Saudi Arabia to Execute 18-year-old for Allegedly “Sowing Sedition”

Comment: And people prefer to have a hissy fit over Trump?

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Almanar.com

Saudi Arabia is seeking the death penalty for an 18-year-old it detained in 2014 for protesting on his bicycle as a 10-year-old.

It would make him the fourth teenager to be executed this year.

Murtaja Qureiris was retrospectively arrested by Saudi police in 2014 for allegedly staging a number of protests during the country’s Arab Spring movement in 2011.

Saudi prosecutors claim that Qureiris’ alleged activities encouraged the “sowing of sedition” and made him part of “an extremist terror group,” which warranted the death penalty. Qureiris denies those charges.

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New 'Humanitarian' Tech Program In Syria 'Invented' By Former State Dep't, Arab Spring Participants

brandonturbeville.com

It’s been a few months since mainstream media has presented its audience with a State Department super hero acting as a “humanitarian” in Syria. But, never to disappoint, Andrew Gold of Wired as well as a host of other writers (at the same time) have been extolling the virtues of three new tech heroes who have designed an app to allegedly protect Syrian civilians from becoming victims of airstrikes.

In the Wired article, “Saving Lives With Tech Amid Syria’s Endless Civil War,” Gold first narrates the story of Abu al-Nour, an alleged Syrian civilian who lives in Idlib province, the last major stronghold of America’s “moderate cannibals.” Gold does not tell us of any crimes by the “rebels” nor does he suggest al-Nour has any reason to fear them. Instead, the sole evil in the article is Assad and Putin and the airstrikes against terrorists represented by Gold as airstrikes on civilians.

The story takes us through an airstrike that al-Nour narrowly survives but only as a result of a new technology designed and created to help protect innocent people from becoming victims of Russian and Syrian (but not American or Israeli) airstrikes.

To be clear, regardless of which side you stand with, one can scarcely argue with helping innocent people escape being caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and the government. However, one need only read a little further to see the real purpose behind the new tech, a portion of which is illuminated by the individuals who created it. Indeed, there are scarcely any lines to read between in order to see that this new tech is devised not to help civilians but terrorists evade Russian and Syrian airstrikes. If it saves a civilian life in the process, that’s just good press. Ultimately, however, the Sentry system is nothing but another tool to assist intelligence assets and terrorists on the ground in Idlib.

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The Origins and Ultimate Purpose of ISIS: A Brief History of the US-Middle East Proxy War

Steve Chovanec
Reports from Underground

This is a 5-part report which attempts to detail a history of the rise of ISIS and to explain its true relations to the actors involved in the war theatre. It attempts to show how and why ISIS has been exploited while attempting to answer the question: what has been the groups' ultimate purpose in relation to the dominant powers manipulating the proxy conflict. Then, given what is known historically, it hopes to shed light on what the motivations are behind the current actions against the group and what purpose they serve.

ISIS is Born in Iraq

The origins of ISIS are buried beneath the rubble of the US occupation.

It was out of this crucible of war and invasion that the original grievances were born, leading analysts to conclude that "the basic causes of the birth of ISIS" were the United States' "destructive interventions in the Middle East and the war in Iraq."¹

The framework underlying this being the exacerbation of Sunni-Shia tensions in the aftermath of the invasion, which previously have been inflamed through various other foreign interferences. These were highlighted by the sectarian brutality of the post-invasion Iraqi government, which then continued under Maliki later on. Given this, some have concluded that Saddam had simply been replaced by another "repressive and murderous authoritarian state, albeit under a more representative sectarian set up."²

Out of this sectarian nexus, a man known by the name of al-Zarqawi was able to bring together various groups of jihadists under the umbrella of "al-Qaeda in Iraq" and lay the foundations for a sort of governmental structure which could evolve into an eventual Islamic state. A veteran of the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Zarqawi had reportedly obtained sanctuary in Iran where he accumulated weapons and equipment before later returning to Iraq to oppose the US occupation.⁴

Following al-Zarqawi's death at the hands of a US airstrike, a new federation of jihadists then established the "Islamic State in Iraq" by the end of 2006, although it was at first marked by widespread defections as the Sunni insurgency was then losing momentum. However, evidence reveals that Syria's Bashar al-Assad had helped the insurgents by facilitating the flow of jihadists into Iraq, in an apparent attempt to jeopardize the US occupation and thereby prevent against a similar US attack against Syria.⁵

Yet what really allowed ISI to expand its influence were the abuses and violence perpetrated by the US military.⁶ Rising to power during his imprisonment in the infamous Camp Bucca, the group was rejuvenated under the enhanced leadership of the mysterious to-be-named al-Baghdadi. 

Camp Bucca: An American-maintained "jihadist university" and great networking opportunity for inspiring head-choppers.

However, it is widely accepted that the Camp Bucca prison served as a sort of training ground or "jihadist university" from which the eventual Islamic State was born. The networks Baghdadi established there going on to form the upper echelons of the groups top leadership. Indeed, without such military detentions "it would have been impossible for so many like minded jihadists and insurgents to have met together safely in Iraq at that time without such a protective atmosphere as Bucca." In this sense, a former inmate explains that the US did "a great favor" for the mujahideen, having "provided us with a secure atmosphere, a bed and food, and also allowed books giving us a great opportunity to feed our knowledge with the ideas of al-Maqdisi and the jihadist ideology."⁷

Yet the round-ups conducted by the US army were indiscriminate and civilians were targeted wholesale, estimates from 2006 confirming that only 15% of detainees were true adherents of any kind of extremist ideology.⁸ Yet now jihadists leaders like Baghdadi were given an opportunity to further radicalize others, prisoners explaining how "under the watchful eye of the US soldiers", "new recruits were prepared so that when they were freed they were ticking time bombs", not the least of which due to the extensively documented abuses and torture that took place there as well.⁹

Concurrent with this was a covert attempt by the US military to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq by fostering alliances with other al-Qaeda-affiliated Sunnis. Spelled out and confirmed by an army-commissioned Rand report, the strategy was to utilize groups like ISI, who, although having fought against the US military, could be counted on to "sow divisions in the jihadist camp" by fighting against al-Qaeda, and thereby the US could exploit "the common threat that al-Qaeda now poses to both parties."

