RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (Report) — During President Trump’s now infamous visit to Saudi Arabia, Washington and Riyadh signed arms deals amounting to almost $110 billion, a move viewed by some as fueling an arms race in an already dangerous Middle East.
The concluding sentence of Roy Medvedev’s superb account of Russia during the Stalin years reads:
When the cult of Stalin’s personality was exposed [in the XXth and XXIInd Congresses in 1956 and 1961 respectively] a great step was made to recovery.1
Your head chopper heros are apparently not what Syrians have in mind when they think of democratic revolution.
It might have made a bit more than a whimper had the US political scene not found itself in yet another paroxysm of the drama known as the Trump White House. Fifteen years before, governments aligning with the dogs of war decided, in defiance of millions of protestors globally, to invade a sovereign state. Papers cheered with blood lust; propagandists and public relations firms were hired to push the politics of regime change in a country that was already hemmed in by sanctions and surveillance.
On January 23rd an overcrowded smuggling boat capsized off the coast of Aden in Southern Yemen. Smugglers packed 152 passengers from Somalia and Ethiopia in the boat and then, while at sea, reportedly pulled guns on the migrants to extort additional money from them.
Video shows convoys carrying 3,500 ISIS fighters and their families being transported out of Raqqa, along with 10 trucks loaded with weapons, just before the city was fully recaptured by Syrian forces. The trucks were hired by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces that has been supported by the US. The deal for a safe departure was made with the knowledge of the US-led coalition. The militants and mercenaries were transported deeper into Syria and to Turkey. [...]
Hell is everything that Christian mythology paints it as. Hell is pain, death, suffering, bleakness, and fire. But it isn’t some mystical dimension where rapists and Hitler are suffering for eternity. Hell is right here on earth, war is hell; it’s not made to punish evil people, it’s made by evil people and it’s the innocent who suffer. It’s children, parents, brothers, sisters, people just trying to live their lives, all being tortured and killed, brutalized and raped. The innocent are the ones left weeping while the evil ones reap rewards.
You’ve been avoiding this for a long time.
You prefer to remember the times he took you to the park, that amazing camping vacation a few summers back, the funny things he often says at the dinner table, that beautiful dog he gave you on your 12th birthday.
But you can’t deny it any longer. The truth is painful. But . . .
Dad is an alcoholic and he beats mom.
Do you hate him? Do you reject him as your father?
No, but things have to drastically change and very soon.
Introduction
In early 2003 it was claimed that Iraq was a threat to other countries. Despite ten years of crushing economic sanctions plus intrusive inspections, supposedly Iraq had acquired enough “weapons of mass destruction” to threaten the West. It was ridiculous on its face but few people in power said so. Establishment politicians and media across the U.S. promoted the idea. In the Senate, Joe Biden chaired the committee looking into the allegations but excluded knowledgeable critics such as Scott Ritter. This led to the invasion of Iraq.
