Terrorism (state and retail)

There is no doubt that US President Barak Obama is a war criminal as are his military and intelligence officials and most of the House and Senate.

Barbed wire along the perimeter and water tanks with Hebrew markings clearly visible to those living either side of the WALL show some of the brutal signs of occupation in Palestine. An Israeli watchtower with soldiers looking directly into the Gaza enclave bristles with guns, while antennas stand ready to demarcate the relationship between the righteous and the unrighteous.

It seems so strange, twenty-seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to be living through a new Cold War with (as it happens, capitalist) Russia.
The Russian president is attacked by the U.S. political class and media as they never attacked Soviet leaders; he is personally vilified as a corrupt, venal dictator, who arrests or assassinates political opponents and dissident journalists, and is hell-bent on the restoration of the USSR.

The global growth and survival of ISIS, in the face of opposition by governments, armies, intelligence agencies and police forces from nearly a hundred countries, requires analysis. We understand ‘ISIS’ as the organized, militant, violent Salafist movement sometimes funded by the royal family of Saudi Arabia.
The Opposition
Those generally opposed to ISIS, in many cases, have pursued a dual and contradictory approach. For example, the United States has, at different times and places, opposed or supported ‘ISIS’.

When I began reading the work of Douglas Valentine about six years ago, I had not read his books, only the articles that the US online journal Counterpunch had published. In fact, I only began reading Counterpunch because of the accident of having been introduced to the two original editors of what was then only a printed newsletter. Later I was even able to publish a few pieces in that journal before its more famous founding editor’s demise. Why do I preface a book review with such personal observations? To that question I will return later.

The U.S. establishment is not happy. They are not content with largely dominating media narratives on Syria and other critical foreign policy issues; they want total dominance.

The Russian ambassador was killed in Ankara on the evening of Dec. 19 .  The killer, a 22-year-old Turkish graduate of the police academy who had been fired in July after being deemed untrustworthy, fired 11 bullets into the ambassador’s back as he finished addressing the attendees at the opening of the Russia Through Turkish Eyes photo exhibit.

Kill one person and it’s called murder.
Kill tens of thousands and it’s called foreign policy.

— Ross Laffan, Vermont Progressive Party. October 30, 2007

The Syrian army has called on the displaced residents of liberated districts of northeastern Aleppo to return home as the Syrian forces advance against terrorists on the battlefield in the flashpoint city.
The general command of the Syrian army and armed forces made the call in a statement released on Saturday, saying that the state institutions had already begun the rehabilitation of the liberated neighborhoods in the city.

Hawks pass HR5732