Mass releases from Bucca were therefore orchestrated in an attempt to augment the strategy with manpower and engender support from the local Sunni tribes. And while the strategy in a sense succeeded, at the same time, it also emboldened another segment of disgruntled Sunnis, when the original causes of their resentments were continuing under the anti-Sunni repression of the US-backed government. The resulting sectarian violence pushed other Sunnis into supporting ISI as the lesser of the two evils, further entrenching the groups foothold in the country.¹⁰ Yet this was only half of the story.

By this time influential policy planners were already thinking up other strategic uses which could be gleaned from supporting these disgruntled Sunni radicals.

The accelerated relationship then forming between Maliki and Iran had greatly distressed the White House. Fearing an Iranian-dominated Iraq more so than a resurgence of al-Qaeda, in the context of a "redirection" of US policy against Iran, it was thought that "ties between the US and moderate or even radical Sunnis could put fear into the government of Prime Minister Maliki." The reasoning was that an alliance with Sunni extremists would be useful as it would "make [Maliki] worry that the Sunnis could actually win the civil war there", and thus encourage him to cooperate with the US.¹¹ Therefore, in order to remedy the Iranian influence spreading throughout the Maliki government, clandestine operations were adopted, the byproduct of which being the "bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."¹²

The Fake Arab Spring

With the eruption of the crisis in Syria and the subsequent lack of state authority that came with it, ISI was able to exploit the power vacuum and expand its grasp beyond Iraqi borders, changing its name to the "Islamic state in Iraq and al-Sham/the Levant" or ISIS/ISIL to reflect this greater reach.¹³

The Syrian crisis itself represents just one part in a much larger strategy by the Western powers aimed at manipulating the trajectory of the Arab Spring uprisings to ensure that they ultimately serve the regional agenda of the West. Having successfully thwarted the threats faced from the self-determination and pro-democracy uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, similar but smaller protests in Syria and Libya were covertly redirected into a pretext for attacking uncooperative regimes which had historically proven antagonistic to Western interests.¹⁴

The uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen all threatened to wrestle away the status-quo systems of control that the Western powers had exerted in these countries for almost half a century. This had ensured that foreign corporations maintained easy access to valuable markets and resources and that profits flowed primarily to Western investors.¹⁵

This framework of neoliberal reform began to be implemented during the 1970's when Arab republics were struggling amidst the impacts of global economic downturns and began to institute policies largely directed from above by international finance institutions (IFIs) such as the IMF and World Bank. Given that the IFIs had been increasingly dominated by Western governments, they primarily represented the interests of the financial elite from wealthy Western countries. Therefore, the models they suggested were of rapid economic liberalization and denationalization which on the one hand gave Arab administrations immediate financial relief, yet at the same time, made their economies increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by Western multinational corporations and financial institutions.¹⁶ As some have described, such policies had the effect of "massively restricting the ability of [these] governments to promote policies in their own national interests", as they promoted rules which the UN explained "reflect an agenda that serves only to promote dominant corporate interests", while at the same time rejecting the kind of policies that historically have been shown to achieve developmental success, such as import controls, taxes on foreign corporations, and state interference in the private sector.¹⁷ 

The Tunisian 'Arab Spring' was a reaction to corruption and oppressive neoliberal domestic policies. 

These policies resulted in the emergence of a growing state-bourgeoisie which was able to enrich itself in a nepotistic fashion through its proximity to influential players within the state sector, allowing connected persons and groups primary access to newly privatized assets which they were able to monopolize and monetize.¹⁸

These local elites served the function of clients of the Western powers which insured that the vast bulk of the country's wealth would flow outwards and into the hands of foreign investors, resulting in a system of modern day neo-colonialism from which the United States and other previously colonial regimes were able to maintain effective control of the region and its resources.¹⁹

Apart from the liberalization of resources the prescriptions adopted from the IFIs included the removal of labor rights, the weakening of trade unions, increases in worker instability, tax advantages for foreign corporations, and the privatization of welfare systems.²⁰ This lead to massive increases in inequality, large concentration of wealth, and an erosion of the previous Cold War-era social contract which had traded economic security for political quiescence to authoritarian political structures.²¹

As these policies advanced these states were increasingly unable to meet the basic needs of their citizens, and the compounding socio-economic pressures led to the rediscovery of long-suppressed notions of Arab dignity and self-determination which became personified within the Arab Spring protests. In this way, the Arab Spring was primarily a result of "people being drawn to the streets by the pressing economic grievances and uneven development that are the result of more than thirty years of neo-liberal policies."²²

Such movements were naturally a major threat to the established systems of power, primarily being centered around social justice and the rebuilding of domestic welfare states that threatened to unseat supplicant and compliant regimes with more assertive and indigenously representative administrations.²³ Too much of a challenge for the Western powers to bear, externally-directed counterrevolutions were conducted to insure that such movements would be co-opted and redirected so that the governments which resulted would maintain as much of the previous order as possible, thereby insuring that the threatening ambitions for democracy and self-governance were effectively crushed.²⁴

