeks and months of the 2011 Syrian conflict.
Regime Change Coming Your Way
U.S. planners have long sought to topple the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. U.S. General Wesley Clark famously revealed that the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was part of a larger plan developed by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s office “to take out seven countries in five years,” including Iran, Libya, and Syria.
In December 2005, the Wall Street Journalreported that within U.S. government circles, the “Pressure for regime change in Damascus is rising,” and that according to prominent neoconservative and architect of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Richard Perle, “Assad has never been weaker, and we should take advantage of that.” Perle, a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board, made his comments in the context of a U.S.-sponsored effort to blame the Syrian government for the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
In March 2006, former Syrian vice president Abd al-Halim Khaddam partnered with Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali al-Bayanouni to form a new opposition group in exile, the National Salvation Front (NSF). In October 2006, several NSF members met with Michael Doran of the U.S. National Security Council, who was a close associate of prominent neoconservative and Bush administration official Elliott Abrams to discuss the possibility of regime change in Syria. Representatives of the NSF were also given a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz the same month.
The Wall Street Journalreported that Elliott Abrams warmed to the idea of partnering with the Brotherhood after Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah fought Israel to a standstill in the summer of 2006, which caused Washington to become “increasingly concerned about Syria’s military alliance with Iran, and the threat it posed to U.S. interests in the region.”
Hezbollah’s surprisingly strong performance during the 2006 war, coupled with the rise of Iranian influence in U.S.-occupied Iraq, prompted what journalist Seymour Hersh described as a “redirection” in U.S. policy in the Middle East. This massive shift in policy was led by then Vice President Dick Cheney, Abrams, and Saudi national security advisor and former ambassador to the U.S., Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The redirection involved working with Washington’s Sunni regional client states “to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region.” As part of this effort, the “Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir [sic] Assad, of Syria.” Hersh notes further, “There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood,” and that according to a former high-ranking CIA officer, Abd al-Halim Khaddam and the NSF were receiving both financial and diplomatic support from the Americans and Saudis. Hersh notes further that Vice President Dick Cheney had been advised by Lebanese politician, Walid Jumblatt, that “if the United States does try to move against Syria, members of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood would be ‘the ones to talk to.’”
Salafis Throwing Bombs
Hersh details further that the U.S. effort to topple the Syrian government would involve not only the Muslim Brotherhood, but also Salafist militant groups controlled by Saudi intelligence. According to a U.S. government consultant, “Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that ‘they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”
In December 2006, the Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. embassy in Damascus, William Roebuck, had already acknowledged the possibility of exploiting Salafist militants to promote regime change in Syria. Roebuck wrote that, “We believe Bashar’s weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real,” including “the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising. These proposals will need to be fleshed out and converted into real actions and we need to be ready to move quickly to take advantage of such opportunities. [emphasis mine].”
We Have a Liberal Attitude
One reservoir of al-Qaeda-affiliated militants to be leveraged by U.S. planners was in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. Seymour Hersh notes that according to a 2005 International Crisis Group (ICG) report, pro-Saudi Lebanese politician, Saad Hariri (son of the assassinated Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri) had helped release four Salafist militants from prison who had previously trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and were arrested in Lebanon while trying to establish an Islamic state in the north of the country. Hariri also used his influence in parliament to obtain amnesty for another 29 Salafist militants, including seven suspected of bombing foreign embassies in Beirut a year prior. Hersh notes as well that according to a senior official in the Lebanese government, “We have a liberal attitude that allows Al Qaeda types to have a presence here.”
Charles Harb of the American University of Beirut similarly observed in May 2007 that Saad Hariri was giving “political cover” to “radical Sunni movements.” Harb explains that to attract Sunni voters in the 2005 national parliamentary elections, Hariri had “pardoned jailed Sunni militants involved in violence in December 2000.” Harb also warned that “Courting radical Sunni sentiment is a dangerous game. Fear of Shia influence in Arab affairs has prompted many Sunni leaders to warn of a ‘Shia crescent’ stretching from Iran, through Iraq, to south Lebanon.” Harb also noted the involvement of Saudi intelligence in cultivating these groups. He explained that “Several reports have highlighted efforts by Saudi officials to strengthen Sunni groups, including radical ones, to face the Shia renaissance across the region. But building up radical Sunni groups to face the Shia challenge can easily backfire.”
Harb was writing in response to the eruption of violence in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp on May 19, 2007. The camp, located in northern Lebanon, had been occupied by militants from the al-Qaeda-affiliated group, Fatah al-Islam. Fighting had erupted between the militants and members of the Lebanese security forces, allegedly after an attempted bank robbery. The fighting left the camp almost entirely flattened and its Palestinian refugee population homeless.
Two months before the outbreak of violence in Nahr al-Bared, the New York Times had interviewed Fatah al-Islam’s leader, Shakir al-Abssi, a former associate of notorious al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The NYT reports that, “Despite being on terrorism watch lists around the world, he has set himself up in a Palestinian refugee camp where, because of Lebanese politics, he is largely shielded from the government.” Major General Achraf Rifi, general director of Lebanon’s Internal Security Forces told the NYT that to enter the camp and detain al-Abssi, “We would need an agreement from other Arab countries.” In other words, al-Abssi was being shielded by Saad Hariri and Saudi intelligence.
On October 22, 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden vowed to “shut down the virus, not the country.“14 months later, now-President Biden just admitted that there’s no ‘federal solution’ to the pandemic, and that it’s up to individual states to do what he promised.
“Look, there is no federal solution,” he said during a call with state governors. “This gets solved at state level … and that ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road, and that’s where the patient is in need of help — or preventing the need for help.””My message to the governors is simple: if you need something, say something. We’re going to have your back in any way we can,” Biden added.Watch:
BIDEN, TODAY: “There is no federal solution” to COVID. BIDEN, 2020: “I’m going to shut down the virus.” pic.twitter.com/3d1RaHRcyX
NOW – Biden departs to Delaware beach house after telling governors there is “no federal solution” on COVID and it should be “solved at the state level.”pic.twitter.com/Ux9RtPmb8m
Biden’s admission comes days after a Vanity Fair reportwhich revealed that the Biden admin rejected an October proposal to provide rapid at-home tests to Americans before the holidays, allowing them to screen themselves at will and thereby help reduce transmission.
The plan, in effect, was a blueprint for how to avoid what is happening at this very moment—endless lines of desperate Americans clamoring for tests in order to safeguard holiday gatherings, just as COVID-19 is exploding again. Yesterday, President Biden told David Muir of ABC News, “I wish I had thought about ordering” 500 million at-home tests “two months ago.” But the proposal shared at the meeting in October, disclosed here for the first time, included a “Bold Plan for Impact” and a provision for “Every American Household to Receive Free Rapid Tests for the Holidays/New Year.” -VF
In short, Biden isn’t even trying to ‘shut down’ the virus. Adding insult to injury, White House Press Secretary scoffed at the idea of nationwide home teststhree weeks ago.”Should we just send one to every American?”
Jen Psaki somewhat mockingly asks reporter at the White House Daily Press Briefing if the US should be sending out rapid #COVID19 tests to every household. In the UK you can order 1 pack (containing 7 tests) everyday. https://t.co/ErnSsiLxxlpic.twitter.com/L7ruKWdy5n
by Tyler Durden