However, for states which at the same time sat astride coveted natural resources and had long frustrated the ambitions of Western powers to gain greater access, local protests represented a golden opportunity to overturn non-compliant regimes under the pretext of Arab Spring humanitarian and democratic concerns.²⁵ The idea was, as Durham University's Christopher Davidson explains, to give "ostensibly similar but evidently much smaller-scale protest movements in Libya and Syria the sort of outside helping hand they needed to become full-blown and state-threatening insurgencies."²⁶ Thus, those Western states which had insured the failure of progressive Arab Spring movements throughout the region, "soon took the concurrent role of funding and weaponizing a fraudulent and more violent Western-sponsored version of the Arab Spring" in both Libya and Syria.²⁷ The cause of such bloody crisis therefore, being a result of these states having been "deliberately targeted in a calculated and sustained manner by external actors who saw a strategic use in supporting and boosting the ambitions of local oppositionists."²⁸

The "fake Arab Spring" and subsequent civil wars that resulted from these externally-directed and Western-backed insurgencies nevertheless were successful at insuring the failure of the protesters ambitions while as well providing the perfect environment for radicalized extremist organizations to expand their reach and control over territory.²⁹ Such a situation was further encouraged and facilitated by the Western powers who, as previously explained, saw such groups as strategically beneficial foot-soldiers which could be utilized and directed against their enemies.

Notes here

Part 2

John McCain, Conductor of the "Arab Spring" and the Caliph

Thierry Meyssan
Voltairenet.org

Everyone has noticed the contradiction of those who recently characterized the Islamic Emirate as "freedom fighters" in Syria and who are indignant today faced with its abuses in Iraq. But if that speech is incoherent in itself, it makes perfect sense in the strategic plan: the same individuals were to be presented as allies yesterday and must be as enemies today, even if they are still on orders from Washington. Thierry Meyssan reveals below US policy through the particular case of Senator John McCain, conductor of the "Arab Spring" and longtime partner of Caliph Ibrahim.

Are Barack Obama and John McCain political opponents as they claim, or are they working together on the imperialist strategy of their country? 

John McCain is known as the leader of the Republicans and unhappy 2008 US presidential candidate. This is, we will see, only the real part of his biography, which serves as a cover to conduct covert actions on behalf of his government.

When I was in Libya during the "Western"attack, I was able to view a report of the foreign intelligence services. It stated that, on February 4, 2011 in Cairo, NATO organized a meeting to launch the "Arab Spring" in Libya and Syria. According to this document, the meeting was chaired by John McCain. The report detailed the list of Libyan participants, whose delegation was led by the No. 2 man of the government of the day, Mahmoud Jibril, who abruptly switched sides at the entrance of the meeting to become the opposition leader in exile. I remember that, among the French delegates present, the report quoted Bernard-Henry Lévy, although officially he had never exercised functions within the French government. Many other personalities attended the symposium, including a large delegation of Syrians living abroad.

Emerging from the meeting, the mysterious Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook account called for demonstrations outside the People’s Council (National Assembly) in Damascus on February 11. Although this Facebook account at the time claimed to have more than 40,000 followers, only a dozen people responded to its call before the flashes of photographers and hundreds of police. The demonstration dispersed peacefully and clashes only began more than a month later in Deraa. [1]

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ISIS: Region-wide Genocide Portended in 2007 Now Fully Realized

 "It should be remembered that Western designs in the Middle East are but one stage of a greater agenda. The reordering of the Middle East with immense standing armies of terrorists answering to Western dictates, will be used to move against Russia in the Caucasus region, and against China within and along the boundaries of Xinjiang province."

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer Report

Dead American Journalist: The Latest Ploy to Cover-up Regional Genocide Years in the Making

American journalist James Wright Foley was allegedly brutally murdered on video by terrorists of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). The development would at first appear to portray a terrorist organization openly declaring itself an enemy of the West, but in reality, it is the latest attempt by the West itself to cover up the true genesis of the current region-wide catastrophe of its own creation now unfolding in the Middle East.

As early as 2007, the stage was being set for the regional genocide now unfolding from Syria and Lebanon along the Mediterranean to northern Iraq. The “sudden” appearance of the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq, otherwise known as ISIS, betrays years of its rise and the central part it played in Western-backed violence seeking to overthrow the government of Syria starting in 2011 amid the cover of the so-called “Arab Spring.”

While the “Free Syrian Army” brand was created and used to obfuscate the hardcore, sectarian extremism that pervaded mercenary forces raised against Damascus, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had warned starting in 2011 that it was neither a pro-democratic uprising, nor a moderate, secular rebellion – but rather hordes of foreign-backed terrorists with ties to Al Qaeda.

The US State Department itself would admit that Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra (an offshoot of ISIS), was among the most prominent armed militant groups fighting the Syrian government, beginning in 2011 onward. The US State Department’s official press statement titled, “Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa’ida in Iraq,” stated explicitly that:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks – ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations – in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed.

It was clear that the nationwide, extensive operations of al-Nusra were more than an apparition – instead they constituted the true nature of the armed conflict ravaging Syria – an armed enterprise that was clearly state-sponsored and the realization of long-laid plans by the West to reorder the region through chaos.

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Coup in Western Ukraine: the Arab Spring unleashed in Europe

Voltaire Network
Andrew Korybko

Rioters have seized the administration building in Lvov and forced the governor to resign. It is not known who is currently in power in this region, but a puppet government formed by ‘opposition forces’ may soon be set up. Demands for ‘autonomy’, or quite possibly, explicit separatist flirtations, may give Klitschko and his thugs added bargaining power to use against the democratically elected government during ‘negotiations’. It is likely that even more extremist activity will occur, led by Klischko, as he proclaimed on 22 January that, “If I have to go (on to the streets) under bullets, I shall go there under bullets.” 

Batkivshchyna Party leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk seconded this provocative threat to delve Ukraine into de-facto civil warfare, as he similarly stated on 22 January that “Tomorrow [23 January] we will go forward together. And if it’s a bullet in the forehead, then it’s a bullet in the forehead, but in an honest, fair and brave way.”

It is evident now that both men kept their threats in encouraging their respective militias to unleash carnage within the country. As with the Arab Spring events, these provocateurs are fiending for ‘some of their own’ to be killed by government forces seeking to re-establish control over anarchic areas. A full-fledged military or Berkut response by Yanukovich is exactly what Klitschko and Yatsenyuk want. For them, the more dead ‘protesters’, the better. It should be kept in mind that 1980s Poland was placed under martial law for much less violent disturbances than what we are witnessing in Ukraine at the moment.

The authorities now have to make a tough decision over whether to try to restore order to the restive region or to attempt to regain control over the capital. The situation is extremely grave, and it is now obvious that this hybrid Color Revolution/Arab Spring frankenstein is schizophrenically taking on more characteristics of the latter (not that any is good, for that matter). The Libyan method has apparently been ‘perfected’ to the point where outside actors feel comfortable deploying this Pandora’s Box inside of Europe itself.

It is clear that ever since the ‘Bulldozer Revolution’ in Serbia over a decade ago, the Color Revolution template has evolved into the Arab Spring, and now the two have morphed into EuroMaidan, a new type of warfare for our century. Because of the ease of NGO infiltration of targeted nations in today’s globalized world, as well as the synchronized terrorist and weapons-trafficking rings under the strong influence of various intelligence organizations, the threat of this ‘social’ weapon/virus being deployed in more and more countries has never been higher. It should be seen as no coincidence that 3,000 Middle Eastern terrorists were planned to be relocated to Romania, possibly for use in militantly training certain elements of the Ukrainian ‘opposition’. This demonstrates that the outside powers are intent on digging in for the long-run and unleashing as much destabilization as possible. Ukraine’s "peaceful pro-European" protesters leave a burnt land behind.

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Robert Fisk: The ‘flowers’ of the Arab Spring are so distracting that Ariel Sharon’s death has barely raised a whimper

Independent Voices

Has ever the Arab awakening – the Arab “Spring” if we were to believe the nonsense spouted at the time – looked more desperate, more bloody, more hopeless, more despairing than it does today? I am not referring to the anguish so distracting the Arab world that it scarcely raised a whimper this weekend when the man most of them regarded as a war criminal – Ariel Sharon – was mourned by the West and its frightened journos as “iconic”, “legendary”, “audacious”, a “bulldozer” and “a proudly Zionist general”.

Incredibly, the presenter of Al Jazeera English even offered her “sincere condolences” to an Israeli friend of this dreadful man. When the Israeli Kahan Commission report was quoted by reporters, they inaccurately said it held Sharon only “indirectly” responsible for the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacres of up to 1,700 Palestinian civilians murdered by Israel’s proxy Lebanese militia. In fact, the official text also states that Sharon was “personally” responsible.

But why should Arabs care about the final demise of a man who, like much of the Arab world, spent the last years of his existence in a coma? For the awful truth – and it has to be stated at last – is that the Arab revolutions have brought about unspeakable slaughter, an unprecedented flood of refugees and economic disaster. As a newspaper seller put it simply to me in Cairo a few weeks ago, “the revolution was great, what followed was terrible”. Indeed, across the Middle East, millions of Arabs, I suspect, now believe that the overthrow of their dictators was a tragedy, that if dictatorship meant political and physical imprisonment, then freedom brought only bloodshed, lawlessness, insecurity and a craving for the old autocrats.

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Russia: “Should Anything Happen to Iran … This Will Be a Direct Threat to Our National Security”

Washington's Blog

Russia and China Would Consider An Attack On Iran – Or Syria – As An Attack On Their National Security

RT notes:

The escalating conflict around Iran should be contained by common effort, otherwise the promising Arab Spring will grow into a “scorching Arab Summer,” says Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former envoy to NATO.
­“Iran is our close neighbor, just south of the Caucasus. Should anything happen to Iran, should Iran get drawn into any political or military hardships, this will be a direct threat to our national security,” stressed Rogozin.

Here’s what Rogozin is talking about (notice how close the Southern tip of Russia is to Northern Iran):

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Syria Rocked by Terrorist Attacks

Tahrir Square Dec 17 2011 - Military brutality

With the blessing of the US....

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Bankers are the Dictators of the West

One of Fisk's best articles yet. 

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Independent
Robert Fisk

Suggested Topics Writing from the very region that produces more clichés per square foot than any other "story" – the Middle East – I should perhaps pause before I say I have never read so much garbage, so much utter drivel, as I have about the world financial crisis.

But I will not hold my fire. It seems to me that the reporting of the collapse of capitalism has reached a new low which even the Middle East cannot surpass for sheer unadulterated obedience to the very institutions and Harvard "experts" who have helped to bring about the whole criminal disaster.

Let's kick off with the "Arab Spring" – in itself a grotesque verbal distortion of the great Arab/Muslim awakening which is shaking the Middle East – and the trashy parallels with the social protests in Western capitals. We've been deluged with reports of how the poor or the disadvantaged in the West have "taken a leaf" out of the "Arab spring" book, how demonstrators in America, Canada, Britain, Spain and Greece have been "inspired" by the huge demonstrations that brought down the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and – up to a point – Libya. But this is nonsense. 

The real comparison, needless to say, has been dodged by Western reporters, so keen to extol the anti-dictator rebellions of the Arabs, so anxious to ignore protests against "democratic" Western governments, so desperate to disparage these demonstrations, to suggest that they are merely picking up on the latest fad in the Arab world. The truth is somewhat different. What drove the Arabs in their tens of thousands and then their millions on to the streets of Middle East capitals was a demand for dignity and a refusal to accept that the local family-ruled dictators actually owned their countries. The Mubaraks and the Ben Alis and the Gaddafis and the kings and emirs of the Gulf (and Jordan) and the Assads all believed that they had property rights to their entire nations. Egypt belonged to Mubarak Inc, Tunisia to Ben Ali Inc (and the Traboulsi family), Libya to Gaddafi Inc. And so on. The Arab martyrs against dictatorship died to prove that their countries belonged to their own people.

And that is the true parallel in the West. The protest movements are indeed against Big Business – a perfectly justified cause – and against "governments". What they have really divined, however, albeit a bit late in the day, is that they have for decades bought into a fraudulent democracy: they dutifully vote for political parties – which then hand their democratic mandate and people's power to the banks and the derivative traders and the rating agencies, all three backed up by the slovenly and dishonest coterie of "experts" from America's top universities and "think tanks", who maintain the fiction that this is a crisis of globalisation rather than a massive financial con trick foisted on the voters.

The banks and the rating agencies have become the dictators of the West. Like the Mubaraks and Ben Alis, the banks believed – and still believe – they are owners of their countries. The elections which give them power have – through the gutlessness and collusion of governments – become as false as the polls to which the Arabs were forced to troop decade after decade to anoint their own national property owners. 

Goldman Sachs and the Royal Bank of Scotland became the Mubaraks and Ben Alis of the US and the UK, each gobbling up the people's wealth in bogus rewards and bonuses for their vicious bosses on a scale infinitely more rapacious than their greedy Arab dictator-brothers could imagine.

I didn't need Charles Ferguson's Inside Job on BBC2 this week – though it helped – to teach me that the ratings agencies and the US banks are interchangeable, that their personnel move seamlessly between agency, bank and US government. The ratings lads (almost always lads, of course) who AAA-rated sub-prime loans and derivatives in America are now – via their poisonous influence on the markets – clawing down the people of Europe by threatening to lower or withdraw the very same ratings from European nations which they lavished upon criminals before the financial crash in the US. I believe that understatement tends to win arguments. But, forgive me, who are these creatures whose ratings agencies now put more fear into the French than Rommel did in 1940? 

Why don't my journalist mates in Wall Street tell me? How come the BBC and CNN and – oh, dear, even al-Jazeera – treat these criminal communities as unquestionable institutions of power? Why no investigations – Inside Job started along the path – into these scandalous double-dealers? It reminds me so much of the equally craven way that so many American reporters cover the Middle East, eerily avoiding any direct criticism of Israel, abetted by an army of pro-Likud lobbyists to explain to viewers why American "peacemaking" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be trusted, why the good guys are "moderates", the bad guys "terrorists".

The Arabs have at least begun to shrug off this nonsense. But when the Wall Street protesters do the same, they become "anarchists", the social "terrorists" of American streets who dare to demand that the Bernankes and Geithners should face the same kind of trial as Hosni Mubarak. We in the West – our governments – have created our dictators. But, unlike the Arabs, we can't touch them.

The Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, solemnly informed his people this week that they were not responsible for the crisis in which they found themselves. They already knew that, of course. What he did not tell them was who was to blame. Isn't it time he and his fellow EU prime ministers did tell us? And our reporters, too?

Arab Spring a Western Ploy to Control Eurasia

Crackdown in Cairo, excuses in Washington

It is unravelling because it wasn't a real revolution. It was managed by US interests just as it was during the introduction of Mubarak...And the people are startgin to wake up to it...

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Salon

As Egyptians return to Tahrir Square, the Obama administration sides with the military

Sitting across from me in a downtown cafe, disgruntled democracy activist Ismail Wahby looks defeated. “Everything is failing,” he says.

In many ways, Wahby personifies the Western stereotypes about the mislabeled “Facebook Revolution”: He is an upper-middle-class 20-something who blogs in English, French and Arabic. After the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, he worked as community organizer with the Union of Progressive Youth, one of the many revolutionary coalitions formed after the dictator’s fall. But as Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) became more oppressive in the months that followed, Wahby grew discouraged and withdrew from political activism. “I didn’t do a revolution for this shit,” he explains.

Wahby has a long list of grievances about the aftermath of Egypt’s largely peaceful revolution last January, including the persistence of the State of Emergency — which was supposed to have expired months ago — and the failure of the opposition to present a unified front.  But mostly Wahby is concerned with the dominance of the military in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Wahby’s pessimism is widespread.  Since taking power last February, the military has perpetrated major human rights abuses and seems more interested in consolidating its own power than ensuring a democratic transition. Protesters have begun to set up tents in Tahrir Square in preparation for massive anti-SCAF demonstrations this Friday. A broad coalition of political parties and activists have threatened a prolonged sit-in protesting the military’s increasingly authoritarian ruling style and its unwillingness to share power with civilians. “The SCAF must step aside and respect the will of the people,” 45-year-old electronic engineer Mohammad Sayyid tells me from inside a tent he shares with half a dozen other men.  Sayyid has been sleeping in the tent for over a week and promises that he will not leave the square until the military steps aside.

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Confirmed: Libya War, A 30 Year Old CIA Operation

djosiris.blogspot.com

Alternative media activist David Icke, who has been warning about the false nature of the "Arab Spring" since it began over six months ago, has pointed out an astounding "flashback" regarding an August 3, 1981 Newsweek article titled, "A Plan to Overthrow Kaddafi."

"The details of the plan were sketchy, but it seemed to be a classic CIA destabilization campaign. One element was a 'disinformation' program designed to embarrass Kaddafi and his government.

"Another was the creation of a 'counter government' to challenge his claim to national leadership.

"A third — potentially the most risky — was an escalating paramilitary campaign, probably by disaffected Libyan nationals, to blow up bridges, conduct small-scale guerrilla operations and demonstrate that Kaddafi was opposed by an indigenous political force."

Quite obviously this plan has been executed verbatim with the necessary addition of a NATO intervention to rescue the above stated "paramilitary" campaign from Libyan security forces - a contigency plan explicitly spelled out in another Wall Street-London subsidized, signed confession, the Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Persia?"

Using Military Force to Assist Popular Revolutions, page 109-110 (page 122-123 of the PDF): "Consequently, if the United States ever succeeds in sparking a revolt against the clerical regime, Washington may have to consider whether to provide it with some form of military support to prevent Tehran from crushing it.

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The Pentagon's "Salvador Option": The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria

Global Research

[...] The Western media has played a central role in obfuscating the nature of foreign interference in Syria including outside support to armed insurgents. In chorus they have described recent events in Syria as a "peaceful protest movement" directed against the government of Bashar Al Assad, when the evidence amply confirms that Islamic paramilitary groups have infiltrated the rallies. 

Israel's Debka Intelligence news, while avoiding the issue of an armed insurgency, tacitly acknowledges that Syrian forces are being confronted by an organized paramilitary:

"[Syrian forces] are now running into heavy resistance: Awaiting them are anti-tank traps and fortified barriers manned by protesters armed with heavy machine guns." DEBKAfile,

Since when are peaceful civilian protesters armed with "heavy machine guns" and "anti-tank traps"? 

Recent developments in Syria point to a full-fledged armed insurgency, integrated by Islamist "freedom fighters" supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey's High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent. Instead of repeating the Libyan model of air strikes, NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011, emphasis added)

The delivery of weapons to the rebels is to be implemented "overland, namely through Turkey and under Turkish army protection....Alternatively, the arms would be trucked into Syria under Turkish military guard and transferred to rebel leaders at pre-arranged rendez-vous." (Ibid, emphasis added)

According to Israeli sources, which remain to be verified, NATO and the Turkish High command, also contemplate the development of a "jihad" involving the recruitment of thousands of Islamist "freedom fighters", reminiscent of  the enlistment of  Mujahideen to wage the CIA's jihad (holy war) in the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war:

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (Ibid, emphasis added)

These various developments point towards the possible involvement of Turkish troops inside Syria, which could potentially lead to a broader military confrontation between Syria and Turkey as well as a full-fledged "humanitarian" military intervention by NATO.   [...]

Hague calls for Syria to end crackdown after UN statement

Hague has shown himself to be an idiot in the past and no more so in the present due to his constant parroting for the anglo-american elite. So, this pious pleading for Syria to stop their human rights violations is pretty rich. 

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Guardian

The UN security council has condemned human rights violations and use of force against civilians by Syrian authorities Link to this video

 

Foreign secretary William Hague urged the "discredited" Syrian regime to end its violent repression as the United Nations security council adopted a statement condemning attacks on civilians and widespread human rights abuses.

Prompted by an intensification of the three-month-old bloody crackdown against anti-government protests, the international body agreed the wording – with only Syria's neighbour Lebanon dissociating itself from the text.

Hague said: "I welcome the UN security council presidential statement on Syria.

"The support for this statement throughout the security council demonstrates the rising international concern at the unacceptable behaviour of the regime and shows that President Assad is increasingly isolated. It comes on top of a fourth round of EU sanctions put in place earlier this week."

The UN security council finally broke through months of indecision over the bloodshed in Syria on Wednesday night to pass a near-unanimous statement condemning Bashar al-Assad for unleashing his forces on civilians and violating human rights.

Though the presidential statement has no teeth and was less than the full security council resolution that had been pressed for by the US, UK and France, it is an indication of growing impatience within the international community towards the Syrian crackdown. 

Syrian forces are continuing to attack the city of Hama where protests have been intense, with troops loyal to the government engaging civilians with tanks and gunfire. 

Hague said: "As I have made clear, it is vital that the violence and repression by the Syrian regime stops. The Syrian people are calling for peaceful change. I call on President Assad's regime to end its violence and to allow genuine political reform.

"Until it does, the regime will be discredited amongst its own people and facing increased pressure internationally." [...]

The Globalist Imperial Network, As Explained by a Globalist

Activist Post

Bangkok, Thailand July 30, 2011 - The mechanics of world empire, in particular the current corporate-financier oligarchy has been examined in great detail. The US State Department, supporting NGOs funded directly by both US taxpayers' money as well as funds from the Fortune 500 corporations they serve, alone constitute a global-spanning, incessantly meddling homogeneous network working to undermine both personal and national sovereignty while replacing national governments around the world.

Photo: Globalist warmongering degenerate Anne-Marie Slaughter makes her rounds at the Fortune 500-funded Chatham House. She is the author of the book "A New World Order" and believes foreign policy should be shifted into the unelected, unaccountable hands of corporations, foundations, and NGOs.

This is far from a conspiracy theory - it is stated fact admitted to by the US State Department itself who regularly announces its funding of subversive activities around the globe from training, equipping, and funding hordes of youth activists years before the "Arab Spring" unfolded, to helping dupes in China circumvent national cyber defenses, to forming brigades of youth fodder to take to the streets in Belarus and Malaysia, to propping up pro-globalist propaganda outlets like Prachatai in Thailand.

Perhaps sensing that the secrecy and public ignorance the global elite have been operating behind for decades is now fading, globalist footstool and degenerate warmonger Anne-Marie Slaughter has written a sweeping essay openly admitting "foreign policy" is moving beyond governments and being put into the hands of unelected organizations, corporations, NGOs, and "social movements." By social movements, Slaughter cites and apparently is referring to the "Arab Spring" which is on record the result of US meddling and organizing, and nothing close to resembling true grassroots activism. It is merely the latest trick out of the social engineering, human exploitation, propagandist playbook.

Slaughter's admissions should send shivers down the spines of anyone who believes in
a constitutional representative government, personal and national sovereignty, and freedom in general - for the world Slaughter proposes is one run by unaccountable, self-appointed arbiters, the likes of which have been covered ad nauseum within these pages. Self-serving hypocrisy has already rendered contrived institutions like the International Criminal Court illegitimate, as it turns its head at documented war crimes committed by Libyan rebels while pursuing in earnest cases against Libya's Qaddafi based on evidence not even collected within the nation itself.

As we peel back the layers of Slaughter's vision of the "new foreign policy frontier," we see nearly every institution, organization, NGO, or consortium mentioned lined with Fortune 500 corporate sponsors and representatives pursing an agenda of global economic and military hegemony. No one would suggest that manipulating people on a massive scale, leveraging legitimate ideals such as democracy, human rights, or freedom to further a corporate-financier oligarchy's agenda constitutes anything progressive, nonetheless, Slaughter seems to believe this is not only the future of foreign policy, but an appropriate future at that.



Image: The cover of globalist, degenerate warmonger Anne-Marie Slaughter's book "A New World Order." Slaughter believes the future belongs to "global networks" which upon closer examination are all chaired, funded, and directed by the Fortune 500.  ....
It should be noted that Slaughter has sat upon the boards of Fortune 500 corporations McDonald's and Citigroup as well as a Council on Foreign Relations board member. She is the author of a book literally titled, "A New World Order" whose catch line is "Global governance is here." In it she argues that such governance is done through "a complex global web of government networks." Upon examination it is obvious to anyone who looks into these "networks" that they represent the Fortune 500, answer to no one, and apply the rule of law as an arbitrary reflection of their self-serving interests subject to change upon a political whim. Despite Slaughter's enthusiasm for a "New World Order," in reality it is the recipe for a corporate fascist planetary regime and constitutes the greatest threat to humanity.

The New Foreign Policy Frontier

Slaughter begins a recent Atlantic article titled "The New Foreign Policy Frontier" by citing "corporations, foundations, NGOs, universities, think tanks, churches, civic groups, political activists, Facebook groups, and others" as the new frontier of foreign policy. She then goes on to state that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "insists that 21st century diplomacy must not only be government to government, but also government to society and society to society, in a process facilitated and legitimated by government." Slaughter continues by saying, "that much broader concept opens the door to a do-it-yourself foreign policy, in which individuals and groups can invent and execute an idea -- for good or ill -- that can affect their own and other countries in ways that once only governments could."

And it is through this door Slaughter describes that "groups," or more specifically corporations, along with their myriad of contrived, disingenuous NGOs, foundations, "charities," and media outfits go about circumventing both domestic and foreign national laws as well as the will of people across the planet to execute their agenda, including free trade and wars of aggression.

Slaughter mentions a myriad of these corporate-funded entities including the Council on Foreign Relations, Google Ideas, US State Department's Movements.org, and the corporate-funded Personal Democracy Forum. She also mentions Jared Cohen, utterly unfazed by the monumental conflict of interest represented by his revolving in and out of the US State Department, Fortune 500 corporations like Google, and fringe organizations like Movements.org that criminally combine corporate agendas with US taxpayers' money to meddle in the sovereign affairs of foreign nations. While Slaughter maintains that these unelected corporate funded organizations are more efficient than governments, she fails to highlight that they are unelected and unaccountable. She also fails to mention what motivates corporations to expend resources on circumventing elected governments to pursue "society to society" efforts.

Slaughter goes on to use the "Arab Spring" as proof positive the new foreign policy paradigm is effective. She mentions her two days spent at the corporate-funded Personal Democracy Forum, which included bloggers and organizers from the contrived "Arab Spring." She notes that other participants included "government officials, corporate executives, and the civic sector." She claims the six months of unrest in the streets as a result of this "new foreign policy" has accomplished more than 30 years of traditional "foreign policy."

Why do corporations like Google, Pepsi, British Petroleum, Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Exxon, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs care about "democracy" in the Middle East? Slaughter never seems to get around to answering this question. A thorough examination of the "Arab Spring," its sponsorship, and the resulting mayhem and wall-to-wall exploitation being attempted clears up any doubt as to the summation of Slaughter's acclaimed "New World Order." It is a parasitic modern day empire spreading its influence, consolidating its power, and deposing all competition to its existence. It is the logical progression of the British Empire and American "Manifest Destiny" combined in a modern day transatlantic, corporate-financier oligarchy.

Arab Spring: New Foreign Policy/Neo-Imperialism in Action

Slaughter's legitimacy stumbles not only because she is a degenerate warmongering corporate fascist who has spent a lifetime in the service of a global corporate-financier oligarchy, it stumbles also because of her poor choice of examples used to sell her concept of "global governance." She believes that "Build Local, Go Global and Change the World" represents the new 21st century activist mantra - however when foreign money representing nefarious corporate agendas are doing the building locally, using their vast media empire to spread it globally and "change the world" it would be difficult to label it as an "activist mantra." It more clearly resembles an imperialist mantra of using duped activists.

Take for example the Egyptian April 6 Movement. It was in New York City as early as 2008 receiving training and an opportunity to "network" at the US State Department sponsored Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM) summit. In 2009, the April 6 Movement then attended training at the US-created CANVAS organization in Serbia before returning to Egypt to partake in the year-long run up to the revolution led by International Crisis Group trustee Mohamed ElBaradei and his "National Front for Change." In fact, April 6 Movement members attempted to welcome ElBaradei when he first returned to Egypt back in February, 2010, almost a full year before the "Arab Spring" would even begin.

Image: Alliance for Youth Movements boasts major corporate support, as well as a partnership with the US State Department. The organization was contrived solely to foment unrest throughout target nations.

The US State Department backed by Fortune 500 corporations literally held the Egyptian opposition's hand for years walking them through their "revolution." With an overt US stooge, Mohamed ElBaradei leading them and still to this day attempting to worm his way into Egypt's presidency, the victory is neither the "Egyptian people's" nor "democracy's," but rather the victory of corporations and their interests within the strategically located, 80 million strong nation. Nothing could be more damning of the Egyptian revolution and its final results than the victory lap John McCain, chairman of the International Republican Institute cited by the New York Times as being instrumental in executing the "Arab Spring," conducted with Fortune 500 industry magnates at his side. The June 2010 trip served as an opportunity for these corporate interests, the chief sponsors behind the training and organizing of ElBaradei's army of dupes, to size up assets they soon hope to roll into their financial empires as well as to promote "private sector growth."

This is surely not what the Egyptian youth had in mind - surely it is not in their best interest to be exposed to the parasitic corporate fascists currently bankrupting every nation from North America to Europe. However their ignorance, short-sightedness, and immense naivety allowed this nefarious global network to manipulate and mislead them, their nation, their entire future into the shackles of modern day imperialism.

Conclusion

This nefarious global network is precisely what Slaughter is promoting in her writings, constituting what she admittedly calls a "New World Order" for enabling global governance. For those that take the time to examine who is behind the "NGOs, universities, think tanks, churches, civic groups, political activists, Facebook groups" Slaughter refers to, they will find corporations like Exxon, Dyncorp, Goldman Sachs, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Rothschild, Halliburton, Bechtel, BP, and many others.

Could anyone seriously accept corporations that are responsible for the worst chapters in modern human history as the architects of a system of global governance and ultimately our future? With the power and wealth they wield, how would they be held accountable? They have the ability to literally buy politicians on both sides of every election from one side of the planet to the other with bottom-lines that eclipse many national GDPs - they do so in a process that is streamlined with the creation of supranational entities like the European Union, North American Union, ASEAN and others. Already the EU is proclaiming dictates each member state is beholden to, with supranational law superseding national and local laws.

It is a bleak future indeed, one where true freedom is replaced with the mere illusion of it. Pragmatism and self-reliance is replaced with trips to the ballot box to pick from a variety of bought-off, ineffectual, self-serving crooks serving a degenerate global oligarchy.

Policy is already being produced not by the people but by corporate-funded think-tanks that then market it to the public through their control of the mainstream media. Their system is refined down to a science - their system is now merely being replicated, nation to nation. The solution to this problem is obvious. If the power truly lies with these corporations, the very foundation upon which Slaughter's "New World Order" rests, undermining these corporations through full-spectrum boycotts and the systematic replacement of their goods and services on a local level shifts that power back into the people's hands - pragmatically, not politically. It is a solution as elegant as it is simple, and one that is impossible to commandeer as the globalists have done with so many attempted political solutions in the past.

There is no doubt now, with daily affirmations coming from the global elite themselves that their "New World Order" is coming. There is no doubt, as exemplified in Libya, that they are willing to murder on vast scales to eliminate any obstruction to their designs. There is no doubt, after the corporate-financiers have just helped themselves to trillions of taxpayer dollars to cover their collapsing pyramid schemes that they are far from the progressive "international order" they claim to represent. There is no doubt that now is the time to act. There is absolutely no justification for buying another Pepsi, Coke, Big Mac, or Starbucks and further empowering this modern day empire. What we have been taught are the features of a civilized society are in fact the padded, gilded shackles of our enslavement. There is absolutely nothing the global corporatocracy can do that people can't do better locally. The only barrier is ambition, education, and a shift in our collective paradigm to see ourselves, not some elected savior, as the ultimate solution to our problems.

The fulfillment of Slaughter's depraved vision of the future rests entirely in our hands. It will be determined day by day, depending on how we choose to spend our resources, time, attention, and energy. The simple decision to buy or produce locally rather than patronize Wal-Mart, Starbucks, or any number of other globalist consumer feeding troughs as an individual may seem futile, but a shift in our collective actions and paradigm will undoubtedly derail this ignoble future that awaits us.

For more on the illegitimate parasites that constitute the "international community" and how to remove them, please read the follow:

Globalists' Australian Nexus
Big Oil's Tree Huggers: Harvard's Belfer Center
Naming Names: Your Real Government
Wisdom from the Orient: Self-Sufficiency
Self-Sufficiency: A Universal Solution to the Globalist Problem

Tony Cartalucci's articles have appeared on many alternative media websites, including his own at 
Land Destroyer Report.